Former US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he still “grapples with the decisions” he made during the Joe Biden administration to continue arming Israel even as the human suffering in Gaza increased rapidly.
Speaking at the Harvard Kennedy School on Wednesday, March 25, Blinken was grilled by students. One of them questioned how he reconciles with his Gaza legacy.
The student said Blinken had numerous opportunities to distance himself from arming Israel, but continued arming Israel, solidifying his legacy. “How do you justify to the countless Palestinians that died from your decisions? How do you reconcile with this and how do you reconcile with your legacy?”
“Of course, for me, coulda woulda shoulda, is something that will always be there when it comes to Gaza,” Blinken said. “This is something that I grappled with and will continue to grapple with for as long as I can see into the future.”
The student cited a United States Agency for International Development (USAID) conclusion that Israel effectively blocked aid to Palestinians, despite Blinken stating the opposite to Congress. The former Secretary of State, however, said the administration had to make judgments in “real time about how to try to get to a better place.”
“But let me just add a few things,” he said, before he attempted to justify his legacy as a state official who allowed Israel to continue military action in Palestine, leaving a grave aftermath with over 72,000 Palestinians killed.
Blinken said there were multiple reports with varying accounts of the situation in Gaza throughout 2024. Some claimed there was imminent famine and others said fewer people were in danger.
“The distribution even with the trucks going in was a huge problem. Looting, criminality, etc, all difficult problems that are really hard to control,” he said.
He proceeded to suggest to the student that the trauma suffered by Israel and Palestine was the same. “There’s no hierarchy of trauma, the trauma in Israel, the trauma among Palestinians, the same. The loss of a Palestinian life, the loss of Israeli life, the same.”
However, Israel’s trauma was such that it would have continued military action in Gaza, “irrespective of what we did,” Blinken said. Cutting off arms to Israel, although an option, “would not have changed things,” he added.
He claimed cutting off arms would instead lead to an even wider war. Blinken also questioned why there was not enough spoken about Hamas, “which was responsible for so much” of what happened in the region.
He ended the answer by saying that maybe there was something that could have been done differently. “Maybe we could have done better by the people. I wish we could have.”
