Foreign policy analyst and former advisor to the Trump administration Christian Whiton has accused the leaders of multiple Arab nations of indulging pro-Hamas sentiments with their decision to cancel a meeting with President Joe Biden after a baptist hospital in the Gaza Strip was rocked by a massive explosion on Tuesday.
Hamas has attributed the blast at al-Ahli Baptist hospital in Gaza on Tuesday to an Israeli airstrike, while the Israeli government has said the hospital was unintentionally hit by a failed rocket launched by Palestinian extremists.
The incident has heightened emotions even further in the region, even as the exact circumstances of the Gaza hospital strike are being contested between parties involved in the conflict.
President Biden was set to arrive in Jordan on Wednesday to meet with Jordan’s King Abdullah, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, but Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi announced that the meeting had been canceled following the hospital strike.
The foreign ministries of Egypt and Jordan have attributed the Gaza hospital strike to Israel.
Mr. Whiton, in an interview with NTD’s “Capitol Report” on Wednesday said the decision by the Jordanian and Egyptian governments to attribute the Gaza hospital strike to Israel and cancel the summit with President Biden “shows, I think, the unreasonableness of a lot of these Arab populations.”
Mr. Whiton, who served as a foreign policy advisor to both President George W. Bush and President Donald Trump and who now works as a senior fellow for the Center for the National Interest, insisted that the Arab leaders should have waited for more clarity about the hospital strike before canceling the summit with President Biden.
“I think it was odd for the Arab leaders to not wait to find out more,” Mr. Whiton said. “You know, they indulge their own population’s, I guess, partiality to Hamas at their own risk. That really is playing with fire in these countries.”
Mr. Whiton said the decision by Jordanian and Egyptian leaders to not meet with President Biden “I think is a mistake” and noted both countries are recipients of billions in U.S. aid each year.
The UAE has also attributed the Gaza hospital strike to Israel.
President Biden arrived in Israel on Wednesday to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
‘Israel Doesn’t Need A Lecture’ About Civilian Casualties: Whiton
Israeli forces have conducted numerous retaliatory airstrikes across the Gaza Strip after Hamas gunmen breached the Gaza barrier and carried out attacks across southern Israel, killing hundreds of civilians.
The Hamas-backed health ministry in Gaza has claimed more than 2,600 people in Gaza have been killed and another 9,600 injured as a result of the ongoing fighting. The exact number of casualties and parties responsible are difficult to independently verify, as evidenced by the dispute over the party responsible for the al-Ahli Baptist Hospital strike.
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has also expressed “grave fears” about civilian casualties in Gaza and “indications of violations of the laws of war and international human rights law.”
Mr. Whiton defended the Israeli military’s record of compliance with the conventions of war.
“Israel actually does take great efforts to comply with the rule of war, the law of war, to not intentionally target civilians to take reasonable efforts not to do so,” he said.
Mr. Whiton said mistakes can still happen even when countries make efforts to avoid civilian casualties. Mr. Whiton said the U.S. military makes efforts to avoid civilian deaths but pointed to a 2021 U.S. drone strike that killed up to 10 civilians during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“Israel doesn’t need a lecture about this,” he said. “I mean, could you imagine on the eve of D-Day, if [then-U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt] called up [then-British Prime Minister Winston Churchill] to give him a lecture about the need to avoid civilian casualties?”
Iran’s Objectives in Hamas-Israel Conflict
As Israeli military operations against Hamas continue, Iran has issued cryptic warnings of a potential wider regional conflict.
Over the weekend, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said, “If the Zionist regime’s crimes against the Palestinian people and citizens continue, no one can guarantee that the situation in the region will remain the same.”
The Iranian official added that Hezbollah could “cause a huge earthquake in the Zionist entity.”
Mr. Amir-Abdollahian’s recent comments about Hezbollah may be seen as a veiled threat that the group will attack Israel from the north if Israeli military operations to wipe out Iran-backed Hamas in the south continue.
There have already been signs of low-level fighting along the Israel-Lebanon border. Israeli forces have also responded with artillery strikes after suspected rocket launches from Syria last week.
Iran-Backed Terror Groups
The U.S. and Israeli governments both designate Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations. The U.S. State Department has assessed that the Iranian government has provided support to both Hezbollah and Hamas.
“They already have sort of two armies that are doing its bidding: Hamas and Hezbollah,” Mr. Whiton said of Iran’s relationship with the designated terrorist groups.
Mr. Whiton said the Iranian Islamist regime’s long-term goal has been to destroy Israel and change the balance of power in the Middle East.
“It’s not just Israel they want gone, they want the Saudi monarchy gone. They want all the monarchies gone out of the Middle East and to have an Islamist tyranny,” he said.
Mr. Whiton argued that the U.S. military has helped to constrain Iran’s regional ambitions, but that Iran is likely to seize on any weakness it perceives.
“Any chance they get, any open door they perceive—and with President Biden, I think they have perceived the ability to do it; what’s going on today. So more mischief, more terror, more efforts to export their Islamist ideology and undermine other governments in the region,” Mr. Whiton said.
U.S. and Israeli officials have yet to identify specific evidence showing that Iran directly ordered the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in southern Israel. Nevertheless, Iranian officials did celebrate the recent Hamas attacks, in which Hamas gunmen killed hundreds of Israeli civilians and took around 200 people back to Gaza as hostages.
