On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty in Cairo.
It was Blinken’s tenth journey to the Middle East since the Gaza conflict began nearly a year before.
The meetings in Egypt were supposed to focus on revising a proposal to Israel and Hamas for a cease-fire and hostage release.
Unlike previous mediation efforts, America’s top diplomat did not travel with the Biden administration’s rosy forecasts of a settlement in the problematic discussions.
Also unlike the earlier missions, Blinken has no public plans to go to Israel to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on this trip.
The Israeli leader’s fiery public statements — like his declaration that Israel would accept only “total victory” when Blinken was in the region in June — and some other unbudgeable demands have complicated earlier diplomacy.
