U.S. President Joe Biden should have been more forceful on the hostage issue, Iris Weinstein Haggai, whose parents, Judith and Gadi, both U.S. citizens, were murdered on Oct. 7, 2023, and whose bodies are still held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, told JNS on Wednesday.
“The U.S. should have used its leverage on Qatar starting on Oct. 8. The fact that every statement at the U.N. or by world leaders always linked [release of] the hostages to a ceasefire didn’t reflect the urgency of this stand-alone humanitarian crisis,” she said.
“Even now, I feel like the Biden administration could demand the unconditional release of the hostages. People seem to forget that they were taken during a ceasefire. Hamas had been in breach of humanitarian law for 10 years, already holding four people, before they took Israelis from their beds and my parents from their morning walk,” she continued.
(In addition to 96 Israelis abducted during its 2023 invasion of the northwestern Negev, Hamas is holding prisoner two mentally ill Israelis who entered the Gaza Strip in 2014 and 2015, respectively, Avraham “Avera” Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, and the bodies of two IDF soldiers killed in action in 2014’s “Operation Protective Edge,” St. Sgt. Oron Shaul and Lt. Hadar Goldin.)
“When leaders point fingers at Israel, threatening embargoes and making statements that condemn a democratic ally and not the terrorist entity, it sends a message to terrorists. They can sense when a democratic country like the U.S. pressures an ally more than it pressures them,” Weinstein Haggai added.
Last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told lawmakers at the Knesset that the Biden administration’s advice on how to handle the wars with Iran and its terrorist proxies across the region was often incorrect. For example, the premier noted that Washington had urged Jerusalem to forgo a ground operation in the Gaza Strip after the Hamas-led massacre, and then even after the IDF offensive was launched, pressured Netanyahu not to go into Rafah and thereby not finish the job.
“It said, ‘It can be handled from the air.’ It sent experts. We decided to follow our view and go in—a ground offensive,” stated the prime minister.
Since Oct. 7, 2023, the Biden administration made many attempts to intervene in Israel’s management of the war through efforts to withhold weapons and pressure Israel to agree to a ceasefire deal that many say would not result in the elimination of Hamas.
“Biden’s initial position on Oct. 7 was that Hamas must be destroyed. By May, his position changed to Israel having to withdraw from Gaza to get the hostages back,” Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States, told JNS on Wednesday. “It was clear that Hamas would survive in that arrangement.”
Added Oren: “The constant accusation by the Biden administration that Israel was dehumanizing Palestinians, killing too many of them, and Biden accusing Israel of indiscriminate bombing and acting over the top, led [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar and Hamas to believe time was on their side.
“All they had to do was dig in and eventually the U.S. would put pressure on Israel to agree to their terms, and this is precisely what happened,” said Oren.
The view is shared by IDF Brig. Gen. (res.) Amir Avivi, chairman of the Israel Defense and Security Forum, who told JNS that very soon after the shock of Oct. 7, the Biden administration started pushing a policy of de-escalation and ceasefire that led Hamas to understand that the U.S. was not standing fully with Israel, and as such the terrorist organization had a good chance to survive.
“The most basic element for survival for Hamas is keeping the hostages and not releasing them,” he said.
“When the U.S. fully sided with Israel and supported a full-scale attack in the north of Gaza, it made Hamas agree to a ceasefire and release hostages,” Avivi said in reference to the November 2023 hostage-release agreement which led to the return of 105 captives.
“Once the policy changed, Hamas felt that they could actually manage to survive and bring the U.S. to a point where it would no longer support Israel, hence enabling them to continue to rule Gaza and win the war,” he added.
In August, Biden deplored Israel’s targeted killing of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh, saying it “has not helped” ongoing ceasefire-for-terrorists-and-hostages talks.
Speaking to reporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland after a call with Netanyahu, Biden said, “We have the basis for a ceasefire. He should move on it, and they should move on it now.”
Days later, Biden became worked up during a heated conversation with Netanyahu regarding ceasefire talks, with the president raising his voice and saying “Move on a deal now.”
In September, Biden openly accused Netanyahu, not Hamas, of not doing enough to secure a deal after Jerusalem had already accepted the latest proposals put forward by Washington and despite Jerusalem claiming repeatedly that the Palestinian terrorist group was preventing a deal.
According to Oren, the Biden administration did not take any meaningful steps against Hamas.
“They only recently asked for Hamas to be kicked out of Doha. It took them a year. The feeling was that the Qataris were helping by negotiating [mediating], but there was no pressure on them. There were no additional sanctions for Iran either,” he said.
Furthermore, Avivi said, the moment leading figures from the U.S. Democratic Party started talking about the need for Israel to hold early elections and for Netanyahu to go, it led Hamas to take steps to get the Israeli public back to Oct. 6 with huge anti-government demonstrations.
“Hamas’s expectations became so high that Israel could not agree, and on the other hand they pushed a strategy based on the notion that they shouldn’t release hostages because the overall strategy for them to win the war was to bring down the government and get Israel to go to elections,” Avivi said.
In addition, some believe that pressure on the Israeli side to increase the flow of humanitarian aid, most of which was seized and used or sold by Hamas, prolonged the war and hardened the terrorist group’s negotiating position.
Maj. Gen. (res.) Giora Eiland, a former head of the Israeli National Security Council, accused the Biden administration of dooming the hostages to death because of the aid issue.
“The Biden administration made two major mistakes which had terrible implications from an Israeli point of view and for the hostages,” Eiland told JNS on Thursday. On Oct. 7, Eiland said, the Biden administration adopted the wrong narrative about the war, basically differentiating Hamas from the population of Gazans, giving Israel the green light to fight Hamas while putting the burden of taking care of the Gazans on Israel.
“The real situation in Gaza is that Hamas won the [Palestinian Authority] election in 2006. What they did in Gaza is similar to what the Nazis did in Germany in the ’30s. They managed to unify in a short time all the existing civilian facilities, agencies and ministries under Hamas and Gaza became a de facto independent state,” Eiland said.
On Oct. 7, Eiland said, the pseudo-state of Gaza began a war on the State of Israel when Hamas killed some 1,200 Israelis in a single day and kidnapped 250 others.
“No normal state would allow the government of the attacking other state to receive all the supplies that it needed to enable it to continue to fight,” he said.
“What Israel should have done was say that no supplies would enter Gaza, at least until all the hostages were released. And we did not do this because the U.S. pushed us to supply Gaza with fuel, gas, food, water and other material and by doing so enabled Hamas to survive and keep control over Gaza,” he continued.
“As long as Hamas receives supplies, it has no reason to give up the hostages. I know the U.S. wanted to save Israeli hostages, but you can’t with such a weak policy. Dozens of Israeli hostages perished in the tunnels of Gaza,” Eiland said.
In September, Israeli media reported that Hamas had profited by at least a half billion dollars from humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip. Hamas stole the aid and sold it to the population. It then used the money to finance recruitment, with reports suggesting that 3,000 terrorists were added to the Hamas payroll in northern Gaza.
In October, the White House confirmed the contents of a letter from the Biden administration to the Israeli government demanding that it increase humanitarian aid to Gaza or risk losing access to U.S. military equipment.
The letter, dated Oct. 13, from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and addressed to Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, gave Israel 30 days to implement 15 policy changes, including 10 measures to “surge all forms of humanitarian assistance throughout Gaza,” or risk losing access to U.S. military equipment.
Weeks later, on Nov. 5, the tide changed with the re-election of Donald Trump, said Oren.
On Dec. 2, the U.S. president-elect vowed there would be “all hell to pay” for Hamas if it did not release the remaining 100 hostages before his Jan. 20 inauguration.
Writing on his Truth Social platform, Trump said that there had been “all talk, no action” to free the captives. “Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied history of the United States of America,” he added. “Release the hostages now.”
Trump’s statement came on the same day that it became known that Capt. Omer Neutra, an Israeli-American IDF soldier who was previously thought to have been alive in captivity, had been killed on Oct. 7, 2023, and Hamas continued to hold his body.
“Now, from what I get from the press, Hamas is indicating an openness for a deal and we haven’t seen that since last November,” Oren said.
Netanyahu thanked Trump for his “strong statement, which makes it clear that there is only one responsible for this situation, and that is Hamas.
“Hamas needs to release the hostages,” Netanyahu said. “President Trump put the emphasis in the correct place, on Hamas, and not on the Israeli government, as is customary in some places.”
This week, Adam Boehler, Trump’s special envoy for hostage affairs, told reporters that diplomatic efforts have intensified to secure a Gaza ceasefire before Trump returns to the Oval Office.
“The president said he wants the hostages, and he will get them,” Boehler said.
Oren continued, “[U.S. Secretary of State-designate] Marco Rubio has said that the fault is on Hamas for every Palestinian casualty. It’s a very big difference from Blinken, who came out and said Israel was dehumanizing Palestinians and killing too many of them.
“Hamas understands that in terms of the U.S. putting pressure on Israel, the party is over, it is not going to happen anymore. Just as they thought Hezbollah, Iran and the U.S. would come to their aid, they are now alone and realize that it hasn’t worked,” Oren said.
Avivi said he envisions full support from the Trump administration to push strongly for victory and put Hamas in a place where it needs to make a choice: either be eradicated or give Israel the hostages and get free passage out of Gaza.
“We cannot get Hamas to agree to our terms if they are not on the verge of eradication,” Avivi said.
“The moment the administration will put pressure on and hold responsible Qatar, which funded Hamas, and Iran, which guided and funded Hamas, and send the clear message that if the hostages are not freed, they will attack, sanction or put pressure on them, it might get these countries to give Hamas an ultimatum,” he continued.
On a regional level, Avivi said, when it comes to Iran, there is only one viable option and that is attacking its nuclear sites.
“I don’t think there should be a reality where Iran gets off the hook. Iran needs to be dealt with,” he said.
Asked whether he believed Trump could breathe new life into the negotiation process, Ruby Chen, the father of American-Israeli IDF Sgt. Itay Chen, whose body is being held by Hamas in Gaza, told JNS on Wednesday that “with his statement, he already has.
“All the players in the region wish to appease the incoming president, and this creates opportunities for a deal to free all the hostages,” Chen said.
“We are simple people, families, it is not up to us to decide on the approach the U.S. government takes. We have one simple request: It has been [more than 430 days] since we last spoke or saw our loved ones, and it’s time to end this humanitarian crisis,” he added.
Jonathan Dekel-Chen, the father of American-Israeli hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen, told JNS on Wednesday that “there is cooperation between both administrations [the Biden administration and Trump’s incoming team] to get the hostages out and to end the war in Gaza through a deal which President Trump has demanded happens before he takes office.
“Right now, we are focused on seizing this unprecedented moment of opportunity, both because of what Trump said but also as Israel has incapacitated Hezbollah’s leadership, Iran is deterred, the Syrian regime has fallen and Israel’s military and intel services have said for months that Hamas has been degraded enough so that we can sign an agreement,” said Dekel-Chen.
Weinstein Haggai, addressing Trump’s Dec. 2 statement, said “Trump said many times that the hostages should be back. He said it at the [Republican National Convention in July]. This was the first time he said it as president-elect. It means a lot. Before, other countries didn’t know whether he’d be elected, he was just a nominee. As a president, it sends the message ‘Once I step into office, watch out’,” she said.
“It’s been 434 days. Enough is enough.”