The US president’s announcement on Friday suggested a ceasefire might be close, but Benjamin Netanyahu’s rebuke was swift and decisive
was given a launch worthy of a historic turning point, with the US president delivering remarks directly to camera from the White House state dining room, declaring it finally “time for this war to end”.spelled out the proposal – leading in theory to a permanent end to hostilities, large-scale food deliveries and the start of reconstruction, there was clearly something awry.
A second statement issued after daybreak was even blunter. Any plan that did not achieve Israel’s war aims, including the destruction of Hamas’s military and governing capacity, was a “non-starter”. Biden has not delivered on his threat to curb arms deliveries, which would have triggered outrage from not just Republicans but pro-Israel Democrats. Administration officials have instead sought to parse what “going into Rafah” means. When he issued his ultimatum a month ago, Biden had suggested it meant the IDF advancing to the city’s “population centres”. That has clearly already happened, but US officials are now arguing the forays so far have not been “major operations”.
Getting to phase two in the new plan involves the same sort of wishful thinking as the old plan – that carefully chosen words could bridge the divide between Hamas’s demand that the cessation of hostilities be permanent, and Israel’s insistence that the war must continue up to Hamas’s destruction. According to news website Axios, Netanyahu initially rejected the new proposal, but relented under pressure from the military and intelligence chiefs and the other members of the war cabinet. That would explain why he left it to Biden to unveil the plan, and his less than half-hearted response.
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