Antony Blinken was born on April 16, 1962, in Yonkers, New York, to Jewish parents, Judith (Frehm) and Donald M. Blinken, who later served as the U.S. ambassador to Hungary.
During adolescence, Blinken was torn between pursuing the arts and politics. He attended Harvard University, where he edited the daily student newspaper and co-edited the weekly art magazine.
While working for the Harvard Crimson, Blinken wrote several articles about Israel. When the First Lebanon War began, Blinken wrote a column titled "Lebanon and the Facts," criticizing some of the press for "anti-Israeli rhetoric becomes venomous, hateful." He said the Village Voice comparison of Israel to the Nazis was "dead wrong and repugnant."
His maternal grandparents were Hungarian Jews. Blinken's uncle, Alan Blinken, served as the U.S. ambassador to Belgium.
His paternal grandfather, Maurice Henry Blinken, was an early backer of Israel who studied its economic viability, and his great-grandfather was Meir Blinken, a Yiddish writer.
Blinken worked with Biden on requests for American money to replenish Israel's arsenal of Iron Dome interceptor missiles during the 2014 Israel–Gaza war.
Blinken was a foreign policy advisor for Biden's 2020 presidential campaign and was appointed his Secretary of State. During the campaign, he sought to reassure Jewish groups that Biden was a strong supporter of Israel with a long history of knowing its leaders.
Blinken said the Abraham Accords were a positive development under the Trump administration but downplayed the significance of the former president's achievement. "You know, talking about historic peacemaking, when these countries were not actually at war, and the practical reality built up over many years, including during our administration, was that their relations were actually very close."
In the midst of the Biden administration's continuing review of the normalization agreement between Morocco and Israel enacted during the previous administration, Blinken maintained that the recognition of Morocco's sovereignty over the disputed territory of Western Sahara, which was annexed by Morocco in 1975, will not be reversed imminently.
In the midst of the Biden administration's continuing review of the normalization agreement between Morocco and Israel enacted during the previous administration, Blinken maintained that the recognition of Morocco's sovereignty over the disputed territory of Western Sahara, which was annexed by Morocco in 1975, will not be reversed imminently.
During the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian war, Blinken expressed support for "Israel's right to defend itself".
He insisted the two-states solution "remains the only way to truly ensure Israel as a Jewish democratic state in and of itself."
Blinken has asserted that "[Biden] would not tie military assistance to Israel to things like annexation or other decisions by the Israeli government with which we might disagree".
