Saunders: You can’t talk of 2 states when Hamas holds hostages

By Debra J. Saunders / Las Vegas Review-Journal

“The fastest way to end the Humanitarian Crises in Gaza is for Hamas to SURRENDER AND RELEASE THE HOSTAGES!!!” President Donald Trump wrote Thursday morning on Truth Social.

Amen.

While in Scotland last week, Trump had voiced a very human concern about the children of Gaza, when he said, “I mean, some of those kids are … that’s real starvation stuff. I see it, and you can’t fake it. So we’re going to be even more involved.”

His remarks come ahead of the U.N. General Assembly in New York in September. So begins another pressure campaign from the all-bow international community to weaken Israel’s self-defense in a war Hamas started on Oct. 7, 2023, by murdering some 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages.

First French President Emmanuel Macron announced that France would recognize the state of Palestine ahead of the General Assembly confab.

Then British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced the U.K. would recognize Palestine as a state; unless Israel takes substantive steps to end the “appalling situation in Gaza.”

Then Canada climbed onto the bandwagon.

“Wow! Canada has just announced that it is backing statehood for Palestine. That will make it very hard for us to make a Trade Deal with them. Oh’ Canada!!!” Trump cheekily responded.

At Thursday’s White House briefing, of course a reporter asked press secretary Karoline Leavitt if Trump would recognize a Palestinian state.

Leavitt responded, “That’s rewarding Hamas at a time where Hamas is the true impediment to a ceasefire and to the release of all of the hostages.”

Exactly right.

I can’t write about the issue without noting the failure of many news organizations to pin the onus on Hamas, when they know Hamas is to blame.

Cue the Wednesday New York Times editorial that opined, “Israel’s often reckless administration of its war and occupation has helped create this emergency, and Israel has a unique power to alleviate it. It must do so.”

“If your ideology dictates that Israeli Jews are symbols of racism and colonialism, and Palestinians symbols of Third World innocence, then a story that makes Israelis seem constructive and Palestinians obstructive must be avoided even if it’s true, because it serves the wrong people,” observed Matti Friedman, a Jerusalem-based columnist for The Free Press.

Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee are heading to Gaza on Friday to investigate “distribution sites, and secure a plan to deliver more food, and meet with local Gazans to hear firsthand about this dire situation on the ground,” Leavitt told reporters Thursday.

Then they’ll brief Trump and come up with a plan.

Humanitarian aid, without the bogus two-state solution. That would work.

One of the most compelling things about Israel is the nation’s role as “a moral actor in a neighborhood of immoral actors,” Foundation for Defense of Democracies Executive Director Jonathan Schanzer told me. Mainstream media organizations focus on the Jewish state, not the terrorists who started this unnecessary war.

Somehow many of the swells at Turtle Bay see Israel as the bad guy. Sadly, as Schanzer noted, “The perception of Israel has become Israel’s reality.”