After repeated promises from Biden administration that a cease-fire is close, war in Middle East is escalating
After months of public optimism about the prospects of a ceasefire, Biden administration officials have soured on the prospects of an end to the war between Israel and Hamas.
"We aren’t any closer to that now than we were even a week ago," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby admitted to reporters on Wednesday. He called the prospects of a completed deal "daunting."
"No deal is imminent," one U.S. official told The Wall Street Journal. "I’m not sure it ever gets done."
Israelis point the finger at Hamas for killing six hostages earlier this month, including a U.S. citizen. Arab officials lay blame on Israel for explosive pagers and walkie-talkies and airstrikes aimed at killing Hezbollah fighters for making the prospect of a multi-front war more likely.
"There’s no chance now of it happening," an Arab official said after the recent campaign against Hezbollah. "Everyone is in a wait-and-see mode until after the election. The outcome will determine what can happen in the next administration."
For Biden, a former chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who ran on his diplomacy chops, failure to secure a deal would be a blow to his legacy. It would mean a presidency bookended by a chaotic pullout from Afghanistan at the start and the false hope that peace — and the return of some 250 hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7 — was just around the corner after the outbreak of war in the Middle East.
Along with the recent attacks on Hezbollah, officials cited another main reason for pessimism to the Journal: the number of Palestinian prisoners that Israel would be asked to release to bring home its hostages.
Joel Rubin, former deputy assistant secretary of state, told Fox News Digital he’s less pessimistic about the potential for a deal.
"Nobody's walked away from the table. They haven't stated they're done. Qatar and Egypt are still partnering with us on these talks. The three-stage agreed-upon framework is still in place," he said.
"The hangups are on the implementation side, not the framework side," he said, noting that negotiations as far as which prisoners will be released, how their safety will be guaranteed and what to do with Hamas Leader Yahya Sinwar remain open-ended.
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"These implementation issues keep coming up," he said. "That’s where you keep hearing Hamas growing its demands, adding new names, expecting more. And that's where you hear Israel, you know, calling for the Philadelphia corridor, which suddenly has dropped out of the discussion, right? They both want more and more advantage and gains on their side, which is why negotiators are exasperated."
While the Biden administration continues to try to find ways forward on a deal, public comments that have strung along hope for months are now conflicted by some of the privately held sentiment that cease-fire efforts are futile.
On July 19, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said a cease-fire deal was within sight.
"I believe we're inside the 10-yard line and driving toward the goal line in getting an agreement that would produce a cease-fire, get the hostages home and put us on a better track to trying to build lasting peace and stability," Blinken said.
On Aug. 17, President Biden said he was "optimistic" a deal could be reached. "We are closer than we’ve ever been," he said, adding that he was sending Blinken to Israel to continue "intensive efforts to conclude this agreement."
On Aug. 19, Blinken said that Israel had "accepted a proposal" and the next step was for Hamas to agree.
"The next important statement is for Hamas to say ‘yes,’ and then, in the coming days, for all of the expert negotiators to get together to work on clear understandings on implementing the agreement," Blinken said at a press conference in Tel Aviv.
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"This is a decisive moment, probably the best, maybe the last opportunity to get the hostages home, to get a cease-fire and to put everyone on a better path to enduring peace and security."
But those comments came one day after Hamas had said it would not agree to that proposal. They objected to Israel having control of the Rafah and Philadelphia corridors, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had demanded.
Then again on Sept. 2, Biden claimed the U.S. was "very close" to finalizing a cease-fire deal that would see the release of hostages. Asked why he was optimistic despite other deals having failed, he said, "Hope springs eternal."
Even this week, Blinken expressed optimism about a deal, though he warned after the pager blasts that "escalation" threatens to thwart progress.
"It's imperative that all parties refrain from any actions that could escalate the conflict," Blinken said at a news conference in Egypt.
He said he was focused on a deal that would bring calm on all fronts, including Israel’s northern border with Lebanon. Blinken said that 15 out of 18 paragraphs of a deal had been agreed by all sides.
He blamed long wait times for messages to be passed between the parties for leaving space to disrupt the talks.
"We've seen that in the intervening time, you might have an event, an incident — something that makes the process more difficult, that threatens to slow it, stop it, derail it — and anything of that nature, by definition, is probably not good in terms of achieving the result that we want, which is the cease-fire," Blinken said.
After Egypt, he went to Paris to discuss the prospects of a deal with his European counterparts.
U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan met Wednesday with the relatives of the seven remaining U.S. hostages held in Gaza, where the families said they "expressed frustration with the lack of tangible progress" to Sullivan.
On Thursday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in a televised address called the pager attacks "a declaration of war" and that attacks against Israel would continue until the war with Gaza is over. Likewise, Israel’s defense minister vowed to continue striking Hezbollah in Lebanon, aiming to stop the group’s rocket and missile attacks so some 70,000 Israelis who live in the northern border region could return home.