Tomorrow is the third anniversary of the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in Israel that killed more than 1,200 innocent men, women, and children and saw hundreds more — including Americans — taken hostage. It was the largest loss of Jewish life outside of the Holocaust.
Since that horrible day, Israel has vowed to make "never again" mean something, and leftists around the globe have done nothing but scream about a non-existent genocide in Gaza. In America, Democrats and their socialist allies want to cut off all American funding for Israel, including for the life-saving Iron Dome defense system, and leave the Jewish state an open target for annihilation at the hands of Islamists.
But Brett McGurk said cutting off U.S. support for Israel would not have ended the war. It would have only made things worse, and he pointed out that Hamas should have been strong armed into accepting the May 2024 ceasefire and hostage deal that Israel agreed to.
Former top national security official Brett McGurk argues that cutting off U.S. support for Israel during the war in Gaza would not have ended the conflict and “would have made it worse.”
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) October 4, 2026
McGurk tells @margbrennan that after Israel agreed to a proposed ceasefire and hostage deal… pic.twitter.com/PswXCjShjh
"It was such a public debate at the time," Margaret Brennan said. "And under the Leahy Law, as you know, countries that receive U.S. weapons have to avoid committing human rights violations or risk losing the weapons supply."
Brennan then asked if McGurk agreed with a Biden State Department memo that cited the U.N. and humanitarian organizations that said "Israeli civilian harm mitigation efforts [are] inconsistent, ineffective, and inadequate."
The U.N. and other organizations are not unbiased observers, and they do not care that Hamas routinely hides weapons and fighters with civilian populations, of course.
"No aid to any country is unconditional, including to Israel," McGurk replied. "But security assistance is a complex, multi-institutional, multi-branch endeavor. And most of these appropriations were appropriated by massive bipartisan majorities in Congress at the time."
"So in May, we just had the largest ballistic missile and drone attack ever in history," he continued. "We helped the Israelis defeat it. We say to Netanyahu, Biden's quote in that meeting is 'I just saved your a**, but we're getting back to the hostage deal, okay?' We spend the month of May putting together a detailed, four-page, three-phased agreement, single-spaced, every detail there. We go to the Israelis and Netanyahu and we say, we need you to sign up. And it went very far in the direction of Hamas. Frankly, it was a better deal for Hamas than what they have right now."
"And Netanyahu on May 27 signed on to that deal. On May 31 ... President Biden laid out that deal to the world in a speech and he said 'Israel has accepted this deal, Hamas say yes, let's end this war,'" McGurk said. "The U.N. Security Council endorses that deal. It's May 31. What happens? In early June, after this is on the table, we can stop the war right now if Hamas says yes. Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, gives a defiant speech praising October 7 and basically Iran is telling Hamas to not compromise in any of the terms."
"Hezbollah launches its largest attack of the war; 250 rockets into northern Israel," he adds. "This when we have a ceasefire deal on the table. We don't get an answer from Hamas until July 2. Almost five weeks later and they put all sorts of things in it to set the talks back."
"My approach is, this deal's on the table to stop the war. All pressure, everything, public, everything else has to come down on Hamas and their enablers to say yes and end this war," McGurk said. "But Hamas did not say yes. They kept stringing us out."
McGurk ended the segment by saying, "I come back to the question, how do you end this crisis? And I think the record shows if you just stop American support for Israel, it's not going to end the crisis. It's just going to make it worse."
OMG, Netanyahu is a hero… besides Hamas, he had to deal with those impotents from Biden administration that wanted Israel to lose the war.
— Cora Vilder (@cora_vilder) October 5, 2026
Hard to argue anything else. Especially with how the Democrats have behaved for the last three years.
Democrats are objectively pro-Hamas. Multiple Biden officials incl Blinken and Sullivan have admitted their weakness strengthened Hamas/IRGC resolve. Pressuring Israel was ALWAYS a stupid strategy. GFY Dems doubling down on your idiocy will just make it worse 🤮
— Eitan 🇺🇸 🇮🇱 (@eitanaltman) October 4, 2026
There was always a push to make Israel lose this war.
Absolutely correct, obviously.
— Max 📟 (@MaxNordau) October 5, 2026
The only pro-peace position is pro-Israel.
All pressure placed on Israel makes things worse for everyone. https://t.co/4UKSN7Atl4
Iran and Hamas will not stop. They believe they have a religious duty to end Israel and kill Jews. You don't compromise with such rank zealotry. You defeat it, soundly, each and every time it rears its ugly head.
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