On Tuesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Lead,” Israeli Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter stated that the Arab League hasn’t put needed pressure on Hamas, “if they could.” And criticized Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey for their stance on Hamas.
Host Jake Tapper asked, “So, the Arab League, several weeks ago, called for Hamas to surrender and to no longer be in charge of Gaza, right? Whatever happened to that? Has there been sufficient pressure on Hamas from the Arab League to achieve that, to end this war?”
Leiter responded, “Well, that was a great declaration by the Arab League, and I think that is a very positive development overall for the Middle East, which probably is a result of our taming and degrading Iran and the extremists in the Middle East. But, no, they haven’t applied the necessary pressure, if they could. The interesting thing is that we’ve seen this before. We’re both old enough to remember when we defeated the Palestine Liberation Organization in Lebanon in 1982, 83, and Hamas’ predecessor, Yasser Arafat, left. He laid down his arms and left by boat. This is the same thing that could happen today. Hamas has to leave. We’re not going to go back to a situation like on October 6, when the country was being held hostage. We cannot have a situation where the country is being held hostage by jihadis living at our border.”
Later, Leiter said, “Put the pressure on. Mr. Qatari, Mr. Egyptian, come down and say to Hamas this is enough, okay, get out of there. You’re not going to get any more support. You have to understand that Hamas leadership is sitting in Istanbul. Where the hell is Mr. Erdogan? Why [is] Hamas leadership sitting in Qatar right now?”
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