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(LifeSiteNews) — In demanding Hamas release all of its Israeli hostages by Saturday, President Donald Trump has violated the ceasefire agreement his own representative Steve Witkoff negotiated last month, suggesting his intent was to not honor the deal in the first place but rather “unleash the Israeli forces to continue their genocide in Gaza.”
These observations and more were made by former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense Chas Freeman, in a Tuesday interview with Judge Andrew Napolitano.
Such a breach of his word is “another instance of why Mr. Trump’s having a problem internationally,” proposed Freeman, who also served as the U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the first Iraq war.
“The Iranians won’t speak to him, the Russians won’t admit they’ve spoken to him. He’s not been able to make a call to Xi Jinping,” he continued. “And the reason is that as he is demonstrating his word is valueless. He does not stand by the agreements he makes. He feels free to alter them at will.”
“And in this case, it’s very clear what he intends, which is to unleash the Israeli forces to continue their genocide in Gaza,” said Freeman, whose resumé includes time as an Assistant U.S. Secretary of State as well.
READ: Genocide ‘only reasonable conclusion’ to Israel’s crimes in Gaza: Amnesty International
The day following Trump’s celebratory announcement of the ceasefire deal, the Washington Post reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had made a promise “behind closed doors” to his hard right racist and Jewish supremacist coalition members that they would resume the genocidal attack upon the besieged people of Gaza after the initial stage of the deal.
READ: Americans must wake up to the dangers of religious Zionists inciting violence in the Middle East
This anticipated resumption of massacres was confirmed in a statement from Netanyahu’s Likud Party which pointed to the Trump team’s complicity in this plan as well saying such a return to inflicting bloodshed would come “under American guarantee.”
Under the three-phase ceasefire agreement Hamas was bound to release only 33 hostages in the first phase (42 days) in exchange for hundreds or even thousands of Palestinian hostages being held by Israel. The Israeli military was also required to withdraw from the Strip and allow at least 600 trucks of humanitarian aid to enter the enclave each day.
With the Israelis having continued to kill Palestinian civilians during the ceasefire, and obstructing sufficient levels of humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, Hamas announced on Monday that it was delaying the next release of Israeli captives until the occupation authorities live up to their side of the agreement on these crucial matters.
Instead of addressing these Israeli violations of his own agreement, Trump ignored them and later the same day responded by demanding Hamas release all of the remaining 73 hostages by noon on Saturday, in complete disregard of the terms of his deal which he took credit for in January just prior to his inauguration.
Additionally, on Tuesday, the New York Times reported Israeli officials had admitted Hamas’ claims of Israel’s failure to fulfill their obligations under the agreement were true, confirming the fault of the ceasefire breach fell at the feet of the Israelis.
READ: Israeli officials admit Hamas’ accusations of ceasefire violations are accurate
So, Trump is “an extremely disruptive element, and I think at this point we [the U.S.] have zero credibility internationally,” the former diplomat said. “People don’t want to deal with him because he has an almost perfect record of overturning agreements that he himself has made.”
Addressing Mr. Trump’s stated commitment to ethnically cleanse the approximately two million Palestinian people from their internationally recognized land in Gaza, and turn it into a an international beach resort, Freeman recalled how the president said this project “will preclude the Palestinians from ever returning to it.”
“This is moral obtuseness,” on the part of Trump. “It’s advocacy of a war crime, but he doesn’t seem to care,” he said.
Breakdown of Camp David and Abraham Accords, leaving Israel and US isolated
The former ambassador went on to assert that the two-state solution, demanded by virtually every national government in the world, is the only road to peace.
“The only way Israel can enjoy long-term security is by agreeing that the Palestinians, like the Jews in Israel, should have self-determination in their own state. That is the only way to achieve Israeli security. Otherwise, Israel’s security depends on constant warfare against its neighbors,” he said.
Additionally, Trump’s proposal and demands on Egypt and Jordan signal the “incipient breakdown of the Camp David Accords, which have been the mainstay of peace between Israel and Egypt and Jordan.”
With heavy dependence on American foreign aid to uphold their governments, in exchange for peace with Israel, Trump’s threats to suspend such aid “is a direct assault on Camp David, where basically they have been subsidized by the American taxpayer not to remain at war with Israel.”
And the King of Jordan emphasized on Tuesday the “steadfast position against the displacement of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank,” that this is “the unified Arab position. Rebuilding Gaza without displacing the Palestinians and addressing the dire humanitarian situation should be the priority for all.”
This position is that of “the entire Arab League,” Freeman stressed. Even the United Arab Emirates, “the great friend of the United States in the region, joined fully in these denunciations, despite being in the Abraham Accords.”
“I think by speaking recklessly about support for ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, our government is risking the complete collapse of the Abraham Accords, the isolation of Israel again in its region, and its isolation in the world, and our isolation. So, this is very serious,” the former diplomat assessed.
Israel and the US have destroyed international law and human decency ‘with utter impunity’
Freeman also discussed how the western media is “self-censoring” due to their being “very pro-Israeli” and thus they follow “Israeli guidance on what should and should not be reported.”
Because of this Americans “don’t see the other side of the story, which is by far the more dramatic and important,” he continued. “What Israel has done with our assistance in Gaza is destroy international law, destroy human decency, and do it with utter impunity.”
“This is the end of an era which began several centuries ago in which the West, dominant in the world for most of that period, attempted to build a rules-bound order. We have dismantled it,” he said.
Israel’s genocidal attack upon Gaza ‘about everything except the hostages’
Addressing the logic behind Trump’s incitement of resumed Israeli genocidal attacks against the Palestinian people, as a means of forcing Hamas to release the rest of the hostages, the former ambassador observed, “the only major release of hostages has been as a result of negotiations, diplomacy, between Israel and Hamas, brokered by the United States and Qatar.”
“And so the idea that somehow returning to warfare, which Mr. Trump seems to favor, along with Mr. Netanyahu, who has made no secret that that is his preference, is bound to kill the remaining hostages,” he concluded.
Louis Har, a former Israeli hostage who was rescued in February 2024 told an Israeli media outlet in June that during his captivity, “Our greatest fear was the IDF’s planes and the concern that they would bomb the building we were in,” and not their Hamas captors.
Last November, Hamas reported Israeli shelling in Northern Gaza killed a female Israeli hostage. They further stipulated that another Israeli captive detained in the same area was in danger of death. Other reports indicate the Israeli army has killed additional hostages even while they claim their rescue to be a primary goal for their assault upon the Strip.
Also in November, State of Palestine’s UN representative Majed Bamya addressed this irony during a moving reproach of the Security Council following a fourth veto of a ceasefire resolution by the United States.
READ: ‘No justification’: Palestinian UN envoy delivers stirring rebuke following US ceasefire veto
“There is no right to mass killing of civilians. There is no right to starve an entire civilian population. There is no right to forcibly displace a people. And there is no right to annexation,” said Bamya at the time.
“This is what Israel is doing in Gaza. These are its war objectives. This is what the absence of a ceasefire is allowing it to continue doing,” he admonished.
“This full-fledged Israeli assault against the Palestinian people and the Palestinian land is about everything except the hostages,” he asserted. “If the families of hostages can see that, how can anyone in this room claim otherwise?”
“Is this war releasing the hostages?” Bamya challenged. “Is it even trying to release the hostages? So what does it mean? We accept this war that is killing hostages, and that is killing, maiming, terrorizing, [and] destroying an entire nation?”
In his June interview with Haaretz, Har emphasized, “What needs to be done is getting all the hostages back at any price and under any condition. That is what’s most important now. Human life is above everything.”
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