Delegations to the Egyptian-hosted hostage negotiations left Cairo on Thursday night after talks collapsed. A member of the U.S. delegation led by CIA director Willian Burns briefed reporters that the talks failed “due to Israel’s operations in Rafah.”
Under normal circumstances—circumstances that would see the United States siding with Israel in its demands for the release of all hostages, as well as the eradication of Hamas’s forces and its regime of terror—such a statement could easily have been interpreted as supportive of Israel’s operation in the southernmost part of the Gaza Strip, where terrorist strongholds still function.
Israel made an offer to Hamas that U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken praised as “incredibly generous.” Hamas rejected it completely, so Israel renewed its offensive entering Rafah. Nothing weakens Hamas’s negotiating position more than defeat. And now, having rejected the deal, Hamas can only expect a much worse offer from its perspective whenever talks are renewed.
Unfortunately, that isn’t what the U.S. announcement meant at all. It meant that the Hamas and the U.S. positions are in complete alignment. This isn’t new information. The fact that the United States, like Hamas, views the hostages as a means to force Israel to capitulate to Hamas’s demands—including ending the war with Hamas victorious, leaving more than 100 held captive behind in Gaza and thousands of terrorists freed from Israeli prisons—became clear last Saturday.
On May 4, Arab media outlets reported that behind Israel’s back, Burns had agreed to serve as guarantor that Israel will not renew its combat operations in Gaza in the event that a temporary ceasefire is enacted during the course of a hostage release. Israel never agreed to such a position. Indeed, Israel’s refusal to agree to an end of the war in exchange for a small fraction of the 132 hostages Hamas is holding in Gaza is the only thing preventing Hamas from rightly declaring victory in its jihad against Jerusalem. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rightly felt compelled to stop the story—and the American plot—in its tracks. He issued a statement denying that Israel had agreed to such a deal and rejecting it out of hand as a non-starter.
The news that Washington had now made strategic concessions to Hamas that involved a U.S. guarantee of Hamas victory meant the Biden administration had switched sides. By guaranteeing Hamas’s survival, the administration made it official U.S. policy to stand with a genocidal jihadist terror group against its principal Middle East ally: Israel.
Since then, it’s all been downhill. Biden’s announcement on Wednesday to CNN that he is effectively halting the transfer of vital munitions for Israel’s Air Force and ground forces to prevent Israel from achieving its goal of defeating Hamas’s last four battalions in Rafah marked the official end of the U.S.-Israel alliance.
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