00:00 U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has arrived in Tel Aviv.
00:04 He's there to show U.S. solidarity with Israel.
00:06 And the White House says part of the aim of his visit is to try to secure the release
00:10 of hostages being held by Hamas, some of whom are said to be American citizens.
00:16 For more on all of this, we're joined by Eric Rudnitsky.
00:19 He's a project manager of Tel Aviv University's Konrad Adenauer Program for Jewish-Arab Cooperation.
00:25 Thanks so much for being with us here on France 24.
00:28 You know, just a few weeks ago, Benjamin Netanyahu met with U.S. President Joe Biden, and there
00:32 was great hope that Israel and Saudi Arabia could establish relations.
00:38 Where does that stand now, given all that's happening?
00:43 Secretary of State Blinken actually visited our region a couple of months ago.
00:48 It was in the summer of '23.
00:52 And his first visit was on the entire atmosphere of lack of trust between Israel and the United
01:01 States.
01:02 We all remember the popular protest in Israel against the judicial reform.
01:09 And we all know that President Biden himself was very reluctant and not critical on this
01:16 reform.
01:17 And it turned out that only a couple of weeks ago, Prime Minister Netanyahu and President
01:22 Biden actually first met.
01:25 Now, Secretary of State Blinken was in any way planning to visit our region in order
01:31 to advance the ongoing negotiations to some kind of an agreement of normalization between
01:39 Israel and Saudi Arabia.
01:41 But it turns out that his visit this time was earlier than expected.
01:47 And we know that he's going to visit Israel and later on maybe pay a visit to Saudi Arabia.
01:53 I don't know if he's going to talk about peace normalization with Israel, but I think this
02:00 is all one package deal, the situation between Israel and the Gaza Strip and Israel and the
02:07 Arab world with U.S. mediation.
02:10 Well, Mr. Blinken has said the Hamas attacks may have been driven in part by a desire to
02:15 scuttle the sealing of diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
02:20 Do you think that could be the case?
02:24 I think that there were several reasons for Hamas to launch this attack against Israel.
02:31 Obviously, we cannot rule out the option that one reason is to actually recruit the Arab
02:38 and Muslim world against what they seem, all their criticism against the normalization
02:46 agreement between Israel and the Arab world.
02:49 Now, Saudi Arabia is the leader of the Muslim-Sunni world, and we know that only recently Saudi
02:58 Arabia and Iran actually normalized their own relations, meaning the normalization within
03:04 the Muslim world between Sunnis and Shiites.
03:08 And I think that this is one reason why Hamas launched this terror on the strategic level,
03:16 on the strategic dimension.
03:18 Now, on the tactical dimension, the tactical level, the goal was to put pressure, exert
03:26 pressure on Israel on the issues of their prisoners in the Israeli prisons.
03:36 I think that the outcome of this attack on just a couple of days ago by Hamas was unexpected
03:43 by them, actually.
03:46 And we see the casualties on both sides of the border.
03:51 But I think that the strategic dimension and the tactical dimension are all intertwined
03:55 together.
03:56 Yeah, we see the humanitarian situation in Gaza, you know, growing in severity.
04:01 It's becoming more desperate by the minute.
04:04 Thousands dead, hundreds of thousands internally displaced.
04:07 How has the Arab world reacted to the situation inside Gaza, and what does that mean for Arab-Israeli
04:13 relations?
04:17 It is a hard time to talk about Arab-Israeli relations.
04:22 I think that in the first 48 hours when Israeli forces were busy actually going against Hamas
04:30 warriors, Hamas attackers on Israeli soil, I think that the Arab world was quite supportive
04:37 or critical of these attacks conducted by Hamas.
04:42 But obviously, as we see all these scenes from the Gaza Strip and the humanitarian crisis,
04:49 I think, of course, the Arab world will be more and more critical towards Israel.
04:54 Now, I think the most important issue here is what role would Egypt play.
05:01 On the one hand, we hear that Egypt actually is not ready, is not willing to open the gates
05:10 for Palestinian refugees from the Gaza Strip to the Egyptian part.
05:17 On the other hand, we know that Egypt is playing and has been playing a crucial role mediating
05:23 between Israel and Hamas.
05:26 Now, all this is under big question mark, because the declared strategic goal of this
05:35 war on Gaza is to actually demolish and bring an end to the rule of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
05:43 Okay, we'll have to leave it there.
05:45 Eric Rudnitsky, project manager of Tel Aviv University's Konrad Adenauer Program for Jewish-Arab
05:50 Cooperation.
05:51 Thanks so much for joining us here on France 24.
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