Waltz: If Hamas reneges on any part of the deal, we’ll back Israeli action
JERUSALEM – Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla,, whom President-elect Donald Trump tapped as his national security advisor, said Wednesday the incoming administration would support renewed IDF military action in the Gaza Strip if Hamas breaches any of the terms of the tentative ceasefire agreement.
Waltz has given two interviews recently, one on the Call Me Back podcast with Dan Senor, and later on FOX News with Bret Baier.
NEW
Incoming National Security Advisor Waltz on Fox News now: “I want all Israelis to hear me out. If Hams breaches this deal, we will back Israel 100% to go back to the war; in the end, Hamxs will no longer be in Gaza.”@JewishWarrior13 pic.twitter.com/KVR8gOvfXO
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) January 15, 2025
In the more recent interview with Fox, Waltz said the incoming administration would back Israel’s military to go back into the Gaza Strip – which he stressed Hamas should play no part in governing – if the terrorist group did not “live up to the terms of the agreement.”
The lawmaker said he understood Israelis’ concerns about the potential of convicted Palestinian murderers being released from the country’s jails, but brought the focus back to the 100 or so captives held in unimaginable circumstances.
“… at the end of the day those hostages have been down there in those tunnels getting raped, abused, in horrific conditions. They have been there longer than the 1979 hostages, in much more horrific conditions,” referring to the Iran hostage crisis.
Waltz struck an even more strident tone with Senor, also drawing a sharp distinction between what he viewed as the Biden administration’s lack of support for Israel, as opposed to how the Trump 2.0 team will deal with the situation.
“We’ve been clear that Gaza has to be fully demilitarized, Hamas has to be destroyed to the point that it cannot reconstitute, and that Israel has every right to fully protect itself,” Waltz says. “Hamas cannot have a role. ISIS doesn’t have a role. Al-Qaida doesn’t have a role.”
“These are hostage-taking, murderous, rapist, torturers that never should ever have any role in governing,” he says.
Waltz assessed Israel’s current strategic position as being a net positive, especially considering the series of events in the last quarter or so of 2024. He commended Israel’s government and military strategists and decision-makers for not listening to the so-called experts in the Biden administration, who cautioned against several of Israel’s actions, which have borne the ripest results.
“And now we are where we are, where Iran is in the worst position it’s been. And that’s not to say this administration didn’t help with shooting down the missiles, [or that] they didn’t help with arms, but they also tapped the brakes as well in a way that I just did not find rational.”
One of the ways the Biden administration tapped the brakes was the withholding of munitions needed for the war effort, admitted to by the outgoing failure of a Vice President Kamala Harris on her disastrous campaign trail, and which went against a congressional vote.
The NSA pick added one of the key pillars of the Trump foreign policy is to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which in the wake of the historic Abraham Accords signed in 2020 were well on the way to being realized. The Oct. 7, 2023, attacks were at least partly caused and timed for maximum effect to torpedo the growing cooperation between the desert kingdom and the Jewish state. If a deal can be reached Waltz said it would be “a tremendous historic region-changing agreement.”