President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be defense secretary, is introduced by Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., during Hegseth’s Senate Armed Services confirmation hearing in Dirksen building, January 14, 2025. (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Sipa USA)
JERUSALEM, ISRAEL – Why is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreeing to a deal that provides so many painful and costly concessions to Hamas, even at the risk of far right members of his government quitting and risking his coalition’s collapse?
Two reasons:
First, Netanyahu wants all of our hostages back without surrendering to Hamas, as do 70% of the Israeli people.
Second, Netanyahu has incoming President Donald J. Trump’s personal and public assurances and that of Trump’s most senior advisors – that the new U.S. administration will fully back Israel in crushing Hamas and never allow the terror group to rule Gaza again.
HEGSETH ON HAMAS
Consider what Defense Secretary-designate Pete Hegseth said during his Senate confirmation hearing this week,
“I support Israel destroying and killing every last member of Hamas.”
The Biden team literally never said anything of the kind over the last 15 months.
THE WALTZ DOCTRINE
Consider, too, what incoming National Security Adviser Mike Waltz said during interviews on Fox News and Dan Senor’s excellent podcast, “Call Me Back.”
“Hamas is not going to continue as a military entity and it’s certainly not going to govern Gaza,” Waltz insisted.
“We’ve made it very clear to the Israelis, and I want the people of Israel to hear me on this: If they need to go back in, we’re with them,” he continued.
“If Hamas doesn’t live up to the terms of this agreement, we are with Israel.”
“We’ve been clear that Gaza has to be demilitarized, Hamas has to be destroyed to the point that it cannot reconstitute, and Israel has every right to fully protect itself,” Waltz said.
This moral clarity is so refreshing.
It is also very different from the Biden team.
“Hamas, ISIS, and al-Qaeda have no place in governance,” Waltz is saying publicly.
“We must eradicate this cancer, not just for Israel’s sake but for the Palestinian people too. We will never achieve a stable future or a truly peaceful region until this threat is removed.”
Amen.
“THE TRUMP EFFECT”
When it comes to the hostages, Waltz is saying, “I’m convinced they all would have died if President Trump didn’t come in and say ‘get them out.’”
“Clearly, the entire world recognizes that this was the ‘Trump effect.’ We’re hearing that from Arab leaders that were involved, we’re hearing that from the Israelis that were involved.”
Once Trump won last November and began issuing threats, “Hamas knew they had no choice and they believed President Trump when he said there would be all hell to pay, and any deal that was on the table would just get worse once he was in office.”
Waltz told podcaster Dan Senor, “I think we’re in a very good place because the Israeli government didn’t listen sometimes to the not-so-good advice coming out of this [Biden] administration.”
“You’re not going to see this [Trump] administration tapping the brakes to make sure Israel can arm itself,” Waltz said, criticizing the Biden-Harris approach of slow-walking shipments of arms and ammunition to Israel to try to force Israel to surrender in Gaza and Lebanon.
TRUMP WILL ALSO FOCUS ON IRANIAN NUCLEAR THEAT
“Where is Iran today?” Waltz asked on Fox News.
“Hezbollah is decimated,” he noted. “It’s sword of Damocles over Israel, Hamas, is decimated, Assad has fallen, one of Iran’s biggest proxies. And Iran, the regime, is literally naked militarily with its air defenses down.”
He praised Israel for taking such bold military action in defiance of Biden, and noted that Trump will inherit “a very different situation that we are now going to get back to.”
“We need to get our people out [of Gaza], we need to destroy Hamas as a military terrorist organization and we 100 percent support that, and then we can get back to crafting peace deals in the Middle East,” Waltz said.
He is also signaling that Trump is going to be very serious about confronting the Iranian nuclear threat.
“If you think the region is unstable, violent, and at war now, imagine it under a nuclear umbrella controlled by Iran,” Waltz observed.
“Every American should understand that any kind of nuclear confrontation in the region would be catastrophic for the entire world.”
