joining me now is the secretary of state antony blinken. welcome, mr. secretary. thanks, fareed. it is great to be with you. president biden says now that there is a cease-fire in between the israelis and palestinians, there is a significant opportunity for even more positive developments. a genuine opportunity if i m quoting him correctly. and i m wondering is there really, you have an israeli government that seems pretty unyielding and a palestinian authority led by an 85-year-old man who doesn t is too scared to hold elections for fear of what will happen. hamas controls gaza. is there really a prospect of some kind of movement towards a genuine political solution? fareed, i think there has to be. i think both sides are reminded that we have to find a way to break the cycle. because if we don t, it will repeat itself at great cost and at great human suffering on all sides.
85-year-old mahmoud abbas has been considered corruption and dysfunctional. he has postponed elections for 11 years. in short israel doesn t have any practical reasons to make a deal with the palestinians. it doesn t fear for its security while the rocket attacks are unnerving and terrifying to civilians, they do not inflict much damage on the country. israeli ferocious and effective security services, aided by the construction of a wall ong on the left bank and the dome system, have virtually eliminated tear attacks. israel s economy is too strong, diversified and advanced, it is straight in technology ties to countries have grown by leaps and bounds in the last two decades. countries like russia and india,
the current israeli government, whatever government emerges from the current process, and it is really a decision for israelis to make, not us. but you ve been very clear in being in favor of democracy and worrying about the decay of democracy in countries. is it a step forward for democracy for national government to explicitly on racial lines rule out 20% of its population? look, one thing that has been i think deeply disturbing about recent events has been the innercommunal violence, and that is something that we ve not seen at least in recent years. and i believe and i hope that israelis of always persuasions will find ways that that doesn t happen again and hopefully that finds expression in politics and other governments, but these are decisions for israelis to make, not for us.
we re going to look at everything that has been done before. learn from that just as we have in other areas. and see what makes sense and what doesn t. but our focus right now relentlessly is on dealing with the humanitarian situation, starting to do reconstruction, rebuild and engage intensely with everyone, with palestinians, with israelis, with partners in the region. prime minister netanyahu says that he will form a national unit government but not with any israeli arabs in it. israeli arabs as you know make up 20% of the population of israel. is that a positive step? look, i don t do politics whether it is our politics or israeli politics. they have to make their own judgments, and a government will be formed eventually one way or another. we leave that to the israelis. but we ll work with obviously
once very wary of it, now eagerly court israel and its tech industry. the reason that arab countries like the u.a.e. has much to do with economic opportunities. so what is left is morality. israel, a powerful, rich and secure nation, is ruling over nearly 5 million people without giving them political rights. this is an almost unique situation in a post-colonial world. israeli leaders can marshall valid excuses, the palestinian leadership have rejected serious offers in the past and divided an vacillating, but that doesn t change the reality that palestinians live in conditions that are demeaning and degrading. they are denied self determination which is now a universal right. over the last two decades, israel has moved toward a more and more intransigent position on the palestinian issue. the government today is far more extreme than previous right wing governments to began to sherron and all of which made