BIDEN ADMINISTRATION TAKES CREDIT FOR CEASEFIRE, WHEN IN FACT EGYPT BROKERED THE DEAL
" With Biden Rejoining The Iran Nuclear Deal, And His Lack Of Support For Israel, It's Apparent That Year Of Progress In The Middle East Will Be Lost."
May 21, 2021 By Art Fletcher & Kevin Peterson, Reporting For: Englebrook Independent News
On Thursday, Israel and Hamas forces in Gaza agreed to a Cease-Fire after 11 days of intense fighting in the region.
President Biden delivered a statement on the Israeli - Hamas conflict, and the Cease-Fire agreement. President Biden said The United States is committed to working with the United Nations to provide humanitarian assistance. Also, The President thanked his team as well as Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-sisi for assistance with the agreement. President Biden took no questions from reporters.
Although President Biden took credit for the agreement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Israel accepted the Egyptian proposal, after a late-night meeting of his Security Cabinet. Hamas quickly followed suit and said it would honor the deal.
Hours before the cease-fire agreement was reached, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki started laying out the groundwork for Biden in taking credit, saying the Israelis had " achieved significant military objectives " in their strikes intended to degrade Hamas military capabilities, and reiterated that Biden expected the Israelis to start "winding down " their operations.
Biden, who studiously avoided extensive public about the Israeli military strikes through the 11-day conflict, was facing mounting pressure from fellow Democrats to speak out against the Israelis as the death toll climbed in Gaza and tens of thousand of Palestinians were displaced by the aerial bombardment.
Throughout the crisis, Biden, in carefully-worded statements and brief exchanges with reporters, undered scored Israelis right to defend itself.
On Tuesday, while visiting a Ford Motor Plant in Michigan, Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib confronted Biden on the Detroit tarmac and called on him to speak forcefully against the Israeli strikes. Meanwhile, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York introduced resolutions to block the sale of $735 million in military weaponry to Israel, that has already been approved by the Biden Administration.
As the outside calls for Biden to speak more forcefully grew, Biden and top aides privately made case to Israeli Officials, that time wasn't on their side in the court of public opinion.
Hamas had sought to portray their rocket attacks, as a defense of Jerusalem. Israeli Officials made the case to The White House that Hamas' messages lost resonance as mob violence against Arabs in Israeli cities, including Lod, was tamped down.
Facts are that The Egyptians brokered the cease-fire agreement, and although Biden played a role in the agreement, it was not the role he portrayed. In the past Biden has made claims that he was instrumental in the raid that ultimately lead to the killing of Usama bin-Laden back in 2011, when in fact he told, then President Obama to hold off in launching the raid.
We need to understand that Hamas is a Palestinian Sunni-Islamic Fundamentalist group, but a pragmatic militant group also, and at times has been considered a terrorist organization, and times been supported by Iran. Some of the rockets launched during the past 11-days against Israel, have now been traced back to Iran. Biden's pledge to rejoin the nuclear deal, and with the lifting of sanctions to unfreeze funds from the Iranian Central Bank, may lead to a further unrest in the Middle East region. We can only hope that the cease-fire will hold.
FILED UNDER MAY 21, 2021, ISRAEL-HAMAS :