How America Failed the American-Israeli Hostages

One of America’s most significant foreign policy failures in recent times occurred under the Biden administration in the days immediately following October 7, 2023. This statement is not intended to be political. In full transparency, I voted for President Biden in 2020 and did not vote for President Trump in 2024. I am not a single-issue voter and have voted for both Republican and Democratic presidential candidates over the last 20 years.

Removing personal biases and taking a nonpartisan viewpoint, it is undeniable that the Biden administration gravely and fatally betrayed its citizens who were directly impacted by the October 7 terrorist attack. As the harrowing details came to light, we learned that twelve US citizens (both dead and alive) were among the 250 hostages stolen by Hamas from their homes and a music festival. The US President (whomever may have been in office at the time, whether Republican or Democrat) had the power, justification, and frankly the obligation to act immediately and do anything and everything to get its citizens released. Yet the US did . . . nothing. Biden and his administration could have and should have publicly threatened Hamas: either return the hostages or else face serious consequences. No such threat to Hamas was made immediately following October 7, 2023—or at any point during the Biden presidency through mid-January 2025. Over fourteen months elapsed.

Yet the Biden administration had ample information to act swiftly. The Biden administration knew, for well over a year, that Hamas and its sympathizers starved, tortured, raped, maimed, and failed to provide medical care to the Israeli hostages (who ranged in age from nine months to eighty-six years old). The Biden administration knew, for well over a year, that twelve of these hostages are American. The Biden administration knew, for well over a year, that Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an American citizen, had his arm blown off by a Hamas grenade and was in urgent need of (and not receiving) basic medical care.

Despite this extensive knowledge that American citizens were suffering in unimaginable conditions for many months, the Biden administration never exercised its muscle to coerce, let alone encourage, Hamas to release the hostages (or it did not do so in any public manner). Consequently and troublingly, for over 470 days, the US government let twelve of its citizens languish in abusive captivity in Gaza.

One might argue that the US government had no ability to influence Hamas. This is not so. Terrorist organization or not, Hamas is the recognized government of Gaza. Hostile governments have wrongfully detained many US citizens over the years, and the US government has proactively and effectively negotiated with them to return these citizens. For example, when Russia detained, tried, and sentenced US citizen Brittney Griner for illegal marijuana possession, the Biden administration played hardball. The State Department issued public statements that it expected Russian authorities to provide US embassy officials with regular access to all US citizens detained in Russia, insisting that the health and welfare of these citizens is a priority. US consular officials did visit Griner, and ultimately, the US swapped a convicted Russian arms dealer for Griner’s release.

There is a stark contrast between the Biden administration’s handling of Griner’s detention in Russia vs. the twelve American-Israelis held hostages in Gaza. The Biden administration did not publicly issue threats or ultimatums to Hamas, nor did it swap a single prisoner for an Israeli-American hostage over the many months that passed. Moreover, the US embassy in Israel has a Palestinian Affairs Unit (“PAU”) to manage relations with Palestinians, and PAU officials never visited the hostages. And, if the Biden administration was in fact attempting such access to the hostages and levying such threats against Hamas behind the scenes to no avail, then why not publicly disclose that and mount public pressure on Hamas? Perhaps America has different rules of engagement or protocols with respect to hostages vs. political prisoners. Even so, nothing precluded the Biden administration from forcefully and publicly condemning Hamas in the same manner it did for Griner.

Instead, the Biden administration focused its threats and negative public statements on Israel: the US government withheld weapons from Israel, leaned into criticizing Prime Minister Netanyahu, and labeled potential military action in Rafah as crossing a “red line.” Without clear support from the US, Israel’s leverage over Hamas and its mission to rescue hostages were stymied. Precious time to save the hostages (many of whom indeed were held in Rafah) was lost.

Where Biden floundered, the next US administration radically shifted tacks. President-elect Trump immediately issued an ultimatum to Hamas before he took office: release the hostages by Inauguration Day or “all hell will break out.” He publicly repeated this clear threat over and over on broadcast news, on social media, and in interviews. Put simply, Trump was not shy about his disgust for Hamas, characterizing them and their actions “sick and twisted,” and the urgency to get every remaining hostage (not just the Americans) out of Gaza.

Lo and behold, a proposed hostage deal—one that had been on the table for months during the Biden administration—got signed within weeks of Trump’s return to office. The day before Trump’s Inauguration Day deadline, Hamas began to release Israeli hostages for the first time in over a year. For those who weren’t behind the closed doors of the hostage negotiations, we only can speculate about what moved the needle on a deal that had stagnated for many months. But the timing is undeniable: the US issued to Hamas a credible threat with a hard deadline, and Hamas complied timely.

This sequence of events begs the question: what if, on October 8, Biden had given Hamas an ultimatum to return the American hostages? Maybe that pressure would have encouraged the release of the Israeli-American hostages, or even all 250 hostages. Maybe Hamas and Israel would have reached a ceasefire more quickly, sparing Palestinian lives as well. We’ll never know.

But what we do know is Biden failed to set an expectation with all hostile powers that if you steal Americans, then America will come after you. In failing to do so, the US government essentially gave license to any terrorist group or enemy nation to kidnap, detain, and torture American citizens without any consequences whatsoever. Regardless of your politics or whether you love or hate Israel, our country’s grave shortcomings and delayed urgency surrounding the Israeli hostage crisis may have long-term, catastrophic effects for all American citizens. This epic failure in American policy may haunt us for years to come.