Politics

It Turns Out CIA’s Hamas Intel Briefs Were Way Off The Mark, Trump’s Peace Deal Negotiators Reveal

(Screenshot via CBS/60 Minutes/YouTube)

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) provided U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Middle East aide Jared Kushner intel that contradicted assessments of key mediators suggesting Hamas would agree to Trump’s peace deal, Witkoff said in an interview on “60 Minutes” Sunday.

Witkoff told “60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl that while mediators from Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey were expressing confidence to the U.S. that Hamas was ready to accept key concessions and agree to Trump’s deal, the CIA was providing intel reports that conveyed the opposite view. Despite the contradictory intel, Witkoff and Kushner pushed forward and ultimately got Hamas to agree to a ceasefire, freeing the remaining hostages and setting the stage for further negotiations on other parts of Trump’s proposal.

“We were getting, because of our relationships … we were hearing that Hamas was positive on the deal, and yet I was reading intelligence reports every day, and getting briefings from the CIA three times a day, and those intelligence briefings were suggesting that Hamas was going to say no.”

However, it remains unclear what evidence was behind the CIA’s contrary intel suggesting that Hamas would turn down the deal, or if the CIA believed Hamas would reject the plan in part or in full.

Hamas did seem to punt on certain provisions in Trump’s 20-point plan when they initially agreed to a deal on Oct. 3, saying they would need “Palestinian national consensus and Arab and Islamic support” to throw their weight behind the whole proposal.

“Jared and I had to make a decision as to where we thought this was going,” Witkoff continued. “And both of us, you know we didn’t need to convince one another. We really felt that this was going in a positive way. And sure enough, Hamas came out and said, ‘we accept the president’s plan.'”

A White House official told the Daily Caller News Foundation that “Bringing peace to the Middle East has eluded American presidents for decades until President Trump and his extraordinary team got it done.”

“The White House is grateful for CIA Director Ratcliffe’s critical support throughout the process. It is the responsibility of the intelligence community to provide full scopes of assessments to the negotiating team to ensure they have the full range of information and can achieve the best possible outcome — as they did,” the official added.