JERUSALEM — President Biden’s blunt “no” response to whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is doing enough to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza has sparked a wave of criticism.
Biden made the concise comment on Monday as he entered the Situation Room, where he and Vice President Harris met with a hostage deal negotiating team following the murder of Hersh Goldberg-Polin and five other hostages by Hamas on Saturday.
Netanyahu flatly denied that he and his coalition are responsible for the murders of the hostages. He stated, “We didn’t manage to extricate them. We were very close. It’s terrible,” he said. “But it didn’t happen because of that decision.”
The Cabinet decision involves what Netanyahu described as a “strategic imperative” to maintain the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) along the Philadelphi Corridor, an 8.7-mile strip of land bordering Egypt and Gaza that has been a hub for Hamas arms smuggling.
“It happened, first, because they [Hamas] don’t want a deal,” the prime minster said, adding about the hostages,”I look for every means … to bring them home.”
When asked by Senior White House correspondent Peter Doocy on Tuesday why Biden was more critical of Netanyahu than of the terrorist leader of Hamas, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre responded that, “The president has been very, very clear about Hamas leaders and what they have done.” She continued, “He was asked a question, he answered it directly but Hamas is responsible. They have more American blood on their hands. The president was clear about that in his statement.”
Caroline Glick, a former adviser to Netanyahu and columnist told Digital, “From the outset of the war, U.S. pressure has been exerted on Israel alone. The war would have been over months ago if the U.S. had permitted Israel to lay siege on Gaza and pressured Egypt to permit Gazans to either shelter in Egypt for the duration of the war or seek shelter in third countries by exiting Gaza through Egypt. Rather than stand with Israel, the U.S. preserved Hamas in power by demanding that Israel keep Gaza fully supplied through humanitarian aid which has been distributed, or ransacked, by Hamas and so preserved Hamas in power.”
Glick continued, “The U.S. pressure for a hostage deal is not directed against Hamas, which is holding the hostages, and as we saw over the weekend, executing them in cold blood. It is directed solely against Israel. The Biden-Harris administration’s pressure is not geared towards rescuing the hostages. It is geared towards rescuing up to 20% of the hostages in exchange for a full cessation of the war, while Hamas is still in charge of Gaza and capable of reconstituting its terror forces in short order if Israel relinquishes its military control over Gaza’s international border with Egypt.”
While some media outlets reported 300,000 protesters in Tel Aviv on Sunday demanding that Netanyahu negotiate with Hamas for the release of the remaining hostages, Israeli police reportedly estimated the number of protesters at around 80,000. On Monday, the Israeli labor union federation called for a general strike to pressure Israel’s prime minister to end the war against Hamas and secure the release of the remaining hostages.
The general strike and mass protest, however, were not a broad-based movement that would force the collapse of the government or strong-arm Netanyahu into, from his perspective, a concessionary deal that abandons the security of the Jewish state in Gaza.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Netanyahu discussed a hostage deal two weeks ago. The terrorist organization Hamas was the deal-breaker. From the Israeli government’s perspective and American experts on terrorism, there is a belief that the U.S. and other Western powers are not imposing severe pressure on Hamas and its patron, Qatar, to release the hostages.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman told Digital, “On a day when Israel is mourning, literally weeping, for its murdered hostages, Biden should be saving his criticism for Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, not Israel’s democratically elected leader.”
Friedman, who served under President Trump, said “Biden and Harris have been wrong and catastrophically weak at every turn in this conflict. They even tried for weeks to keep the location of the hostages secret, where the hostages were being hidden. They have no credibility and repeatedly blame Netanyahu for their failures, widening the traumatic rift within Israeli society.”
Freeing the hostages remains a top priority for the Netanyahu and the Biden administrations, but many don’t feel enough has been done to free them from the terrorists.
Aviva Siegel, a former Hamas hostage in Gaza whose 65-year-old American husband, Keith, is still being held there, told Digital, “I want Keith back alive and I don’t want to think about Keith coming home in a coffin.”
Siegel spent 51 days in Hamas captivity. She described the conditions as “brutal” and said, “I had an infection. The water is not clean and the food cannot be eaten.”
She added, “The Israeli government is not doing enough. They are not bringing them home.”
When asked about the Israeli government’s insistence that it hold sections of Gaza for security, she said, “I am not a politician. I do know that I have a heart. I am against wars and I am a peacemaker. I have been talking for nine months. I am very worried about Keith.”
Siegel said that “All the hostages need to be taken out before they are killed. I am so lucky to be sitting here and talking. The hostages don’t deserve to be in such bad conditions with no water and human rights. Wake up world. I went through hell.”
Joel Rubin, a former deputy assistant secretary of state who served in the Obama administration, told Digital, “President Biden has been unflinching in his support for Israel’s war against Hamas, not to mention his powerful backing of Israeli security against recent Iranian threats, including this past April. So, when it comes to the war against Hamas, Israel has had no greater ally than the United States. That’s why when President Biden says that a deal for a hostage release is on the table and that Prime Minister Netanyahu should go for it, we should be confident that he believes that the risks posed by such a deal would be manageable.”
“In fact, the president isn’t alone in this assessment. Israel’s security establishment, its defense minister and its negotiators all believe that now is the right time to make a courageous decision to close the deal, not to put up additional conditions like the one regarding the Philadelphi Corridor, whose risks can be mitigated. What we just witnessed with the recent despicable murder of the six hostages is that Hamas once again has shown us who it is: a murderous terrorist group willing to kill hostages in cold blood,”added Rubin.
He noted, “That is who they are and that is how they will continue to act. Knowing this makes it clear that the single most effective way to get the hostages out alive still is, and has been, a diplomatic deal like the one from last November. And remember, a deal is not a gift to Hamas. The gift would instead be given to the kidnapped Israelis, Americans and other nationals who will get out of Gaza alive. Indeed, this would be a gift for all of Israel and the decent people of the world.”
Digital’s Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.