President Joe Biden’s State Department is admitting that President-elect Donald Trump’s team was critical in securing a peace deal between Israel and Hamas.
State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller praised Trump and his team during Wednesday’s State Department press briefing.
“When it comes to the involvement of President-elect Trump’s team, it has been absolutely critical in getting this deal over the line,” Miller said.
Miller added the involvement is critical because of the multiple phases in the agreement, which the Trump administration will essentially have to carry out considering Biden leaves office on Monday.
And it’s been critical because obviously, as I stand here today, this administration’s term in office will expire in five days, and one of the things that we have always said about this deal is that when you get from stage one to stage two that the United States, Egypt, and Qatar are the guarantors of this deal. And Egypt and Qatar will push Hamas to stay at the bargaining table and to get from stage one to stage two and the United States will push Israel to stay at the bargaining table to get from phase one and phase two.
Miller then detailed the unusual nature of having both envoys from the Biden and incoming Trump administrations negotiating the deal, as the Biden administration reportedly allowed Steve Witkoff, who will be Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, to lead talks.
“I don’t know if it’s unprecedented to have envoys from an outgoing and an incoming administration sitting at the same table negotiating a ceasefire agreement of this kind, but if it’s not unprecedented, it certainly unusual,” Miller said.
“And we, of course, thank the Trump team for working with this on this ceasefire agreement. We think it’s important that they were at the table,” he added.
According to Israeli outlet Haaretz, the Biden administration allowed Witkoff to lead the key negotiations. In his article titled “Analysis | Trump’s Mideast Envoy Forced Netanyahu to Accept a Gaza Plan He Repeatedly Rejected,” Haaretz Political Correspondent Chaim Levinson reported Monday that “Witkoff has forced Israel to accept a plan that Netanyahu had repeatedly rejected over the past half year.”
Biden noted at his press conference, in which he claimed credit for his administration, that the deal is the same one he laid out in May, which reinforces the timeline of Levinson’s reporting, suggesting Witkoff was able to lock in the deal Netanyahu had rejected over and over again.
Only after heaping praise on his administration’s officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken–who Biden claimed “led the effort”–Vice Presdient Kamala Harris, and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, did Biden acknowledge the involvement of Trump’s team.
“I’d also note this deal was developed and negotiated under my administration, but its terms will be implemented for the most part by the next administration. In these past few days, we’ve been speaking as one team,” he said.
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