During a Wednesday press conference in Doha, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was less than honest about the US-proposed Gaza ceasefire deal.
During his keynote address and question-and-answer session, Blinken made several statements that are patently false or deeply misleading.
First, Blinken insisted that the three-stage ceasefire agreement announced by US President Joe Biden on May 31 was an “Israeli proposal” and that Israel fully supports it.
When asked during the question-and-answer session whether the United States was trying to pressure Israel to accept the proposal, Blinken said there was no need because Israel had already accepted it.
But Blinken wasn’t sincere.
Biden proposed the deal because he is desperate to exit his disastrous Gaza policy before the start of the Democratic National Convention, scheduled for August.
Biden’s claim that this was an “Israeli proposal” is simply not true.
In the two weeks since Biden made his announcement, Israeli officials have not come forward to announce their acceptance of the deal.
In fact, they did the opposite.
Over the past two weeks, Israeli officials have made it clear that they oppose Biden’s draft proposal.
Furthermore, Netanyahu and other officials have made clear that Israel intends to continue the war against Gaza, a goal that contradicts the basic terms of Biden’s proposal.
At the United Nations on Monday, Israeli representative Reut Shapir Ben-Naftaly could not have been clearer on Israel’s position.
He said Israel’s war aims “have not changed” and that the war “will continue… until Hamas’ military and governance capabilities are dismantled.”
He also said Israel would not “engage in meaningless and endless negotiations” over a permanent ceasefire.
Israel’s public positions led a former high-level Israeli diplomat, Alon Liel, to proclaim that Israel “definitely did not” accept the “proposal put forward by the Americans.”
Indeed, Israel continues to say that it is pursuing the “total victory” it has sought since the beginning of the war.
Although Israel claims that “total victory” involves the elimination of Hamas, a more realistic interpretation is that Israel seeks the complete destruction of Gaza and the forcible relocation of Palestinians to Egypt and/or Jordan.
In any case, what is clear is that Israel has no intention of honoring phase two of Biden’s deal, which calls for a permanent end to the fighting.
Here the devil is in the details.
The wording of Biden’s proposal offers Israel a way out after phase one.
Biden’s proposal provides that phase two can only be achieved subject to Israel’s agreement at the end of phase one.
If Israel does not agree to move to phase two and chooses to end negotiations, the ceasefire will lapse.
But, as Israeli officials have made clear, Israel did not accept even these very watered-down ceasefire terms.
Blinken’s second lie concerns Hamas and its position on the proposal.
During the press conference, Blinken indicated that Biden’s proposal was “virtually identical” to the deal proposed by Hamas on May 6.
Blinken went on to accuse Hamas of being insincere and “keeping trying to change the terms,” including terms that “Hamas had previously agreed to.”
But all this is also false.
First, Hamas’s May 6 proposal was very different from Biden’s proposal. It gave Israel no leeway to easily exit the deal after phase one. Furthermore, and above all, Hamas’ proposal called for an end to the illegal and suffocating blockade imposed by Israel on Gaza.
Blinken said Hamas has proposed “numerous changes” to Biden’s proposal.
All Hamas did, however, was try to bring things closer to the May 6 proposal, which would effectively end the war.
A significant change introduced by Hamas – the withdrawal of Israeli troops – was necessitated by Israel’s takeover of the Philadelphia Corridor on May 30.
This is an important fact that Blinken conveniently chose to omit.
Third, Blinken said that “the whole world” supports the proposal and that Hamas is the only entity that can avoid supporting it.
This is highly misleading.
In recent months, the United States and Israel have rejected and thwarted several serious ceasefire proposals, all supported by Hamas and the global community.
After hitting this hurdle, the United States presented its very flawed proposal on May 31.
The UN Security Council countries voted for it not because it was a great proposal, nor because they thought it was better than previous proposals for which they had also voted.
They voted in favor of this proposal precisely because of US obstructionism. The countries know that this proposal is the only possibility, the only opportunity that the United States and Israel allow for at least a temporary cessation.
Several countries expressed their reservations on Monday. Russia, China, Malta and Algeria, among other global players, have expressed their reservations.
Blinken’s claim that “the whole world” supports the Biden proposal is deeply misleading.
Fourth, Blinken accused Hamas of delaying the ceasefire for 12 days.
During his speech on Wednesday, Blinken mentioned the “12 days” – or the time between Biden’s announcement and Hamas’ response – a total of five times.
Each mention was an attempt by Blinken to blame Hamas for the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza.
For example, Blinken said, “the reality is that as the negotiations went on, during the 12 days that Hamas took to respond, the world did not stand still. Gaza did not stand still. People were suffering every single day.”
But Blinken is once again disingenuous.
Biden announced the deal on May 31 but, as Sami Al-Arian and other analysts noted, he did not present a detailed, written draft to Hamas until much later.
The exact date is unclear, but from news reports it appears that as of June 5, Hamas had not yet received anything in writing from Biden.
It appears they finally received a written draft by June 6th.
The group responded on June 11. That would mean a five-day gap, not the 12 Blinken misleadingly claimed.
Given the seemingly significant discrepancies between what Biden announced on May 31 and what he submitted in writing to Hamas, it is not unusual that Hamas needed five days to respond.
In any case, attempting to blame Hamas for Palestinian suffering constitutes another US attempt to shield Israel from blame for its mass killings in Gaza.
That Blinken lies is not surprising. Indeed, in the context of Israel, the Palestinians, and Gaza, the Biden administration has a history of deceit.
But the sheer amount of lies that Blinken managed to pack into a short press conference is still astonishing.
Recent diplomatic maneuvers will likely not end the war in Gaza, but they will serve Biden’s domestic goals.
At the end of all this posturing, Biden will be able to tell US voters that he did his best to end the war, but that Hamas didn’t let him.
The opinions expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Oltre La Linea.
