US Cautions Israel Not To Repeat Its Own Wartime Mistakes, Former Diplomat Says
Humanitarian pause crucially needed so assistance can reach Gazans, Daalder adds
The Biden administration is warning the Israeli government not to make the same mistakes in its current war in Gaza that the United States did after its military conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to a former high-ranking diplomat in the US government.
Further, the need for humanitarian assistance for the 2.2 million Palestinian civilians living in Gaza remains high as the Israeli military strikes the region with increasing intensity in response to the October 7 attacks launched against Israel by Hamas.
The death toll among Palestinians has surpassed 8,000 — mostly women and minors, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. It’s a toll without precedent in decades of Israeli-Palestinian violence, and it is expected to climb even more rapidly as Israel presses its ground offensive.
Over 1,400 people have died on the Israeli side, mainly civilians killed during the initial Hamas onslaught.
“The administration has rightly pushed Israel for a plan of who rules Gaza afterwards. Frankly, the Israelis have said, ‘Well, that’s for later.’ Well, no, it’s not,” said Ivo Daalder, who served as US ambassador to NATO and a former staffer at the White House National Security Council. “Once you start down this road, you would better know where it’s going to end.
“The U.S. has experience with Afghanistan, with Iraq, about how not to do so. And indeed, President Biden, in Israel, reminded the Israelis that we know how to make mistakes because we’ve made them,” he added.
Daalder, who today serves as president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, also emphasized the need for a “humanitarian pause” in the current conflict so as to safely deliver crucial aid to the embattled Gazan population.
“There is no commitment either by Hamas, and certainly not yet by Israel, to end the fighting. But there is this dire humanitarian need, that your reporters have talked about to find a way to provide at least a very minimum, for the people who are suffering inside Gaza,” he said during an on-camera interview on MSNBC. “That is why the U.S. called for, and in fact introduced a UN Security Council resolution, to have a humanitarian pause which, unfortunately, of course, was vetoed by Russia and China.
“We do need a humanitarian pause. We need to find a way to get the aid that is sitting at the border into Gaza,” he added.
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