Nightly News   |  November 20, 2012

Sec. Hillary Clinton aims for de-escalation in Israel, Gaza

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is attempting to bring about a ceasefire, or to prevent Israel from invading Gaza while convincing Egypt’s president to pressure Hamas to stop firing rockets. NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reports.

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>>> because this is all moving fast, because it now truly involves the united states , we thought we'd talk a bit more with andrea mitchell in our d.c. newsroom. the significance of the american president ordering the american secretary of state into the breach at this hour?

>> it's very important, very significant. this could be one of hillary clinton 's final trips, only in the closing months of the administration, she's being sent in as a closer to negotiate a de's ka lace to try to win more time and prevent israel from invading. there really does seem to be very close synchronization with rael. there's no distance here between israel and the united states . netanyahu tonight in meetings with her thanked her profusely, thanked the united states for the iron dome defense system. the most important meeting is tomorrow with egypt's president morsi. morsi wants american aid for the survival of egypt, and she wants morsi to really pressure hamas to pull back and come up with some permanent agreement.

>> clinton is going only briefly to ramallah to the west bank , it will be more than two years since she's been there. that tells you everything, that the more moderate branch of the palestinians really are irrelevant to all of this. the real power is political power , at least, with hamas.

>> andrea mitchell in d.c. tonight, thanks.