“Hamas and their backers must hear the message loud and clear,” Democrat Tom Nides and Republican Robert O’Brien wrote in an op-ed.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

All seven U.S. hostages must be freed in the first stage of any deal with Hamas, two former top American officials wrote in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal Monday.

In a bipartisan move, President-elect Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, and President Joe Biden’s first ambassador to Israel, Tom Nides, demanded “the immediate release” of both the dead and the living Americans held in the Gaza Strip.

“The U.S. has many strategic interests in the Middle East,” they wrote. “We, like the presidents we served, don’t always agree on how to serve them…. But we are united in our belief that the seven U.S. hostages still in Gaza, along with the other 93 hostages, must come home now.”

Of the dozen Americans Hamas and other terror groups kidnapped among 251 people, including some they murdered during the invasion and massacre of 1,200 in southern Israel last October 7, five were either released alive or their bodies were recovered by IDF forces.

O’Brien and Nides listed the “American Seven,” as they called them, who were left, asking that people “remember them at your holiday celebrations this week” without differentiating between the dead and living.

Three Americans of the 100 remaining in captivity — civilians Keith Siegal, 65, and Sagui Dekel-Chen, 35, and lone soldier Edan Alexander, 20 — are assumed to be alive.

Addressing “all parties” to the negotiations, O’Brien and Nide stated, “They aren’t a bargaining chip. They are our fellow citizens with names and family members who await them with unbearable pain.”

They then turned specifically to the abductors, blasting the terror organization for using the hostages as human shields and writing, “Hamas and their backers must hear the message loud and clear: Release the Americans in the first phase of the deal. All of them.”

“President Biden and his team have been working hard to make this happen. President-elect Trump has made clear that the American Seven must be released before he returns to office or there will be ‘hell to pay,’” they added.

Hamas should understand that all Americans are united on this demand and that, “for the US government, bringing home our citizens who have been unlawfully detained is a high priority rooted deep in our history,” they stated.

Monday marked the 444th day of captivity for the 100 remaining Hamas hostages, over a third of whom are dead, thereby surpassing the amount of time American embassy staffers were held in Iranian captivity after the Islamic Revolution toppled the Shah’s regime in 1979.

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34,872 Jews immigrated to the Jewish State in 2019, a 20% increase over the 29,800 that came in 2018.

By World Israel News Staff and AP

President Donald Trump’s national security adviser said on Wednesday that Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria will continue to expand because rising anti-Semitism around the world means more Jews will immigrate to Israel.

“The Israeli birth rate is strong and is growing because sadly anti-Semitism in Europe and other places around the world is encouraging more Jews to return to Israel,” Robert O’Brien said at the Meridian International Center in Washington.

“This could be the last opportunity for a two-state solution,”  O’Brien said, arguing that the increased immigration will lead to a growing Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria which will make the two-state solution impractical.

According to data released by Ofek Israeli, an aliyah encouragement program, 34,872 Jews immigrated to the Jewish State in 2019, a 20% increase over the 29,800 that came in 2018.

A global survey conducted last November by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) found that one in four Europeans polled harbor pernicious and pervasive attitudes toward Jews.

O’Brien defended Trump’s Mideast peace plan. He said the plan is not “perfect,” but urged the Palestinians to negotiate terms of the proposed deal. The deal offers economic benefits that would allow Palestine to become the “Singapore of the Middle East,” he said.

The Palestinian Authority has rejected the deal which offers them a Palestinian State and billions of dollars in financial aid.

Protesters have burned U.S. and Israeli flags as well as posters of Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who stood with Trump at the White House when he rolled out the plan last week.

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The White House national security adviser said that the Palestinians missed their chance to have a say in the peace process.

By World Israel News Staff

With U.S. President Donald Trump about to enter the final year of his first term in office, time is running out for the administration to reveal its long-delayed Mideast peace plan.

According to White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien, the peace plan may be released soon even though Israel is in political turmoil as the country will be holding an unprecedented third election within a year on March 2.

“I don’t think it necessarily depends on the elections. They will have had three elections in a row, we’ll have to see,” O’Brien told Axios on Sunday.

“The president is looking for a solution on the Israeli-Palestinian front that is durable, is long-lasting, and we’re not timing anything we do based on the domestic politics, either the Palestinians or the Israelis,” he added.

“The Palestinians have already rejected Trump’s Middle East peace approach,” he said. “Trump has slashed aid to the Palestinians and officially recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Talks between the U.S. and Palestinians ended more than two years ago,” he said.

Last Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political rival MK Benny Gantz said that the release of the U.S. peace plan ahead of the country’s upcoming elections would be “a harsh interference in the electoral process in Israel.”

In September, MK Naftali Bennett, now defense minister, tweeted a map that he claimed represented the Trump administration’s peace plan.

The map showed a large black area in Judea and Samaria presumably marking areas to be given to the Palestinians with only scattered white dots representing the Jewish communities.

At the time, Bennett warned supporters of Israeli settlement: “Don’t say later that you didn’t know. This is the map…Wake up!”

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Trump named John Bolton’s replacement on Wednesday.

By Associated Press

President Donald Trump said Wednesday he’s naming hostage negotiator Robert O’Brien as his new national security adviser.

Trump tweeted the announcement from California, while on the third and final day of a West Coast fundraising swing.

“I am pleased to announce that I will name Robert C. O’Brien, currently serving as the very successful Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs at the State Department, as our new National Security Advisor,” Trump said. “I have worked long & hard with Robert. He will do a great job!”

The announcement of O’Brien’s selection comes a week after the Republican president ousted John Bolton from the national security adviser’s post, citing policy disagreements. Bolton was Trump’s third national security adviser. O’Brien was among five job candidates Trump said Tuesday were under consideration.

As the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs at the State Department, O’Brien worked closely with the families of American hostages and advised administration officials on hostage issues. He previously helped lead the department’s public-private partnership for justice reform in Afghanistan during the Bush and Obama administrations.

From 2008 through 2011, O’Brien was a presidentially appointed member of a government committee that advises on issues related to the trafficking of antiquities and other cultural items.

In 2005, President George W. Bush nominated O’Brien to be U.S. Representative to the U.N. General Assembly, where he worked with Bolton. O’Brien was confirmed by the Senate.

He also was an adviser on the Republican presidential campaigns of former Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.

Earlier in his career, O’Brien was a senior legal officer for the U.N. Security Council commission that decided claims against Iraq that arose from the Gulf War. He was a major in the U.S. Army Reserve.

O’Brien has a law degree from the University of California-Berkeley and co-founded a law firm in Los Angeles focused on litigation and international arbitration issues.

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