It has now become de rigueur for President Biden, when speaking about the hostage talks, to perfunctorily berate Hamas for taking the hostages, reiterate “the importance of holding Hamas’ leaders accountable” and then move to chiding Prime Minister Netanyahu “for not doing enough” or “showing enough flexibility” to gain the hostages’ freedom. And it is infuriating that he always seems to draw a negotiating equivalence between Israel and Hamas.
For Heaven’s sake, Hamas committed unspeakable atrocities, is trafficking in human beings and demands a ceasefire “deal” in a desperate attempt to avoid the consequences – both physical and political. This is in sharp contrast to Israeli efforts to ensure that savagery like October 7 will not be repeated against its people, by refusing to allow Hamas to continue to exist as an entity. To treat Israel and Hamas as negotiating equivalents with “demands” is an affront to decency.
We do not presume to take a position on the underlying issue of the hostage tragedy. The dilemma presented is heartbreaking. But we do wish Mr. Biden would recognize that every time he criticizes Israel for any deficiencies in addressing it, he feeds the antisemitism that has exploded across America. Plainly, he is implicitly declaring that the fact that the hostages are still being held is, at least partly, through some fault of Israel.
In fact, it is very much like his criticisms of Israel for supposedly not doing enough to ensure the safety of Palestinian civilians as it pursues Hamas terrorists. Not only is this notion contradicted by U.S. military officials who have publicly acknowledged that the IDF does more in this regard than any other modern army has done. It also implicitly places the blame for some of the civilian deaths not on the unavoidable “fog of war” but on the willfulness of the Jewish state.
Unfortunately, in these contexts, the President’s calls decrying antisemitism seem rather hollow.
