It’s appalling that US President Joe Biden is blaming Israel for Hamas’s recent murder of six hostages, including American citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin. But what makes Biden’s stance even more outrageous is the fact that his administration has never taken even the most minimal steps to bring about the release of any of the Americans who were kidnapped by Hamas.
What could Biden have done?
Military action
US anti-terrorist commandos have rescued hostages overseas on multiple occasions. One such operation, off the coast of Somalia in 2009, was made famous in the movie Captain Phillips (starring Tom Hanks). Similar rescue missions saved Americans held by other Somali terrorists in 2012, and by terrorists in Columbia in 2008.
There also have been US military operations to capture terrorists, such as the interception of the Egyptian airliner that was flying the Palestinian hijackers of the Achille Lauro to freedom, in 1985. (Unfortunately, the US allowed them to be tried in an Italian court, and they were paroled after serving just a part of their modest jail sentences.)
Economic pressure
The US has been pouring aid into Gaza—$674 million between October 7 and mid-July 2024. Much of that was stolen by Hamas and used to sustain its forces, including the kidnappers who are holding Americans captive. Biden could have announced that no aid would enter Gaza until the American citizens were released.
The US could also put pressure on the Palestinian Authority to fight Hamas. The Biden administration provides training and financing for the PA’s security forces. So the US could demand that the authority take meaningful action against the many Hamas terrorists based in its territory. It could demand the PA denounce Hamas for holding American hostages, and remove the names of Hamas terrorists from schools, streets, and parks in PA territory. Instead, Biden treats the authority with kid gloves and it continues to praise and defend the terrorist group.
Speaking out
President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris could have mentioned the American hostages, by name, at every opportunity. Keeping the spotlight on the American captives would have increased international pressure on those supporters of Hamas, such as the government of Qatar, who are anxious to maintain good relations with the United States. Instead, US officials rarely referred to the American hostages by name; they have focused most of their public comments on criticizing Israel and demanding that Jerusalem make more concessions.
Offering rewards
This is the most minimal step that the Biden administration could have taken, yet it still has not done so.
A US government website, www.RewardsForJustice.net, offers monetary rewards for information about terrorists who have harmed Americans around the world. There’s an 800 number for tipsters to call. Information about the rewards is printed on posters, leaflets, and even matchbooks that are distributed in places where potential informants might see them.
The website has a section called “Success Stories,” with details of cases in which killers of Americans were caught thanks to the rewards program – such as Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, mastermind of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center (six dead, over a thousand wounded). “In February 1995” the website explains, “an informant, seeing a Rewards for Justice matchbook and motivated by the reward, went to the US Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, and provided information leading to Yousef’s whereabouts.” As a result, Yousef is serving multiple life sentences in an American prison.
There have been hundreds of Palestinian Arab terrorist attacks in which Americans were harmed. Since the 1960s, a total of 157 US citizens have been murdered in such attacks, and many others wounded. Yet the Biden administration offers rewards in only two of those cases. The website does not even use the term “Palestinian terrorism” – it prefers the euphemism “Violence in Opposition to the Middle East Peace Negotiations.”
Of course it’s a long shot that some Gaza resident, in pursuit of a US reward, would provide a tip about the American hostages in Gaza. But, so what if it’s a long shot? What does the Biden administration have to lose by offering such a reward? Why not take every possible step that could conceivably help?
WHICH LEADS to the glaring question: Why has President Biden not taken any of the minimal steps listed above, to rescue the American hostages in Gaza or capture their abductors?
The answer is connected to the fact that the US has never demanded that the Palestinian Authority hand over murderers of Americans for prosecution and has never sent US commandos to PA territory to capture them—even though some of them are hiding in plain sight, as active members of the PA security forces.
Why? Because if Washington apprehended Palestinian killers of Americans, it would have to bring them to trial in the United States. That would cause a crisis in relations with the Palestinian Authority because the PA regards Palestinian terrorists as heroes, not criminals. Tension between the PA and the US would then interfere with the administration’s obsessive goal of creating a Palestinian Arab state.
Of course, the Biden-Harris administration would like to see the American prisoners in Gaza set free. And of course it would like to see other Palestinian murderers and kidnappers of Americans punished. Who wouldn’t? But the administration will not take even the most minimal steps to achieve justice for American victims of Palestinian terrorism, or freedom for US captives of Palestinian terrorists, because doing so would conflict with the administration’s higher priority – setting up a Palestinian state in Israel’s backyard.
The writer is national chairman of Americans For A Safe Israel, a pro-Israel advocacy and education organization.