- 00:00Antony Blinken has held talks with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman about efforts to reach a ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon. For more, let’s bring in Bloomberg’s Jan Williams, who is in Jerusalem for us. So, Dan, what, if anything, has Blinken achieved during this regional tour? We mentioned that this was his 11th since the October seven attacks. I mean, what’s been the progress here? It’s rather hard to tell. It’s worth noting that much of the messaging has been from the man himself rather than his hosts. What we do know is he called on Israel, which has said and everyone’s been anticipating for more than three weeks now, will be retaliating against Iran for Iran’s ballistic missile salvo of October 1st against Israel. He’s called on that not to be escalation. Time will tell whether such an attack would not lead to escalation given Iranian messaging on such an eventuality. He also wants a ceasefire, perhaps ideally a combined ceasefire on the Gaza and Lebanese fronts. And tomorrow, Friday, he is due to convene Arab foreign ministers, his counterparts from the region in London. Presumably, they will be discussing regional prospects. I imagine also prospects for rehabilitating Gaza. On the day after Hamas, that’s how Israel and its partners have been discussing the the war aim of destroying, dismantling Hamas and bringing about some sort of better governance in the Gaza Strip, although it’s unclear how that would look, given that Israel has yet to publicly commit or articulate a vision for the Gaza Strip. And Dan, I mean, we’ve been speaking a lot about this story from, you know, or at least I have from from where I’m sitting. But you are actually there on the ground. And actually yesterday you were able to get a tour of the Israel-Lebanon border. I mean, give us a sense of of what things are like on the ground. Thank you. Yes. I was part of a group of foreign journalists who are taking to the western sector of that border by the IDF. There were briefings by two fairly senior officers. There was regular artillery fire from Israel into Lebanon. We could see smoke at least one site where the Israelis said they had a controlled demolition of Hezbollah infrastructure. At the time, there were multiple alerts of Hezbollah attacks, specifically drone attacks ongoing, but really limited to northern Israel. The impression the Israelis were trying to give was that they’re very happy with progress on the ground. They’re not quite yet ready for a cease fire. Israel’s objectives, you recall, will be to create the environment that would allow some 60,000 of its citizens to return to homes in northern Israel. These are homes they left under Hezbollah fire more than a year ago. And the Israelis say there’s still work to be done. They say they’ve successfully driven back Hezbollah, killed or captured Hezbollah fighters where they’ve been engagements. However, tens of thousands of fighters remain in the Lebanese interior, they say, as well as weaponry of the kind that Israel believes could be used against it in the future unless it delivers a conclusive blow now. And Dan, I mean, what is next to to pay attention to? I mean, we mentioned some of the developments that we’ve seen over the past few days on the diplomatic front. We’ve seen strikes continuing. We’re just a few weeks out from the US election. I mean, what is it that that you’ve got your eye on? Well, I think if I were a member of the U.S. administration, I would be looking to keep a cap on whatever’s going on in the Middle East. And keep keep in mind, this is a multi-front conflict. It’s no longer the Gaza war. Gaza was where this began over a year ago. Now it’s there’s fighting on six or seven different fronts, including a direct confrontation brewing between Israel and Iran. I imagine the U.S. administration is hoping, given political concerns, given the looming US election, that nothing too unpredictable, nothing too unbridled will happen between now and November 5th. That might upset the US Vice President Kamala Harris’s prospects in that election. But I think the message, quite apart from politics and Blinken said this explicitly, is it’s time for the water and it’s time to get beyond the fighting to something that looks better and puts everyone in the region as much as possible on a better path.
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