Just when Republicans are winning, they go and shoot themselves in the foot, giving away vital political gains to liberals. We are literally the gift that keeps giving.

Enter: Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, architects of the potential peace deal whereby Hamas finally released Israeli hostages after over two years of brutal captivity. Spiking the football, the two ventured into the belly of the beast by giving an interview to Leslie Stahl of 60 Minutes.

That alone is a rookie mistake, by rookies playing statesmen and politicos. Not only are Stahl, 60 Minutes, and CBS compromised, their audience is chock-full of liberals holding viewpoints that do not support or favor Israel, certainly not in the aftermath of October 7th.

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The excerpt CBS released before going on air Sunday included both Witkoff (dare I say Witless?) and Kushner discussing their reaction to Israel’s September 9th attack in Doha against Hamas leaders.

The duo characterized Israel as “out of control” and having nearly jeopardized the entire deal process. In discussing their surprise about Israel’s missile strike against Hamas leaders living in and getting protection from Qatar, Witkoff stated, “You know, I think both Jared and I felt, I just feel we felt a little bit betrayed.”

Responding to Stahl’s comment that Trump “was furious,” Kushner offered, “I think he [President Trump] felt like the Israelis were getting a little bit out of control in what they were doing, and that it was time to be very strong and stop them from doing things that he felt were not in their long-term interests.”

Their comments feed the sickening narrative in the Arab world and among leftists in the US, Israel, and Europe, that Israel’s post-October 7th response (including neutralizing Hezbollah, Iran, the Houthis, and Hamas) was disproportionate, out of control, and a genocide against the Palestinians despite painstaking Israeli efforts before any attack to get Gazan civilians to safety and provide them with humanitarian aid.

Their comments fail to recognize that, under international law, Israel had a right to ensure safety to its people from Hamas terrorists paragliding, tunneling, and riding bikes into Israel, intending to massacre and capture innocents.

Their comments place responsibility for jeopardizing the peace process squarely in Israeli hands, even though there was literally no traction for peace on the Arab world’s part up until the Doha attack.

Their comments perpetuate the misguided belief that, while the October 7th massacre was wrong and bad and, yes, it would be nice if the hostages could be released (but Bibi was preventing that for his personal political gain), Israel had lost the public relations war and had completely lost the moral high ground.

As if Israel has ever been on the winning side of the public relations war…

The politically astute response from Witkoff and Kushner should have been “Yes, the attack in Doha on September 9th had the potential to upend negotiations, but Netanyahu apologized, refrained from further incursions against Hamas leaders living in Qatar, and this catapulted the negotiations to a speedy and positive conclusion.”

This would not have been a bending of the knee to Israel’s detractors, but would have been truthful, would have addressed the issue directly, and would not have provided Israel’s critics with additional ammunition.

In response to Stahl’s breathless remark that “Netanyahu, the Israelis, bombed the peacemakers. Bombed the negotiating team,” Witkoff added that this “had a metastasizing effect, because the Qataris were critical to the negotiation, as were the Egyptians and the Turks. And we had lost the confidence of the Qataris. And, so, Hamas went underground, and it was very, very difficult to get to them.”

Witkoff’s claim that this single act drove Hamas underground belies reality. Any difficulty in finding Hamas troops in Gaza and rooting them out was not something that materialized after the Doha incident. They had been underground since October 8th.

Moreover, it was after the Doha scare that the Qatari leadership realized that they were not untouchable and that the long arm of the Israeli military was capable of inflicting grave harm in Qatar. This Israeli strategy worked in Lebanon with Hezbollah, in Iran, and, to a lesser extent, in Yemen with the Houthis. It is more likely that the Israeli attack (maybe even inadvertently) prompted the Arab parties to get on board with a Trump deal before Israel turned its attention to Arab states harboring Hamas terrorists.

Not too long ago, in the beginning of September, the Qataris were hardly good-faith negotiating partners. Instead of peace, they gave aid, comfort, resources, and protection to the Hamas masterminds behind the unspeakable atrocities of October 7th. Very little was accomplished in terms of releasing the remaining hostages. Frankly, none of the Arab parties had come together before September 9th and taken a strong stand against Hamas while making a strong push for peace. That came only after the Qataris realized that Israel had its sights set on Hamas in Qatar.

Moreover, getting any of the hostages back before September 9th had been a painstaking process that lasted almost two full years, with little traction in the months leading up to the September 9th Doha attack. At the beginning of September, any hope of releasing the remaining hostages, dead or alive, seemed to be all but extinguished.

Efforts to negotiate their release (not peace, but their release) came in fits and starts, with no real results. But, once pictures of an emaciated Evyatar David digging his own grave emerged and Israel attacked Hamas leaders in Doha, suddenly the Arab world wanted not only to release the remaining hostages, but also to have a go at the brass ring—peace.

It had been two years, but this was accomplished in roughly a month.

As far as I am concerned, Witkoff and Kushner threw Israel under the bus before the ink was dry on a peace deal that so far is not peaceful. It was an unforced error they did not have to make at a time of teeming anti-Israel sentiment and virulent antisemitism that is coming from former allies of the Jewish state and both the left and the right in Europe and the US.

All they did was throw more fuel on the fire for the protesting left and anti-Israel European nations who bark that the Israelis are the war-mongering, genocidal maniacs and the Arab nations are the innocent victims, even though they have never lifted a finger in favor of peace and have been the instigators every time of every war and act of violence that has prompted a response, if any, from Israel.

Witkoff and Kushner can take a victory lap for freeing the remaining hostages and negotiating a potential peace, but maybe it’s time for them to retire before they do any more damage.