As President Biden was about to leave a press conference following the announcement of a possible ceasefire accord between Israel and Hamas, a reporter asked him, “Who gets credit for this, Mr President, you or Trump?” Apparently, Biden stopped, turned around, smiled and said, “Is this a joke?”
His sardonic response aside, his administration reportedly made relentless efforts in its last days trying to conclude a ceasefire between the two warring parties. Spearheaded by his Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, it was undoubtedly an effort to seal a legacy as his presidency ended.
Unsurprisingly, President-elect Trump wasted no time in claiming that his election was responsible for the accord even before it was formally announced in the Middle East. His self-aggrandising announcement notwithstanding, the Biden administration had initiated this process, and Trump’s new emissary for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, helped to conclude it. Witkoff even conceded that Biden’s trusted Middle East hand, Brett McGurk, played a crucial role in bringing this deal to a successful end.
The devil, however, lies in the details. It remains to be seen how the particulars of the agreement will be implemented. According to the terms of the agreement, the Israeli military will start withdrawing from the Gaza Strip, and Hamas will begin releasing some of the hostages captive since the October 7 (2023) attack. Alongside, humanitarian assistance is to start flowing into Gaza, providing much-needed relief to a beleaguered population.
The accord is still subject to the approval of the Israeli war cabinet. As of January 16, the identity of some of the hostages remains an unresolved issue, holding their final consent. However, Blinken, in a press conference, expressed confidence that the deal would receive the necessary assent and go into effect on Sunday. This proposed six-week ceasefire may well lead to a broader diplomatic initiative aimed at a more permanent peace.
The relentless Israeli bombardment of Gaza designed to eviscerate Hamas, and its military prowess, has had an unintended consequence: Hamas, according to the US, has exploited the abject conditions prevailing in Gaza to recruit almost as many fighters as it has lost. So, it hasn’t served one of the core objectives of the Netanyahu government’s war — the complete “destruction” of Hamas.
Notably, at least one key member of his war cabinet, the National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, has publicly expressed his opposition to the deal. Another hard-liner, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, has stated that Israel should explicitly reserve the right to go back into Gaza should it deem it necessary.
As both Israelis and Gazans wait to see the accord implemented, a key question remains unanswered. Why was the agreement reached at this very late hour, in the twilight of the Biden administration? It is impossible to provide a definitive answer. However, both analysts in the US and key members of the Israeli opposition have argued that Netanyahu deliberately slow-walked the negotiations once Trump was elected to the presidency for a second time. They contend that as a very astute observer of the American political scene, he must have concluded that an accord reached just before Trump assumed office would give him greater leverage over the future of the Palestinian question.
Such an assumption is hardly fanciful. Among other matters, during the first Trump administration, a long-standing Israeli demand had been granted. In December 2017, the US accepted Jerusalem and not Tel Aviv as the nation’s capital and the US Embassy was also shifted to the city. Furthermore, in 2019, the Trump administration recognised Israel’s sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights.
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Trump had repeatedly stated in the last few weeks that there would be “hell to pay” if the Israeli hostages were not released before he assumed office on January 20. This message, for a certainty, was not lost on Hamas. Additionally, the weakened Hamas leadership might have thought that given Trump’s inclination to grant extraordinary leeway to any Israeli government, it was perhaps best to conclude a ceasefire as long as the Biden administration was in office.
The accord, if it goes into effect as planned, will bring this sanguinary war to a close, at least for the next several weeks. What transpires thereafter will depend majorly on two key factors. First, the degree of latitude the Trump administration proves willing to grant Netanyahu’s government in dealing with Hamas and the Palestinians in general. Second, it will also hinge on Netanyahu’s ability to hold his fractious government together and his willingness to appease the hard-liner members of his coalition as he seeks to ensure his own political survival given his legal woes.
Sumit Ganguly is a Senior Fellow and directs the Huntington Program on US-India Relations at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University
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