Copyright The Boston Globe
Clinton noted that the period following the recent ceasefire, which began earlier this month, has already seen further bloodshed, including reports of targeting perceived opponents and Israeli soldiers. Since the ceasefire was announced, tens of thousands of Palestinians have also returned to a heavily destroyed northern Gaza Strip, and questions have remained over who will govern Gaza. The Israeli army launched a barrage of attacks in Gaza earlier this week as tensions with Hamas grew two weeks into a fragile ceasefire. At least seven Palestinians were killed. “The work is literally just beginning,” said Clinton, who outlined challenges of creating a credible disarmament process and forming a new Palestinian governing body that is capable of replacing Hamas. “It’s going to take very patient, strategic diplomacy to build the kind of alliance — with the Gulf Arab states — Egypt, Jordan, European partners, and others — that will be willing to work together," Clinton said, referencing President Trump’s 20-point plan to end the two-year-long Israel-Hamas war. Clinton has previously said that Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank that has been encouraged by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration “has to cease.” Clinton’s nearly hourlong remarks, led in a Q&A by Brown University President Christina H. Paxson, were to a full crowd at the university’s athletic complex. She spoke in front of scores of Brown students, alumni, and employees, as well as politicians, local business leaders, and others. The former presidential candidate and US senator of New York largely touched on her relations with foreign leaders, such as Russian President Vladimir Putin, and elections during a time of rampant disinformation, She also voiced her concerns about the impact of technology and social media on today’s youth. Clinton came to Providence for a conversation that was part of the 104th Stephen A. Ogden Jr. ’60 Memorial Lecture series. Brown regularly hosts national political figures, including former president Bill Clinton in 2022 shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine. On Oct. 25, when the university launched its Thomas J. Watson School of International and Public Affairs, Gen. Mark A. Milley — the nation’s highest ranking military officer from 2019 to 2023 — spoke at an event. Former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will participate in a Q&A session on Nov. 5. She is expected to reflect on her experience leading the implementation of US foreign policy and discuss global diplomacy. Clinton expressed her disdain for Putin, who she said “wants to destroy us and Western civilization, and take down the United States.” She called his need to take down the US “his driving ambition.” And “he’s impossible because he’s a horrible misogynist,” she said. From the “mansplaining to man-spreading.” She recalled a story of when she was trying to connect on a human level with Putin while she was serving as former president Obama’s secretary of state. The pair were sitting at one of Putin’s properties, which was about an hour away from Moscow, when she turned to him and brought up his efforts to conserve Russian wildlife, like polar bears and Siberian tigers. He immediately became animated, and had her follow him to an office to look at an enormous map of Russia on the wall. “He starts telling me... ‘We’re doing this with the tigers. We’re doing this with the bears. We’re doing this with the, you know, birds,’” she recalled. Then he said, “’I’m soon going up to far, northern Russia to tag polar bears.’” After she expressed interest in his efforts, she said Putin then turned and asked her, “Would your husband like to come with me?” She said she answered: “‘I don’t know about Bill, but I’d go with you.’” Paxson asked Clinton a number of questions that came from Brown students, and she shared that she is advocating for phone-free schools and warned how much data big tech companies collect on individuals. “The commodity people want more than anything in the world today is not gold, it’s not even the rare earth minerals. It’s your attention,” she said. “Because if they can capture your attention, they can use it, and they can manipulate it.” Clinton unsuccessfully ran for president in 2016 and threw her support behind former vice president Kamala Harris before she, too, lost to Trump in 2024. On Thursday, she was also asked what her message is to young girls and women who think America is unwilling to elect a woman as president. “Don’t give up, please,” she said. “If you’re at all interested in politics, in public office, do not be deterred. Just go with your eyes wide open. It’s really hard. “It used to be, when I traveled to all kinds of places, young women would ask me about getting into politics. They all want to know, could they balance, you know, family and work in the political arena? That was like the first question,” said Clinton. “Now, their question is, how do I stay safe if I decide to get into the public arena, how do I protect myself?” She called the viral attacks on women running for office “so overwhelming.” “It does take all the confidence and courage you can muster to get out there and to be willing to stand up for your your beliefs, to talk about what you would do if you were elected,” she said. “Hopefully, we will, at some point, break that hardest, highest glass ceiling.”
