Rep. Scholten’s statement on the 4 day pause demonstrates her ideological commitment to unconditional US support of Israel

Last Tuesday, Rep. Hillary Scholten released a statement about the negotiated agreement between Hamas and the Israeli government that began on Friday.

The negotiated agreement was for a four day “pause” of the Israeli assault on Gaza and the West Bank, in order to exchange some of the hostages being held by Hamas and Palestinian prisoners that the Israeli have had since before October 7. 

Taken from Rep. Scholten’s website, the Press Release is prefaced with this sentence, “Rep. Hillary Scholten (MI-03) issued the below statement after a vote by the Israeli cabinet approving a deal to release Hamas-held hostages”:  The way that Scholten’s staff framed her statement is rather instructive. It is true that the Israeli cabinet approved the deal, but this was a deal that was between the Israeli government and Hamas. Second, it is worth pointing out that the terms of the agreement were first laid out by Hamas several weeks ago, something that Scholten fails to acknowledge.

What follows is Rep. Scholten’s statement on the negotiated agreement. Afterwards, I will provide some analysis of the statement, with independent information that contradicts the Congresswoman’s statement or at the very least provides a different perspective. The highlighted words indicate what I am responding to.

“It’s with tempered relief that we receive the news of a deal to release hostages that were held for too long by Hamas and take the first step to de-escalation in this conflict.  I’d like to thank the Biden Administration for working tirelessly on this issue and for heeding calls from me and my colleagues to take action and return the hostages home as soon as possible and turn towards peace. 

While this is an encouraging development in the conflict, it will never take away from the horror these victims experienced or replace the innocent lives lost since the terrorist attacks on October 7th. One thing is clear: Hamas must go. 

As I have done for weeks, I continue to call for the release of the remaining hostages, for humanitarian aid to quickly reach innocent civilians in Gaza, and for Israelis and Palestinians to forge a path forward towards a two-state solution that allows for shared peace and prosperity for all. The United States should continue to facilitate strategic pauses in fighting to allow that to happen.”

1. Rep. Scholten completely omits the fact that this negotiated deal was an exchange of hostages taken by Hamas for Palestinian prisoners being held by the Israeli government. 
2. There is no evidence that the release of hostages for prisoners will lead to a de-escalation of the conflict, since numerous writers and analysts that have been following the Israel/Palestine issue for decades believe that the October 7 assault by Hamas will provide the justification that Israel needs to forcibly remove the Palestinians from Gaza. 
3. Thanking the Biden Administration is no doubt what Rep. Scholten was told to write, since the Biden Administration has done nothing to works towards peace on this issue. The Biden Administration has maintained unconditional support for Israel, especially after the October 7 Hamas attack, both diplomatically and in terms of the ongoing US support of Israel with weapons and military aid. If anything, the Biden Administration is recognizing the growing domestic and international opposition to US support of Israel, which could have disastrous consequences for the 2024 Elections. 
4. When Rep. Scholten talks about the horror these victims experienced or replace the innocent lives lost since the terrorist attacks on October 7th, she is centering the Israeli lives lost and can’t even acknowledge the 14,000 plus Palestinians who have died from Israel’s retaliation, which includes over 6,000 dead Palestinian children. 
5. Maybe the most egregious thing that Rep. Scholten says in her Press Release is calling for the elimination of Hamas, using the words Hamas must go. Democrats like to present themselves as liberals, but Scholten’s call to end Hamas is fundamentally the same thing that 2024 Republican Presidential candidates Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley were saying earlier this month during a debate, where they both would say to Netanyahu to “finish them” or “finish the job,” when referring to ending Hamas. Such sentiment not only fails to comprehend the impact that wiping Hamas out would have on the region, but US foreign policy as a whole. 
6. Scholten’s insistence that only Hamas is to blame in this current situation demonstrates her ideological obedience to the notion that it is a matter of policy for US politicians to unconditionally support Israel. 
7. The likelihood of a two state solution hasn’t seemed viable for some time now, plus it ignores the one Democratic State idea that many people, including the Israeli writer Jeff Halper, have been proposing. 
8. Strategic pauses will only allow Israel to continue to murder Palestinians and destroy what is left of Gaza. Much of the world understands that these strategic pauses are a joke. What is needed is a permanent cease fire and a real, longterm negotiated settlement for the future of Israel and Palestine.

Lastly, I want to quote an excellent piece from the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, which has been providing critical analysis for decades on that region of the world and on Israel/Palestine. Here is an extended quote regarding the 4 day pause:

The agreement is significant in several respects. Perhaps most importantly, the U.S. and Israel, which repeatedly vowed to eradicate Hamas, are now negotiating with the Palestinian movement and reaching agreements with it. Qatari-Egyptian mediation, while indispensable, is ultimately a formality. The U.S. and Israel are not negotiating with Egypt and Qatar but with Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip and architect of the Oct. 7 attacks.

The tenor of Israeli press reports in recent days has been that Hamas is desperate for a respite, however brief and at almost any price, from the ferocious Israeli onslaught against the Gaza Strip.

Yet the available reports about the deal suggest otherwise: Israel has committed to releasing three times as many imprisoned women and children as the Palestinians; no Israeli soldiers are included in the exchange; significantly more humanitarian supplies, including fuel, will reach the Gaza Strip; the exchange of captives will be implemented during a continuous four-day truce rather than one in which the slaughter is paused for a brief period each day; and Israeli jets and drones will be prohibited from using the airspace over the Gaza Strip for several hours each day.

This is quite close to the deal initially offered by Hamas several weeks ago, and it appears the bulk of its demands have been conceded by Israel and the U.S. If the adage that negotiations reflect reality on the ground rather than overturning it applies, Hamas—in contrast to the Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip, which has been Israel’s main target—seems far from desperate. Instead, it appears sufficiently confident to stick to its priorities until these are accepted by the U.S. and Israel.

Pursuant to the agreement, Hamas has also forced the U.S. and Israel to consent to the supply of large amounts of essential humanitarian supplies to the Gaza Strip. In other words, Hamas has in one fell swoop achieved exponentially more on the humanitarian front than the much-vaunted U.S. diplomacy to secure humanitarian relief for Gaza’s Palestinian civilians during the past month.

This confirms that the entire U.S. effort was in essence a circus—a diversionary charade to enable Israel to continue with its mass killings and transform the Gaza Strip into a wasteland and a killing field.

It bears repeating that Hamas has forced the U.S. and Israel to allow significant quantities of food, water, medicine and fuel to reach the civilian population of the Gaza Strip. Yet Hamas is the anointed terrorist organization in this equation while Israel is the light unto nations with the world’s most moral army and the U.S.—the world’s greatest democracy dedicated to spreading freedom and human rights to the rest of the planet.