Ambassador Jack Lew: ‘Hamas is to blame for the fact that there’s no hostage deal’

US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew said on Thursday that Hamas is responsible for the fact that no agreement for a hostage release has been reached yet, but also claimed that some of Israel’s actions distracted the public from that fact.

Speaking to Kan 11 News in an interview, Lew was asked for his thoughts on who is responsible for the fact that there is no deal and replied, “As in any complicated situation, depending on what day you ask, you might get a little bit different tone of answer.”

“Overall,” he added, “Hamas has been very rigid. In the weeks leading up to the murder of the six hostages, we were seeing no movement at all. We were negotiating where some of the names we were negotiating over were killed on [that] day where the six hostages were killed.”

At the same time, Lew also argued, “I think that some of the things that the government of Israel has done have distracted attention from the fact that Hamas has been so rigid.”

“Most people think that the Philadelphi Corridor was the biggest issue, because the government here talked about the Philadelphi Corridor. In fact, there was a constructive negotiation on the Philadelphi Corridor that could have led to a phase one deal, and Hamas was rigidly insisting on tougher terms in terms of prisoners and rights to have say over who gets released. They were hardening their position but the world doesn’t necessarily know that because the maps of the Philadelphi Corridor was what they saw. So, I think that the resistance has come from Hamas, in large part, but some of the actions taken by the government of Israel shifted the focus from Hamas in a way that’s not helpful,” he stated.

Lew also denied claims that the Biden administration has imposed an arms embargo on Israel, describing such reports as “fiction”.

“There was never an embargo. It is a fiction that there was an arms embargo. There’s one munition that we have held, and that is 2,000-pound bombs. Everything else is business as usual. Sometimes business as usual takes a little bit longer than you wanted to because there’s bureaucratic steps that are involved,” he added.

Lew stressed, “At the moment, there is only one munition that has been held, and we have approved over $15 billion of arms transfers. The day that the 2,000-pound bombs were held, an aircraft delivered precision-guide munitions. So even on the day that the decision on the 2,000-pound bombs, there was never an arms embargo.”

“I’ve bristled when I hear people say there was an arms embargo, because we’ve never been more effective providing for the military needs of an ally, and for people to somehow twist a legitimate difference of view on one munition into a question of an arms embargo, is just a distortion,” he insisted.

Source » israelnationalnews