Report: Biden Admin Tries to Negotiate with Hamas Without Israel

NBC News on Monday quoted four alleged current and former senior U.S. officials who said the Biden administration has been working on a “unilateral deal with Hamas to secure the release of five Americans being held hostage in Gaza.”

“Such negotiations would not include Israel and would be conducted through Qatari interlocutors, as current talks have been,” the alleged officials said, adding the unilateral deal was seen as a backup plan to be implemented if ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas break down.

NBC’s sources did not know what the Biden administration plans to offer Hamas in exchange for the American hostages, but they felt Hamas might be amenable to a deal because it would “likely further strain relations between the U.S. and Israel and put additional domestic political pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”

One of the two alleged former U.S. officials interviewed for the story said the Biden administration and Hamas might even use the threat of reaching a deal without Israel as pressure to make Netanyahu cave on a ceasefire proposal.

The White House refused to comment on NBC’s story, which reads to skeptical eyes like the Biden administration working hand-in-glove with a savage terrorist organization to undermine the legitimate government of a vital U.S. ally. The Biden team’s willingness to let Hamas hold Americans hostage for months on end has caused the administration a good deal of domestic political trouble as the 2024 presidential election heats up.

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NBC did procure a comment from the parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, one of the captive Americans. They said they would “welcome any negotiations that will lead to the return home of our loved ones who have been in captivity for over 8 months.”

“We pray that every family with hostages will be reunited with their loved ones imminently,” Rachel Goldberg-Polin and Jon Polin said in their statement to NBC News.

The leaked story was clearly timed to offset the euphoria from the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and Israeli police rescuing four hostages in a dramatic operation on Saturday. Three of the hostages have been confirmed as prisoners in the home of a Palestinian “civilian” and “journalist,” an enormous embarrassment for Biden officials who have uncritically accepted Hamas narratives about civilian casualties.

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on Sunday mourned the Palestinian “civilians” allegedly killed during the Israeli operation, claiming the Biden administration was uncertain whether IDF or Hamas casualty figures were more reliable.

“The exact number we don’t know, but innocent people were killed and that is heartbreaking. That is tragic,” Sullivan said.

“The president himself has said in recent days that the Palestinian people are going through sheer hell in this conflict, because Hamas is operating in a way that puts them in the cross-fire, that holds hostages right in the heart of crowded civilian areas,” he added.

“There is only one answer to stop that from happening going forward. That is a ceasefire and hostage deal that ends the military operations, brings the hostages home and puts us in a position to give the Palestinians an opportunity for a better future for their people,” Sullivan concluded, indicating the administration intends to stick with its ceasefire and Palestinian statehood agenda, even as Palestinian “civilians” are proven to be complicit in crimes against humanity.

White House statements since the rescue operation have not acknowledged an uncomfortable detail noted by the New York Times (NYT) on Monday: Hamas holds its prisoners in civilian structures, and in a “vast” network of tunnels beneath them, and Hamas leaders have reportedly “given standing orders to its fighters holding hostages that if they think Israeli forces are coming, the first thing they should do is shoot the captives.”

This makes locating hostages difficult, and it means rescue operations must be mounted with stunning speed, leaving no time to warn or relocate the Palestinian civilians Hamas uses as human shields.

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That, in turn, suggests that rescuing most of the remaining hostages with commando raids would be extremely difficult, so cutting a deal is the best chance to get most of them back alive – but cutting a deal would also reward Palestinian terrorists for using the most callous and sadistic tactics since the fall of Nazi Germany and would inevitably provide incentives for future kidnappings.

The kind of unilateral deal with Hamas envisioned by NBC’s sources would be political dynamite for the Biden administration during the presidential election, as almost anything of value offered to the perpetrators of the October 7 atrocities could provoke outrage.

NBC noted that it was “unclear” if the U.S. is holding any Palestinian prisoners that Hamas might accept in a prisoner exchange, and whose release would be “acceptable” to the administration “based on their criminal convictions.”

The Jerusalem Post on Monday warned that rescuing four of their hostages is likely to “harden the hearts of the Hamas leadership when it comes to the diplomatic concessions needed for peace.”

“Every success on the battlefield should be celebrated, especially when it leads to hostages coming home after eight months of torturous captivity. But we must also remind ourselves that every little Israeli victory hardens the hearts of Hamas adherents who sit across the table from us when we demand they let our sons and daughters go,” the editors wrote, expanding their warning to include both the Israeli government and Biden officials who might be contemplating a unilateral hostage deal.

On Monday, Netanyahu’s office responded to the NBC News story by saying it “welcomes any attempt to free our hostages,” which seems like a polite way to let the Biden administration know that it cannot use the threat of unilateral negotiations to pressure the Israeli government.