Former secretary of state Blinken: Israel did not intend to harm Palestinians in Gaza, ‘the target was Hamas’

In their first joint public appearance since leaving office, former U.S. secretaries of state Mike Pompeo and Antony Blinken offered competing visions on Iran, the Gaza war and America's role in the Middle East during the opening plenary of the Jewish Federations of North America's General Assembly in Washington on Sunday. Pompeo served under President Donald Trump during his first term, while Blinken served under President Joe Biden. During the discussion, Blinken rejected claims that Israel had deliberately sought to harm Palestinian civilians during the war in Gaza.

“The Israelis didn't intend to harm Palestinians. The target was Hamas,” he said. He added that too many civilians were caught in the fighting and suffered terribly as a result. At the same time, Blinken criticized Israel's treatment of Palestinian civilians, saying it had at times shown disregard for their well-being and often done little more than what it considered minimally necessary to avoid civilian harm. But he drew a clear distinction between that conduct and an intention to harm or eliminate Palestinians.

Pompeo and Blinken also addressed Iran and the future of U.S. military assistance to Israel. Pompeo argued that Washington must continue applying pressure on the Iranian regime and its proxies rather than allowing Tehran to consolidate gains. He said the same approach should apply to Hamas, which he argued had no intention of giving up its weapons. Pompeo backed continued economic pressure and further action against Iranian assets, arguing that Tehran still retains the ability to threaten Israel and countries in the Gulf and that the United States has the capability to substantially reduce that threat.

“We should never give the Iranians a damn thing,” he said. Blinken, by contrast, emphasized diplomacy. He said Iran's ability to threaten shipping through the Strait of Hormuz created a problem that would be extremely difficult to solve militarily without a major escalation. A diplomatic solution, he argued, would probably require Washington to offer Tehran something in return, potentially including sanctions relief or arrangements involving the strait.

On U.S. military aid to Israel, Pompeo argued that the roughly $4 billion in annual assistance, much of which is used to purchase American-made weapons systems, is less important than the broader strategic relationship between the two countries. Even if the direct funding eventually ends, he said, the deep security partnership would remain important not only to Israel but to the United States. Blinken said Israel's government appeared to recognize that American financial assistance would not continue forever and was preparing Israelis for a future in which the country pays directly for more of its own military purchases.

Blinken later returned to Israel's conduct in Gaza. “We have to be able to acknowledge the rightness of Israel's imperative to respond after October 7th,” he said. “We also have to be able to acknowledge the horror of the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza in the many days thereafter.” Pompeo argued that Israel's supporters should repeatedly explain what he described as the fundamental morality of Israel's cause and the way the IDF fought the war, particularly as critics increasingly drew what he regarded as false moral equivalencies between Israel and Hamas.

Blinken also addressed the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He rejected both those who call for Israel's disappearance under the slogan “from the river to the sea” and those who envision a Greater Israel in which Palestinians disappear from the political equation. “There are 7 million Jews. There are 7 million Arabs and Palestinians. No one is going anywhere,” he said. Unless both sides recognize that reality, he argued, the conflict cannot be resolved and Israel will not achieve lasting security.

Blinken said he remained convinced that the only viable path was a secure Israel alongside a sovereign Palestinian state. The danger of bots and the close security partnership The two former officials also discussed the damage caused by social media. Blinken said the online environment had clearly contributed to the resurgence of antisemitism in recent years and raised concerns about coordinated “bot armies,” questioning who creates them, who finances them and what they are intended to achieve.

He warned that online content can encourage and accelerate radicalization and potentially push unstable individuals toward violence. Pompeo said another factor that is often underestimated is the extent to which Russia and China work to promote hostile narratives about Israel and shape international perceptions of the country. Pompeo also emphasized the depth of U.S.-Israeli intelligence cooperation, saying Israeli intelligence routinely helps protect American lives in ways that rarely become public.

He offered his own security as an example, noting that he remains under threat from Iran and faces a reported $1 million bounty. “The Israeli intelligence has been very helpful at making sure that I'm where I need to be and I'm not where I ought not be,” Pompeo said. “We couldn't do the intelligence work we need to do without them.” He described Israel as an important U.S. partner not only militarily but technologically, praising its innovation despite the pressures of years of conflict since October 7.

Pompeo also stressed that American military and intelligence personnel play an important role in helping protect Israel. Pompeo ended on a lighter note by recalling his relationship with former Mossad director Yossi Cohen, who headed the Israeli intelligence agency while Pompeo was CIA director. He said he flew to Israel only days after taking over the CIA to meet Cohen and joked that the former Mossad chief was the most handsome spy he had ever seen, prompting his wife to ask whether she could have a photograph with him.