Multiple reports on Sunday and Monday indicated, citing unnamed sources, that attempts by the administration of President Joe Biden to end Israel’s self-defense operations against the jihadist terrorist organization Hamas in Gaza have not yielded any significant progress.
Both Israel and Hamas reportedly rejected the latest attempts at a ceasefire deal from the White House, the Times of Israel reported on Sunday, suggesting that the Israeli government politely raised “reservations” with the proposed agreement, while Hamas terror leaders “flatly rejected” the deal. The proposed deal appears to be the result of a visit to Egypt, a core mediator, by Secretary of State Antony Blinken last week in which he was reportedly working to complete a draft of a “bridging” proposal – an agreement to potentially reach an agreement – between the terrorist organization and its target nation.
Israel declared war on Hamas in October 2023 after the Iran-backed Palestinian terror group orchestrated an unprecedented terrorist siege on the country on the seventh of that month. Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and engaged in door-to-door raids of residential communities, killing entire families and engaging in infanticide, gang rape, and desecration of corpses. The terrorists also took an estimated 250 people hostage, about 100 of whom are believed to still be in captivity in Hamas’s stronghold of Gaza.
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Joel B. Pollak / Breitbart News
Biden administration officials have repeatedly stated that they, and the president, believe that the best way to rescue the remaining hostages is to come to a deal that stops Israel’s war on Hamas. They have offered no enthusiastic support for a battlefield victory against Hamas. Israel has officially adopted four goals in its war: the elimination of Hamas, the return of the hostages, the return of the over 60,000 displaced by Hezbollah in northern Israel to their homes, and ensuring that Gaza, where the terrorists invaded from, could no longer be used for terrorist attacks against Israel.
The Israeli government has listened to American proposals, hashed out with input from neighboring Egypt and Qatar, but has ultimately found that Biden administration potential deals do not allow for the completion of the war goal of eliminating Hamas. Hamas, in turn, has claimed to negotiate in good faith but rejected deals it had previously agreed to and continuously made outrageous demands unappealing to Israel. Hamas has rejected proposals even the Biden administration has admitted originated with Hamas itself.
The Times of Israel, citing Israel’s Channel 12, reported on Monday that Biden officials “sent the draft text of a new proposal to Israel and, via Qatari and Egyptian mediators, to Hamas,” and received negative responses from both sides. Israel reportedly objected to calls for it to move its forces out of critical areas, such as the Philadelphi border, while Hamas terrorists said they “would not accept any deal that differs from the proposal presented by US President Joe Biden at the end of May.”
The May deal would not have required Hamas to disarm and would not have required it to stop threatening Israel; Hamas would have remained in control of Gaza. In addition to Israel rejecting this proposed deal, Hamas itself had rejected the deal prior to its resurfacing in May.
The American outlet Politico reported on Monday that the repeated failure of Biden administration attempts to seal a deal indicate that such an agreement would not happen before the end of Biden’s term in January. The White House appears to be pressuring the parties involved to come to some agreement to stop Israel’s self-defense operations in Gaza before November, when America will have its presidential election – a development that might benefit the electoral prospects of Biden’s vice president, Kamala Harris.
“Biden has told his national security team that reaching a cease-fire deal is his top priority for the rest of his time in office, according to the three officials,” Politico reported, citing only anonymous sources. “He believes it will bolster his legacy in two ways: first, that he would get credit as a peacemaker; and second, that it could ease Harris’ path to victory.”
“Keep fucking trying,” Biden reportedly told officials, but Politico’s sources described the odds of a deal succeeding as bleak.
White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby echoed that sentiment in comments to the press on Saturday, declaring, “nobody is giving up hope.”
“Nobody is going to stop working towards this,” Kirby insisted. “As we’ve said so many times, we believe the best chance at getting the hostages home is through the ceasefire deal.”
That said, Kirby added, “It’s hard, it’s daunting, and that we are not closer to achieving that than we were even a week or so ago.”
Kirby blamed Hamas exclusively for setbacks in negotiations.
The Times of Israel and Reuters had reported, citing anonymous officials, pessimism nonetheless taking hold in the Biden administration.
“No deal is imminent. I’m not sure it ever gets done,” an anonymous purported official said.
The insistence on using diplomatic negotiations to attempt to tame a genocidal terrorist organization has resulted in significant public embarrassment for the Biden administration. In August, Blinken traveled to the Middle East to hash out a deal, calling it, bizarrely, the “last opportunity” to come to an agreement. Achieving a ceasefire during that trip would have granted Democrats a major political victory during their national convention, but no such agreement surfaced, and Blinken continued to push for a deal, apparently undeterred by his own “last opportunity” comments.
During Blinken’s visit to Egypt from September 17 to 19, while the State Department was boasting of having completed “18 paragraphs” of an agreement, Hamas’s “al-Qassam Brigades” published a video announcing the return of mass suicide attacks.
“You have ignited a fire that will never be extinguished until we repel you away from our home and our land … We have prepared for you certain death,” a terrorist declared in the video.
“The resolution is less a question of substance and more a question of political will. And for both parties, it’s important to demonstrate that political will to get this agreement concluded,” Blinken declared during his visit to Egypt, urging the terrorists to muster the “political will” necessary to choose his ceasefire deal over threatening “certain death.”