McGurk defends Biden’s handling of Gaza war, insisting Hamas was perennial obstacle to deal

Former White House Mideast czar Brett McGurk pens his first op-ed since leaving government, defending the Biden administration’s handling of the hostage negotiations and insisting that Hamas was consistently the obstacle to an agreement.

“We have been criticized for failing to adequately pressure Israel to end the war in Gaza — a war that Hamas itself started on Oct. 7, 2023. But throughout the ceasefire negotiations, Hamas consistently held back on a commitment to release hostages and aimed to ensure it remained in power after the war ends,” McGurk writes in the Washington Post.

“These latest threats (from Hamas not to release hostages) are part of the same pattern. President Joe Biden was right to stand firmly by Israel and demand the release of hostages by Hamas. And President Donald Trump is right to do the same,” McGurk argues.

He says that Iran sought to take advantage of Israel’s vulnerability after Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, which led Biden to warn adversaries not to take advantage of the situation in addition to significantly bolstering US troop presence in the region.

The US faced the potential of a multi-front Mideast war, mounting pressure for Israel to accept a ceasefire on Hamas’s terms, calls to restrict aid to Israel, and efforts to isolate Jerusalem in international forums.

“Heeding such calls would have done nothing to stop the war. It would have instead led to an even longer and costlier one,” McGurk argues. “Therefore, we in the Biden administration concluded that the only way to realistically wind down the war was through firm support for Israel, while we worked on a ceasefire deal to release hostages on terms not dictated by Hamas and sought to mitigate the humanitarian consequences of the war.”