The Curious Case of the Biden Administration and Hamas
by Bassam Tawil • December 18, 2023 at 5:00 am
Hamas is currently fighting to keep on ruling Gaza and the opportunity to regroup, rearm and destroy Israel -- which is why it is pleading for a ceasefire. Hamas's eyes are now set on the Biden administration and the United Nations, which they hope will prevent Israel from stopping the Hamas reign of abuse.
Did anyone call for a ceasefire when the US was routing ISIS in Syria and Iraq, or demanded that the US end its military campaign by a certain date?
The Hamas official... is saying that Palestinian terrorism pays -- even the US administration is turning against Israel.
The grotesque irony, of course, is that -- no matter how careful Israel is to avoid civilian casualties -- the more the West blames Israel for civilian deaths, and the more Hamas will place civilians in the line of fire in order to keep the international community blaming Israel.
The Biden administration should be telling Hamas, not Israel, to minimize the number of civilian casualties. The real cause of these casualties, besides Hamas, is therefore actually the Biden administration, the United Nations and the international community: they incentivize Hamas to place their own people in harm's way to be killed -- the more the better -- so that everyone can then accuse Israel. The act of blaming Israel for the casualties that were orchestrated by Hamas is, in fact, what is causing them. Hamas can only be looking around and saying to themselves, "Hey, it's working! So let's keep on doing it!"
If Israel were engaged in "indiscriminate bombing," it would not have asked Palestinian civilians to move to safe zones. If this were a war against the Palestinian population, Israel would have bombed the Gaza Strip only from the air, without risking the lives of its soldiers.
The message Biden is sending to the terrorists is: Hold on, we are with you and we want to remove Netanyahu and his government from power.
[T]he mounting pressure by the Biden administration on Israel to end the war is a sign that the US does not want to see Hamas destroyed. Hamas is undoubtedly hoping to be rewarded for their October 7 carnage with an independent, Iran-backed Islamist Palestinian state right next to their "mark," Israel.
Is it appropriate for a foreign leader to demand that the Israeli prime minister replace his democratically-elected coalition partners while Israel is in the midst of a war, or even if it were not? Has Biden ever demanded from any Arab leader, including Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, to make changes in his cabinet?
The Biden administration also doubtless understands that the war on Hamas cannot be conducted with a stop-watch or a certain timeline. The war to destroy Hamas and remove its threat to Israel could take additional weeks or months. As with routing ISIS or Al-Qaeda, the timing should not be a consideration at all. The Biden administration might please stop meddling in the war effort.
Instead of issuing deadlines for ending the war, the Biden administration should be voicing full support for Israel's war on Iran's terrorist proxies. Israel is fighting to defeat terrorism and preserve freedom for all of us in the free world. Israel is sacrificing its heroic citizens so that we will not have to. Instead of hampering Israel, we should be thanking it and doing all we can to help.
Hamas already recently broke two ceasefires in two months; there is no reason to think they would not break a third, fourth and fifth. As they keep openly admitting, their chief goal is to murder Jews and wipe Israel off the map. How is it, one wonders, that Hamas has the right to pursue its declared aim of destroying Israel while Israel is not entitled to battle those who seek its destruction?
As Israel is waging war on the Iran-backed Hamas terrorist group, whose members murdered more than 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped 240 others to the Gaza Strip on October 7, the Biden administration appears to be doing its utmost to sabotage Israel's efforts to defend itself against terrorism.
Iran and its proxies, including Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Houthis, can only be ecstatic about the Biden administration's new restrictions, especially the pressure it is reportedly exerting on Israel to end the war in the coming weeks.
Hamas is currently fighting to keep on ruling Gaza and the opportunity to regroup, rearm and destroy Israel -- which is why it is pleading for a ceasefire. Hamas's eyes are now set on the Biden administration and the United Nations, which they hope will prevent Israel from stopping the Hamas reign of abuse.
