Captives’ relatives lament PM decision to dispatch negotiating team day after speech, indicating agreement won’t be reached beforehand; VP ‘absolutely aligned’ with Biden on issue
WASHINGTON — The family members of the American-Israeli hostages held in Gaza warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday against giving a speech to Congress later this week that does not include an announcement that a hostage deal has been reached with Hamas.
“We view any speech that is not the announcement of the signing and closing of a hostage deal to be a total failure,” said Jon Polin, whose son Hersh is among the eight American citizens kidnapped during Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, along with 108 others who remain captive in Gaza.
“We fully expect that his speech to Congress on Wednesday is going to be the announcement of this hostage deal that we’ve all been waiting for,” he added, as relatives of the other American hostages nodded in agreement, during a press conference the group held in Washington.
Asked what led him to make such a prediction, Polin acknowledged that he had not been briefed on the contents of Netanyahu’s speech. He pointed, however, to support for a deal from Israel’s security establishment and public, which according to a recent poll backs securing a hostage release and ceasefire agreement over continuing the war, 67 percent to 26%.
“After all the calls for a deal in Israel, I’m taking that cue and saying that if he flew to Washington in the midst of all of that, it must be that he’s here to announce a deal,” Polin said.
Netanyahu, who arrived in Washington on Monday, told reporters before departing from Israel that he would use the speech to try and “anchor the bipartisan support that is so important for Israel. I will tell my friends on both sides of the aisle that regardless of who the American people choose as their next president, Israel remains America’s indispensable and strong ally in the Middle East.”
On Friday, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said he does not expect Netanyahu’s speech to mimic the last one he gave to a joint session of Congress in 2015.
That speech was marred by controversy after it was organized by then-Israeli ambassador to the US and current Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, with then-Republican House speaker John Boehner, behind the back of then-president Barack Obama, so that Netanyahu could lobby against the Iran nuclear deal that was being advanced by the Democratic administration.
The speech drove a wedge between Israel and the Democratic party, with nearly 60 Democrats boycotting the speech. It is still cited today by some left-leaning lawmakers as having caused longstanding harm to the bipartisan nature of the US-Israel relationship.
An even larger number of Democrats are expected to boycott Wednesday’s speech, as Netanyahu comes to Washington leading what is largely considered the most right-wing government in Israel’s history — one that flatly rejects a two-state solution, which the Biden administration is still seeking to advance.
Still, Sullivan said, he expects Netanyahu’s speech to focus on how the US and Israel are cooperating to address regional threats and are working to secure a hostage deal.
Dermer and National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi “gave a broad preview of what the prime minister is intending to say in his speech” when they were in Washington earlier this month, Sullivan said. “They said he’s intending to reinforce a set of themes and arguments that are not at odds or in contradiction to our policy.”
Netanyahu is set to meet US President Joe Biden ahead of that speech, but the timing has not been finalized, as the latter is still recovering from COVID-19. The premier is also slated to meet separately with US Vice President Kamala Harris, who became the new presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic Party after Biden dropped out of the race on Sunday and endorsed her.
Rachel Goldberg-Polin, Jon Polin’s wife, said at the Washington briefing that she did not anticipate a change in the administration’s approach to a hostage deal following Biden’s announcement.
“He is so committed to getting these people home — specifically the American eight, but all of the hostages — that if anything, this allows him to focus more laser concentration on that goal that he is so passionate about,” she said.
Goldberg-Polin said she has also met twice with Harris, who is “absolutely aligned” with Biden.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday that the sides are within the 10-yard-line, after Hamas submitted an updated hostage deal proposal earlier this month that walked back a demand for an up-front Israeli commitment to permanently end the war.
Since that updated offer was submitted, though, Netanyahu has made new demands regarding continued Israeli presence in the Philadelphi Corridor in southern Gaza, and the creation of a mechanism for preventing armed Palestinians from returning to northern Gaza, which have slowed the talks, Arab and Israeli officials involved told The Times of Israel.
Criticizing Netanyahu for the hardened stance, American-Israeli hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen’s father Jonathan told reporters Monday, “We expect from our prime minister to cease all stalling, to cease torpedoing any hope for a negotiated return of hostages and a ceasefire in Gaza to stop the suffering of the people of Gaza.”
“Whatever the Israeli government has not yet accomplished, it has to wait and happen at some other date. It cannot happen any longer on the backs of our loved ones,” Polin said.
Netanyahu’s office announced shortly before his departure for the US that he had directed Israel’s hostage negotiating team to depart on Thursday for another round of talks, indicating that there will not be a deal by the time the prime minister addresses Congress on Wednesday.
“This is the contradiction, the cynicism that we’re here to call out and to demand that it change now because he’s here on sacred ground. It’s not a place for political theater… for domestic consumption in Israel,” Dekel-Chen said.
Ruby Chen, the father of murdered hostage Itay Chen, pointed out that the Hostages and Missing Families Forum had issued a statement earlier this month urging Netanyahu not to make the trip because “it is premature.”
The subset of American hostage families in town for Netanyahu’s visit said they would be meeting him later on Monday and then again on Wednesday, immediately after his speech. Both of those meetings would be with a larger group of hostage families, including those who traveled with the prime minister.
Goldberg-Polin said many of the American hostage relatives were invited to fly with Netanyahu. While she evidently declined to do so, she said she does not judge those who did.
“No one would presume to tell a father what he should try to do to get his daughter out of being held by a terrorist organization in an active war zone for 10 months,” she explained. “We all have this compassion for each other. Even if I have different political views than someone, the pain is so unique and intricate that there’s no room for (judgment).”
The American families briefing reporters are also asking for a separate meeting with Netanyahu for only the American hostage relatives, along with some of their Congressional representatives whom they have been working with to advance an agreement.
“We have been living here in New York for the past 25 years. The prime minister is coming to our country. He’s a guest of the United States. We expect him to talk to our representatives who have been helping us all for the past 10 months,” said Omer Neutra, the father of hostage Ronen.
Liz Naftali, whose 4-year-old great-niece Abigail Mor Edan was released in the first hostage deal late last year, explained that the American hostage families have a unique influence.
“They have a passport that requires a government to do everything they can to release their hostages,” she said, adding that the group has helped bipartisan support for a deal in the US.
The American hostage families will also be meeting later Tuesday with Sullivan, who they said would be briefing them on the status of the negotiations. They will also be attending a post-Netanyahu speech event hosted by Republican Speaker Mike Johnson, in addition to meeting with Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
They will be attending Netanyahu’s speech as guests of various lawmakers from both sides of the aisle.
While Democrats have been supportive of the hostage deal being brokered by Biden, Republicans have been more muted on the specifics of an agreement. Still, the families said GOP lawmakers have been supportive of it in private.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump at his party’s convention last week warned all holders of American hostages abroad that they will pay a “big price” if the captives are not released by the time he enters office.
Orna Neutra, who addressed the convention together with her husband, said Trump was referring to the Biden-backed deal on the table.
The couple spoke on the phone with Trump some two weeks after their son was taken hostage and the former president agreed that the cause should remain bipartisan.
As reported by The Times of Israel