JNS
The U.S. president wants to ensure that the strikes on Iran are “not a lost opportunity” to resolve the Israel-Hamas war, Foggy Bottom said.
Tammy Bruce, the U.S. State Department spokeswoman, declined to confirm that the Trump administration supports a “two-state solution” to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
“President Trump is realistic about the current state of affairs,” Bruce told reporters during a press briefing on Wednesday. “Clearly, Gaza is an uninhabitable place. It needs to be rebuilt with the help of Arab partners.”
“He has said previously that the nature of what has happened and what we have to get to—we don’t have a ceasefire yet,” Bruce said. “Hopefully that will change, but that is getting quite ahead of the dynamic in general, so that is what the president’s focused on.”
This wasn’t the first time that Bruce has demurred when asked whether the two-state solution remains the U.S. government’s policy.
Bruce noted the rapid changes in the region when asked about Trump’s revived pursuit of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.
“The Middle East changed a couple of weeks ago very dramatically. It changed forever. And the work of the president of the United States—thank God for him—is going to make sure that this is not a lost opportunity,” Bruce said. “This is an opportunity in the midst of this new world to make a different kind of decision. He is optimistic.”
Trump is expected to focus on a ceasefire in his Oval Office meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday. Bruce said the goal is not to make it “the world’s longest ceasefire.”
“It’s going to be peace that’s achieved fundamentally by the changes on the ground, which we have already seen implemented over the last couple of weeks,” she told reporters.
Those changes have revolved around the result of the 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran, and U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, which the Pentagon said on Wednesday set back Tehran’s nuclear enrichment program by one to two years.
‘Iran must cooperate fully’
Iran suspended cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency on Wednesday, alleging that its director-general, Rafael Grossi, took sides against the Islamic Republic.
Bruce called that Iranian decision “unacceptable,” especially “when it has a window of opportunity to reverse course and choose a path of peace and prosperity.”
“Iran must cooperate fully without further delay,” she said.
Bruce said that Iran “must fully comply with its safeguards agreement” under its Non-Nuclear Proliferation Treaty obligations, “including by providing the IAEA with information required to clarify and resolve longstanding questions regarding undeclared nuclear material in Iran, as well as provide unrestricted access to its newly announced enrichment facility.”
JNS asked Bruce about whether Hezbollah’s armed forces in Lebanon are to be entirely dismantled after the Trump administration’s announcement this week that it has substantially lifted sanctions on Syria.
Bruce directed JNS to the Israeli government.
“I think the thing that has changed the Middle East beyond, of course, the damage to the—well, the destruction, the obliteration of Iran’s nuclear facilities, is the personality in power that is exhibited by Donald Trump and what he is willing to do,” she said. “What the American government and military is capable of, and as a reflection of our genuine commitment for change— after exhausting all diplomatic options—is that he will do what else is necessary to achieve peace.”
“That is something as a message to the entire Middle East, including to our allies and to those who have stepped up as an example regarding the Gaza Strip, the regional partners there willing to step in and help make a difference for the future there,” she told JNS.
“We made that decision last year in November without knowing how it would need to be applied, but it’s also because of the American people that we’re able to send this message to the world that we are still here, we are still the team you can count on,” she told JNS. “America matters, we know it, and we’re going to defend our country, which is what needs to exist in order to have this hope for the future.”
The State Department had been publicly involved with Lebanon’s government to take back southern Lebanon from the Iran-backed terror group, but has been largely silent since its point person on Lebanon, Morgan Ortagus, was moved out of that role.
Beyond the ceasefire in Gaza, the State Department recently announced that it would grant $30 million to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which is serving as an alternative to the United Nations for delivering humanitarian aid.
Amid questions about reported deaths of Gazans at or near foundation aid sites and concerns about the foundation’s viability, Bruce said the bottom line is that regardless of the volume of aid entering Gaza, “it will not be enough.”
“The only way you have a normal life with enough aid and enough food and being able to live your normal life is in an area that is not at war, being held hostage by a terrorist group,” she said. (The foundation has denied that there has been violence at its distribution sites.)
Bruce denounced Hamas’s “terroristic monsterism,” including using schools, hospitals and human shields and causing innocent people to be killed.
Bruce said that Washington’s involvement in the region “is a key, though, to unlocking a door to get to a point where you can have a ceasefire, assisting those who are held hostage by the terrorists.”
It will help “get to a point where you actually have a ceasefire, removing those who do not abide by the ceasefire and then begin to build a genuinely different future for the people in that area,” she said.
