On Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Alex Wagner Tonight,” MSNBC host Ayman Mohyeldin reacted to the ceasefire and hostage release deal by arguing that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “could have delivered this victory to Joe Biden eight months ago, prior to a U.S. election in which the U.S. candidate for the Democratic Party, the vice president, could have been running on a ceasefire deal. He did not do that. And he did not do that, by design,” and “it is hard to imagine that the Prime Minister of Israel has entered into this ceasefire deal without knowing that, on the back end of it, down the road, there [are] going to be some chips to be cashed in with the Trump administration.”
Mohyeldin said, [relevant remarks begin around 12:30] “We’re rightfully focusing on what Trump has brought to this equation in…the ceasefire deal. I think what is also important to notice is what the Prime Minister of Israel has done over the past several months in being able to game American politicians to get to this point. Benjamin Netanyahu is a shrewd and smart politician. That is undeniable. He could have delivered this victory to Joe Biden eight months ago, prior to a U.S. election in which the U.S. candidate for the Democratic Party, the vice president, could have been running on a ceasefire deal. He did not do that. And he did not do that, by design, not because he simply was sitting back there and saying, that deal is not good. Nothing has changed in the past eight months, dramatically, in terms of the deal.”
He continued, “And so, my point to that is, it is hard to imagine that the Prime Minister of Israel has entered into this ceasefire deal without knowing that, on the back end of it, down the road, there [are] going to be some chips to be cashed in with the Trump administration. Now, could that be the desire to annex the West Bank? Could that be the desire to repopulate northern Gaza with Israeli settlers? Could that be a strike on Iran that would require American military involvement and direct military cover for Israel if Iran gets struck? And all of these factors are now on the table for the Israeli Prime Minister to actually use against the administration of Donald Trump to say, hey, look, we gave you a win on day one, we released the hostages, we entered into this deal. You now are beholden to us and what we want to do with some of these issues across the region.”
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