{"id":18003,"date":"2024-09-24T06:15:38","date_gmt":"2024-09-24T06:15:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cissar.com\/?p=18003"},"modified":"2024-09-24T06:15:38","modified_gmt":"2024-09-24T06:15:38","slug":"after-repeated-promises-from-biden-administration-that-a-cease-fire-is-close-war-in-middle-east-is-escalating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cissar.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/24\/after-repeated-promises-from-biden-administration-that-a-cease-fire-is-close-war-in-middle-east-is-escalating\/","title":{"rendered":"After repeated promises from Biden administration that a cease-fire is close, war in Middle East is escalating"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Israel launches fresh wave of attacks, targeting Hezbollah sites in Lebanon<\/a><\/h4>\n

The IDF said the targets were ready to be used \u2018in the immediate future\u2019 to fire into Israeli territory. (IDF)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

After months of public optimism about the prospects of a ceasefire, Biden administration officials have soured on the prospects of an end to the war between Israel and Hamas.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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“We aren\u2019t any closer to that now than we were even a week ago,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby admitted to reporters on Wednesday. He called the prospects of a completed deal “daunting.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

“No deal is imminent,” one U.S. official told The Wall Street Journal.<\/u><\/a> “I\u2019m not sure it ever gets done.”<\/p>\n

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Israelis point the finger at Hamas<\/u><\/a> for killing six hostages earlier this month, including a U.S. citizen. Arab officials lay blame on Israel for explosive pagers and walkie-talkies <\/a>and airstrikes aimed at killing Hezbollah fighters for making the prospect of a multi-front war more likely.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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“There\u2019s no chance now of it happening,” an Arab official said after the recent campaign against Hezbollah. “Everyone is in a wait-and-see mode until after the election. The outcome will determine what can happen in the next administration.”<\/p>\n

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Members of the rapid response unit respond to more Hezbollah rocket attacks on Kibbutz Manara.<\/span> (Kibbutz Manara Rapid Response Unit)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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For Biden, a former chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who ran on his diplomacy chops, failure to secure a deal would be a blow to his legacy. It would mean a presidency bookended by a chaotic pullout from Afghanistan<\/a> at the start and the false hope that peace \u2014 and the return of some 250 hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7 \u2014 was just around the corner after the outbreak of war in the Middle East.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Along with the recent attacks on Hezbollah, officials cited another main reason for pessimism to the Journal: the number of Palestinian prisoners that Israel would be asked to release to bring home its hostages.<\/p>\n

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Joel Rubin, former deputy assistant secretary of state, told Fox News Digital he\u2019s less pessimistic about the potential for a deal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Nobody’s walked away from the table. They haven’t stated they’re done. Qatar and Egypt are still partnering with us on these talks. The three-stage agreed-upon framework is still in place,” he said.<\/p>\n

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“The hangups are on the implementation side, not the framework side,” he said, noting that negotiations as far as which prisoners will be released, how their safety will be guaranteed and what to do with Hamas Leader Yahya Sinwar remain open-ended.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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ISRAEL STRIKES HEZBOLLAH TARGETS IN LEBANON<\/u><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

“These implementation issues keep coming up,” he said. “That\u2019s where you keep hearing Hamas growing its demands, adding new names, expecting more. And that’s where you hear Israel, you know, calling for the Philadelphia corridor, which suddenly has dropped out of the discussion, right? They both want more and more advantage and gains on their side, which is why negotiators are exasperated.”<\/p>\n

While the Biden administration continues to try to find ways forward on a deal, public comments that have strung along hope for months are now conflicted by some of the privately held sentiment that cease-fire efforts are futile.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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On July 19, Secretary of State Antony Blinken<\/a> said a cease-fire deal was within sight.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I believe we’re inside the 10-yard line and driving toward the goal line in getting an agreement that would produce a cease-fire, get the hostages home and put us on a better track to trying to build lasting peace and stability,” Blinken said.<\/p>\n

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Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Egypt this week to continue discussing a cease-fire.<\/span> (Egyptian Presidency\/Anadolu via Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

On Aug. 17, President Biden said he was “optimistic” a deal could be reached. “We are closer than we\u2019ve ever been,” he said, adding that he was sending Blinken to Israel to continue “intensive efforts to conclude this agreement.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

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On Aug. 19, Blinken said that Israel had “accepted a proposal” and the next step was for Hamas to agree.<\/p>\n

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“The next important statement is for Hamas to say \u2018yes,\u2019 and then, in the coming days, for all of the expert negotiators to get together to work on clear understandings on implementing the agreement,” Blinken said at a press conference in Tel Aviv.<\/p>\n

HOW DID THE HEZBOLLAH PAGER EXPLOSIONS HAPPEN? 5 THINGS TO KNOW<\/u><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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“This is a decisive moment, probably the best, maybe the last opportunity to get the hostages home, to get a cease-fire and to put everyone on a better path to enduring peace and security.”<\/p>\n

But those comments came one day after Hamas had said it would not agree to that proposal. They objected to Israel having control of the Rafah and Philadelphia corridors, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a> had demanded.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Then again on Sept. 2, Biden claimed the U.S. was “very close” to finalizing a cease-fire deal that would see the release of hostages. Asked why he was optimistic despite other deals having failed, he said, “Hope springs eternal.”<\/p>\n

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Even this week, Blinken expressed optimism about a deal, though he warned after the pager blasts that “escalation” threatens to thwart progress.<\/p>\n

“It’s imperative that all parties refrain from any actions that could escalate the conflict,” Blinken said at a news conference in Egypt.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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President Biden has long claimed a cease-fire is imminent \u2014 despite officials privately doubting that.<\/span> (Reuters\/Kevin Lamarque)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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He said he was focused on a deal that would bring calm on all fronts, including Israel\u2019s northern border with Lebanon. Blinken said that 15 out of 18 paragraphs of a deal had been agreed by all sides.<\/p>\n

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He blamed long wait times for messages to be passed between the parties for leaving space to disrupt the talks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We’ve seen that in the intervening time, you might have an event, an incident \u2014 something that makes the process more difficult, that threatens to slow it, stop it, derail it \u2014 and anything of that nature, by definition, is probably not good in terms of achieving the result that we want, which is the cease-fire,” Blinken said.<\/p>\n

After Egypt, he went to Paris<\/a> to discuss the prospects of a deal with his European counterparts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan met Wednesday with the relatives of the seven remaining U.S. hostages<\/a> held in Gaza, where the families said they “expressed \u200bfrustration with the lack of tangible progress” to Sullivan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP<\/u><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Thursday, \u200b\u200bHezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in a televised address called the pager attacks “a declaration of war” and that attacks against Israel would continue until the war with Gaza is over. Likewise, Israel\u2019s defense minister vowed to continue striking Hezbollah in Lebanon, aiming to stop the group\u2019s rocket and missile attacks so some 70,000 Israelis who live in the northern border region could return home.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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close Video Israel launches fresh wave of attacks, targeting Hezbollah sites in Lebanon The IDF said the targets were ready to be used \u2018in the immediate future\u2019 to fire into Israeli territory. (IDF) After months of public optimism about the prospects of a ceasefire, Biden administration officials have soured on the prospects of an end […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18004,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cissar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cissar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cissar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cissar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cissar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18003"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cissar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18003\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18088,"href":"https:\/\/cissar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18003\/revisions\/18088"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cissar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cissar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cissar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cissar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}