Pressure on Israel pushed Hamas to abandon agreements

Secretary of State Antony Blinken admitted that pressure on Israel had caused Hamas to withdraw from possible ceasefires and hostage agreements, in an interview with the New York Times which was released in a podcast on Saturday.

From the transcript (via State Department):

SECRETARY BLINKEN: I think the question we were asking was: How can we most effectively both shape the conflict but also end the conflict? And the focus on securing a ceasefire and hostage agreement was, in our view, the quickest and most lasting way to end it. And as I said, Hamas – one – when it saw publicly that Israel was under pressure, withdrew. The other thing that caused Hamas to withdraw was its belief, its hope that there would be a broader conflict – that Hezbollah would attack Israel, that Iran would attack Israel, that other actors would attack Israel and that Israel would have his hands. fully and Hamas could continue what it was doing. So we’ve worked really hard to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Hezbollah and Iran actually attacked Israel, despite Israeli missile defense systems, and ultimately their counterattacks – often against the wishes of the Biden-Harris administration – were effective.

Joel B. Pollak is a senior editor at Breitbart News and host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump should do in his first 100 daysavailable for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidencynow available on Audible. He is the recipient of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.