Reaching Ceasefire in Gaza: A Tale of Trump’s Illusion and Biden’s Failure

President Joe Biden, flanked by his Secretary of State and Vice President, announced the ceasefire in Gaza with an air of accomplishment, framing it as a crowning achievement of his administration’s diplomatic efforts. However, this assertion is profoundly misleading. While the ceasefire was presented as a diplomatic victory, the truth reveals a far darker reality. For many, the Biden administration will not be remembered for brokering peace but for enabling and facilitating policies that allowed Israel’s genocide to continue unabated.

Far from legacy of peace, the Biden administration, through its supply of the tool of genocide and to shield Israeli war crimes from international accountability, bears direct responsibility in the Israeli carnage. In announcing the ceasefire deal, President Biden claimed it was the result of eight months of diligent diplomatic efforts by his administration. In fact, it was eighth months of normalizing Israeli war crimes as self-defense. Under the leadership of America’s most Israel-first Secretary of State, the ceasefire is a symbolic gesture that conceals the deeper moral and political failings of an administration that has proven servile to Israel.

This failure is also an emblematic of a broader issue within U.S. foreign policy: prioritizing parochial or political expediency over moral and ethical imperatives. By allowing Benjamin Netanyahu to act with impunity, President Biden not only compromised America’s standing in the world but also perpetuated, unchecked, Israeli genocide in Gaza. In doing so, the administration became a complicit partner in war crimes, further undermining the United States supposed standing as a defender of human rights and international law.

President Biden and Secretary Anthony Blinken’s legacy will be marked not by a ceasefire but by their role in providing and enabling Israel to drop 85,000 tons of bombs on Gaza—an amount that surpasses the combined bombings of Dresden, Hamburg, and London during World War II. Their tenure will be remembered for presiding over murdering or injuring 10% of Gaza’s population and the destruction of 86% of all building structures.

When students in Gaza eventually return to school after 15 months of devastation, they will face the grim effect of what the American-made bombs have wrought: 123 universities and schools reduced to rubble, murdering 750 academics and the loss of 130 scholars and university professors who once inspired hope and knowledge.

As aid trucks will be allowed to slowly roll into Gaza, the people will not forget the 300 humanitarian workers deliberately killed by Israel, nor the 160 journalists and media workers who risked—and lost—their lives attempting to broadcast the cries of a besieged population, only to have their voices fall on deaf ears and a world of dead conscious.

Amid the ruins of over 654 healthcare facilities, the memory of 1,000 selfless healthcare workers and some of Palestine’s finest medical doctors who perished in their efforts to save lives will remain seared into the collective consciousness. For the people of Gaza, this is not just a story of destruction but a testament to the world’s indifference and complicity in the face of a humanitarian catastrophe of unimaginable scale.

The current ceasefire agreement could have been secured months earlier. In May, President Biden proposed a similar framework that the Palestinians accepted. However, Netanyahu rejected it as a as “nonstarter,” prioritizing his political survival over ending genocide. Instead of holding Israel accountable or insisting on compliance with international humanitarian law, the Biden administration—led by the genocide facilitator, Secretary of State Blinken—chose to appease and embolden Netanyahu in his crimes.

Meanwhile, and not to be buoyant by false optimism, it’s not far-fetched to suspect that Netanyahu’s failure, as of 01/16, to secure his cabinet’s approval for the ceasefire could be part of a typical Netanyahu strategy. A last minute attempt to exert pressure, either to undermine the agreement or ‘wordsmith’ language to change terms, such as the names of prisoners to be released, or to resume the war once he gets what he wants from the exchange. This would not be unprecedented for Netanyahu, as he counts on the docile support from Washington’s genocide enablers.

This was made all the more apparent when, on the same day Netanyahu agreed to the terms of the ceasefire, his army escalated air raids, murdering 81 civilians in eight separate massacres, capping its crimes under Biden’s granted “self-defense” genocide license

Nonetheless, ending Israel’s war of genocide offers a fleeting sense of relief after 15 months of suffering. This, however, is less of a triumph to American diplomacy and more an indictment of systemic failures in the Biden’s foreign policy. Nor should it be seen as the success Donald Trump wants to project, but a reality more rooted in the abject weakness and failure of the self-proclaimed Zionist, Biden.

In this context, Trump’s allies have opportunistically seized the moment to frame the ceasefire as a vindication of his so-called strength in foreign affairs. However, such a claim is farther from the truth. The ceasefire was not the result of decisive U.S. intervention or diplomatic maneuvers but rather an Israeli failure to subdue the steadfast resistance of the Palestinian people, despite giving Netanyahu a carte blanche for over 15 months to achieve his elusive “victory.”

To this end, the ceasefire is a stark acknowledgment of Israel’s inability to impose its will, even with the unlimited U.S. military aid and diplomatic cover. Instead of securing the domination, the resistance from Gaza underscored the resilience and determination of the Palestinian people in the face of overwhelming odds. This outcome serves as a reminder that no amount of force or repression can extinguish the fight for justice and self-determination.

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