The US-Israeli False Narrative on Gaza Cease-Fire Talks

Over the past months, outgoing Secretary of State Antony Blinken has given several interviews in which he repeatedly claims that Hamas, rather than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has been the key obstacle to achieving a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza. This messaging has been echoed by other Biden administration officials and surrogates.

At a workshop in Geneva in November, a recently retired US ambassador, who had just returned from meeting White House officials, claimed, “There are currently three ceasefire deals on the table and Hamas isn’t responding to any of them.” The veteran diplomat acknowledged the suffering in Gaza but blamed it on Hamas’ “rejection” of an agreement to end the war.

To my surprise, a former senior Israeli security official in the room rushed to challenge this claim, which he described as a “shameful attempt to rewrite history and blame Hamas rather than Netanyahu for the obstruction of ceasefire talks.”

A few weeks later in Doha, I met a senior Arab official who emphasized to me one of the most crucial things Biden can do in his “lame duck” period is name and shame Netanyahu for systematically foiling ceasefire talks. But the official quickly added the White House is “instead rewriting history.”

Since July, all of the sources I have spoken to confirmed that Hamas had accepted Biden’s ceasefire proposal that was endorsed by the UN Security Council, which is premised on an 18-weeks long ceasefire divided into three phases, at the end of which there would be a permanent end to the Gaza war after all hostages have been released. The same sources, as well as Israeli media, and the Egyptian mediators have consistently blamed Netanyahu for obstructing the talks and refusing to end the war.

Even in the latest ongoing round of negotiations, senior Israeli security officials are sounding the alarm that their Prime Minister is still sabotaging the talks. Yet, the White House keeps insisting that Hamas is “the obstacle.”

The reality is that since July, US president Joe Biden has completely stopped pressuring Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a ceasefire-hostage deal. Rather than tell the truth about Netanyahu repeatedly foiling the talks, the outgoing president and his administration are choosing instead to try and rewrite the history of what has really unfolded over 15 months of negotiations.

The Full Story

For the first four months of the Gaza war, the Biden administration opposed a full ceasefire, instead opting at best for a temporary “pause” to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid, which was briefly achieved in late November 2023. Biden said earlier that month: “a cease-fire is not peace… every cease-fire is time [Hamas members] exploit to rebuild their stockpile of rockets, reposition fighters and restart the killing.”

However, growing US domestic pressure, as well as Israel’s failure to locate and rescue the hostages combined with the sense that Israel had accomplished what it could militarily in Gaza eventually lifted Biden’s ban on using the word “ceasefire” by March 2024.

Talks began to mature with Qatari and Egyptian mediation throughout the spring, as the US exerted significant yet clearly inadequate pressure on Netanyahu, who had foiled two summits in Paris in January and February by procrastinating, severely limiting the mandate of Israeli negotiators, instructing ministers to attack any deal taking shape and publicly vowing to continue the war.

In early April, a concrete proposal was put on the table by the Qatari and Egyptian mediators and the US envisaging a ceasefire of three phases, six weeks each, in which hostages (including those deceased) would be gradually released in return for incremental withdrawal of Israeli forces from all of Gaza, an end to the war, and increased humanitarian and reconstruction aid. The first phase would have seen the release of 33 Israeli hostages.

Serious negotiations then took place in Cairo and Doha, with American officials making a genuine effort to narrow the gaps between the two sides. One senior Arab government source told me CIA director Bill Burns was at some point sitting literally in the room next door to where the Hamas delegation was negotiating in Cairo, and repeatedly amended the proposal with his own handwriting to get a deal done.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu sought to undermine those negotiations throughout April by consistently insisting on an imminent full invasion of Rafah and a continuation of the war after a pause. He also leaked sensitive classified information to extremist ministers in his government to derail the talks and restricted the mandate of Israeli negotiators.

A senior member of Israel’s negotiating team said in April that “Since January, it’s clear to everyone that we’re not conducting negotiations. It happens again and again: You get a mandate during the day, then the prime minister makes phone calls at night, instructs ‘don’t say that’ and ‘I’m not approving this,’ thus bypassing both the team leaders and the war cabinet.”

Throughout this period, Biden refrained completely from publicly calling out Netanyahu for explicitly sabotaging the talks.

On May 5, Hamas accepted the April proposal with reservations and amendments, but before the Israeli negotiating team got to formulate a response, Israel’s prime minister rushed to denounce Hamas’ position as “delusional” and ordered the immediate invasion of Rafah on May 7.

Biden, who had promised to halt arm supplies to Israel if it violated his “red line” of invading Rafah, decided to instead suspend one shipment of MK-84 2,000-pound bombs to Israel and nothing more.

The Only Realistic Deal

On May 31, Biden gave a televised speech presenting what he described as the outline of an Israeli ceasefire proposal submitted four days before. A senior Arab official confirmed to me in August that Biden’s proposal was in fact articulated by the Israeli team who turned to the White House after Netanyahu’s immediate answer was negative. That proposal had incorporated significant principles from Hamas’ May 5 response that Netanyahu had described as “delusional.”

Biden’s speech was designed to give Israel a victory narrative, stating that “At this point, Hamas no longer is capable of carrying out another October 7^th.” He warned “Indefinite war in pursuit of an unidentified notion of ‘total victory’… will only bog down Israel in Gaza, draining the economic, military, and human resources, and furthering Israel’s isolation in the world.”

11 days later, the proposal was formally endorsed by the UN Security Council Resolution 2735. However, Netanyahu rejected Biden’s speech as “not [an] accurate” reflection of Israeli positions, and repeatedly asserted his insistence on the continuation of the war. The White House chose again to blame Hamas for the deadlock instead of pressing Netanyahu.

After lengthy negotiations, on July 2 Hamas accepted an updated Biden proposal with minor amendments, particularly relating to assurances that the ceasefire would lead to ending the war instead of a mere pause, according to multiple senior Arab and Palestinianofficials involved in the talks.Hamas were informed that the US and Israeli negotiating team were both on board. However, a few days later, Netanyahu issued four new “non-negotiable” conditions that mediators and even Israeli security officials saw as intentionally sabotaging the deal. The conditions were: resuming the war after a pause “until [Israel’s] war aims are achieved”; no IDF withdrawal from the Philadelphia corridor between Rafah and Egypt; Israel would restrict the return of over one million displaced Gazans to the Northern half of the enclave; maximizing the number of living hostages to be released in the first phase.

Israel then quickly escalated its attacks in Gaza. On July 13 it killed Hamas’ chief military commander Mohammed al-Deif in a strike that killed over 100 civilians. On July 31, Netanyahu ordered the assassination of Hamas’ top negotiator, Ismael Haniya in Tehran. The day before, he ordered the assassination of Hezbollah’s top commander Fuad Shukur.

Multiple sources told me Hamas informed mediators that it still endorsed the July 2 ceasefire formula and UNSC resolution 2735. Biden called the Haniya assassination “not helpful” but that was it. Senior White House officials would then leak to Israeli media that Biden “realized Netanyahu lied to him” about the ceasefire-hostage deal, but the president himself never publicly called out Netanyahu.

Buying Time and Gaslighting

In August, ahead of the Democratic National Convention, the US opened a renewed round of negotiations, having received Iranian and Hezbollah promises of refraining from retaliation if a deal was reached.

Instead of building upon Biden’s proposal and pressing Israel to compromise, the Americans simply incorporated Netanyahu’s four impossible conditions as “a bridging proposal.” They attempted to entice Hamas to the table by getting Israel to reduce its veto on which Palestinian detainees it would release in a deal (Hamas presented a list of 300 heavily sentenced individuals, “the VIPs.” Netanyahu vetoed 100 names, including Marwan Barghouti, and insisted on only releasing prisoners with less than 22 years left in their sentence. The Americans lowered this veto to 75 names then 65 in August, per a senior Arab mediator).

Since then, the White House has attempted to re-write history and promote an official narrative blaming Hamas for Netanyahu’s systematic foiling of the talks.

A Palestinian source directly involved in the negotiations told me then that Hamas’ leader Yahia Sinwar sent them clear instructions to stick to the July 2 Biden proposal instead of getting stuck in a limbo of endless negotiations. Hamas refused to show up for the August round of talks as long as Israel rejected the most important two stipulations of Biden’s proposal: gradual IDF withdrawal from Gaza and ending the war.

Remarkably, the Americans pressed Egypt and Qatar to issue a false statement on August 16 that emphasized “talks were serious and constructive and were conducted in a positive atmosphere,” although there were no talks to begin with.

A senior Arab official involved in the negotiations told me both Israel, Qatar and Egypt objected to the idea of issuing this statement, but the Americans argued it was necessary to create domestic pressure on Netanyahu to narrow the gaps. The actual goal, according to this official, was likely to make it harder for Iran and Hezbollah to retaliate and to allow Kamala’s Democratic National Convention to pass peacefully without disruptions.

The official added that Netanyahu had been sending his advisor, Ophir Falk, to the talks to undermine Israel’s negotiating team, and that the US asked mediators on multiple occasions to prevent him from attending the meetings.

As soon as the DNC ended, Biden blamed Hamas again for the failure of the talks, and effectively stopped trying to get a deal, with US officials declaring in September that a ceasefire deal has become unlikely during Biden’s term. Since then, the White House has attempted to re-write history and promote an official narrative blaming Hamas for Netanyahu’s systematic foiling of the talks.

Amid the deadlock, Qatar declared in early November that it was suspending its mediation role, which a senior Arab official told me was intended to create domestic pressure on Netanyahu. The Qataris also suspended Hamas’ office in Doha and Hamas leaders left the country by mid-November.

A New Round, Little Hope

In early December, Hamas’ entire leadership were suddenly invited to Cairo then Doha for renewed negotiations. Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz quickly expressed unusual hope and optimism about a “real chance” for a deal this time.

However, multiple sources directly involved in these talks told me by then there was no real possibility of a breakthrough. The Hamas delegation kept waiting in Cairo until the last minute, with senior Hamas negotiator Bassem Naim being the last official departing from Egypt to Doha late at night on December 5, hoping for a positive change of position from the Israeli team, who still only offered a temporary pause.

A senior Arab official told me president-elect Donald Trump had asked the Qataris and Egyptians to get a deal done before he takes office. The official, however, added that Israel’s Prime Minister is not budging while at the same time issuing false positive statements of a breakthrough and progress to buy time and pretend to seek a deal until Trump is in office, where Netanyahu can trade the Gaza war for something big in the West Bank.

Between Doha and Cairo, a senior Palestinian official directly involved in the negotiations told me in December that “there are serious talks, there’s progress and discussions of details, but until today no one presented a final proposal to sign.” He added “Unless Netanyahu does something that takes us back to square one, there is great optimism that we can reach something within a short period.”

Israeli officials asserted the same night that a deal could be reached within two weeks, but warned that Netanyahu is still not “granting a sufficient mandate to the negotiating team,” adding “It will not be possible to return everyone without an end to the war.”

More than a month later, no deal is yet in sight, as Israeli security officials say Netanyahu still insists on delaying the withdrawal from the Philadelphia and Netzarim corridors, restricting the return of displaced Gazans to the north, continuing the war after a partial deal, and demanding a higher number of hostages in the first phase. This led the mother of Israeli hostage Matan Zangauker to lead a demonstration in front of Israel’s Knesset on Monday to protest “a partial deal with a return to fighting,” which she said would be “a death sentence for Matan and everyone left behind”.

Israel’s opposition leader, Yair Lapid, said the same day “Our presence in Gaza today, which means that we are not making a comprehensive hostage deal, is contrary to the political and security interests of the State of Israel.”

The real history of these negotiations reveals a troubling truth: while President Biden has consistently blamed Hamas for the failure of ceasefire talks, his own failure to hold Netanyahu accountable has allowed the conflict to drag on. Biden is now trying to hide this failure by absolving Netanyahu of any blame, despite a mountain of evidence showing how he repeatedly sabotaged peace efforts. Recognizing this distortion is crucial, to inform the public in order to mount greater pressure where it’s needed the most to return all hostages and end Gaza’s apocalyptic suffering, and to prevent further manipulation from future administrations.