Israel must not succumb to international pressure to extend the current cease-fire with Hamas into an "indefinite" period, as that will play into the Palestinian terrorists' survival strategy, retired U.S. Air Force Brig, Gen. Blaine Holt said Sunday on Newsmax.
"What was predictable from the outset of this whole thing was Hamas' survival strategy is pent up on extending this thing from day four, into week four, and into week eight," Holt, appearing on Newsmax's "Sunday Agenda" with former deputy national security adviser Victoria Coates, commented. "They understand that every single day that they can dissuade, maybe perhaps politically, they take Israel off its focus of eliminating Hamas."
This means Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government is "in a lot of risk and a lot of peril" because of how the war and its temporary pause will play out, said Holt. "We're seeing a lot of predictable international pressure to get to that, to push this cease-fire into something more indefinite, and I fear for Israel if they succumb to that pressure."
Coates agreed that there are "no good options for the Israelis at this point."
"On the one hand, they desperately want to get as many of the hostages out as they can so that they can actually have more freedom of operation in Gaza," said Coates. "This could take weeks, if they keep dribbling [hostages] out, 10 at a time, while Hamas regroups."
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden has presented an "unfortunate performance" as he has not been "reasonably strong" on the issue of the Israel-Hamas war, including with his remarks in Nantucket that it may be worthwhile to have conditions on aid for Israel, said Coates.
Holt added that he fears the media will try to "oversimplify" matters. As a result, there will be dangerous "information wars" that could translate to "more hostage-taking and more butchery on the battlefield."
The Palestinians, Holt said, have an objective of bringing about the "genocide" of Israel."
"They want 'the river to the sea'," he said. "They're not looking at Gaza as a place to have a burgeoning democracy where they can live and breathe and prosper. That's just not the way it is,"
The United States, he added, has been attacked more than 90 times at its bases in the region since the war started, so it is "vulnerable to our enemies."
"That enemy has a center point," he said. "It's called Iran. We're not doing anything about it, except shoveling billions more dollars into the hands of the ayatollahs and the mullahs. People need to understand there's a reason why they call the United States Big Satan and Israel, Little Satan, and that's why we need to support Israel because their war is our war."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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