WhatsappAs it always goes with the Palestinians, Washington took the path of least resistance and focused pressure on Israel. It’s the same in peace negotiations.
(JNS) The hostage crisis is dire. With the discovery of six more bodies, 105 hostages remain. Hamas has never released any of their names, allowed visits from the Red Cross or provided proof of life. Tragically, it is believed at least 41 are dead. The living have endured nearly a year of unimaginable agony. Hamas videos revealed even the dead were abused and subjected to horrific abuse.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said military pressure would lead to their freedom, but it has not. Months of diplomacy have been equally futile, with the United States pressuring Israel to accept unconscionable terms while Hamas rejects them.
All we hear from the administration is there must be a ceasefire; Israeli soldiers’ lives are not as valuable as Palestinians, so they should risk them to ensure that civilians aren’t harmed. Remember when John Kirby talked about the war in Ukraine and said, “It’s their war. They get to decide what victory looks like. They get to decide what plans they execute. They get to decide what targets they hit. They get to decide where they put their troops on the battlefront.”
The administration’s attitude towards Israel has been precisely the opposite.
Could it have been different?
I’m reminded of when Hezbollah took hostages in the 1980s. The U.S. State Department, once again out of its depth, was unable to secure the release of 104 foreign hostages, including several Americans. They included CIA bureau chief William Francis Buckley and Marine Col. William Higgins, who were murdered, and Associated Press reporter Terry Anderson, who endured nearly seven years of captivity.
Contrast this with the approach taken by the KGB after four Soviet diplomats were kidnapped. The hostages were released after the KGB told Hezbollah they would kill their mothers, their brothers, their sisters, aunts, uncles and children. Perhaps I exaggerate. According to The Jerusalem Post, the KGB castrated and shot a relative of a Shia Muslim leader before sending him the severed organs.
No Russians were kidnapped again.
Was Hezbollah ever held accountable? Even after they blew up our Marine barracks and killed 241 military personnel, Washington did nothing. We’ve never gone after the Iranians who held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. More recently, Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden paid Iran billions of dollars in ransom for the release of a handful of Americans.
Not surprisingly, this appeasement has only emboldened the terrorists and their sponsors.
On Oct. 7, Hamas captured 251 Israelis, including 12 Americans; eight remain in their hands, and three are dead. Biden could have sent a message to our enemies by demanding their immediate release. Instead of insisting U.S. forces would not get involved, he should have announced that we were going to send our special forces in to get our people back and would relentlessly pressure Hamas until it capitulated.
The message from the United States should have been simple and direct: Release the hostages now. Instead, as it always does with the Palestinians, the United States took the path of least resistance and focused all its pressure on Israel. It’s the same in peace negotiations. The Palestinians are never expected to make concessions and never given ultimatums; it is only the Israelis who must show flexibility and sacrifice their security. Of course, it never works because the Palestinians believe that time is on their side. Hamas set up civilians to die, knowing the Americans would turn on Israel. Their long-term hope, encouraged by the anti-Israel trend among young Americans, is that the United States will force Israel out of “Palestine.”
How many Sinwars will be set free this time to become the masterminds of the next massacre?
Think about the terms of the negotiations. Israel is supposed to stop fighting for six weeks, withdraw from parts of Gaza and allow terrorists to re-infiltrate the areas they leave. Will Israel get all its hostages back? No. Assuming Hamas doesn’t renege on the deal once the pressure is off, Israel is hoping to get 30 hostages back in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Recall that Hamas’s leader, Yahya Sinwar, was released in such an exchange. How many Sinwars will be set free this time to become the masterminds of the next massacre?
In phase two, the ceasefire is supposed to become permanent, and all the remaining hostages are to be released in exchange for still more prisoners. Given that Israel has promised to kill Sinwar, does anyone believe he’s going to let everyone go free?
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Israel to put the screws on Netanyahu to make more concessions, such as agreeing to evacuate the Philadelphi Corridor. This is Hamas’s lifeline. Israel has found dozens of tunnels there that were used to smuggle supplies and weapons.
Instead, Blinken should have announced that Washington would end the embargo on 2,000-pound bombs and speed the delivery of weapons to Israel to pressure Hamas into surrendering the hostages. He should also do what he should have done 10 months ago to free the Gazans used by Hamas as cannon fodder: Travel to Cairo and tell Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi that the United States will cut off all aid to Egypt unless he lets civilians stay in Sinai until the hostages are released and the war ends.
No one can blame the families of the hostages for wanting the prime minister to do whatever it takes to get their loved ones home. However, any concessions will only encourage more hostage-taking. How will the families of those future captives feel?
Ending the fighting without killing Sinwar and crushing all resistance will enable Hamas to regroup and fulfill its promise to repeat Oct. 7. Israeli military and intelligence officials indicate that Israel can make some of the concessions being demanded of them, confident that after the return of the hostages, they can complete the job they started. Once the fighting stops, however, the United States will expect to begin the process of reconstruction (the third phase of the ceasefire proposal), and the pressure will shift to forcing Israel to withdraw all its troops from Gaza. Biden made it clear he won’t accept the creation of a security zone or soldiers to guard it. This is a capitulation to Hamas’s demands.
Instead, the United States should recognize Israel’s need to maintain security in Gaza for the foreseeable future. We should work with the Gulf states that are expected to foot the bill for reconstruction to make clear that not a dime will be spent until the hostages are free and Hamas is repudiated. The “moderates” in the West Bank who Biden wants to take control have said they plan to have Hamas in the government. The president needs to assert that this is unacceptable.
I wrote at the beginning of the war that it is the U.S. president, not the Israeli prime minister, who ends wars. At the Democratic National Convention, Biden declared: “We’re working around the clock, my Secretary of State, to prevent a wider war and reunite hostages with their families and surge humanitarian health and food assistance into Gaza now, to end the civilian suffering of the Palestinian people and finally, finally, finally deliver a ceasefire and end this war.”
There was no mention of Hamas or the need to ensure its defeat.
Had Biden given Israel everything it requested, focused all his ire and energy on Hamas, and not confined Gazans to a combat zone, the war could have ended sooner with less destruction and more Israelis and Palestinians alive. If he had used military force to end Iran’s nuclear program and cut off its oil, Biden would have choked off the funding and supply chain to Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis. Sadly, he still doesn’t understand that decisive action—and not appeasement—is the path to peace.
