Dem
51
GOP
49
There was some significant Israel-related news out of the White House yesterday. First, although the role of Iran in this past weekend's attacks remains hazy, and although the $6 billion that was to be repatriated under Qatar's supervision had not yet been accessed by the Iranians, the money has been re-frozen, at least for now.
This was described in headlines as a "quiet understanding" between the U.S. and Qatar. We're not sure how quiet it really is, since everyone knows about it. In any case, the money isn't going to be going anywhere anytime soon. The White House believes that Iran is broadly responsible for helping create the conditions that led to the attack, but that the Iranians were not directly involved in the planning, and were caught by surprise when it happened. That's enough to take some action now; a final resolution will wait until later.
In addition, the White House provided some details yesterday as to why there are no current plans to send American soldiers into Gaza to retrieve American hostages. In short, Gaza is pretty tough to navigate, and the known hostages are likely being held in different, and probably hard-to-find locations. Since the Israeli intelligence services just dropped the ball in high-profile fashion, the White House is not willing to take action based on their information right now. Instead, the U.S. is working with the Israeli military, which obviously knows the ins-and-outs of Gaza better, in hopes that the Israeli soldiers can help out.
Based on the information available, this seems reasonable to us. An ill-conceived hostage rescue can be disastrous, both politically and in loss of life. One thinks of Operation Eagle Claw, which is pretty much the textbook example of a hostage rescue gone wrong. If the Biden administration does attempt something, nobody reading this will know about it, of course, until the operation is complete. (Z)