US President Joe Biden's off-the-cuff, one-word answer — "no"— to the question of whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was doing enough to free Israeli hostages from Hamas captivity and get a cease-fire, will only encourage Hamas to up its demands and refuse to agree to a reasonable deal. So far, it appears as if Hamas, instead of negotiating, has just been saying, "no." The US is reportedly no longer expecting a ceasefire before the November 5 US presidential election.
Biden's remark sends a dangerous message to Israel's and America's enemies that, by continuing to terrorize and hold hostages, they can turn the Biden administration against Israel.
Why should Hamas agree to a ceasefire when its refusal is blamed on Israel by the president of the United States? In addition, when Biden blames Israel, he encourages other allies, such as Great Britain, Canada, France and Germany, to do the same.
Netanyahu responded to Biden's false accusation by quoting Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Deputy CIA Director David Cohen to the effect that it was Hamas and not Israel that was refusing to agree to a ceasefire. Netanyahu cited chapter and verse to document Hamas's rejection of Israeli offers. Biden, however, in election mode, seemed to care more about placating the anti-Israel flank of his party than telling the truth about the complex ongoing negotiations. He blamed Netanyahu alone without even mentioning Hamas. And this was after Hamas terrorists had murdered six hostages, including an American.
Although Biden did say that the Hamas killers would pay a price for the murders of the hostages, he did not say that Iran— which controls Hamas— would pay any price, including increased sanctions, or worse, unless the hostages, including the Americans, are released, unharmed, immediately.
It is Biden and Harris who are not doing enough to secure the release of the hostages. They could be doing far more in the way of issuing credible threats — economic and military — against Iran, which has the power to influence Hamas. They should warn Iran that if Hamas harms any American hostages, we will regard that as an attack on the US that warrants a military response against Iranian military targets.
Instead, Biden is demanding that Israel compromise its security by allowing Hamas to return to its terrorist tunnels under the critical Philadelphi Corridor. Iran, on the other hand, could pressure its surrogates Hamas to agree to the deal that Israel has agreed to. But Biden believes he can have more influence over our ally Israel than over our enemy Iran. That is not true. By threatening tough measures, Biden could certainly influence Iran to persuade Hamas to accept a deal.
When Americans are being held hostage and murdered by Iranian surrogates, our president must do more to protect them. He should be placing maximum pressure on the criminals — Hamas and Iran — who continue to endanger our citizens and those of our ally. Instead, he is pressuring and blaming the victim, Israel, which has no control over the perpetrators.
Rather than making domestic political points, Biden and Harris, by accusing Israel of not doing enough, should look in the mirror and see the reality: that it is they who are not doing enough to save the lives of American and Israeli hostages.
Failing to pressure Iran will only encourage the mullahs to deploy their terrorist surrogates to attack additional American interests and allies even more. Iran has already attacked US troops in the region at least 170 times just since last October, in strikes that have killed three service members and wounded scores of others. The US has responded with pinpricks. Iran's regime has little to lose and much to gain from its win-win strategy of using surrogates such as Hezbollah and the Houthis, in addition to Hamas. Iran's proxies are its human shields. Unless Iran itself is punished for the terrorism of its surrogates, the mullahs will have no incentive to stop, and we, the Middle East, and South America will all be less secure – especially after Iran unveils its nuclear bombs.
When Iranians took American diplomats hostage in 1979, and then ordered its surrogates to kill hundreds of US Marines in Lebanon in 1983, it essentially declared war on our nation. Now their surrogates have kidnapped and murdered more Americans. Our responses to these acts of belligerency have been woefully insufficient. Instead, the Obama administration enriched the Iranian mullahs in exchange for a controversial nuclear deal that would have enabled Iran to have as many nuclear weapons as it liked after about a dozen years, and which was subsequently rescinded by the Trump administration. The message sent by this administration's weakness and lack of will is being heard loud and clear not only by Iran but by our other enemies as well.
Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Emeritus at Harvard Law School, and the author most recently of War Against the Jews: How to End Hamas Barbarism, and Get Trump: The Threat to Civil Liberties, Due Process, and Our Constitutional Rule of Law. He is the Jack Roth Charitable Foundation Fellow at Gatestone Institute, and is also the host of "The Dershow" podcast.
belter