Hamas, the Palestinian terror group that carried out the October 7 attack against Israel, is represented on both sides of the negotiating table over Israeli hostages, thanks to the intervention of Qatar and Egypt, and the posture of the Biden administration.
Politico reported Wednesday that several of the families of the Israeli hostages are being advised by Washington, DC, consultants who are paid by Qatar. The consultants include former Clinton administration staffer Jay Footlik, whose firm earns $40,000 per month from the Qatari embassy in the U.S. According to Politico, the clients of the Qatari-funded consulting firms are advised not to criticize the government in Qatar. The Qataris, while cast as mediators, are thus also shaping the hostage families’ demands.
At the same time, the Biden administration, while committed publicly to helping Israel win the war and dismantle Hamas, is now reportedly using the latest round of hostage negotiations to pressure Israel to end the war without achieving victory, leaving the terrorist organization able to regroup and threaten Israeli communities again. Biden and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken are also publicly pressuring Israel to accept a Palestinian state as an outcome of the war, handing Hamas a huge propaganda win.
The demand for a Palestinian state is being portrayed as part of a broader Saudi-Israeli peace, but in fact Saudi Arabia had been willing to reach a peace deal without a Palestinian state, before the war. The Biden administration reportedly blocked such a deal.
The Biden administration is also refusing to use its leverage on Qatar to force it to stop providing shelter to Hamas’s billionaire leaders, or to pressure the Hamas leadership to release all of the hostages or allow visits to hostages by the Red Cross (as required by international law). Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has already privately expressed frustration that the U.S. recently renewed a contract to host military facilities in Qatar rather than using that as leverage to make Qatar change its policies.
Likewise, the Biden administration is not pressuring Egypt — a major recipient of U.S. aid — to allow Israel to take control of the border between Gaza and Egypt, on the Gazan side, which Israel must do if it is to destroy the remaining structure of Hamas and to prevent it from smuggling more weapons into Gaza, or smuggling its leaders, and perhaps Israeli hostages, out of Gaza. The Egyptian regime is refusing to allow Israel to win, suggesting that it, too, is not just a mediator, but also an ally of Hamas.
Thus Israel is completely isolated at the negotiating table. Hamas, however, has support from Qatar, which is working to shape the hostage families’ demands; from Egypt, which is trying to protect Hamas’s leadership from defeat, as well as its smuggling routes; and from the Biden administration, which is pressing for a Palestinian state and casting Israel — which has sought peace since its existence — as the obstacle.
Hamas is on both sides of the table, which is why it believes it can emerge victorious.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the 2021 e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now updated with a new foreword. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.