The Biden administration is frantically looking for a way to stop Israel from fulfilling its vow to its citizens to defeat Hamas and eliminate it as a military and terrorist threat.

America has a history of stopping Israel just short of actually defeating its enemies. In 1967 and 1973, Israel’s most famous full-scale wars came to a sudden halt when Washington insisted on a truce just as the IDF was preparing its final assault. The First Lebanon War in the early 1980s concluded with Israel being pressed to accept a deal whereby Yasser Arafat and his PLO could escape to fight another day.

And the same formula is now being discussed in regards to Hamas. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Biden administration wants Israel to consider a deal under which the Hamas leadership, along with thousands of Hamas gunmen and their families, will be allowed to leave Gaza to a third country.

First, it’s hard to believe any country, or group of countries, is going to agree to take in thousands of blood-soaked terrorists. Turkey, Qatar, Russia, Iran and Lebanon were reportedly floated as options, but why would they play along with this madness?

Second, US President Joe Biden has stressed that the war must not result in the permanent displacement of Palestinians, the creation of more refugees. He also claims that Hamas doesn’t represent Gaza, but he might be surprised to discover just how many need to be deported if Hamas members and their families are sent away. Hamas boasts some 40,000 members in Gaza. They are all local Gazans, from large Gazan families. You might be talking about well over 100,000 people being deported.

Third, as an Israeli official told the Journal, it’s a pipe dream to think Hamas itself would agree to this. The group’s entire raison d’être is the destruction of Israel, and it is religiously dedicated to this goal. Leaving would be tantamount to admitting defeat. Generally peaking, jihadists would rather die than admit defeat. Allah’s rewards are greater that way.

But all of this ignores the lessons learned, or not learned, from the Lebanon War fiasco. After destroying Lebanon, Arafat and his men were allowed to leave and take shelter in Tunisia, from where they continued to conduct a global campaign of terror. And then for some reason they were invited to Judea, Samaria and Gaza, where, to the surprise of no one with half a brain, they continued to incite and perpetrate terror.

Why do American officials think it would be any different with Hamas?

Honestly, the biggest obstacle to peace in the Middle East at this point is the short-sighted incompetence of Western leaders.