Antony J. Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, met on Wednesday with Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, to discuss Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza and the role that the authority might play there when the conflict ebbs,
The New York Times reports.
Mr. Blinken traveled in a convoy from Tel Aviv in Israel to Ramallah, the seat of the authority, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The two men shook hands outside the authority’s headquarters and sat down for talks with their aides.
The Biden administration has said it envisions a role for the Palestinian Authority in governing both the West Bank and Gaza. Hamas has run Gaza since it won elections in the tiny coastal strip in 2006 and violently drove out Fatah, the group now in charge of the authority in the West Bank.
President Biden has also said Israel must allow for the formation of a Palestinian state, arguing that a political solution is the only way out of the decades-old conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Mr. Blinken reiterated that view in a news conference in Tel Aviv on Tuesday after meetings with Israeli officials. He also said Saudi Arabia — whose ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, he met with on Monday — was still willing to consider establishing normal diplomatic relations with Israel, but only if Israel agreed to concrete steps toward the establishment of a free and independent Palestine.
