CAL THOMAS

President Joe Biden says Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not doing enough to win the release of the remaining hostages held in Gaza by the terrorist group Hamas.

As the saying goes “with friends like these, who needs enemies?”

In his first statement since the recovery of six hostages murdered by Hamas, including American-Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Netanyahu refused all entreaties by the U.S. administration and other governments and protesters in Israel and the U.S. to agree to a ceasefire as a way to gain the release of the other hostages. What critics forget is that Hamas has refused all ceasefire offers, largely I suspect, because it knows the world will keep pressuring Israel to “do more” and not the terrorists to do less.

Too many seem to have forgotten, or ignored, the real culprits. It was Hamas that kidnapped and murdered innocent Israelis and took hostages last October. It is Hamas that has a covenant that calls for the creation of an Islamic state in all of Palestine and the obliteration of Israel. How do you negotiate with an enemy who believes their god has given direct orders to eliminate the Jewish state by any means necessary?

The answer should be obvious, but it isn’t to many who have the false view that what Israel does or does not do matters to her enemies. Pressuring Israel has also been the incorrect approach over several U.S. administrations and Labor governments in Israel. Hamas and other terror groups get land, ceasefires, prisoner exchanges and financial help, but give nothing in return.

A Wall Street Journal editorial puts the blame where it belongs: “(the hostages) were killed in Rafah, where Biden and Harris delayed Israel’s entry with threats and by withholding weapons.”

Before World War II, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler offered a phony peace deal that included his keeping most of Czechoslovakia. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned to London from meeting Hitler in Munich and claimed to have made a “peace in our time” agreement with the German dictator. We know how that turned out.

There’s a great line in the movie “Batman Begins” Liam Neeson as Henri Ducard says: “Crime cannot be tolerated. Criminals thrive on the indulgence of society’s understanding.” This could also apply to those who would use terror to achieve their ends and to American presidents and secretaries of state who have wrongly tried accommodation and negotiation, rather than pursuing victory over evil.

This admonition to ancient Israel from the Old Testament should be applied to the current situation and to future ones: “You must purge the evil from among you.” (Deuteronomy 17:7)

Not to do so allows evil to grow. If a ceasefire were to be agreed to before Hamas is destroyed, it would live to fight another day. The same applies to Hezbollah, which now occupies Lebanon. Not pursuing victory would be like a surgeon only removing half of a malignant tumor. When it comes to the blame game, remember that Gazans elected Hamas.

Hamas and all other groups that seek Israel’s destruction must themselves be destroyed. Misinformed U.S. college students who chant “from the river to the sea” without knowing which river and which sea and nothing about the history of the region, are enabling antisemites and others who seek the same goals as the terrorists. Only when the terrorists realize they have no hope and no help from America might they be persuaded that their goal is unachievable and then might possibly make a peace deal with Israel.

Until then, Netanyahu is right to fight on and President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken are wrong to pressure him into making a deal that is not in the interest of Israel or America.

Readers can email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribpub.com.