Editorial Board
WSJ, Jan. 5, 2025
“More revealing is the Administration’s change in tune, especially since the U.S. election. Instead of continuing to complain about its failure to stop Israel, the Biden team has taken credit for Israel’s accomplishments.”
Now he tells us. In an interview published Saturday in the New York Times, Secretary of State Antony Blinken named the key impediment to a Gaza hostage deal: “Whenever there has been public daylight between the United States and Israel, and the perception that pressure was growing on Israel, we’ve seen it: Hamas has pulled back from agreeing to a cease-fire and the release of hostages.”
He’s right, and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s messages to his negotiators reported by the Journal have said as much. But how then to account for the Biden Administration’s actions?
Since the first and so far only hostage deal in November 2023, President Biden has introduced “public daylight” nonstop, restraining Israel, rebuking it, threatening it and demanding an end to its defensive war. The President used the fights to assuage his party’s anti-Israel activist base before the 2024 election, but as Mr. Blinken says, Hamas also got the message. …SOURCE