Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday issued a bombshell of a statement which constitutes a glaring contradiction of the White House narrative on how things are going with Hamas negotiations toward a ceasefire deal. "There’s not a deal in the making," he told Fox News. "Unfortunately, it’s not close." He said this during a morning Fox News live interview segment.
The remarks are the firmest and most unequivocal Netanyahu has ever been regarding what are clearly failed and perhaps even dead international efforts to achieve a truce in Gaza.
For days and weeks now, a series of White House statements have claimed the Biden administration is spearheading efforts to achieve a peace deal and hostage swap, and Blinken and Kirby have used a variety of metaphors including being at "the goal line" while repeatedly claiming there's been a comprehensive deal on the table that's 'close'.
However, only within the last couple days has President Biden's rhetoric changed. On the one hand the administration has blamed Hamas for rejecting the deal, and other other Biden has begun saying that Netanyahu is "not doing enough" to achieve peace.
But the fresh Netanyahu interview confirms what many observers have suspected all along - that there's no viable deal to speak of currently, and really there never was a deal 'on the table' or at 'the goal line' at all. According to Fox:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday morning dismissed reports that negotiators were close to agreeing a cease-fire deal.
"It’s exactly inaccurate," Netanyahu told "Fox & Friends" co-host Brian Kilmeade during an interview. "There's a story, a narrative out there that there's a deal out there … that’s just a false narrative."
Ironically the White House itself has been the biggest purveyor of this false narrative. This proves highly embarrassing to the US administration and the prime minister's fresh remarks are sure to exacerbate already growing US-Israel tensions.
To emphasize this, Fox writes "He [Bibi] denied reports – by CNN and others – that the US Administration believes that an agreement is 90% completed."
But ultimately, Netanyahu still laid blame on Hamas for there being no deal. He said to Fox that the group "don’t agree to anything. Not to the Philadelphi Corridor, not to the keys of exchanging hostages for jailed terrorists, not to anything. So that’s just a false narrative."
Mass Israeli protests in the wake of the recent recovery of six dead hostages have demanded Netanyahu's removal from office. The hostage victims' families also claim he has thwarted a truce deal for the release of the hostages at every turn, instead choosing to prioritize the military operation against Gaza militants.
CNN too observes of the development Thursday that the Israeli leader "was as clear as he has ever been about how he views a ceasefire and hostage agreement with Hamas."
As many have predicted, it looks like the Gaza war is set to continue for at least months, and possibly years to come - especially given there's no potential even temporary ceasefire on the horizon.