JERUSALEM, Israel — President Joe Biden reportedly wants to use hostage talks with Hamas to force Israel to stop its war against the Palestinian terror group in Gaza, defeating Israel’s primary goal in responding to the unprovoked terror attack of October 7.
With U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken expected in Israel this week, the Biden administration is pressing for a deal that would free some of the remaining 130 or so Israeli hostages in exchange for a “pause” — and to make the pause permanent.
The Biden administration — under pressure from Arab and Muslim voters in swing-state Michigan, and facing protests from staffers within the administration itself — is backing away from the clear, explicit endorsement of Israel’s war aims in October.
FILE – President Joe Biden is greeted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after arriving at Ben Gurion International Airport, on Oct. 18, 2023, in Tel Aviv. The United States has offered strong support to Israel in its war against Hamas. But the allies ar increasingly at odds over what will happen to the Gaza Strip once the war winds down. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
The Times of Israel reported Tuesday that the Biden administration will not say explicitly that it backs a “ceasefire,” but that it will attempt to use a hostage deal — negotiated via Egypt and Qatar as intermediaries — to make a “pause” into a permanent stop.
Jacob Magid of the Times of Israel wrote:
Instead of a permanent ceasefire, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan reiterated Sunday that Washington is seeking “a sustained pause in hostilities” to get the remaining hostages out of Gaza and funnel more humanitarian aid into the Strip.
However, the administration is also hoping to use the extended nature of the still-elusive pause it’s pursuing to negotiate a more permanent ceasefire in Gaza, which a senior US official told The Times of Israel on Monday would allow the administration to advance regional initiatives that include an Israel-Saudi Arabia normalization agreement and the creation of a political horizon toward an eventual Palestinian state.
Ironically, it was reportedly the Biden administration itself that stalled talks toward Saudi-Israeli peace last September, because the White House insisted on a commitment to support a Palestinian state, which had ceased to be a priority even for the Saudis.
Through mid-November, President Biden himself continued to support Israel’s goals of ending Hamas’s military and governing capacity. He told reporters November 15 that he would not impose a deadline on Israel to stop fighting until “Hamas no longer maintains the capacity to murder and abuse and do horrific things to the Israelis.”
But the Biden administration has begun to back away from that commitment in recent weeks — a betrayal of Biden’s promise, and his claim to be restoring U.S. alliances.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
