Thanks, Biden: Hamas Now Refuses to Budge on Hostage TalksED MORRISSEY 10:00 AM | May 10, 2024
AP Photo/Alex Brandon
Incentives: How do they work again? Perhaps someone needs to explain that concept to the White House.
Republicans and no small number of Democrats (more on that in a moment) warned that Joe Biden's suspension of arms shipments to Israel would take pressure off Hamas in negotiations. It didn't take long before Hamas proved Biden's critics correct in an utterly predictable manner:
Indirect talks between Israel and Hamas over a deal to halt fighting in the Gaza Strip and free hostages kidnapped on October 7 appeared to break up with no discernable progress, as the terror group said it had no intention of budging from a proposal already rejected by Israel. ...
In a message to other Palestinian factions published by the group’s al-Aqsa TV mouthpiece Friday, Hamas said talks had ended after Israel “rejected the proposal submitted by the mediators and raised objections to it.”
It said Hamas had decided to stick to the terms of the proposal it agreed to Monday, rejecting the possibility of making any concessions.
“The ball is now completely in the hands of the occupation,” the statement read.
In fairness, why would Hamas budge from its current maximalist position? Israel's closest ally is publicly blaming PM Benjamin Netanyahu for the war that Hamas started. US negotiators have piled pressure on Israel to make more and more concessions, all without bothering to even scold Hamas over the American hostages it holds. Key Democrat leaders in the US have called for Netanyahu to resign to find more compliant politicians in Israel to help Hamas get what it wants out of the talks, and Biden publicly agreed with them.
And now Biden has begun cutting off arms shipments to force Israel to allow Hamas to survive in Rafah.
Could Hamas have better representation than Joe Biden?
Biden's absolutely craven betrayal has also managed to do something that looked impossible while Donald Trump remains the GOP nominee -- split the Democrat Party. Jewish Insider reports that the "center-Left" has broken with Biden on Israel, with a number of them going public in doing so:
“We need to provide Israel with the unconditional security assistance it needs to defend itself and that demonstrates our unwavering support, particularly as Iran and its proxies escalate their attacks,” Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) told Jewish Insider. “The administration should not do anything that undermines Israel’s ability to defeat Hamas and address mounting threats across the region.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said he wants to see U.S. support for Israel continue.
“I don’t know what the president meant. I haven’t seen what the actual operation in Rafah is, but I certainly hope that we’ll continue to provide support militarily and diplomatically that Israel needs to defend itself,” he said.
Asked if he thinks the announcement will empower Hamas in negotiations, he said, “I am worried about any appearance of division between the United States and Israel. The bond should be unquestionable and unbreakable.”
If Blumenthal wasn't worried about empowering Hamas in negotiations yesterday, he certainly has reason to worry about it today. And it's not just the arms-suspension decision that has Democrats distancing themselves from Biden either. His plan to relocate Gazan refugees in the US is running into considerable opposition from his own caucuses in Congress, and may well impact how many of them will come back next year to Capitol Hill.
For instance, Sen. Bob Casey faces a tough re-election in Pennsylvania, where Biden reportedly plans to house those refugees. When asked about it yesterday, Casey clammed up:
Perhaps even more concerning to the White House -- if Biden et al were inclined toward self-reflection at all -- was a speech from Chris Coons in the Senate yesterday. Jewish Insider also includes that in the same report as evidence of a real fracture even among Biden's closest supporters. Coons declared that Israel and Netanyahu had an obligation to destroy Hamas in Rafah, while still finding ways to relocate civilians that had sought refuge from earlier phases of the war:
The reaction from the White House highlights their utter strategic and tactical incoherence. After insisting for months that Israel had to somehow prove to them that the IDF had plans to get civilians out of the way in Rafah, and after Israel and Egypt built large-scale refugee camps near Khan Younis to accommodate them, the Biden administration announced that they would oppose any kind of operation in Rafah, period:
Administration officials said on Thursday that the U.S. does not support any operation in Rafah, with or without civilian evacuation procedures, which Israel has already begun. They also said that the administration believes that Israel’s efforts to defeat Hamas have already “largely succeeded.”
Oh, really? If so, have the remaining hostages been "largely returned"? Have the Gazans "largely surrendered"?
Or is this administration "largely staffed with idiots"?
Coons, Rosen, Blumenthal, and other Democrats (including John Fetterman) see the political and strategic situation much more clearly than Biden and his team, both in Gaza and here at home. After seven months of this war, the American public remains overwhelmingly in support of Israel and against any agreement with Hamas that doesn't include the return of all hostages up front. Biden's policy decisions cut directly against that consensus among American voters and makes Democrats look like they've been captured by a bunch of pro-Hamas campus radicals. Scratch that -- it doesn't make Democrats look that way, it demonstrates the extent to which their party has been captured by the anti-Semitic radical Left.
Biden isn't just engineering a split between Israel and the US -- he's splitting his party at the same time. And he's doing all this just to win a handful of votes in Dearborn.
Thanks Joe, Thought MTG Would Doom The GOP
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Originally Posted by Kathianne
