Retired Air Force Brig. Gens. Blaine Holt and John Teichert told Newsmax on Monday that the Biden administration is playing politics with the Israel-Hamas war and is pandering to a domestic audience in an election year when it talks about airdropping humanitarian aid.
"The IDF will cut a deal with Hamas," Holt said during an appearance on "American Agenda." "The deal is going to be [Hamas'] complete surrender and give [Israel] the hostages. That's the only way anybody makes it out of this alive. And yet there's still the possibility that we could have a special operations rescue mission of some kind. But what undermines all of this is the nonsense politics coming out of Washington, D.C., where we think it's in our best interest to play amongst political rivals, preferring one over the other.
"Certainly we wouldn't tolerate a former president going over to work directly with [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and so this complicates the matter. And, quite honestly, Gen. [Benny] Gantz came over here and he gave the exact same message: that they're not going to take their boot off the throat of Hamas at all."
Gantz, a centrist member of Israel's wartime cabinet and rival of Netanyahu's, is visiting Washington this week for talks with top Biden administration officials in spite of a rebuke from the prime minister.
Teichert said that while he thinks it's important that Gantz echo "the same type of messages we've been hearing from Netanyahu," it is certainly "bad form by the United States and the White House to invite over, not the prime minister, but someone else in the war cabinet."
"But, overall, Israel is resolute in their two primary objectives, which are securing release of the hostages and defeating Hamas," he said. "Sometimes those objectives come into conflict, but Israel right now does indeed support the deal that's on the table pending some information about those hostages from Hamas. We can't expect that Hamas will honor the terms of the deal because they didn't honor the terms of the deal … in 2005, nor the cease-fire that lasted for about a week back in November."
Holt also called the White House's idea of humanitarian airdrops "theater" which is "meant for domestic audiences here to view in an election year."
"Thirty-eight thousand meals, half of them go into the sea, and there's 3 million people to feed?" he said. "That's called a sea-lift humanitarian operation, and it should happen off the coast of Gaza with the proper force protection, if we're going to be serious about doing something to help our ally Israel."
"We are applying pressure to an ally openly and publicly which undermines their military campaign," he continued. "We have to stand by them here, and we do care for the civilians, just like the Israelis, and we can work together to provide aid and comfort to the civilians while they get after legitimate military goals."
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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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