Trump and Biden both claim credit for Gaza ceasefire deal

President Joe Biden meets with President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump are both claiming credit for Israel and Hamas agreeing to a ceasefire deal in Gaza after the White House brought Trump’s Middle East envoy into negotiations that have dragged on for months.

Trump wasted no time in asserting he was the moving force behind the deal, whose final details were still being ironed out, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.

“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,” Trump wrote on social media. “I am thrilled American and Israeli hostages will be returning home to be reunited with their families and loved ones.”

Trump added that his incoming Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff, would continue “to work closely with Israel and our Allies to make sure Gaza NEVER again becomes a terrorist safe haven.”

Biden stressed in a statement that a deal was reached under “the precise contours” of a plan that he set out in late in May.

“It is the result not only of the extreme pressure that Hamas has been under and the changed regional equation after a ceasefire in Lebanon and weakening of Iran — but also of dogged and painstaking American diplomacy,” Biden said. “My diplomacy never ceased in their efforts to get this done.”

Later in remarks at the White House, Biden said his administration negotiated the deal but that Trump’s team will soon be charged with making sure it’s implemented, a nod to Witkoff being a partner in the talks.

“For the past few days, we have been speaking as one team,” Biden said.

Nancy Okail, head of the U.S.-based Center for International Policy, said acceptance of the deal in the face of Trump’s insistence that a ceasefire be in place when he takes office next week “ironically shows how effective actual pressure can be in changing Israeli government behavior.”

Jonathan Panikoff, director of the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council, said Biden deserves praise for continuing to push the talks despite repeated failures. But Trump’s threats to Hamas and his efforts through Witkoff to “cajole” Netanyahu deserve credit as well, he said.

“The ironic reality is that at a time of heightened partisanship even over foreign policy, the deal represents how much more powerful and influential U.S. foreign policy can be when it’s bipartisan,” he said. “Both the outgoing and incoming administration deserve credit for for this deal and it would’ve been far less likely to happen without both pushing for it.”

The Biden administration’s open embrace of incoming Trump team involvement in the talks was rooted in far more than the president-elect’s influence with Netanyahu and his threats that there would be “hell to pay” if a deal wasn’t done by Inauguration Day, which is in five days, three current U.S. officials said.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to offer candid details, said their interest in having Witkoff participate in the talks alongside Biden’s Mideast pointman, Brett McGurk, was primarily designed to ensure that an agreement — which will require a lengthy American commitment — would have continued U.S. support after Biden leaves office.

Yet, since Witkoff entered the latest round of talks in Doha, Qatar, alongside McGurk, these U.S. officials have downplayed Trump’s relevance to the process apart from the importance of ensuring his support for a deal painstakingly negotiated over the past year. They also want backing for a plan pushed by the Biden administration for the governance, reconstruction and security of Gaza that will take many months — and significant U.S. backing — to succeed.

The officials said it was important for all parties to the deal to know that the agreement had buy-in from the new president. That was important not only because Biden will leave office in just five days, but also because the U.S. is a guarantor of the agreement that will play out in several phases.

One fear about not including Trump officials in the negotiations was that the post-conflict plan for Gaza that has been worked over the past year might be abandoned by the new administration.

Implementation of the agreement could begin Sunday, when the first group of hostages may be freed, according to a senior U.S. official involved in the talks.

Negotiations intensified over the past four days, according to the official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity. The official described McGurk and Witkoff’s coordination as a “fruitful partnership.”

The U.S., Qatari and Egyptian negotiators along with Israel’s team nearby worked until the wee hours Thursday morning, just a floor above where the Hamas negotiators were holed up, the senior official said.

Later Thursday, Hamas made several last-second demands, but “we held very firm” and Hamas eventually agreed to the terms of the deal, the U.S. official said.

The plan outlined most recently on Tuesday by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, calls for an international presence in Gaza to work with and assist the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority with both governance and reconstruction. It also calls for a temporary foreign security presence in the territory to address Israeli security concerns.

Over the course of the war, Biden’s relationship with Netanyahu was strained by the enormous Palestinian death toll in the fighting — now standing at more than 46,000 dead — and Israel’s blockade of the territory that has created a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza by leaving access to food and basic health care severely limited.

Pro-Palestinian activists have demanded an arms embargo against Israel, but U.S. policy has largely remained unchanged. The State Department in recent days informed Congress of a planned US$8 billion weapons sale to Israel.

Biden refusal to impose meaningful restrictions on how the Israelis may have helped Israel seriously degrade Hamas and Hezbollah, but it also came with enormous suffering for innocent Palestinians and Lebanese that have been caught in the crossfire of the 15 moths of grinding war. The outgoing one-term Democrat’s critics say his approach could come with long-term ramifications for U.S. standing in the Middle East and may well prove to be stain on Biden’s legacy.