Sussing out who gets the credit for a diplomatic win is far from easy.
By its very definition, any deal made on the global stage has a minimum of two parties attached. Unlike a signed bill or a freshly inked executive order, there’s rarely one name at which observers can launch their hosannas and brickbats. Add in the nebulosity of the last days of a presidential administration and you can see where giving flowers gets murky.
Still, President Joe Biden doesn’t approve of the rapidly forming consensus that a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas is the work of incoming President-elect Donald Trump. In a press conference announcing the ceasefire on Wednesday, Biden credited his administration’s continued material and military support of Israel with bringing the deal to the table.
“The elements of this deal are what I laid out in detail this past May,” Biden said. “The road to this deal has not been easy. I’ve worked in foreign policy for decades. This is one of the toughest negotiations I’ve ever experienced.”
To that end, Trump sent his own Middle East envoy to ceasefire talks in Doha. Biden said that his administration has been working hand-in-hand with the incoming Trump representatives to ensure a smooth transition and a tenuous peace.
“For the past few days, we’ve been speaking as one team,” Biden assured reporters.
Insiders, analysts and Trump himself failed to see the negotiations that way. The president-elect claimed sole credit in a post to his social media platform, Truth Social.
“This EPIC ceasefire agreement could have only happened as a result of our Historic Victory in November, as it signaled to the entire World that my Administration would seek Peace and negotiate deals to ensure the safety of all Americans, and our Allies,” he wrote. “We have achieved so much without even being in the White House. Just imagine all of the wonderful things that will happen when I return to the White House, and my Administration is fully confirmed.”
A diplomat who spoke anonymously to the Washington Post said that the advent of the Trump administration brought a newfound urgency to broker a deal, calling recent talks “the first time there has been real pressure on the Israeli side” to reach an agreement.
Chaim Levinson, a senior diplomatic correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, wrote on X that Trump was almost singularly responsible for a deal getting done.
“The great and huge Donald Trump took [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s hand [and] bent it behind his back,” Levinson shared, noting that it was threats from Trump that ultimately forced Israel to agree to the ceasefire. “It’s a shame Biden didn’t realize this a long time ago.”
Several other analysts have called the ceasefire deal a ruse, meant to rob Hamas of their leverage via a hostage release while providing a boost to Israel’s allies in the Trump administration.
Haaretz’s Zvi Bar’el wrote on Wednesday that Israeli leaders have no intention of moving through the phases of the three-part cessation of hostilities.
“One should not be deceived by illusions. The aspiration to establish and entrench themselves in Gaza and the dream of settlement there have not disappeared, they have only been postponed for a few weeks,” Barel wrote. “Prepare for a scenario in which, after the release of 33 hostages, the war of extermination in Gaza will continue.”
British geopolitical analyst H.A. Hellyer agreed in a series of posts to X, saying that Netanyahu is unlikely to follow through on the promised stages of the ceasefire following a hostage exchange, noting that Trump is unlikely to pressure the prime minister to do so.
“This deal is only a ceasefire deal if there is a commitment to actually fulfill all three phases of it. Withdrawal and cessation of hostilities happens post phase 1,” he wrote.
Whether or not the ceasefire deal will hold once he leaves office, Biden still bristled at the suggestion that he was on the sidelines while Trump and Netanyahu’s teams hammered out the deal. Right before leaving his Wednesday press conference, a reporter asked the president whether or not Trump was the man to credit with a long-sought ceasefire.
“Is that a joke?” he asked, before turning to leave.
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