The truce agreement in Gaza leaves a bitter taste of victory for American President Joe Biden a few days before the arrival at the White House of his rival Donald Trump, who quickly took the credit, partly rightly according to experts.
The outgoing Democratic president himself clarified that he had worked as a “team” with the one who will become Monday the 47th.e President of the United States, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “thanked” MM. Trump and Biden for contributing to “the release of hostages” held by Hamas.
The Israeli head of government’s office revealed that he had spoken to the two American leaders in turn.
The agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which is due to come into force on Sunday on the eve of Donald Trump’s inauguration, takes up the theoretical principles set out by Joe Biden at the end of May and which eight months of diplomatic efforts had not not allowed to materialize so far.
This historic breakthrough announced by Qatar and the United States recalls the outcome of a crisis between Tehran and Washington 45 years ago: the release of hostages held by Iran at the American embassy for 444 days occurred on January 20, 1981, about ten minutes after the inauguration of Republican Ronald Reagan who had defeated Democrat Jimmy Carter.
Hand in hand
This time, the Biden administration and the Trump team worked hand in hand.
Particularly on the occasion of a meeting on Monday between the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim ben Hamad Al-Thani, a delegation from Hamas and the envoys for the Middle East of the outgoing American president and his successor, Brett McGurk and Steve Witkoff .
Mr. Witkoff even interrupted Mr. Netanyahu’s Shabbat on Saturday to hasten the conclusion of an agreement.
Donald Trump, who immediately boasted that “we [ayons] a hostage agreement”, considered that this “did not[vait] could only see the light of day thanks to our historic victory in November.”
“The president [Biden] did the right thing,” replied White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre.
At the State Department, its spokesperson Matthew Miller acknowledged that Donald Trump had demonstrated “continuity” in American foreign policy in the Middle East, but he judged that he had not exerted real pressure on the protagonists of the conflict.
-Joe Biden, unwavering support of Israel to whom he has provided billions of dollars in arms since the deadly Hamas attack on Israeli soil on October 7, 2023, has been the target of the left wing of the Democratic Party and Muslim and Arab American voters.
Trump “thanked”, Biden “condemned”
Thus, in a vitriolic press release, the organization Council on American-Islamic Relations “thanks President-elect Trump for putting pressure on all parties, including Netanyahu, to reach an agreement, and condemns President Biden for refusing to use American influence to finalize this agreement months ago, which led to thousands of unnecessary deaths.
“The Biden administration was terrified of the political cost of pressure on Israel,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, director of an American human rights organization for the Middle East, Dawn, in a country with the largest number of Jews in the world. world (around six million), after Israel.
Mme Whitson believes that Mr. Trump, who during his first term (2017-2021) was particularly pro-Israeli, certainly made Mr. Netanyahu understand that he did not “want to inherit” the conflict in Gaza, while threatening the Hamas from “hell” if the hostages were not released before January 20.
“There was undoubtedly a Trump effect which was in full force,” adds David Khalfa of the Jean-Jaurès Foundation in Paris.
“On the Hamas side, there were threats from Trump […] and groups in the region are wary of its unpredictable side. On the Israeli side, there is an ideological alignment between the populist and Trumpist American right and the Israeli Prime Minister,” deciphers the expert.
“And the political margin of [Nétanyahou] facing Trump, who will not have the pressure of re-election, was very weak,” he concludes.
On the contrary, Brian Katulis, analyst at the Middle East Institute in Washington, does not really believe that “Trump’s threats played a huge role on either side.”
“It is rather the big questions about what will happen” under the Trump presidency which “may have motivated those who blocked” any agreement.
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