Is Biden Out of the Loop on Israel-Hamas Negotiations?

You’ve probably seen the breathless headlines emerging this week featuring Joe Biden suggesting that a ceasefire deal in Gaza was “close” to being finalized and that at least some hostages and prisoners could be exchanged. Most of us would likely be glad to see hostages coming home, so that’s good news, right? And Biden assured us that he’d gotten that information from National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, so the claim must have been pretty solid. There’s only one problem with the story and the assumptions that followed, though. As the Free Beacon quickly pointed out, some reporters had been following up with their sources in Israel and around the Middle East where the major players are involved. None of them seemed to have any idea what Biden was talking about. 

After President Joe Biden on Monday suggested that a ceasefire deal in the war between Israel and Hamas was imminent, several parties in the negotiations appeared to cast doubt on his comment.

“My national security adviser tells me that we’re close,” Biden told reporters in New York. “We’re close. We’re not done yet. My hope is by next Monday we’ll have a ceasefire.”

Representatives from Hamas, Israel, and mediator Qatar, however, all reportedly said that his optimism was exaggerated.

“The primary and main issues of the ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces are not clearly stated, which delays reaching an agreement,” two anonymous senior Hamas officials told Reuters Tuesday.

The Hamas officials described “big gaps to be bridged.” Israel’s Ynet News website cited unnamed, high-ranking Israeli officials who told them that they “didn’t know what Biden’s optimism is based on.” Qatar’s foreign affairs ministry seemed similarly bewildered, saying they remained hopeful “but not necessarily optimistic” that a ceasefire deal could be reached. 

In other words, nobody directly involved in either the war or the negotiations believes that the two sides are close to an agreement. Bibi Netanyahu hasn’t backed down on his drive to continue wiping out Hamas. Hamas hasn’t released any more hostages. There hasn’t been any measurable progress since the last ceasefire ended.

So where did Joe Biden get this “information?” Did Jake Sullivan actually tell him that? If so, we need to start questioning whether he’s really up for this job or if he’s becoming as confused as his boss. I suppose it’s possible that Sullivan may have told Biden something similar in an optimistic tone and Biden simply took it as a done deal. More frighteningly, Biden could have simply imagined the entire conversation. I don’t think we can honestly rule that possibility out at this point. After all, the man regularly has conversations with dead people.

I have seen some conservative commentators previously asking why the United States isn’t assuming its traditional role as a peacemaker and shepherding these negotiations through to the finish line. But does anyone really want Joe Biden at that table at this point? The two sides are at an impasse and have been for a while now. Israel isn’t going to accept a deal that hurts their interests, fails to release all of the hostages, or prevents them from eliminating Hamas. Hamas won’t give up what they see as the last bit of insurance they have against complete obliteration. 

Negotiating this situation would have been a serious challenge for Henry Kissinger on his best day. And Joe Biden couldn’t have matched Kissinger’s skills on his best day, which has long since faded in the rearview mirror. But the fact that he keeps coming out and saying things like this, leaving the media scrambling to either verify it or explain what went wrong is a problem. The world is a powderkeg at the moment and the person potentially in control of the fuse no longer has the cognitive abilities to be trusted with a pack of matches.