המגעים הישירים של ארה"ב עם חמאס | פרשנות

And joining us now to discuss the U.S. confirming direct talks with Hamas's former intelligence officer, Michael Prejant. Good morning, Michael. What are some factors that led to the U.S. to actually negotiate directly with the Hamas terror group, despite its longstanding policy against such talks? Well, thank you for having me. Negotiations with Qatar is not working. Negotiations with Egypt is not working. So, yeah, I'm against directly negotiating with terrorists. But I don't think these are negotiations. I think these are threats. This is a threat carried out by Whitkoff, sitting right across from the Hamas operative that's been, you know, housed in Qatari hotels in Doha. Excuse me, yeah, Qatari hotels in Doha, issuing this threat, release everyone, to include those that pass away or the president back in D.C. is ready to unleash the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces. I think this is more of conveying a direct threat to Hamas from the president of the United States. If there are any negotiations with a terrorist group, we're all against that. Hamas should not be allowed to survive in Gaza at all. And that should not even be on the table. Now, I do believe Israel has its own hostage rescue efforts happening. What role is the U.S. playing in hostage negotiation? You know, it's really disappointing. The first time in my 30-year career as an intelligence officer, this is the first time an American government has not punished a terrorist organization for killing Americans. We have to remember, 40 Americans died on October 7th. We have Americans in captivity. We have Americans that were killed in captivity. And yet the U.S. has not responded yet. I hope that changes with the Trump administration. I was very disappointed in the Biden administration's belief that October 7th did not happen to us. It happened to us as well, meaning the United States. So according to some reports, Israel was consulted but also learned of some aspects through other channels. Do you consider this as the U.S. not being completely, not completely transparent? I don't see it that way, but I can see how others would see it that way. The United States is Israel's number one ally in the region. Without the United States backing Israel, Israel will have very tough challenges. Israel survived those tough challenges under the Biden administration, and now it can benefit from working with the Trump administration. You know, the one thing that I would caution the Trump administration on is if the president's goal is to make sure there are no conflicts started on his watch over the next four years, if he doesn't do it right, he'll ensure that the day after he leaves office, that these conflicts will reignite. And I'm talking about Ukraine. I'm talking about Gaza. I'm talking about Iran. I'm talking about China. The goal cannot be to just have peace while he's president. The goal has to be lasting peace beyond his presidency. And we need to start seeing those steps being taken with our adversaries.