Reporter And State Dept Spox Go Head To Head: 'Is There Actually A Red Line?'

7 months ago

During a press briefing on Tuesday, State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller answered reporter questions on the continued fight in Gaza.

Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:

https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript

Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com

Transcript

00:00 First, I want to give a shout out to my student visitor friend from Gaza, sitting in the back,

00:07 and came with me today to attend the briefing.

00:10 Welcome.

00:11 So, yeah.

00:13 I wanted to follow up on Leon and Humayun's questions on the red line.

00:18 Is there actually a red line?

00:19 I mean, do you have like a yardstick by which you measure a red line that Israel may cross

00:26 or may not cross?

00:27 So the- What is that?

00:28 The National Security Advisor to the President spoke to this last week from the White House

00:34 podium and made clear that there is no mathematical formula that you can apply, but it's something

00:39 that we will be watching very closely and discussing with our Israeli counterparts.

00:41 So in theory, Israel can strike anywhere, basically, and say, "They're Hamas oppoters."

00:47 So I'm not going to deal with your theories.

00:50 I'm going to deal with reality, and what we have said is how we will assess their compliance

00:54 with this question.

00:55 But that is a plausible hypothesis.

00:56 No, it's not.

00:57 It's not a plausible hypothesis.

00:58 I'm not going to deal with- I think you know I don't deal with hypotheses.

00:59 I try to deal with facts from this podium.

01:02 So I just wanted to ask you, the statement that was issued by this administration over

01:07 Rafah, when you say Israel has a right to pursue Hamas or to go after Hamas, isn't that

01:15 implicitly a green light for them to do whatever they want under that pretext?

01:20 No.

01:21 And, Saeed, I think that ignores everything that we have said a number of times.

01:25 It absolutely is not.

01:26 It is encouraging them to take out terrorists who launched a brutal attack on the state

01:31 of Israel and carried out the cold-blooded murder of civilians, and at the same time,

01:36 we expect them to do so in full compliance with international humanitarian law, minimizing

01:40 the harm to civilians.

01:41 And I know I've pointed this out to you before, Saeed.

01:45 Hamas could make this a lot easier by stopping hiding behind civilians.

01:49 Right.

01:50 Okay.

01:51 I mean, two weeks ago, I remember asking you from here, and I in fact mentioned the

01:58 name of those who were killed.

02:00 Four of them were children and so on.

02:03 Whether they are going to be safer in Mawassi and in Tel Sultan, where they were asked to

02:09 leave, at the time seemed like part of a larger plan to move people into a safer zone.

02:16 But obviously, it's not.

02:18 We saw killing 45 people in Raqqa.

02:22 We saw killing another 21.

02:24 Nobody knows how many and so on just yesterday.

02:26 So there seems to be no end.

02:29 You guys have any kind of perception on how this thing is going to end and when this horror

02:35 show stops?

02:36 So, Saeed, as often, there was a lot of premises before you got to the question.

02:40 I will say with respect to the premises, we've been very clear.

02:44 Of course, Israel should not carry out strikes in the designated safer areas where they have

02:48 told people to move.

02:49 They say that's not what happened here.

02:51 They're going to conduct a full investigation.

02:53 We're going to wait the outcome of that investigation before passing judgment.

02:56 I think it's fully appropriate to do.

02:58 We want to have all the facts at our disposal.

03:00 When it comes to how this ends, I think we have also been pretty clear that in addition

03:05 to a military plan, Israel needs to have a political plan for the day after and for presenting

03:13 an alternative to Hamas.

03:15 We have not yet seen such a plan.

03:16 We've been working with our partners in the region to come up with one that we will present

03:20 to the State of Israel because we think that is just as important as the military campaign

03:23 they're conducting.

03:24 Lastly, on the aid, if you guys are unable to influence Israel on allowing aid in, what

03:30 makes you think that you don't want to be influential with their military operations

03:35 in Gaza?

03:36 So I – so again, I'm going to reject the premise.

03:39 We have intervened and seen our interventions been successful throughout the course of this

03:43 campaign.

03:44 It was because of U.S. intervention that Rafa was opened in the first place.

03:48 It was because of our intervention that Kerem Shalom was opened and that Erez Crossing was

03:52 opened and that Zikum Crossing was opened and that Ashdod was opened and that trucks

03:59 are now coming from Jordan, coming through Israel and making it directly into northern

04:02 Gaza.

04:03 And it was because of the intervention of the United States just on Friday that trucks

04:08 – UN trucks were allowed to move again through Egypt into Israel, into Kerem Shalom, and

04:13 then ultimately on to the people who need them.

04:15 So I fully reject that premise and I don't think it's supported by the facts of the

04:18 history.

Reporter And State Dept Spox Go Head To Head: 'Is There Actually A Red Line?'

Category

Transcript

Recommended