'Iran is watching to see if we capitulate,' Netanyahu says
PM says Biden version of deal ‘incomplete’; US: It accurately reflects Israeli offer
Claim Israel will end war before Hamas toppled,
hostages freed is ‘incorrect,’ says Netanyahu, but Kirby says going
public with proposal was about pressuring Hamas, not jamming PM
Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (C) speaks at the Knesset Foreign Affairs
and Defense Committee, June 3, 2024. (Maayan Toaf/GPO)
Israeli officials pushed back on Monday on elements of the hostage deal proposal
presented by US President Joe Biden over the weekend as an Israeli
offer, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted that there were
gaps between that proposal and Israel’s stance. In response, the US
doubled down on its assertion that the proposal was an accurate
reflection of an Israeli offer.
“The claim that we agreed to a ceasefire without our conditions being
met is incorrect,” the prime minister reportedly told lawmakers.
Netanyahu said in a Knesset meeting that Israel will not end the war
in Gaza until it achieves its three war aims, an Israeli official told
The Times of Israel: destroying Hamas’s military and civil governance
capabilities, securing the release of all hostages, and ensuring that
Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel.
“The proposal that Biden presented is incomplete,” the premier told
MKs at a closed-door meeting of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and
Defense Committee, according to media reports.
He also reportedly said that there are “gaps” between the Israeli version and Biden’s recounting of it.
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“The war will stop in order to bring hostages back, and afterward we
will hold discussions. There are other details that the US president did
not present to the public,” Netanyahu was quoted as saying.
US President Joe Biden announces a proposed
ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza at the White House’s State
Dining Room in Washington, DC, May 31, 2024. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty
Images/AFP)
According to Channel 12, Netanyahu said that Israel can stop the war
for six weeks, but not end it permanently. “Iran and all of our enemies
are watching to see if we capitulate,” he said.
Later Monday, the White House pushed back on the notion of daylight
between the Israeli proposal and the one laid out by Biden on Friday.
“As for the gaps, I don’t know what gaps you’re referring to,”
National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said during a briefing
with reporters.
He noted that Netanyahu’s foreign policy adviser had confirmed to The
Times of London over the weekend that the offer detailed by Biden was
indeed an Israeli proposal.
“We’re confident that [Biden’s speech] accurately reflects that
[Israeli] proposal — a proposal that we worked with the Israelis on, so I
know of no gaps to speak of,” Kirby said.
Biden’s decision to go public with Israel’s latest hostage deal offer
outed Netanyahu for having signed off on a proposal over which his
far-right coalition partners have subsequently vowed to collapse the
government.
White House national security
communications adviser John Kirby speaks during the daily briefing at
the White House in Washington, May 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Nonetheless, Kirby insisted, “This wasn’t about jamming the prime minister or the war cabinet.”
“This was about laying bare for the public to see how well and how
faithfully and how assertively the Israelis came up with a new proposal —
how it shows how much they really want to get this done,” Kirby said.
“If anything, this was about putting some public pressure on Mr.
[Yahya] Sinwar and Hamas, who have repeatedly refused to accept what
Israel has put forward,” he added.
Biden announced in a speech late Friday what he described as an
Israeli proposal for a deal, triggering shockwaves in the government,
whose far-right parties threatened to bring down the coalition if
Netanyahu tried to see it approved.
In his address, Biden revealed that the new Israeli proposal for a
ceasefire and hostage deal had been submitted on Thursday to Hamas via
Qatar. The US president laid out some of the proposal’s key elements in
some detail and urged Hamas to accept it and the Israeli government to
“stand behind it.”
Biden indicated that the second phase of the deal would see a
permanent end to the war and that Hamas would not be in power, but did
not detail how that would come about.
IDF troops operate in southern Gaza’s Rafah , in a handout photo published May 31, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces)
Meanwhile, a senior Israeli official on Monday called into question Biden’s characterization of the proposal, stressing to NBC News that Israel never agreed to fully withdraw its forces from Gaza as part of any agreement.
Biden’s description was “not accurate,” said the unnamed official.
The official said that what Biden described was not an Israeli
proposal, but one originating with the mediating countries, to which
Israel made amendments.
“It’s strange that they say it’s an Israeli proposal and at the same time that Israel needs to agree to it,” mused the official.
In a video statement after Monday’s Knesset meeting, Netanyahu said
that Israel had gone “a long way” in order to try to get the hostages
back, but asserted that all the while “we maintained the aims of the
war, primarily the elimination of Hamas.
“We insist that we achieve both [aims],” he said. “It is not
something I am adding now, it is not something I am adding because I was
pressured by the coalition. It is something we unanimously agreed upon
in the war cabinet.”
The comments came a day after a senior adviser to Netanyahu confirmed that while there is still work to be done on the hostage release deal, Israel has agreed to the framework.
Hamas, for its part, welcomed the proposal put forth by Biden, Egypt’s foreign minister said in Spain on Monday.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry
speaks during a press conference after a meeting with his Greek
counterpart in Athens on May 20, 2024. (Photo by Aris MESSINIS / AFP)
“Hamas’s initial statements indicate that it received the proposal
positively,” said Sameh Shoukry at a press conference with Spanish
Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares.
Shoukry seemed to be referring to a Hamas response to Biden’s speech
in which it said it views the address positively and would negotiate in
good faith to secure a permanent ceasefire and the permanent withdrawal
of Israeli forces from Gaza.
Still, The Wall Street Journal on Monday cited
Hamas officials as saying they were seeking a “detailed proposal in
writing” outlining Biden’s proposed deal, amid concerns that Israel
would not commit to a long-term ceasefire.
Citing messages purportedly sent by Hamas chief in Gaza Yahya Sinwar
to Arab mediators, the news outlet reported that Sinwar — unlike Hamas
leaders abroad — is not seeking an end to the war anytime soon, since he
believes the longer fighting drags on, the more Israel is being turned
into “an international pariah” while support for Palestinians grows.
On Sunday night, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke to Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and war cabinet minister Benny Gantz to discuss the latest proposal.
In his call with Gallant, Blinken “commended Israel’s readiness to
conclude a deal and affirmed that the onus is on Hamas to accept,” the
State Department said in a readout of the conversation.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks
during a joint press conference with Moldova’s President Maia Sandu at
the Moldovan Presidency in Chisinau, Moldova, May 29, 2024. (AP
Photo/Vadim Ghirda, Pool)
The top US diplomat also told Gantz that in addition to bringing
about the release of the hostages, implementing the deal “would advance
Israel’s long-term security interests, including by unlocking the
possibility of calm along Israel’s border with Lebanon that would allow
Israelis to return to their homes.”
In a statement released by his office on Monday morning, Gallant
confirmed that he had “emphasized Israel’s commitment to dismantling
Hamas as a governing and military authority.”
The deal, Biden said on Friday, would “bring all the hostages home,
ensure Israel’s security, create a better day after in Gaza without
Hamas in power, and set the stage for a political settlement that
provides a better future for Israelis and Palestinians alike.”
Protesters attend a rally calling for the
release of hostages held by Hamas terrorists in Gaza since October 7,
outside the Defense Ministry Headquarters in Tel Aviv, June 1, 2024.
(Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)
Israeli leaders asserted after Biden’s address that the war would
continue until Hamas has been destroyed, and large sections of the
Israeli government have criticized Biden for failing to provide clarity
as to how that would be achieved.
Although the US president stressed that the deal would remove the
terror group from power, and said that it was “no longer capable of
carrying out another October 7,” the publicized parts of the offer did
not specify how Hamas would be replaced as Gaza’s ruler.
The issue was discussed by the war cabinet when it convened on Sunday night.
According to Hebrew media reports, Gallant presented the cabinet with
a plan for “humanitarian bubbles” to be formed inside the Palestinian
enclave, in which Palestinians proven to have no affiliation to Hamas or
other terror groups will be responsible for overseeing the distribution
of humanitarian aid inside specific neighborhoods.
