Bolton: ‘Hamas Couldn’t Care Less About a Humanitarian Pause’ — This Is a Ceasefire Attempt

Former National Security Adviser John Bolton said Thursday on CNN’s “News Central” that “Hamas couldn’t care less about a humanitarian pause” but was using it to get to a ceasefire.

Bolton said, “The game that’s being played here is Hamas couldn’t care less about a humanitarian pause. What they’re interested in is getting a pause started, and then extending it to become a truce, and then extending it further to become a ceasefire. Now, that may not happen all at once, but Hamas benefits more than the Israeli Defense Forces do by having this pause.”

He continued, “Look at what’s wrong with exactly that provision in the deal. Who in their right mind allows their adversary, their enemy to determine the length of the ceasefire? And by the way, when the end of the four days come and Hamas says, ‘Well, we can’t produce 10 hostages tomorrow, but we’ll produce five.’ And then you can see how this can play out. I don’t expect it to happen all at once but I do expect several iterations of this, that we’ll see the White House, which is desperately fearful of the pressure from the Democratic left, the pro-Palestinian Democratic left on the president’s reelection chances.”

Bolton added, “People need to stand up and say one way or another, ‘Do you believe that it is legitimate for Israel to achieve the objective of eliminating Hamas?’ Because a lot of the people pushing for the pause/truce/ceasefire, don’t believe that’s a legitimate objective. That’s really where the nub of this lies.”

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