Even Biden administration officials acknowledged that President-elect Donald Trump needed to intervene in Israeli-Hamas negotiations to seal the deal, force hostage releases and a ceasefire after 15 months of war. are.
Multiple insiders and officials from both Israel and the United States told the Post that the combination of President Trump's impending inauguration and the efforts of Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff are making things difficult for President Biden and his team. He said the issues that were not present were finally resolved.
A Trump transition team official said conversations between Witkoff, a longtime Trump friend, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the weekend were “candid, free of false platitudes and very direct.” said.
Another official told Reuters: “Mr. Witkoff was able to pressure Netanyahu to accept the deal and move quickly. That conversation set everything in motion.”
The deal finally signed on Wednesday was very similar to the terms the Biden administration has been trying to achieve since last May.
The first phase is a 42-day ceasefire starting Sunday, during which 33 Israeli hostages will be released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
But officials say Trump's bullish pulpit was needed to pressure both Jerusalem and Palestinian terrorist groups into a deal.
A senior Biden administration official on Wednesday praised President Trump for setting a deadline for the release of the hostages, saying it forced negotiators on both sides.
“In any negotiation, in any breakthrough diplomacy, sometimes you need deadlines. Sometimes those are deadlines that you try to create artificially,” the official said.
“For example, in August we finalized a mediation proposal that we worked hard on. [with] Three different countries tried to work together to set a deadline. [to] Please get this done. And again, I couldn't make it work. ”
“The transition from one president to another was an event.” [deadline,]'' said the official.
The official also acknowledged that Witkoff “played a very important role in working fully with the government.” [US diplomat] In addition to the deal with Brett McGurk, he also credited the Biden administration for its work, saying that they “worked together as partners and at times shared roles.”
Biden himself has refused to take credit for the deal, but Biden officials have publicly praised the cooperation between Witkoff and McGuirk.
The official said Biden's meeting with Trump days before Saturday's breakthrough talks “set the tone” for the talks.
President Trump has publicly threatened Hamas if it does not release the hostages before he takes office.
Michael Walz, the president's incoming national security adviser, told Fox News on Wednesday that Hamas agreed to the deal because “everything in hell it has to pay, and any deal that's on the table, it's important that he “That's because they believed President Trump when he said things would only get worse if he took office.” ”
The Biden official added that “the catalyst for this intensive diplomacy was the defeat of Hezbollah, the ceasefire in Lebanon, and the massive isolation of Hamas” after Israel defeated Hezbollah.
“This allowed them to come back to the table and accept the hostage list for the first time… which led to this ultimate breakthrough,” the official said.
A second way Trump influenced the cease-fire was through his significant “influence” over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who Witkoff persuaded to accept the deal, according to US and Israeli experts familiar with the negotiations. officials told the Post.
“Recently Brett was leading negotiations in Doha. [Qatar’s] Sheikh Mohammed [bin Rashid Al Maktoum] And the team,” the Biden official said. “We wanted to meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu, and Steve went to Israel for that purpose and came back again.”
He added: “I thought it was pretty effective, and that's pretty much what it turned out to be.”
President Trump's influence stems from his fervent support for the Jewish state, which has done wonders for building relations between the two countries. Alex Mintz, a senior professor at Israel's Reichmann University, said that during his first term in office, President Trump recognized the Golan Heights as Israeli territory, moved the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and took unprecedented steps to broker the Abraham Accords. It is said that he took
“Hamas has hardly changed its position and demands,” he said. “Mr. Trump was able to press Prime Minister Netanyahu to accept a deal that Mr. Bibi had refused to accept for months.”
“The concessions Israel has made are very significant.”
