This article examines the differing outcomes of ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas under Presidents Trump and Biden. It highlights the November 2023 agreement brokered shortly after the war's commencement and contrasts it with Biden's subsequent, unsuccessful attempts. The piece analyzes the motivations of both sides and the factors that contributed to the failure of the latter.
One week after President Donald Trump announced the ceasefire and hostage exchange between Israel and Hamas, many are wondering why President Joe Biden couldn’t extract the same deal, despite his fervent efforts.
It’s a fair question, but no less fair is this: Why didn’t Trump strike this deal a few weeks, rather than nine months, after he took office?, but it wasn’t the first negotiated pause in the war that began on Oct. 7, 2023, after Hamas militias crashed across the Israeli border and killed 1,200 Jews, most of them civilians., just a month and a half after the war began. It called for a four-day ceasefire, the release of 50 Israeli hostages and 50 Palestinian prisoners, and the release of 10 more with each day’s extension of the truce. Biden’s hope was that the incentive would lead to the freeing of all hostages and a permanent peace. The guns were silent for six days;The fact was, neither Israel nor Hamas wanted the war to end. Israel wanted to destroy Hamas as a political and military entity; Hamas, by this point, may have seen the impracticality of its ultimate goal , but it still wanted Israel to withdraw from Gaza. The Israeli army still had a lot of targets in Gaza to hit; Hamas still had a lot of material support from its allies in the region. Both thought they might achieve their goals by resuming the war. Negotiations continued through intermediaries—mainly the U.S., Qatar, and Egypt—but they were doomed to failure as long as the combatants’ interests were irreconcilable and their determination to keep fighting was so intense.—U.S. pressure on Israel, Soviet pressure on the Arabs , U.N. pressure on both, or a combination of all three. When Israel started pounding Gaza with what many saw as disproportionate force , Biden urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to dial it back—but he never applied real pressure, never threatened sanctions or a full cutoff of arms supplies, even though some of Biden’s top aides advised him to do so. At the start of the war, Biden had made a shrewd calculation; he publicly embraced Netanyahu and Israel while privately pushing them not to let rage govern their actions . But he didn’t fully recognize Netanyahu’s maximalist objectives. As Netanyahu saw that he could step up his attacks with no tangible penalties, he ignored Biden’s lectures—nodding gravely but brushing them away in his mind.A complicating fact was that, throughout the year, Israel kept coming under assault from missiles fired by Hezbollah on its northern border, by Houthi rebels to the west, and sometimes directly by Iran. Biden still regarded Israel as a major ally and so felt he couldn’t cut off military aid while it was under direct attack; other Western leaders continued to provide aid. In any case, the Sunni Arab leaders had no fondness for Hamas; some of them—the Saudis, Egyptians, and Gulf emirates—wanted to deepen their relations with Israel, in part because of the common threat they faced from Iran and its Shiite militias. They had the power to pressure Hamas. But they couldn’t do so—for fear of alienating their own populations—as long as Israel kept bombarding Palestinians in Gaza with no restraint. So, the war persisted and the destruction of Gaza intensified, even as talks for peace continued, until Jan. 15, 2025, just a few days before the end of Biden’s term and the beginning of Trump’s, when Qatar, on behalf of Hamas, agreed to aSeveral events had occurred in the interim, greatly boosting Israel’s leverage and gravely reducing that of Hamas. The head of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar,, and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in an Israeli airstrike. Israel destroyed Iran’s air-defense system in retaliation to an Iranian missile strike, thus leaving the Iranians’ vital assets vulnerable if they attacked again. Bashar al-Assad fled Syria after his army collapsed under an insurgency’s attack.—who enjoyed a much warmer relationship with the Israeli prime minister than Biden had—needed a ceasefire to start his term. Netanyahu, at some political risk, agreed; Witkoff, working with Biden’s chief emissary, Brett McGurk, put the final pieces in place.The ceasefire, hostage exchange, and provision of humanitarian aid—which stayed in place for six weeks—were said to mark the first phase of a multiphase accord. The second phase was to include a further withdrawal of Israeli troops and Hamas’ release of all remaining hostages. But then,This was in mid-March. Trump could have pressured Netanyahu to stick to the schedule for withdrawal; had he done so, Qatar, Egypt, and others might have pressured Hamas to keep releasing hostages. The fighting might have stopped for good. But Trump was telling Netanyahu toof expelling all the Palestinians in Gaza to some distant promised land and turning the strip into a Middle Eastern Riviera. His ambassador to Israel,, was denying the existence of “occupied territories,” saying Israel was entitled to Gaza and the West Bank. Netanyahu felt he had a green light to bomb Gaza as much as he wanted.. He tried to kill top Hamas negotiators by dropping bombs on where they were staying in Qatar—i.e., he dropped bombs on Qatari territory. The Qataris were outraged. And, to the surprise of Netanyahu, Trump was outraged too. Qatar, a tiny oil-rich emirate, plays an unusual dual role in the region, as a supplier and middleman for Hamas , he should nab the honor next year.No one should understate the significance of the agreement. The fighting has stopped; Gazans have returned to their homes ; Israel is allowing the U.N. to rush in more aid than before. Most remarkably, Hamas freed all of the remaining hostages before Israel withdrew entirely from Gaza—something that had previously seemed impossible. However, some perspective is warranted. The steps taken in the last week are basically the steps that were scheduled to take place in Phase 2 of the deal negotiated at the end ofterm with the aid of Trump’s team and with Trump’s endorsement. In other words, Trump was well-positioned, and should have been motivated, to enforce it this past March—but didn’t.Is It Cool to Say “I Love Hitler”? The Republican Party Is Trying to Decide.The Supreme Court Is Poised to Rule That It’s Racist to Remedy Racismthat Trump put on the table, with the assistance of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The other planks call for Hamas to disarm and relinquish all political power in Gaza. They also call for a multinational group to secure and rebuild Gaza, as well as somehow reform the Palestinian Authority , so that it can govern Gaza. In addition, Israel will eventually have to withdraw its troops from Gaza, except perhaps for a thin buffer layer along the border, and resume negotiations toward the creation of a Palestinian state.if they don’t do so on their own, though he didn’t say how or identify “we.” Netanyahu has said repeatedly that he will never permit the formation of a Palestinian state. Who will organize and fund the entity that rebuilds Gaza, reforms the Palestinian Authority, and secures the border on both sides—none of this is as yet known.to do the things that outside powers will need to do. But it is important to note that actually getting it done—or even laying down some vague outline of how to get it done—will be much harder than anything that these countries have agreed to do so far. Trump deserves some credit for pushing things as far as they’ve been pushed. But less than one week into the ceasefire, it’s premature to say conclusively just what he’s
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