Obama: Don’t Let Hostages Die Until I Have Chance To Betray Them

Washington, DC, June 16 – US President Barack Obama called Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu today to ask them to hold off on measures to secure the release of three Israeli teenagers kidnapped by Palestinians until Obama himself can be instrumental in dooming them.

In the aftermath of the Obama administration’s controversial management of the Bowe Bergdahl case, the president has decided to take a more active role in mishandling hostage and prisoner exchanges. Bergdahl, an Idaho native, was held by the Taliban for five years in Afghanistan after allegedly walking away from his post there, and no consultations were held with Congress prior to the prisoner release that secured his release, as required by law. Nor did the administration go to lengths to try to parlay contacts over the deal into a crucial, broader effort to reach a comprehensive peace deal. One of the three kidnapped Israeli teenagers is a US citizen, putting Obama in position to take a lead role in endangering the hostages through imprudence and in compromising both American and Israeli deterrence.

The US president has been attempting for years to use his inexperience, naivety, left-wing ideology, and sympathy for Muslims of all levels of militancy to undermine the security of the US and its allies around the world, with varying success. Inaction on a grand scale has allowed Islamists to control large swaths of Iraq and Syria, at the same time that half-assed negotiations with Iran have accomplished nothing but allowing the regime in Tehran to get ever closer to the atomic threshold and the development of ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

But Obama’s approach has made only limited gains in compromising Israel’s security, despite constant pressure on Netanyahu to forgo various vital Israeli interests in exchange for vaguely worded promises from the Palestinians not to try killing every Israeli between the Jordan and Mediterranean at the first opportunity. In the current hostage case, his impact, though noticeable, is likely to be limited, say experts.

“This doesn’t really have the potential to develop into another Benghazi on its own,” explained Rongway Corrigan, who writes about defense for the Irish Sun Times. “The Israelis are too competent. It will take sustained intervention by the US president to transform this into a debacle.”