Blame Hamas – Israel365 News

The question was wrong, but the answer was even wronger.

Upon returning to the White House from his vacation, a reporter asked President Biden, “Mr. President, do you think it’s time for Prime Minister Netanyahu to do more about this problem? Do you think he’s doing enough (to free the hostages)?”

Biden responded, “No.”

The timing of the question and Biden’s answer were telling. This was the day after the funeral of American-Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin in Jerusalem. Hersh was one of more than 250 people kidnapped by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023, and held captive for nearly 11 months. Just days before the IDF found his body, along with five other hostages in one of Hamas’s hundreds of miles of terror tunnels, the terrorists filmed, beat and released them all as part of their psychological warfare, and executed each of the six hostages, shooting them multiple times at close range.

Given the complementary and sometimes conflicting goals of eradicating Hamas and its control of Gaza, preventing them from ever posing a threat to Israel again, and rescuing ALL hostages, it is not only debatable whether Israel can do more, but the consequences of a deal are ones that Israel will bear alone. The question of whether Israel and Netanyahu do more is not theoretical, but a very public and divisive debate.

Biden, Harris or anyone else in this administration who does not hold Hamas solely responsible for the war and all its consequences is wrong and irresponsible. This includes all the suffering of Gazans who have been indoctrinated and brainwashed by the Iranian-backed Islamic terrorists and used as human shields, with terrorists hiding and setting up a vast network of terrorist infrastructure in hospitals, schools, mosques, residential communities, UN facilities and more.

The question that should have been asked of Biden is whether he did enough to free the hostages, at least Hersh, and all Americans, if not ALL hostages. For months, Biden, Kamala Harris, and multiple representatives of their administrations have blamed Israel in general, and Netanyahu in particular, for not “making a deal” that would include the release of hostages and a “ceasefire.”

What could the Biden-Harris administration have done months ago to save the hostages, especially the American citizens among them? They could have personally contacted the Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani and demanded that Qatar expel all Hamas leaders within 24 hours unless all the hostages were released. There are many tangible ways the administration could have offered the Qatari Emir “a deal he can’t refuse.”

The Biden-Harris administration could have made it clear to Iran that the US would impose tough sanctions and take bold military action against the IRGC, Iran’s nuclear sites, economic infrastructure, and the “Supreme Leader” and other ayatollahs directly.

Instead of pouring nearly $700 million in funding and aid into Gaza, much of which ended up in the hands of Hamas, including the ridiculously expensive and failed floating port that cost American taxpayers millions, the administration could have sealed off Hamas. It could have supported the Palestinian Authority in returning to Gaza (since they were forced out in a bloody coup in 2007) to fight Hamas directly.

If we factor in economic pressure, Biden, Harris and all the administration officials could have demanded in every speech and public statement that the hostages be released immediately, and (at the very least) they could have named the American hostages.

By giving the campaign to free the hostages directly to the people of Gaza, the government could have offered substantial cash rewards for information leading to the release of the hostages and the location of the terrorist leaders. One cannot underestimate the value of a $100,000, $500,000 or $1 million reward in a society under intense military and economic pressure.

Shockingly, none of this has been done. By not doing this, and by publicly blaming Israel and treating the terrorists equally, the false and dangerous message that is being sent is that Hamas can and should be in control.

It is also wrong to blame Israel and Netanyahu, because even the administration has repeatedly acknowledged how much Israel has done and to what extent Hamas should accept Israel’s largesse.

As Netanyahu said after Biden’s misplaced verbal slap in the face: “On April 27, I submitted a proposal that Secretary Blinken called extremely generous. On May 31, we accepted the US-backed proposal, and Hamas refused. On August 16, the US came up with the final bridge proposal. Again, we accepted it, but Hamas refused. On August 19, Secretary Blinken said that Israel accepted the US proposal; now Hamas must do the same. On August 28^e, The deputy director of the CIA said that Israel was serious about negotiations. Hamas must close the deal.” Stunned by Biden’s comment, Netanyahu asked: “(Since last week) what has changed? What has changed this week? What has changed is that they murdered six of our hostages in cold blood.”

What hasn’t changed is that the Biden-Harris administration could have done more. Much more. Will the world now, despite the execution of the hostages and the threats to do more, demand that Israel continue to make concessions after this massacre?

The message to the terrorists that flows from the government’s duplicity and its inability to take bold action on its own is that the more hostages they kill, the more concessions they will receive.

Hamas’ strategy and currency is to inflict the most significant human suffering possible, physically and psychologically. They do this with a genocidal theology and the goal of wiping out Israel and slaughtering Jews. They do this in a mafia-like manner among Gazans to increase pressure on Israel by sowing internal discord to brutalize their people to maintain their inhumane control.

With zero exceptions, everything that happened on October 7 and the war that followed is solely due to Hamas. Hamas slaughtered 1,200 people in the most gruesome and inhumane ways, kidnapped more than 250 people, used its people as human shields, and still holds more than 100 hostages, whose deaths are entirely in its hands. Hamas is to blame.