Analysis

Israel, US Point Fingers in Potential Ceasefire Deal

The proposed ceasefire would last for six weeks, and see the return of women, children and vulnerable hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, as well as the full withdrawal of IDF forces. Even as the US president announced the ceasefire plan, he acknowledged that Israel has not fully agreed to the plan.
Sputnik
Sputnik reported on Sunday that Israel had accepted a new deal that would secure a ceasefire in Gaza and lead to the release of all hostages, citing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief foreign policy advisor. The plan was first announced on Friday by US President Joe Biden who said that Hamas could no longer carry out a large-scale attack because of Israel’s offensive in Gaza.
On Saturday, Netanyahu accepted an invitation to speak to a joint session of Congress, calling it a “privilege” to present in front of "the American people and the entire world" the “truth about our just war”. The prime minister’s visit could present challenges, though, as the International Criminal’s Court has issued a warrant for his arrest.
Ryan Cristian, the founder and editor of the Last American Vagabond, joined Sputnik’s The Final Countdown on Monday to discuss the tumultuous ceasefire proposal, as well as Netanyahu’s potential speech to the US Congress.

“I think we need to recognize that if Netanyahu is going to be invited, which he is by every angle of our Congress, and he is currently - there are arrest warrants from the ICC, the obligation from the United States government should be to arrest him. This is not going to happen, obviously. This is a major statement of a group screaming about the rules-based international order, or that they claim that they're different because they acknowledge international law - unlike Hamas - and it's completely contradicting all that,” said Cristian of Netanyahu’s possible speech to Congress.

A senior Israeli official reportedly said on Monday that the US president’s description of Israel’s ceasefire proposal was “not accurate” and claimed that Biden had only announced a partial version of Israel’s proposed plans in his speech on Friday. The official said that they did not agree to fully withdraw their troops from the Gaza Strip, and added that they would only do so once their “objectives are met including destroying Hamas’ military and governing capabilities”.
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Both the Israeli official, and National Security Council Spokesman John Kirby have argued about where the plans for the ceasefire first originated from, with the US and Israel accusing the other of concocting the three-stage ceasefire plan.

“It’s clear that there was an agreement on this for Israel and the US before it was submitted to Hamas, just like last time,” said Cristian. “We don't know for sure whether this was Israel bluffing and using the US to be the deliverer of that bluff and then just when Hamas accepted and called their bluff, that's when they pulled back because, well, they don't want this war to end. I believe that in every possible sense.”

“And so this is ridiculous. This is just admitting on the surface that they agreed, they set the plan out. That's why we saw across the board everybody from US politicians to Israeli politicians saying Hamas better take this, everything's on the table,” he added. “And Hamas then said we'll take it, and Israel then just said never mind. That's what happened. It's very simple.”
Sputnik’s Angie Wong then asked their guest if he believes it would have been possible for the US president to have already had a conversation prior to his press conference on Friday as a possible preemptive measure for Netanyahu’s visit to Congress.

“Let's understand that even the US government is very fractured as well, right? They're not all on the same page. I think it's very clear that they have aggressive and almost unanimous support for Israel, but they're also fractured when it comes to their own dynamics,” Cristian explained. “But we can prove, as Israel has stated and as the US has stated in many different dynamics - Blinken himself - that this involved Israel. This was directly from Jerusalem [and the main coalition] of Netanyahu's people.”

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“And you can see that this is about at least trying to present to the world that they care about the people,” he added. “And I mean even including the hostages and detainees, which both exist within Gaza right now. Some were IDF members, some were civilians that shouldn't have been taken.”
“Long before October 7th, the 75 years of brutal occupation and what [Israel has] been doing for such a long time and one can prove very clearly that they've engaged with this dishonestly as far back as one can look. It doesn't mean that there are no elements within this or the people themselves that want something else,” Cristian suggested. “I'm talking just about the Zionist organization, the government.”
Thus far an estimated 36,439 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip and 82,627 wounded since October 7, according to the Palestinian enclave’s Health Ministry. The World Health Organization (WHO) stated that practically no health services remain in Rafah after the al-Helal al-Emirati hospital closed, Sputnik reported on Sunday.
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