The Hamas terrorists have altered the playing field by taking at least 150 hostages during their invasion of Israel. But instead of two or three chairs at the negotiating table, there’s a great, big, 800-lb gorilla-sized chair set at the table as well.
Hamas, as any underdog is wont to do, wanted to expand the number of negotiators, knowing that bringing more heads to the table would bring it more concessions. And what better way to get enormous concessions than to take Americans hostage and, like the Iranians 44 years ago, use American sympathy for their countrymen to force the American president to pressure Israel to deal?
It’s believed that Hamas is holding at least 20 Americans. “I know that there are dozens — dozens, OK? — of Israelis holding American citizenship who are being held hostage in Gaza,” said Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan. If true, Hamas will have enormous leverage over Israel’s closest ally and benefactor.
The taking of American hostages has presented Israel with an impossible dilemma. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was preparing a ground assault to pulverize Gaza and end the Hamas threat once and for all. Now, he must stop and consider the consequences. Hamas has shown they will not hesitate to murder innocent civilians — Israeli or American — and celebrate their atrocities with barbaric glee.
Would they dare? The real question is, “Why not”?
“Hamas will use the hostages in two ways: as human shields and as a source of leverage over Washington,” explained Michael Doran, director of the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East at the Hudson Institute and a former senior director on the National Security Council. “As human shields, they will prevent Israel from destroying critical infrastructure. As a source of leverage, Hamas will convince Washington to compel Israel to make concessions—on the terms of a cease-fire, the release of prisoners, relaxing economic restrictions on Gaza, delivering payments from abroad, etc. Hamas will parade American hostages before the cameras to beg Washington to bring a halt to Israeli military operations so that the hostages can gain their freedom.”
One of the biggest problems for the U.S. is that Biden has already shown he will pay ransom for hostages — about $1.2 billion a head during this last round of hostage buying. This gives Hamas every incentive in the world to drag out the process of returning our citizens. It may even give the terrorists an incentive to publicly execute a few Americans to put the screws on Biden to deal.
The war against Hamas contains the possibility of a deck-clearing regional conflagration through which Israel can correct decades’ worth of strategic errors that have led to the establishment of large Iranian-backed terror armies on two of its borders. Perhaps the unfolding hostage crisis will force a similar rethink of America’s approach to hostage issues, especially when Iran is involved. “We can use this crisis to have an end to the hostage-business model. This is an industry that has to stop,” Zakka said.
Hostage-taking limits a country’s range of actions against its enemy. It is also a shortcut for baiting very powerful governments into a parody of civilized diplomacy in which they bargain with and petition people who kidnap and murder their citizens. The hostages become stand-ins for whatever evils their societies are accused of. In return, they lose all connection to the rest of the world.
Does Biden have the political courage to act in the nation’s interest and not his own personal, political interest? He may if Hamas presses its luck and tries to extract too great a price for our hostages. After all, Biden is running for president — a fact that Hamas is certainly aware of. And making too many unrealistic demands will force Biden to stop negotiating and start issuing threats.
Biden is not going to give us a repeat of Jimmy Carter standing by while America was humiliated during the 1979-80 hostage crisis. That crisis cost Carter the White House. Biden will do anything to avoid the same result.
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