Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Blaine Holt and America First Policy Institute Senior Fellow Fred Fleitz told Newsmax Saturday that the Hamas attack on Israel, while being a "massive intelligence failure," was likely funded via the $6 billion in frozen assets the Biden administration recently released to Iran.
"This is huge, and this is going to be with us for quite some time," Holt said during an appearance on Newsmax's "America Right Now." "This is not an operation that Israel's undertaking; they're undertaking a major war.
"The Israeli defense minister just recently not just named Hamas, but also Iran as the country that they are at war with. This is massive. A common denominator in all these things — the fall of Afghanistan, the Ukraine war, and here now in Israel — is an [American] administration that still has not stood up and made one single statement about the whole thing except for a SecDef [Secretary of Defense] message to say we stand with Israel — not good enough."
From his perspective as a former CIA analyst, Fleitz said the attack "looks like a massive intelligence failure" on Israel's part.
"There was deception," he said. "There was communication to get around Israeli surveillance. There was covert training. There was direction.
"My guess is that there are Iranian trainers in Gaza. It is an incredible failure of intelligence. I think there will be political implications for the Netanyahu government. I hate to say that, but this kind of thing should not happen," he continued.
"I think that these terrorists were emboldened not just by Biden's leadership, but by the perception that American and Israeli relations are frayed because of the hostility Biden has shown towards [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu. With the billions of dollars we're giving Iran, millions we have given the Palestinians under the Biden administration, all these things added up to this massive disaster."
Weighing in on the U.S. government's release of $6 billion in frozen assets to Iran and Palestinian aid, Holt said, "We can't think tactically here; that would be dangerous. We have to think strategically, and we've got to focus on the resources now that Iran has to do what they want to do.
"Let's remember what [Iranian President Ebrahim] Raisi said. He said, 'We will spend that money any way we want to.' So,what I'm concerned about now is there are other proxies — Islamic jihad, Hezbollah, elements in Syria — [that] will also now start to pick up the fight against Israel. And, quite frankly, we're hearing very alarming statements out of the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia so far, saying Israel brought this on themselves.
"We cannot lose focus ... on where the Iranian nuclear weapons program is at this moment. That's what's going to drive IDF [Israeli Defense Fund] thinking at this point in time."
Fleitz said the Biden administration has made "huge concessions" to Iran, including allowing Tehran to enrich uranium "just below [nuclear] weapons grade."
"I think this has emboldened Iran, emboldened its allies," he said. "I'll just say again, this administration started giving millions of dollars to the Palestinians on Day 1 and internal Biden emails reveal they knew this likely would result in additional Hamas terrorism, but they did it anyway."
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Nicole Weatherholtz ✉
Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
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