On Friday’s “CNN News Central,” Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) stated that President Joe Biden’s threat to withhold certain weapons from Israel took pressure off Hamas and in doing so made it less likely to get a ceasefire deal, which makes it harder to get aid into Gaza and free the hostages.
Moskowitz said that while he has issues with the House bill to force Biden to transfer weapons to Israel, the bill won’t become law anyway, so those concerns aren’t hugely relevant, and “my main purpose for voting for the bill is what I said earlier when the President decided to hold back that particular weapon, which is, I want to get to a ceasefire, I want to get more humanitarian aid in there, and I want to get the hostages back. And the only way we’re going to do that is to get Hamas to agree to a ceasefire. Right now, the reason we don’t have a ceasefire, Israel agreed to the ceasefires proposed by the Egyptians, and then Hamas added additional terms, and that, unfortunately, blew up the ceasefire deal. So, we don’t have a ceasefire because Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, who’s buried in a tunnel, will not release the hostages and will not agree to a ceasefire, which puts these innocent Palestinians in peril. And so, without that pressure, it’s not going to happen. So, that’s why I disagreed with the President last week, because I looked at that as removing pressure from Hamas.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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