Media Keeps Playing Along With Fiction There Is an “Israeli Ceasefire Deal”

Don’t squint too hard, one may notice Israel is clear they have no intention to “end the war.”

When the pressure became too great, and the Uncommitted campaign was driving much of the Democratic primary media coverage, the White House seemingly did a 180 at the end of February and began shifting its rhetoric in favor of a “ceasefire in Gaza.” As I documented at the time, when one read the fine print it was clear this was not a meaningful policy shift, but a shift in rhetoric. The White House still opposed a “general ceasefire” (which is to say an actual end to the war) but was simply redefining what it had previously referred to as a “temporary pause” for the purposes of hostage exchanges followed by an explicit desire to continue the “war” and “eliminate Hamas.” Now that this semantic cup and ball game has failed to sufficiently temper anti-war anger three months on, the White House has recently taken another PR tack—one that was initially hard to read the purpose of but the logic has now become clear.

On May 31, President Biden gave a much publicized speech laying out his plan for an “enduring” and “complete” “ceasefire” designed to “end the war.” Pro-Palestine activists initially responded to the speech with some guarded optimism: Maybe this was it. Maybe the White House had had enough and was forcing Israel to wrap it up. Biden was framing the plan as “Israel’s proposal,” which perplexed many because why would the US announce a breakthrough “Israeli proposal” and not Israel? But nevertheless there was some hope that this was a polite nudge to Israel to wrap things up, adopt Biden’s face-saving narrative (Israel “devastated Hamas.” “At this point, Hamas no longer is capable of carrying out another October 7th,” the president said in his speech), then pull out forces, reduce and eventually stop the bombing, and let the rebuilding of Gaza begin. 

Alas, this is not what happened. It’s becoming increasingly clear something more sinister was taking place, not a genuine attempt to use the US’s dispositive influence over Israel to wrap up the genocidal assault on Gaza. This was yet another PR gambit designed to quell popular unrest, confuse fence-sitting liberals, and provide Democrats stateside a go-to talking point to shift the moral burden away from Israel and the US unto Hamas who, we have been repeatedly told, won’t “say yes” to an “Israeli proposal” that, as I will lay out, simply doesn’t exist. At least not one that is, in any way, aligned with the tone and substance of Biden’s May 31 speech. 

Mere hours after Biden’s May 31 speech, Israeli leaders, up to and including Prime Minister Benjamin Netnahyu, began undermining key elements of the “Israeli ceasefire proposal.” “Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu rejects Biden's ceasefire proposal, will continue war until Hamas is ‘destroyed,’”CNBC reported. “Biden's description of cease-fire offer 'not accurate,' Israeli official tells NBC News,” the outlet reported.NBC news. “Israel says permanent Gaza cease-fire plan is a ‘nonstarter,’ undermining Biden,” PBS News reported. 

Yesterday the UN Security Council passed a US-backed resolution based, at least in part, on Biden’s May 31 speech calling for a three phase ceasefire, and the disconnect between Israel and the White House, again became manifest. The final text, like Biden’s speech, suffered from a deliberately open-ended approach (what the savvy commentators are calling “constructive ambiguity”) over how the war actually ends. But it was still too specific for the Israeli leaders, who again took to Israeli media to harshly criticize the measure. The New York Times and many leading American outlets continue to indulge the idea that Israeli leaders, including Netanyahu, are simply inscrutable. But even the Times had to acknowledge this morning that “Israeli leaders have been loath to accept” a long term ceasefire. 

It’s true that an Israeli proposal from late May, in an abstract sense, existed. But it was light on essential specifics, namely the non-trivial issue of whether Israel wanted to actually “end the war.” While the proposed text, since leaked to reporters, aligned with the White House plan in a vague sense, it glossed over the “ending the war” part of “ending the war.” Stage 1 for most hostage exchanges was detailed and thorough. But stages 2 and 3, which called for Israeli withdrawal and a cessation of hostilities, were a mere one paragraph each and violated the spirit and letter of Biden’s speech. The basic sticking point is the same as it’s been since October 8: Israel refuses to allow Hamas to continue existing as a military and political force in Gaza “post war.” It, as countless Israeli officials repeatedly make clear, “must be destroyed.” The reality is one cannot support a meaningful and lasting “ceasefire” while also demanding one of the ceasefire parties surrender or otherwise cease to exist as a condition of a lasting ceasefire. 

The White House, for its part, can't get its story straight. As one commenter noted on Twitter, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told ABC’s Martha Raddatz Sunday that neither Israel nor Hamas leadership had agreed to the US ceasefire plan. At the same time, Sec. of State Antony Blinken has been telling reporters, repeatedly, that Israel ‘had already agreed’ to ’a’ 3-stage ceasefire plan.” 

Yesterday, the US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, contradicted herself only hours apart. Earlier in the day she told the New York Times, the US “would work to make sure that Israel agreed to the deal (in the same article the Israel’s representative to the U.N “did not say that Israel had accepted the terms”). But then she took to social media to claim: “Israel has already accepted this deal”—which they, very clearly, never did. 

Why does the Biden administration keep insisting Israel backs a deal that the Israelis keep publicly condemning? Because the target audience is confused, half-paying-attention liberals. It’s the meaningful percent of the population for whom this type of Diplomacy Theater works, and our media almost never points out what Biden administration officials are saying is patently untrue, so why wouldn’t they keep doing this strange performance? 

The White House keeps releasing posturing Very Serious social media posts, ostensibly directed at Hamas, demanding they “say yes” to the “Israeli ceasefire proposal” in English. This may indicate the audience for this messaging isn’t Hamas or even the Egyptians or Qataris, but is, instead reporters and the broader American public whom they want to convince the responsible party for all the dead children they see on their social media timelines isn’t the one dropping or providing the bombs. It is, instead, Hamas, which, we told, is simply nihilistically addicted to the killing of Palestinians.  

The whole premise, when one pauses to consider it, is quite silly. The US has dispositive leverage in weapons, intel, diplomatic cover, and a host of logistical aid. (The US was directly involved in an operation last week that killed 274 Palestinians and rescued four Israeli hostages.) Biden could credibly threaten to pull this support, and Israel would begin wrapping up things more or less overnight. If the White House isn’t willing to do this, especially after Netanyahu has repeatedly run tanks over their “red lines,” it doesn’t take a lasting ceasefire seriously. What it takes seriously is headlines implying they take it seriously. It takes the theater seriously. A mathematician with an MIT supercomputer at their disposal insisting they are doing their best to solve an equation while only using paper and pencil would seem, to the average person, either insane or insincere. But the White House has gotten away with equally credible feigned powerlessness for months on end, and almost no one in our media points out how absurd the whole charade is.

One way liberal spinsters stateside have hand-waved away the awkward fact that Israeli officials keep publicly rejecting the “Israel proposal” as laid out by Biden officials and the President himself on May 31 is that Israel is divided, torn internally, or Netanyahu is simply “pandering to his right flank.” How earnest opposition would look different from a purely superficial one is unclear, but either way it’s a misleading characterization. Netanyahu’s opposition to the very idea of ending the war is, in fact, a reflection of broad ideological consensus both in the war cabinet and Israeli society at large that Hamas cannot exist “post war.”   

Needless to say, Hamas agreeing to dissolve itself as a condition of a ceasefire is a nonstarter, just as asking the Israeli government to dissolve itself and be replaced by an unelected, US-backed puppet government would also be a nonstarter.  So we are thus no closer to a ceasefire on June 10 than we were on Oct 8, because the diplomatic scope was, and remains, only a temporary pause for hostage exchanges with an explicit goal of continuing to bomb/siege/occupy until Hamas’ military and governing capabilities are “destroyed.” A temporary pause would be a marked improvement—any cessation of bombing would be better than none. But it is not, at all, aligned with the substance and tone of Biden’s speech, which quite conspicuously (1) declared Israeli victory over Hamas, and made no mention of “eliminating Hamas” as something needing to be done and (2) explicitly said the goal of the plan was to “end the war.”

For some odd reason, in proper media and political circles, simply acknowledging a warring party will continue to exist in the event of a lasting ceasefire is seen as a moral endorsement of said party. “Hamas cannot continue to rule Gaza” has become the pat moralistic cliche of the day, without any regard for how many more tens of thousands of civilians must die to make this a reality, even assuming such an outcome is even possible, which is a big assumption indeed. But no one in Washington wants to break this taboo and state the obvious. Biden’s speech came as close to acknowledging this reality as anyone. But, perhaps scarred by the Afghanistan pullout media pile on, Biden spokespeople are now back to indulging in a bizarre fantasy that Hamas will voluntarily agree to lay down its arms and disappear based entirely on vibes. And them failing to do so—again, a totally new and surreal standard—is them “refusing to agree to an Israel ceasefire proposal.” And thus one is left to conclude the whole point of the Biden May 31st speech and subsequent Diplomacy Theater is to provide a ready-made talking point anytime Israel kills 274 people in one day—as it did on Saturday—to deflect US culpability for manifest war crimes: 

Now all calls for a ceasefire can be shifted away from the actual party responsible for the unimaginable carnage—the US and Israel—to “Hamas,” which, US officials insist, refuses to “say yes” to a proposal that only exists inside their heads. 

So we are back to where we have been for months. A White House faking like it wants a longterm ceasefire, but only supporting one where one side voluntarily destroys itself both militarily and politically (a dealbreaker, one would assume historically, in most ceasefire talks). And a media—even when trying to be adversarial—that is genuinely baffled by all the rhetoric and burden shifts that it’s now resigned itself to simply echo the White House line that there exists a credible, specific Israeli proposal to actually end the war. There, of course, isn’t. And we know this because Israeli officials keep making it clear there isn’t. There’s simply a talking point, a deflection, a vibe, a gotcha line, an outline—that breaks down when anyone tries to get specific. Because the White House, correctly, assumes reporters won’t ask awkward follow-up questions and most people won’t notice that none of this makes any sense.