Hamas is reportedly refusing to accept Israel’s terms for a hostage deal and digging in on its demands after the Biden administration refused to veto a United Nations Security Council resolution on Monday calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
The resolution did not require that Israeli hostages be released as a condition of a ceasefire — a requirement that the U.S. had made in previous proposals. Instead, the resolution simply mentioned the release of the remaining hostages.
Hamas saw that as a victory — as did nations like South Africa, which is currently pursuing a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice at The Hague, claiming that Israel is committing “genocide” in its war against Hamas.
Hamas praised the Security Council, and said that it was prepared to discuss the exchange of Israeli hostages (which it described as “prisoners”) for Palestinian terror convicts — but only after a ceasefire.
The Times of Israel reported: “Hamas says it has informed mediators that the terror group will stick to its original position on reaching a comprehensive ceasefire, which includes the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, a return of displaced Palestinians and a “real” exchange of prisoners.”
Egypt and Qatar, which are mediators in hostage talks, also praised the UN resolution, while Israel condemned it.
In effect, the resolution requires Israel to accept defeat in its main goal, which is to end Hamas as a military threat. The resolution therefore makes a hostage deal less likely than before — unless Israel is prepared to let Hamas win.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby claimed in a briefing Monday that the new resolution, from which the U.S. merely abstained, “does link hostages and a ceasefire.” But it does not make one depend on the other.
A draft U.S. resolution, which was vetoed by Russia and China last Friday, made a ceasefire dependent on the release of the Israeli hostages — indeed, that was one of the reasons cited by opponents of the U.S. draft for voting against it.
The White House claimed Monday that its position had not changed. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu disagreed, canceling a meeting between his senior aides and President Joe Biden’s aides to discuss their differences.
Kirby said that the Biden administration was “perplexed” by Netanyahu’s decision, and claimed Netanyahu was overreacting to the resolution by “choosing to create a perception of daylight here when they don’t need to do that.”
The Biden administration’s decision to abstain from the resolution recalls a similar decision by the Obama White House in its last weeks in 2016, when the U.S. abstained from U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334, which declared the Israeli presence across the 1949 armistice lines — including in the Old City of Jerusalem — illegal. The backlash against that decision led President Donald Trump to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
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 recent book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the 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.
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