Sure, most of the oxygen in the conservative media political space is being taken up by the swiftly-changing narratives in the November election cycle.
Likewise, Joe Biden has been mostly invisible and is currently bunkered down in Rehoboth Beach, as several of my colleagues have written this week. But he’s still the president, and the administration has not taken a break in badmouthing and pressuring our ally Israel into surrendering to the terror group that killed her people on Oct. 7. Now, our government has joined with Egypt and Qatar in issuing an ultimatum:
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“…[T]he time has come” for Israel and Hamas to finalize a cease-fire agreement that would free Israeli hostages held by Hamas in exchange for a halt to the war and the release of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
The NYT noted that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is sending a delegation to the negotiations next week.
One member of Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet, though, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who hasn’t made it a secret that he and others might quit, has signaled he’s done with the verbal abuse:
Mr. Smotrich called it “a dangerous trap” that Israel should not fall into and objected to equating hostages with convicted prisoners.
“It is definitely not the time for a surrender deal that would stop the war before the destruction of the Nazis of Hamas-ISIS, enabling them to regroup and return to murdering Jews again.”
Here was White House simp, I mean, national security spokesman John Kirby’s direct attack on the minister during a prepared statement for the media, which even the NY Times had to point out was “unusually explicit” in diplomatic terms:
…[T]he White House went after the cabinet member, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, in unusually explicit terms, denouncing his opposition to a possible cease-fire and even accusing him of being willing to sacrifice the lives of Israeli hostages.
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Kirby continued his haranguing:
Some critics, like Mr. Smotrich, for example, have claimed that the hostage deal is a surrender to Hamas or that hostages should not be exchanged for prisoners. Smotrich essentially suggests that the war ought to go on indefinitely without pause, and with the lives of the hostages of no real concern at all. His arguments are dead wrong.
The White House’s statement is so tone deaf and/or dishonest on its face, I don’t need to point it out. The war will go on until Hamas is defeated, as the Israelis have said numerous times. They just don’t want to hear it. Play-acting for the left-flank of the Democrat Party that Israel doesn’t care about the hostages isn’t going to change one mind in Jerusalem.
Meanwhile, on Saturday, Israel continued to kill bad guys in Gaza, this time at a school and mosque being used for Hamas operations, with the “civilian death toll” reported (somewhere in the neighborhood of 90) with the expected wailing and gnashing of teeth from the usual quarters.
The Israel Defense Forces struck a school and a mosque sheltering displaced people in Gaza because they believed a Hamas command and control center was “embedded” in the building.
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The IDF said “numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance, and intelligence information,” before the airstrike.
After CNN asked the IDF for evidence supporting its claim the compound harbored a command and control center, it said it had intelligence saying about 20 Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters operated from the building. The IDF also disputed the death toll given by Gazan authorities.
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We’ll keep you posted.
Related: Netanyahu Stands by His Call for Unity, Thanking Both Biden and Trump