Our guys go to Qatar and leave brainwashed
Ultra Moonbattery. Trump is being undermined by his own people. Again.
The Trump administration’s Gaza policy is completely divided.
On the one hand, President Trump is saying all the right things, on the other hand his team is going in and saying all the wrong things.
After Trump’s common sense approach, Steve Witkoff, the ‘envoy’ responsible for foisting the disastrous Biden ceasefire on us, would water them down and dismiss the president’s proposals. Now White House Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs Adam Boehler who appeared to be a credible figure decided to directly meet up with Hamas and came out with exactly the sort of thing John Kerry or Jimmy Carter would have come away with.
By
- Hamas announces start of a “new round of negotiations” with Israel as US envoy Steve Witkoff arrives in Qatar for talks.
- Israel steps up attacks on Gaza, killing at least eight people, blah blah….
Boehler said that Hamas is not interested in returning to war: “Israel has done a masterful job of eliminating Hamas and Hezbollah. Hamas did orient toward a long-term truce where they would be disarmed, they would not be part of the political policy, and where we would ensure that they are in a place where they can’t hurt Israel. Part of that was rebuilding Gaza.”
In an interview to be aired tonight with Kan, he added “Hamas suggested that they would release all hostages, lay down their weapons, and no longer be part of the politics of Gaza and that the US and its allies would ensure there was no military infrastructure remaining in Gaza. In exchange, there would be a five to ten-year truce, and the US and other countries would help rebuild Gaza.”
He addressed the Israeli concerns over the US opening a direct channel with Hamas. “The Israelis were kept informed. It’s totally fair for Israel to have concerns, but we are not an agent of Israel – we are the United States, and we have specific interests at play.”
Boehler outlined a possible framework for a deal: that Hamas lay down its arms in exchange for prisoner releases, leading to a long-term truce.
“I think there’s an answer here, and I think the answer is that Hamas lays down their arms,” he said. “We exchange prisoners, and they go into a long-term truce, where they don’t fight, they’re not part of any political party, and that gives us lots of cooling-off time.”
“I spoke with Ron, and I’m sympathetic. He has someone that he doesn’t know well, making direct contact with Hamas. Maybe I would see them and say, ‘Look, they don’t have horns growing out of their head. They’re actually guys like us. They’re pretty nice guys.’”
Boehler since walked back the “nice guys” comment but it seems symptomatic of a regular pattern which is
1. Our guys go to Qatar and leave brainwashed
2. The obsession with making a deal overshadows common sense about dealing with terrorists
I’m not going to quibble about his word choices like calling Israeli hostages ‘prisoners’ or calling Hamas terrorists ‘hostages’ because the bigger issue is he’s pushing the same nonsense that got us to Oct 7.
Hamas is not going to ‘disarm’. A 10-15 year truce is a period of time during which Hamas rearms and prepares for another Oct 7 attack as they have told us over and over again they will do. And Hamas, not Israel or the U.S. will decide when the truce actually lapses. Much like Hamas announced the previous two year ceasefire was over by attacking on Oct 7.
This proposed deal leaves Hamas in Gaza and has the U.S. rebuild Gaza for 10-15 years.
In short, it’s the worst deal imaginable for America and for Israel.
And this is the problem when we start dealing with terrorists instead of letting our allies defeat them.
The Times of Israel is not befuddled:
Meet Adam Boehler, Trump’s complacent, confused and dangerously naive hostage envoy
Hamas leaders must be laughing in disbelief after their interactions with a man who says he tries to identify their ‘human elements’; nobody’s laughing in Israel, least of all the families of the hostages
He thinks Hamas will ultimately choose to melt away
Boehler displayed a dangerous naivete as regards Hamas’s ultimate intentions, for all the world as though October 7 had not happened, and as though Hamas, in order to try to ensure its survival, was not cynically utilizing every ounce of leverage it has attained by holding (and torturing and sometimes killing) the hostages he is charged with helping to extricate.
Hamas has told the world that it will repeat October 7 as often as it can until Israel is destroyed. “Israel is a country that has no place on our land,” Ghazi Hamad, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, told Lebanese television barely two weeks after the massacre, and clarified that, yes, he meant it needs to be annihilated. “The Al-Aqsa Deluge [as Hamas called its October 7 slaughter] is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth… Nobody should blame us for the things we do. On October 7, October 10, October one-millionth, everything we do is justified.”
But Boehler knows better. On Channel 12, he solemnly asserted his conviction that the declaredly genocidal monsters will ultimately prove willing to give up their guns and take no role in the political leadership of Gaza — that Hamas, in short, will choose to melt away, to become not Hamas. Asked by Levy whether he “realistically” thinks “that Hamas would eventually agree to lay down its weapons and not be part of Gaza’s political future,” he answered without hesitation: “I do believe that.”