How Biden and Trump secured the Israel-Hamas ceasefire ...Middle East

As news broke that the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas had finally been reached after seven months of high-stakes negotiations in Qatar, President Joe Biden was preparing to make his farewell address to the American people from the Oval Office. President-elect Donald Trump was getting ready to redecorate the room.

Over the last fortnight, both the incumbent president and his successor have engaged in joint efforts to bring the peace agreement over the line.

Biden’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan have shuttled repeatedly to the region in an effort to cajole and chivvy the process along. Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff spent the last week in Doha, with the President-elect’s warning that “all hell” would break out unless the deal was done before next Monday’s inauguration serving as the wind in his sails.

Both America’s 46th and 47th presidents will insist they deserve the credit for securing the agreement.

Supporters of Biden are already maintaining that his administration’s quiet diplomacy created the foundation upon which the deal could be built, and delivered the incumbent President a final foreign policy victory to savour. Blinken, hours before the announcement was made, told CNN that any agreement would be based on “the plan that President Biden put forward back in May…that we rallied the world behind. Ever since then, we’ve been working to negotiate the details, and the implementation”.

Trump and his lieutenants argue that the president-elect’s deadline of next Monday to avoid the United States from unleashing unspecified military action in the region made all the difference, and that Witkoff’s work was key to securing the agreement.

Arab officials told The Times of Israel that the breakthrough followed a weekend of “tense” discussions between Witkoff and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Other media reports in Israel describe Witkoff as “forcing” Netanyahu to accept the ceasefire terms, with Trump’s envoy being described as “aggressive” in weekend discussions.

For months, Trump has claimed that he has the unique capacity to resolve the crises in both the Middle East and Ukraine on day one of his presidency. He insists that neither the 7 October, 2023 attack on Israel, nor the Russian invasion of Ukraine would have occurred on his watch. His lieutenants have argued that America’s enemies are quaking in their boots over his return to the Oval Office. Last summer, those claims seemed fanciful. But Trump’s team will argue that the breakthrough in Doha is a fresh indicator of what America can achieve when it has a leader who is willing not just to draw lines in the sand, but to enforce them as well.

“This EPIC ceasefire agreement could have only happened as a result of our Historic Victory in November,” Trump claimed in a statement. Citing it as a victory for his approach of “PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH”, he claimed to have “achieved so much without even being in the White House. Just imagine all the wonderful things that will happen when I return”.

The ceasefire agreement should mean that Biden’s departure from office is accompanied by a cessation of hostilities in Gaza, by the early release of at least some hostages held by Hamas, and by the exchange of Palestinians held in Israeli jails. That is a far better outcome for America’s departing leader than he may have expected just a fortnight ago. Then, the air in Washington was thick with talk of a repeat of January 1981, when Iran only agreed to release 53 Americans held hostage in the US embassy in Tehran hours after Ronald Reagan’s swearing-in, defying Jimmy Carter to the very end.

'I saw Gaza's health crisis - shortages leave inexperienced students treating patients'

Historians will debate who deserves more credit for the ceasefire deal that – if enforced – will end more than a year of captivity for a still-unverified number of hostages in Gaza, and silence Israel’s military campaign in Gaza that has claimed an estimated 48,000 lives. The timing of the announcement allows both US presidents to insist that it would not have happened without them. Making sure that the deal sticks will be the hard part, and that will now fall to Trump, even while the fresh paint dries on the walls of his White House.

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