Gershon Baskin, the architect of the negotiations that freed the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011, revealed on Thursday that Hamas had agreed the exact same terms of the deal in September 2024, in the last months of the Biden administration, but that Biden officials had disregarded it while Binyamin Netanyahu had refused point blank....
Baskin said members of the American negotiating team “were as frustrated as I was in their inability to convince Biden and Biden’s people to look seriously at the deal on the table”. In Doha, the Qataris said they could do nothing more “without the American adoption of the plan, nothing could be done, because the obstacle was Israel”.
The Biden administration had over a month to act before the election. After his party lost the election, Baskin supposedly learned that the Israelis wouldn't deal with Biden.
“From that moment, it was clear to me that the only way that the war would come to an end is when President Trump makes the decision that it has to end,” he said. He set about establishing a back channel to Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, “knowing that the negotiation did not have to be directly with the Israeli side. The Israeli side would accept whatever Trump forced them to accept.”
Baskin heard Witkoff would be at a bitcoin conference in Abu Dhabi and caught a flight there. The encounter led to swift negotiations resulting in a ceasefire on January 19, allowing Trump to boast that he had brought peace to the Middle East before he even returned to office the next day.
ADDED: Also in the London Times, this column by Gerard Baker: "Only Trump could have pulled off a Gaza peace deal/Towering self-belief aside, the US president was able to exploit his singular relationship with both Israel and Netanyahu."
Only Trump, whose pro-Israel credentials are not in doubt, could get a deal done that hawks in Israel regard as too accommodating of Hamas.... [W]hat makes Trump’s relationship with Israel unique... is that even as a staunch supporter of the Jewish state his personal relations with Netanyahu have never been that good. Much of this is the result of Trumpian self-absorption: he has still not quite forgiven the Israeli prime minister for being among the first to congratulate Joe Biden on his election victory in 2020, even as Trump was contesting the result. But Netanyahu has also enraged Trump with some of his actions. Trump was furious when last month Israel struck Qatar, a US ally and key negotiating partner in the peace efforts. According to a Wall Street Journal report, Trump’s response when he learnt of the Israeli action was splenetic: “He’s f***ing me!”...
But Trump has built extraordinary credit in Israel. The Abraham Accords... his frequent social media outbursts against Palestinians... his weird and wild suggestion for the removal of all Palestinians from Gaza and its development as a Levantine Riviera... his authorisation of US strikes against Iran’s nuclear capabilities.... But the endless, one-sided media coverage of Palestinian suffering in Gaza has meant its reputation in global public opinion may never have been lower.
On Wednesday night, Trump recounted to Fox News a telephone conversation he said he had with Netanyahu this week. “I said, ‘Israel cannot fight the world, Bibi’. They cannot fight the world.”...
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77 comments:
Oh noes…
Anyway…
Why would Joe Biden have any interest in a Peace Plan, unless there was a 'piece' plan for Joe?
Democratic damage control seizes an opportunity to manufacture a narrative published in a friendly tomb... tome to color perception and steer people. Maybe, baby.
So Trump basically copied the Biden deal. Genius.
You know how we finally defeated the Sioux? We starved them until they were forced into submission. History notes these kinds of wins. Why did we wipe out the huge herds of buffalo? They were keeping the Indians alive. We also destroyed the food stores they gathered for winter. Finally, we got them down to one free roaming band of three hundred souls, and we slaughtered them at Wounded Knee. After that, there was little trouble keeping the rest on the reservations where we delivered regular handouts.
So, two things: 1. I guess Trump is not Israel's puppet, then... And 2. Man, that Biden administration was feckless on this subject. (They were Machiavellian on so many others, but on this and some others, bleah.)
Actually, third thing: 3. And what Trump said was true: peace could only happen through his intervention.
Now I just hope it actually happens. But since we're dealing with Hamas, I'm not holding my breath. And you just know that Israel will keep its powder dry FOREVER now, having been lulled into a false sense of security before Oct. 7. (Was that three metaphors and/or cliches in one paragraph? I need coffee.)
It's also funny that Trump thanked the Hamas negotiators in Qatar, the ones that Netanyahu tried to kill with that attack using F-35s, but he only killed their body guards.
"Israelis wouldn't deal with Biden."
He called them dog-faced-pony-soldiers.
The rumor is that the local US commander at the huge US military base in Qatar had to have been on the Israeli attack, we were tasked with defending Qatar in return for them allowing us the base, and that one of the reasons that the military commanders were ordered back for a stern talking to, was when some of these overseas commanders were undermining POTUS's diplomatic initiatives. Obviously Trump was working on a deal there, and obviously Netanyahu tried to disrupt the negotiations.
Unless someone else here can explain why Trump was thanking Qatar, and how Israeli F-35s got into a country that we were committed to defending.
if any of you are inclined to believe a word that Gershon says;
please read the left leaning wikipedia article on him:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gershon_Baskin
" an Israeli columnist, social and political activist..
Baskin, together with Samer Sinijlawi, founded the Alliance for Two States.
Baskin is the Middle East Director of International Communities Organisation.. a UK-based NGO working in conflict zones with failed peace processes."
..In September 1978.. he joined the Interns for Peace program.
there's lots more, read it and learn!
And keep in mind; that's wikipedia's version
Joe Biden wasn’t offered anything, and the cabal had the conflict with their DC friends and making millions off doing PR for Hamas
Joe Biden was a turnip. How do you offer something to a turnip?
I'm not surprised the Israeli's (I doubt this is exclusively Netanyahu's position) were unconvinced that Biden and his feckless foreign policy crew would do anything to actually enforce a deal. Once the paper was signed they would have what they wanted out of the deal, and the Israeli's would have been told to pound sand by the Hamas-adjacent gang in Foggy Bottom.
It wouldn't surprise me if the Qataris were ready to throw us out of the largest US base in the region, because they were big mad over that attack.
Gulf Powers Question U.S. Protection After Israeli Attack on Qatari Soil
The audacious attempt to kill the political leaders of Hamas in Doha could upend the foundations of an American-led order in the Middle East. - New York Times
So Trump basically copied the Biden deal.
I got a different impression of plan’s authorship from the quotes.
Baskin said members of the American negotiating team “were as frustrated as I was in their inability to convince Biden and Biden’s people to look seriously at the deal on the table”.
"Once the paper was signed"
...by President Auto-Pen.
Get the hostages back. Find a pretext (any, any at all) to state that Hamas has violated the ceasefire - which is not a peace deal, only a suspension of combat operations by both sides under the truce terms. Continue the war with full force until Hamas surrenders unconditionally. Try all Hamas leadership as the terrorists they are for operating outside the laws of war and execute them for Oct 7. Treat all Hamas members the way Nazi Party members were treated after WWII, i.e., they are guilty of Hamas' war crimes unless proven otherwise. Forced re-education of all the propagandized Gazans. Leave no doubt that the first stone thrown in the direction of Israel will result in total war against Gaza again.
I find replays of the same BS unnecessary/ Mercy is not a sufficient reason to await another attack by crazed pawns of Iran.
Gershon Baskin, the architect of the negotiations that freed the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011
The guy who negotiated a trade of over 1000 prisoners in exchange for Shalit?
Biden was supporting both Hamas, via Iran, and Israel. What incentive did he have to stop the war? Biden would want a sizable kickback to do so.
If Netanyahu "had refused point blank" to consider the proposed deal, how is Biden at fault here? A lot has happened since September 2024.
I think Trump gets full credit for getting Netanyahu to come around, and for working back channel with the other players, but if Netanyahu wasn't buying it then I don't see what Biden was supposed to do about it.
yeah that guy, he provided the roster for october 7th, including the late effendi sinwar, just a great deal maker,
Sure, sure. Joey bidet had a deal ? The dofuss who needed a rope tied around his ankle so he wouldn't wander off . Bovine scatology. Neither joey bidet nor any member of his administration did anything that didn't directly benefit them, none of them. Also, the entire democrat party, every democrat administration, didn't do anything that would in any way be of benefit to Israel, ever. The democrat party and every member is rife with antisemite garbage. This propaganda is no more convincing than the "sharp as a tack" descriptions of joey bidet's mental acuity.
like who brokered the deal with the five taliban officials for that twit bergdahl, probably pantsless mcguirk
The guy who negotiated a trade of over 1000 prisoners in exchange for Shalit?
Fool me once.
Biden would want a sizable kickback to do so.
The ghost of Kiev. Moscow, too, under a different pretext, a different queen.
like beilin the one that trapped israel in this oslo mousetrap, that Arafat had no intention of fulfilling
but you see why the Times of London, has become a shadow of itself,
None of this "diplomacy'' is of any benefit to America, period. What it is more likely than not is the first step on a long and expensive foreign entanglement that could easily go on for decades and which DJT specifically said he would not do as president in 2024. Like NATO, or defending Japan, Korea, Philippines or maintaining expensive money drains like Puerto Rico. A big fat no is proper answer.
"Find a pretext (any, any at all) to state that Hamas has violated the ceasefire..."
This is Western thinking. If the enemy is not giving you one, then create one.
Globalism is a many splendored thing, equivocal and inclusive, whether imported or outsourced with local action and motives.
"None of this "diplomacy'' is of any benefit to America, period."
Prestige value...but that's about it. If it were up to me they'd both lose. Very little good has come from involvement with 'the sand people' except the oil they happen to live upon, and maybe even that's a stretch...
they often do, that is their nature, recall they destroyed the greenhouses, the israelis left, and then proceeded to kidnap soldiers, in this case gilad shalit, which provoked the first
incursion as a state, their handiwork had been seen as far back as afula and hadera, in 1994
Biden and Co. are professional grifters. If nobody mentions money they aren't interested.
of course it was robert malley in the new york review of books who suggested barak had not surrendered enough territory,
this was before Arafat used Sharon's presence as a pretext to start the intifada, and then there is the whole Al Durah affair
"Pretext" is a very flexible word, and the only need for them is to bring the good hearted and decent people on your side along with you for the war.
Was it Thomas Aquinas who said that "The only just purpose for a war is to bring peace." He forgot the part "and I promise you, it will be a cakewalk."
mikee, I wasn't going to say it. But I wouldn't be surprised if that's how things go down, and I wouldn't cry over it. Given their commitment to their captured citizens, living or dead, Israel cannot allow any more hostage-taking, though, and I don't know how you absolutely ensure that.
Here's a pro tip to ponder: The real "Art of the Deal" isn't anything about the deal...it's the dealer.
the hudna still yields a 100 to one advantage, so there will be another roster of Hamas players, unless they are disarmed,
that might have been cromwell, except he was very reluctant to wage war for fiscal reasons, as he told King Henry,
What a pathetic load of crap.
Hamas was NEVER willing to give up the hostages, pretending otherwise is amazingly stupid.
Reality check: the "professional negotiators" all suck, and all the bullshit they spin out about how they could have done this earlier is something only the most desperately stupid will actually believe
well they are Times readers, so probably,
It was one of those moments of insight when I was at Kenilworth Castle, and it had been "slighted" by Cromwell's army, that is, its military utility was destroyed, so that power could be consolidated in London, and the great families eliminated as a threat.
This has basically been British Empire policy, and by inheritance, US imperial policy, to "slight" whole countries, like Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, hopefully Iran, so that they will never be a threat again to us, and to centralize control in Washington, so that compromise is never necessary. Yes, we put the head choppers in charge in Syria, success! Syria is just the latest version of Kenilworth Castle.
So it was Trump and Trump only who made this happen.
That's what unafflicted people already knew.
Just like closing the boarder, all we needed was new President, but not just any one. He had to be orange.
So, October 7th was part of the plan? 50 shades of Kiev, or was it Moscow?
actually its more ridiculous than that, after a durable framework with Qadaffi, the Foreign Office took a flier on an revolt of Islamists, which fractured the country,
Biden officials had disregarded it
They asked the autopen, but the autopen didn't respond.
it was out of ink,
I don't buy this, because I believe what closed the deal was Hamas being told that Trump was prepared to help Israel track down and kill every Hamas leader above the level of Chief of Wife Beating. It was sign or die.
n.n said, "So, October 7th was part of the plan?"
Any spook will tell you that Israeli intelligence is among the best - if not the best - in the world. 10/7 wasn't just a massive failure, it was comically so. And if you know anything about the '73YK War, heads rolled, which I haven't heard has happened within Shin Bet or Mossad. Then again, it's highly unlikely we would hear anything, but an intelligent person could assume it suspicious if lots of people weren't fired...
well baskin is a terrible negotiator, see how the deal fell through before the ink was dry,
military intel was part of the resistance against bibi, color revolution electric boogaloo, which is entranced in their oslo diversion, the training for the para gliders was happening in beirut, which was off limits to the services,
Yeah, we just cant force Bibi to do anything. It's not like we bankroll Israel and defend them. We just have zero leverage. LOL.
Talk about the tail wagging the dog. But when your typical Congress person is a money mad whore who'd sell out his country for chump change, this is what you get.
Unifying people who share a common culture and speak a common language and putting an end to factional warfare is far different than installing a world government by force. So maybe Cromwell had a point, as far as it went.
The Biden Presidency was a total failure. You can't even argue that it was a success if your only metric is he kept Trump out of office. Instead, by delaying Trump's re-election, Biden only increased the power and popularity of Trump's 2nd term and left his own party humiliated and in a shambles.
How many people died because a cease fire and peace deal in Gaza were delayed by a year? Thousands.
How many people are dead because the Biden Administration failed to prevent a war in Ukraine through diplomatic means and failed to stop the war after it started when they had a chance to do so? Tens of thousands.
Biden's Presidency was a large scale diplomatic and humanitarian and political catastrophe. There's no question about it.
"Trump was prepared to help Israel track down and kill every Hamas leader above the level of Chief of Wife Beating"
That should've been what happened, i.e., let Israel finish the goddamn job. They certainly had just reason to do so after the October 7th sneak attack, even if the Hamas-worshipping Left screeches their disapproval.
When you negotiate with extorters, you foster and promote extortion, and get more of it. Now Israel has to live in fear of the next (inevitable) episode of attack, murder, kidnapping, rape and torture.
As a general rule, if the Left doesn't like it, it's a good thing.
as it turns out Bibi had a whole host of mutineers, including Gallant, who came out of the Sayaret Metkal Bibi's old unit,
essentially the McClellan figure in this matter,
https://x.com/TherouxPeter/status/1976279879672090941
Bob Boyd said, "How many people are dead because the Biden Administration failed to prevent a war in Ukraine..."
Biden's administration didn't fail to prevent war in Ukraine Bob, it happened because of it. You could even say it was part of the plan.
seeing as Robert Malley, had been part of an Iranian influence network, in the months before October 7th, well you do the math,
... So Trump basically copied the Biden deal. Genius...
just as Biden adopted Trump plan in Afghan!
@ Ride
100%.
But my comment was intended for Biden voters so I was addressing them on a very basic level in their msm narrative bubble state of awareness about world events.
bagoh20 said..."I don't buy this, because I believe what closed the deal was Hamas being told that Trump was prepared to help Israel track down and kill every Hamas leader above the level of Chief of Wife Beating. It was sign or die."
I agree.
If this was "Biden's deal", why did it take another year?
And, BTW, it hasn't happened yet, so don't count your chickens.
well the dhimmi voters that the Times supports,
Odd that no one reported on this until today, isn't it?
it probably didn't happen, at least the way he describes,
“just as Biden adopted Trump plan in Afghan!”
Trumps plan was stopped by the Treasonous Gen Miley and Gen Kellogg, who should have been shot.
Jaq at 815--we drove the Sioux on to the reservations by slaughtering the buffalo. Bad Hand McKenzie drove the last militant Comanche band back on the reservation by slaughtering their horse herds. War consists of seizing territory and opportunities--and Slow Joe Biden was only interested in where his next pudding cup and bag of cash came from.
"Baskin supposedly learned that the Israelis wouldn't deal with Biden."... who would deal with a senile president and far left aids???
Much of this is the result of Trumpian self-absorption
No one in Europe has a clue about Trump, all they have is psycho-babble. Or maybe it is journalists being stupid. I suppose it doesn't matter, but I see this junk and cringe.
Biden's plan in Afghanistan was adopted, adapted from Obama's plan in Iraq and transnationally, just replace Iran and proxies with Taliban.
yes we were a collection of settler states, as is Canada and Australia,
Biden adopted a variant of Trump's plan, after it had undergone conversion therapy to identify with Democratic prejudice and profit, as Obama before him.
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