Biden tries to clean up a broken Middle East ahead of Trump’s arrival
U.S. leaders hope Gaza conflict has ceased spreading around the region as ‘permanent’ peace deal reached in Lebanon
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Your support makes all the difference.Twelve months ago, Joe Biden was expecting a very different Thanksgiving holiday for 2024.
Now, the 46th president rounds out November having been pushed out of his party’s nomination following a resounding debate-stage defeat and then watched his vice president, Kamala Harris, lose a decade-defining election to Donald Trump, a convicted felon who tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power in 2020.
His reputation in tatters compared to what it was four years ago, Biden is now hoping for whatever last-minute wins he can score in the final two-plus months of his presidency.
On Tuesday, his luck changed, if slightly. While much of Washington is already preparing for the Thanksgiving holiday and the president himself was set to depart that day for Nantucket, Massachusetts, officials announced Tuesday afternoon that an agreement for a ceasefire had been reached between Israel and Hezbollah, the militant group centralized in Lebanon which had joined Hamas militants in launching attacks on Israel following the October 7 terrorist attack.
Biden, in an address from the Rose Garden before shipping off for the holiday, said that the deal was meant to be a permanent end to the northern front of the conflict.
“This is designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities,” said the president. Though, he added: “What is left of Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations will not be allowed — will — I emphasize — will not be allowed to threaten the security of Israel again.”
Therein lies what may be the final test for the US president, given that his own team reportedly began to admit that a similar deal to end the conflict in Gaza was not possible before the end of 2024. Should hostilities break out between Israel and Hezbollah in the days to come, particularly before Biden leaves office, it would be a massive last black eye for his administration.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in the hours before the ceasefire was officially inked, insisted that the deal would positively affect the chances of reaching an end to the violence in Gaza.
"What’s at stake as well, I think, are the larger ramifications of getting an agreement, including what I believe can be very positive effects on also ending the conflict in Gaza," he said on Tuesday.
”It's also fair to say that what we've seen today would not have happened without U.S. engagement, without U.S. determination,” he added. “So we're intensely focused on this. We will be till the last day of this administration.”
But many are already skeptical that the deal will hold, given the intensity of Israeli assaults on Lebanon leading up to the official start of the ceasefire. Biden’s team at the State Department and White House, thanks to the holidays, will have some time before they have to face questions on that matter from reporters.
Progressives in Biden’s own party continue to shred the administration for its handling of the war, and argue that Kamala Harris’s defeat in the presidential election is tied partially to her former running mate’s mismanagement of the conflict.
“Listening to Biden’s presser, his dishonesty is staggering,” Trita Parsi, executive VP of the Quincy Institute, wrote on Tuesday.
“Once again, he blames the lack of a ceasefire in Gaza on Hamas even though leaks have revealed how Netanyahu systematically sabotaged talks,” Parsi argued.
Donald Trump attacked the incumbent party repeatedly throughout the campaign for a sense that global conflicts including in Ukraine and the Middle East were spiralling out of control under his opponents’ stewardship.
A member of his team, the president-elect’s incoming national security adviser, Mike Waltz, even credited the president-elect for the Lebanon deal.
“Everyone is coming to the table because of President Trump,” Waltz wrote on Twitter. “His resounding victory sent a clear message to the rest of the world that chaos won’t be tolerated. I’m glad to see concrete steps towards deescalation in the Middle East.”
But Trump himself has also shown no signs of having an earnest desire to end the conflict in Gaza in particular, beyond occasionally proclaiming that he would bring order to the global stage. He has vowed to end the war in Ukraine, which his critics speculate to mean he will cut off aid unless Ukraine accepts a deal which involves a significant loss of territory.
With regard to Gaza, the president-elect has vowed total support for Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu, its far-right leader who has bucked the U.S. under Joe Biden repeatedly throughout 2024.
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