Although it's good to celebrate that Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander is being released from Gaza, it's imperative to realize Hamas is using this as a way to survive, Robert Wilkie told Newsmax on Monday.
The co-chair of the Center for American Security at the America First Policy Institute, who was Veterans Affairs secretary in the first Trump administration, told "Wake Up America" that "we rejoice that a young man is being returned home to his parents ... but the sad thing is that if you look at the history of the Hamas death cult, this is another one of the games that they are playing right now. They are playing a game for their survival."
Wilkie emphasized that Americans need to "always keep an extra eye open, because of the diabolical nature of the Hamas cult."
Wilkie insisted that "there's not much left of [Hamas], but they still hold ... 55 Israelis [hostage]. That is what they see as their trump card to prevent ... the final elimination of Hamas."
The former VA secretary also commented on the planned first face-to-face meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy scheduled for Thursday.
After "President [Donald] Trump just staved off a potential fight between two nuclear powers in India and Pakistan ... Trump has shown the world that the president holds the cards. ... Putin's economy cannot sustain what it is doing [in the Ukraine war] and Putin really has no choice. We will see what games he will play, [but] he has met his match" and is on his "back heels."
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Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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