Ed Luce: Netanyahu Never Wanted a Hostage Deal as that Would Bring the End of the War

SCARBOROUGH: “So Ed Luce, it’s been six months. The protests, of course rising to a fevered pitch for families wondering why this has dragged on for six months and whether Netanyahu and the government’s focus, according to these families of hostages, has been on getting their family members and their loved ones back. And here we are six months later, and their frustration growing by the day at the government’s policies or lack of policies focused on freeing the hostages.”
LUCE: “Yeah, and the most recent when they — the families of the hostages gathered together over the weekend to commemorate this six months hell they’ve been going through. Not a single member of Netanyahu has government attended that. And the reason why is because all along, the families have been shunned, ignored, sidelined, disrespected. Netanyahu hasn’t wanted a hostage deal. There’s been many occasions where he could have had a deal, but he hasn’t wanted one, because that would bring about an earlier end to this war. And as we all know very well, his only method of surviving in the job he’s got is to prolong this war. So there is no constituency in Israel. That is more critical and cynical about Israel’s prime minister, than the families of the hostages, because they know that they haven’t been a priority for Netanyahu, and signs now that they might be becoming a priority, and that, you know, Bill Burns’ presence, as Admiral Stavridis pointed out is very, very important in Egypt right now and the conversations with Qatar very, very important. The reason why there might be a deal in the offing now to release the hostages, is because the Biden Administration is finally putting real pressure on — on — on the — on the Netanyahu government. And we — we — we see what pressure actually does do. It opens — it opens the gates to more aid to the Gaza Strip, it — it — it produces the possible hostage deal. American pressure does work. And we’re seeing that happen now in — in real time. So, the hostages, that’s the best thing we can hope for in the next few days and it might well happen.”
SCARBOROUGH: “Yeah.”