On Tuesday, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) began advancing into Rafah, the last remaining stronghold of the Hamas terrorist group in Gaza, gaining operational control of the Rafah Crossing on the Gazan side in a “precise counterterrorism operation,” according to an IDF statement. The operation comes at an extremely fraught time for the Jewish state, as reports emerge about a disputed ceasefire agreement by Hamas, the Biden administration withholding vital munition shipments to aid Israel’s fight for survival, and the deaths of four IDF soldiers at the hands of terrorist mortar fire.
Reports surfaced Monday indicating that Hamas had “accepted an Egyptian-Qatari cease-fire proposal,” but Israel indicated that the proposal “is far from meeting Israel’s core demands.” As Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) observed during Monday’s “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins,” Hamas appears to be taking its cues from the wavering support of Israel by the Biden administration.
“Unfortunately, Joe Biden and Democrats and gullible liberals all across the world have too often fallen for Hamas’s PR info operations,” he noted. “… The one term that Hamas insists upon is that Hamas gets to continue to operate and control Gaza. And there’s widespread agreement inside of Israel, understandably so after the October 7th atrocities, that Hamas must be destroyed. … Hamas was ready to finally sit down and negotiate a deal to release some, if not all, hostages, but they became gradually more stubborn over the last three weeks as Joe Biden yet again began to put more pressure on Israel [and] threatening to withhold ammunition, which they apparently finally did last week, and condemning Israel’s intention to go into Rafah.”
Cotton continued, “Hamas can see all this, and they know that if they just hold [on to] what they’ve got and don’t agree to any kind of ceasefire that involves concessions on their side, Joe Biden may still give them what they want. So where is Hamas’s incentive to release any of these hostages? As long as Joe Biden is putting more pressure on Israel than he is on Hamas, they don’t have much incentive.”
Biden’s pressure campaign against Israel can likely be explained by the continued shrinking support for the Jewish state happening within the Democratic Party. As CNN reported Tuesday, “[O]ver twice as many Republican as Democratic voters now say they sympathize more with Israel than with the Palestinians, a much bigger gap between the parties than earlier in this century, according to Gallup Organization polling.”
As Cotton went on to discuss, that pressure manifested on Monday as the Biden administration refused to approve the shipment of precision bombs to Israel in order to “send a political message” to the Jewish state. The action marks the first time the Biden administration has delayed a weapons sale to Israel since the October 7 Hamas atrocities.
“[I]t may be the worst foreign policy blunder yet of this president’s failed tenure, even worse than the withdrawal from Afghanistan,” remarked the junior senator from Arkansas. “Because while it’s bad enough to try to verbally or rhetorically restrain Israel, it’s much worse to deny it the ammunition it needs in the middle of a shooting war of its own survival. And if they are denying Israel with ammunition resupply, they’re almost surely signaling that to Hamas as well, which just encourages Hamas to dig in and wait out Israel and not release a single hostage.”
Cotton further emphasized that “none of this would be happening if Hamas had not committed the worst atrocity against Jews since World War II. And it could all end today, very simply, if Hamas would release all the hostages and surrender unconditionally. That’s what happens to losers in war, and Hamas started a war that it cannot possibly win militarily.”
In response to those who argue that Israel’s war against Hamas will never succeed because its Islamist ideology can never be destroyed, Cotton pointed out that destroying terrorist infrastructure and taking out terrorist leadership can go a long way.
“[W]hat you can destroy is all of the leaders of Hamas and all of its soldiers and all of its infrastructure, just like we did to the Islamic State under President Trump,” the senator underscored. “And yes, there are still people who subscribe to the Islamic State or Hamas’s hateful ideology, but they don’t control territory the size of Indiana anymore. That’s what Israel can do [and] what it must do. Otherwise, the message that not only Hamas will get, but Hezbollah and Iran, is, ‘We can attack Israel and we can wait out their counterattacks and count on Democrats and Europeans to put enough pressure on Israel that they will ultimately stand down.’”
However, Cotton concluded, “If Israel destroys Hamas, they will get the opposite lesson. And all those Arab nations who have been quietly, or in some cases openly helping Israel will see, ‘We bet on the right horse here.’ Israel is tough and strong and will defend itself, and therefore they will help us defend ourselves against Iran and these terror groups.”
Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.
