The Hamas surrender deal sets up Trump to fail – opinion

Witkoff is being taken for a ride and the Trump administration is being taken for a ride with him.

By Daniel Greenfield, Frontpage Magazine

1. The Hamas Surrender Deal is the same deal the Biden administration has been pushing all along which consists of Israel giving Hamas everything it wants in exchange for the release of living or dead hostages.

The final terms haven’t yet been made public, but a leaked draft calls for exchanging live terrorists for dead hostages, an Israeli withdrawal, and Qatar being allowed to ‘reconstruct’ Gaza.

Attempts to ‘sell’ the deal hinge on such details as whether Israel will be able to go back into Gaza which will be subject to interpretation.

Based on past history, the interpretation that will be followed is the one that forces an end to the fighting.

2. The Hamas Surrender Deal puts the Trump administration in charge of then enacting and managing a policy crafted by the Biden administration and Qatar. The consequences when it inevitably falls apart will be on Trump.

Only so much can be known from outside, but Steve Witkoff appears to have been taken for a ride by longtime pros like Secretary of State Blinken and Brett McGurk and is enjoying the flattering media stories about him ‘intimidating’ and ‘cursing out’ Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Witkoff is being taken for a ride and the Trump administration is being taken for a ride with him.

He didn’t succeed, he failed miserably at extracting meaningful concessions from Hamas, and went right back to Biden’s policy of pressuring Israel.

Instead of delivering a win for Trump, he delivered one for Biden.

Instead of crafting its own foreign policy, the Trump administration is being stuck with Biden’s policy of pandering to Islamic terrorists.

And that’s a disaster not only for Israel. But for America.

After the initial euphoria of freeing a few hostages, the Trump administration will be stuck managing Gaza, it will be stuck funding the mess, pressuring Israel not to go after terrorists and when the thousands of freed Hamas terrorists kill Americans, the Trump administration will be blamed.

The smart play was to let Israel win the war without getting involved. The dumb play was Witkoff doing whatever Blinken told him to do.

The Trump administration should not let Witkoff hang Biden’s Hamas Surrender Plan around its neck. That’s setting it up to fail and lose, to show weakness, and to be stuck dealing with a neverending problem in Gaza.

Biden AdministrationDonald Trumphostage dealSteven Witkoff