US Secretary of State Antony Blinken while in the Middle East has said that if the ceasefire deal which is currently being pushed hard by the White House doesn't go through then there will only be Hamas to blame.
He said this week to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the US has "reaffirmed his commitment" to a Gaza ceasefire plan, and that lack of progress will be the fault of Hamas. As we've explained previously, Biden is pushing a plan that neither side has really embraced from the start as this is really much about Biden admin PR and damage control going into the November election. Hamas leaders have never backed off their insistence of a full Israeli military withdrawal from the Gaza Strip as a key condition for a lasting truce.
And now Blinken has quickly suggested the deal could be off (but it was never really "on" or even close to begin with...) . "Hamas has proposed numerous changes to the proposal that was on the table… Some of the changes are workable, some are not," he said in a press conference with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Doha.
"A deal was on the table that was virtually identical to the proposal that Hamas made on May 6 — a deal that the entire world is behind, a deal Israel has accepted." Blinken continued: "Hamas could have answered with a single word. ‘Yes.’ Instead, Hamas waited nearly two weeks and then proposed more changes, a number of which go beyond positions that had previously taken and accepted."
When earlier this week the UN Security Council voted to formally back the US-proposed plan, which Biden has previously also called an Israeli-proposed plan, Hamas issued a statement declaring that it 'accepts' the deal.
Blinken in his fresh statement from Doha continued, "As a result, the war — [which] Hamas started on October 7 with its barbaric attack on Israel and on Israeli civilians — will go on. More people will suffer, more Palestinians will suffer, more Israelis will suffer."
"But in the days ahead, we are going to continue to push on an urgent basis with our partners, with Qatar with Egypt, to try to close this deal. Because we know it’s in the interests of Israelis, Palestinians, the region, indeed, the entire world," he added.
He then strongly suggested Hamas is being a 'bad faith' negotiator:
"At some point in a negotiation — and this has gone back and forth for a long time — you get to a point where if one side continues to change its demands, including making demands and insisting on changes on things that they had already accepted, you have to question whether they’re proceeding in good faith or not."
"We’re determined to try to bridge the gaps, and I believe those gaps are bridgeable. That doesn’t mean they will be bridged," he emphasized. "It’s time for the haggling to stop and a ceasefire to start."
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"It may be that Hamas continues to say ‘no.’ [Then] I think it will be clear to everyone around the world, that it’s on them and that they will have made a choice to continue a war that they started," Blinken asserted.
Hamas also without doubt sees Washington as a bad faith actor, given Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu is set to address both chambers of Congress on July 24 as a special guest. Biden is meanwhile beset by a growing movement among Democrats to boycott the speech. Also large pro-Palestinian demonstrations have literally surrounded the White House this week. Billions in aid and weaponry has continued to be pledge to Tel Aviv.
