Israel cease-fire deal has critics worried over Biden, Obama officials looking to stymie incoming Trump admin
JERUSALEM— Amid the start of a cease-fire on Wednesday between Israel and the Iranian regime-backed Hezbollah terrorist movement in Lebanon, some leading Republican lawmakers accused President Biden of browbeating Israel into a temporary suspension of the war as the Jewish state staged a near-take down of the terror group's leadership and military structure.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reached the Litani River in Lebanon on Tuesday. A key war goal for the IDF is to push Hezbollah forces north of the Litani River. Under the cease-fire deal, Hezbollah is required to move its forces north of the Litani, which in some places is about 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of the border.
Yet, the reported threat of Biden imposing a weapons embargo on Israel pulled the plug on Israel’s penetration of Hezbollah-controlled territory in southern Lebanon, according to regional experts and several lawmakers.
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"The cease-fire agreement does not diminish what Israel managed to achieve in short order against Hezbollah. Within two months, it dismantled its infrastructure along the border, decapitated its entire senior command structure, destroyed a large percentage of its arsenal, and killed and injured thousands of its fighters," Tony Badran Levant, analyst and news editor at Tablet Magazine, told Fox News Digital.
Describing the move by former officials from the Obama administration who now work in the Biden administration, he said, "What the Obama-Biden team did on their way out was to coerce the Israelis, reportedly with the threat of an arms embargo at the Security Council, into signing onto Obama’s vision for the U.S. role in Lebanon, which is part of his broader pro-Iran realignment. This is the downside of the agreement: it consolidates this Obama framework that should have been dismantled—and that’s separate from the tactical and strategic gains that Israel achieved on the battlefield. Rather, this pertains to U.S. policy and how the Obama-Biden team used Israel to lock in their regional preferences."
He continued, "The deal puts the incoming Trump administration and the Israelis in a weird situation, not just because it saddles the new administration with Obama’s preferences in Lebanon—including hundreds of millions in additional aid to the Lebanese Armed Forces—but also it makes the U.S. an arbiter for Israeli action against Hezbollah moving forward and the possibility for friction that may create between the Trump administration and Israel.
"Meanwhile, the Obama-Biden team have set their structure in place. If the incoming administration keeps it, that would be great for the Democrats, who will pick it up on the other end and expand on it. In any case, they have a document—a bilateral side agreement—that will be there for a future Democratic administration," he warned.
Amos Hochstein, the presidential envoy who brokered the deal, told Israel's Channel 12 evening news anchor Yonit Levi that he had informed President-elect Donald Trump's team about the tenets of the deal "because it's very important for them to understand and support it, because they are going to have to carry it forward and implement as they took office in just a few weeks."
Echoing Badran's warning, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas., noted in a statement that "I am deeply disturbed both by reports that Obama-Biden officials exerted enormous pressure on our Israeli allies to accept this cease-fire and by how those officials are characterizing Israel's obligations. This pressure and these statements are further efforts to undermine Israel and constrain the incoming Trump administration. Obama-Biden officials pressured our Israeli allies into accepting the cease-fire by withholding weapons they needed to defend themselves and counter Hezbollah, and by threatening to facilitate a further, broader, binding international arms embargo through the United Nations."
Hezbollah launched rocket attacks a day after the Hamas massacre of nearly 1,200 people on Oct. 7, 2024 in southern Israel. The Iranian regime-backed Hamas terrorist movement slaughtered more than 40 Americans during the invasion.
According to the left-wing Israeli Haaretz newspaper, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's aides said Biden threatened a weapons delivery stoppage for Israel if Jerusalem continued to prosecute its war in Lebanon. The second Biden threat reportedly involved a U.S. refusal to veto a potential U.N. Security Council resolution that would hurt the Israelis.
The Biden administration denied the punitive measures targeting Israel to bring about a cease-fire in Lebanon. A senior administration official during a Tuesday press briefing flatly denied that Biden threatened to sanction Israel at the council. The official said, "This topic never came up, not once. It's only that we didn't threaten it … literally the topic never came up, so, I don't even know how to answer the question any other way. It is completely new to me. And none of us has heard of this before."
Backing this up in his interview with Israel's Ch. 12, Hochstein also denied the Biden administration threatened Israel over use of its U.N. Security Council veto if it did not sign the deal, saying, "There was no such discussion at any point," adding "it never came up."
The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a Fox News Digital press query.
Biden’s carrot-and-stick approach toward the delivery of weapons to Israel as the tiny Jewish state fights a seven-front war against Islamic Republic of Iran proxies has been a source of friction between Netanyahu and its main ally, the United States.
Lt. Col. (Res.) Sarit Zehavi, president and founder of the Israel-based Alma Research and Education Center, told Fox News Digital that the IDF eliminated Hezbollah leadership, most of its rockets were eradicated, and it was pushed away from the border. She said "The big question at stake remains, will Hezbollah recover and smuggle rockets and store them in Lebanon and south Lebanon again?"
Zehavi answered her question, "I am pretty sure that this deal will not."
Lebanese experts have long argued that Hezbollah is the de facto ruler of Lebanon. The U.S., Canada and many European countries classify Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.
Zehavi said "The Lebanese government is not willing to change its relationship with Hezbollah. Hezbollah is a member of the Lebanese government."
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She said she does expect enforcement of the terms of the cease-fire from The United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon (UNIFIL), the Lebanese armed forces and the Lebanese state.
According to the cease-fire, the Lebanese government is required to stop the smuggling of weapons to Hezbollah, Zehavi noted.
"I accept this cease-fire with mixed feelings. As a resident of the north, I am happy that we have a cease-fire. I am happy that my daughter can go back to school. I am happy to go back to normality and to stop hearing sounds of war and running for shelter all the time."
Mayors and local leaders in the northern towns ravaged by Hezbollah’s missile attacks opposed the cease-fire deal because the terms of the deal did not ensure they could safely reside in their homes.
Biden said that over 70,000 Israelis were forced to flee their homes in northern Israel because of Hezbollah’s rocket attacks. The number of displaced Israelis, according to experts in Israel, may be as high as 100,000 people.
UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti told Fox News Digital that, "The proliferation of weapons outside state control in Lebanon has been an undeniable fact, and that in south Lebanon – south of the Litani River – is a flagrant violation of Resolution 1701. But, as stated earlier, UNIFIL is not mandated to disarm Hezbollah or other groups by force. The Mission does not have the mandate to forcibly enter any location unless there is credible evidence that actions leading to hostile activity are taking place in that location."
Fox News Digital reported on the alleged failures of UNSC 1701, whose aim is to dislodge Hezbollah from southern Lebanon and disarm the terrorist organization.
When asked by CNN about incoming Trump National Security Adviser Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., attributing the cease-fire deal to the Trump effect, Jake Sullivan said, "This peace deal was reached because Israel achieved its military objectives, because the stakeholders in Lebanon decided they didn't want war anymore, and because of relentless American diplomacy led by President Biden, driven by her envoy Amos Hochstein, coordinated in this building behind me by the National Security Council. That's how this came to pass."
Waltz wrote on X, "Everyone is coming to the table because of President Trump. His resounding victory sent a clear message to the rest of the world that chaos won’t be tolerated. I’m glad to see concrete steps towards deescalation in the Middle East. But let’s be clear: The Iran Regime is the root cause of the chaos & terror that has been unleashed across the region. We will not tolerate the status quo of their support for terrorism."
A Trump-Vance transition official told Fox News Digital that, "President Trump has been crystal clear that his support for Israel and his commitment to peace in the Middle East is steadfast. Hezbollah understands this is their best opportunity to get a more favorable deal done. Iran-backed proxies clearly see the clock ticking as President Trump will soon return to the White House with a strong national security team, including Marco Rubio, Mike Waltz, and Pete Hegseth, with U.S. intelligence led by Tulsi Gabbard and John Ratcliffe. President Trump rightfully predicted that actors in the region would make moves toward peace because of his historic victory -- and that's exactly what we are seeing take place."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.