WASHINGTON – Former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said both Israel and the Palestinians need new leadership in order to have a chance of achieving a peace deal once the war in the Gaza Strip ends.
“You have to create the environment in which there is a chance to revitalise the peace process,” Mrs Clinton said in an interview with Bloomberg News editor-in-chief John Micklethwait at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore on Thursday.
“I think there needs to be new leadership of the Israelis and the Palestinians in order to have any chance at some kind of peace deal, especially a two-state solution.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest serving leader, is likely to come under pressure when an investigation is held into how gunmen were able to launch an attack on southern Israel on Oct 7.
Some 1,400 people were killed and more than 240 taken hostage, Israel says.
Israel responded to the Oct 7 incident by bombarding the Gaza Strip, which is run by Hamas.
The Palestinian authorities said more than 10,500 people have been killed in the enclave so far.
Pressed on whether Mr Netanyahu could be a partner for a two-state solution, Mrs Clinton said: “I don’t think there’s any evidence of that. I think the Israeli people will have to decide about his leadership.”
Israel’s government has vowed to destroy Hamas, and its strategy has involved a bombing campaign.
Mrs Clinton said while Israel is unlikely to agree to a ceasefire that would benefit Hamas, it probably will accept pauses to allow aid to reach civilians in Gaza.
“There is a difference between a ceasefire which would, in effect, freeze the situation in Hamas’ favour,” Mrs Clinton said.
Israel is unlikely to be interested in a ceasefire, “but they are perhaps willing to have what we do call humanitarian pauses for the purpose of both getting aid in to try to assist the civilians in Gaza, but also getting the more than 240 hostages out”.
Mrs Clinton also addressed the other major conflict in the world: Russia’s war on Ukraine.
She urged the US and Europe to stay the course as further military aid to the former Soviet republic faces a groundswell of scepticism in Washington.
“The more equipment that we can provide Ukraine, the more they can defend themselves and try to take back the territory that has been seized since 2022,” she said. “That should be our objective.”
She suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin has been prepared to absorb the battlefield losses his military suffered in the hope of a change of leadership in Washington at the 2024 election and Donald Trump’s return as president.
“I think Putin is waiting to see whether Trump can come back,” said the 76-year-old Clinton, who was the Democratic presidential candidate in the 2016 election won by Trump.
“So if he could figure out how to hold this in a frozen conflict position, and not lose any more ground to the Ukrainians, and wait to see whether there’s some opportunity, in fact, probably try to help Trump in the election as he has before.”
That is why, she said, the West has to keep “supporting the Ukrainians to push as far as they can push”. BLOOMBERG
