President Biden, a week before he is due to hand over power, expressed optimism about prospects for at long last reaching a deal for the release of some of the 100 hostages held by Hamas in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons, and a phased ceasefire in Gaza. The basic structure of the three phase deal is one the administration has been pursuing for over eight months.The BBC reports:
“On the war between Israel and Hamas, we are on the brink of a proposal that I laid out in detail months ago, finally coming to fruition,” Biden said in a valedictory foreign policy speech at the State Department today.
“We are pressing hard to close the deal we have structured that would free the hostages, halt the fighting, provide security to Israel, and allow us to significantly surge humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians, who have suffered terribly in this war that Hamas started,” Biden said. “They've been through hell. So many innocent people have been killed.
“The Palestinian people deserve peace, and the right to determine their own futures,” Biden said. “Israel deserves peace and real security. And the hostages and their families deserve to be reunited. And so we're working urgently to close this deal.”
“I have learned in many years of public service to never, never, never, ever give up,” Biden added. (1)
At this point, it’s likely any ceasefire during the next few days or immediately after Trump’s Inauguration will be mainly a stunt to make Benjamin Netanyahu’s preferred Presidential candidate Donald Trump look good.
In fact, at the moment, it looks suspiciously similar to Ronald Reagan’s Inauguration, when Iran released the hostages it had held since the previous year immediately after Reagan was sworn in as President. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Benjamin Netanyahu is planning the same sort of thing.
Because of that, it’s not entirely clear why Hamas would agree to such a ceasefire if it gave back all the hostages. (Under international law, they should give back all the hostages, but neither Hamas nor Israel actually care about international law.)
Because Israel will just make up some pretext or seize on some particular incident to claim they had to immediately resume whatever kinds of military actions they actually stop. But why would Israel even adhere for a few days to whatever they agreed to do in the ceasefire? Neither Biden in his last hours in office nor Trump as President will impose any meaningful restraints on Israel’s military action in the absence of political pressures from inside and (mostly) outside for a real change in policy.
Rozen presentas about the only kind of very cautious optimism that it seems we can take from the present moment, which is that Trump and Biden have cooperated “at least on the issue of a Middle East peace deal managed to set aside their differences for the sake of trying to free the hostages and end the awful bloodshed in Gaza.”
Haaretz columnist Alan Pinkas definitely seems to think Netanyahu was stalling the previous hostage negotiations in order to time a solution to coincide with Trump’s hoped-for Presidential Inauguration:
If the 20th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution – ratified on January 23, 1933 – had determined that presidential inaugurations would be on January 10 and not January 20, the five Israeli soldiers who were killed in Gaza on Monday likely would have been alive, their families not destroyed, a hostage deal might have already begun and scores of Gazan lives would have been spared.Notes:
It's that simple, that appalling, that tragic and that cruel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may whine all he likes about how U.S. President-elect Donald Trump made him do it. He is already selling the "I had no choice, we managed to postpone this for months" message to his ultranationalist, messianic, warmongering ruling coalition partners. But the truth is very clear: he has agreed to a deal he could and should have signed many months ago. But ailing hostages rotting in oxygen-deprived tunnels for 15 months and over 120 Israeli soldiers killed since he declined a previous deal are the least of his concerns. This is who and what he is. ...
The deal that may – and still may not – be agreed and signed on Tuesday or Wednesday was on the table last May, again in July and practically ever since. But Mr. Netanyahu, in the name of "an existential war" that will produce a "total victory," waited for the U.S. election and then for the presidential inauguration before agreeing to a deal. …
This is an extraordinarily tenuous agreement given what Hamas is and Netanyahu's track record. It would come as no surprise to anyone if he is telling his reluctant and sulking ministers, "Don't worry, the cease-fire won't hold." (3)
(1) Rozen, Laura (2025): Biden says on ‘brink’ of hostage release/Gaza ceasefire deal. Diplomatic 01/13/2025. <https://diplomatic.substack.com/p/biden-says-on-brink-of-hostage-releasegaza> (Accessed: 2025-14-01).
(2) US says Israel and Hamas “on brink” of Gaza ceasefire deal. BBC News 01/14/2025. <https://youtu.be/-FT8a8p3z9U?si=u2cVGndYzXCcVdbd> (Accessed: 2025-14-01).
(3) Pinkas, Alon (2025): The Gaza Cease-fire and Hostage Deal Is the Same One From Eight Months Ago. Why Did Netanyahu Accept It Now? Haaretz 01/14/2025. <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-01-14/ty-article/.premium/the-gaza-cease-fire-deal-hasnt-changed-in-eight-months-why-did-netanyahu-accept-it-now/00000194-649e-d2ad-a19d-76df0cf80000?gift=0e77daf7ec9e4beb87765d24c9c5d422> (Accessed: 2025-14-01).
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