The good news trickled out quietly, and despite the huge significance, is not getting the attention it deserves.
The White House now believes it won’t get a cease-fire deal in Gaza before Joe Biden leaves office.
“No deal is imminent,” a US official told The Wall Street Journal.
“I’m not sure it ever gets done.”
Hold the tears — cue the celebrations.
No deal is the best deal available.
Israel and the entire civilized world are saved from the awful consequences of an American bid to appease evil in the name of peace.
And politics.
For months, Biden and Kamala Harris have tried to force Israel to accept fatally flawed terms with Hamas in Gaza and, by extension, Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The Democrats are motivated by fear that anti-Israel voters in the upper Midwest, especially Muslim Americans in Michigan, will abandon the party.
The result has been a relentless pressure campaign against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, complete with attempts to undermine him politically at home and hamper Israel’s military by withholding munitions.
Recall that Secretary of State Antony Blinken sat in on cabinet meetings to dictate which targets Israel could attack.
The disgraceful effort, which included following the same playbook as anti-Israel mobs at the United Nations, prolonged the war and gave Hamas incentives to hold out for better deals.
Emboldening Hamas
Although some details remain unknown, the US was pushing for Israel to get back the remaining hostages abducted during the horrors of Oct. 7, some of them American citizens.
In exchange, it would release thousands of Palestinians arrested on terrorism charges.
Even worse, Hamas would have survived in some capacity, letting its leaders again plunder international aid, gain government control in Gaza and attack Israel again.
Even as Hamas kept upping its demands, Washington kept the heat on Israel.
Finally, Netanyahu spoke in the only language terrorists understand.
He rejected the Biden-Harris demand to halt Israel’s ground operation in Gaza and green-lighted last week’s sensational beepers-go-boom operation in Beirut.
Like a story line from “Fauda,” the hit streaming series about Israeli secret agents, disrupting Hezbollah’s communications delivered a psychological blow in addition to killing scores of fighters and injuring several thousand others.
Netanyahu followed with attacks on Hezbollah rocket launching sites and the targeted killing of one of the group’s top leaders.
Given that the leader, Ibrahim Aqil, was a US-designated terrorist linked to the 1983 bombings of our Marines barracks and embassy in Beirut that killed nearly 400 people, most of them US citizens, the White House should be celebrating.
Aqil had a $7 million American bounty on his head, and if Biden had any sense, he would send the check to Israel with a big thank you.
Instead, watch for long faces in the Harris campaign now that it’s clear she won’t get the Michigan political benefit of a pre-election cease-fire.
Shattered, too, is Biden’s fantasy of getting a Nobel Peace Prize for forging a deal on a Palestinian state.
The weakest link in the offers the White House pushed was that Iran’s malignant role would have remained intact.
It finances and directs Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen, yet its money and vow to eliminate Israel were virtually ignored in the talks.
Oct. 7 reality check
No prime minister of Israel could accept that fact given Oct. 7 and the displacement of 60,000 Israelis in the north by Hezbollah shelling.
For the same reasons, a separate Palestinian state is a pipe dream.
Palestinians used their self-rule to turn Gaza into a terror state, and Israel would be suicidal to believe an Arab state that included the much-larger West Bank would be a peace-loving neighbor.
Indeed, the significance of Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah, which includes moving ground forces north, is the message that it will no longer tolerate the daily tit-for-tat exchange of fire.
By one count, Hezbollah has fired some 7,500 rockets at Israel since October, making much of northern Israel uninhabitable.
Unfortunately, giving Iran a pass has become routine during the Biden-Harris term.
Copying the delusions of the Obama-Biden administration, the White House still harbors fantasies that the mad mullahs can be coaxed into playing a constructive role on the global stage.
The facts prove otherwise.
In recent years, Iran has helped Syrian butcher Bashar al-Assad kill his own people and, through Hezbollah, taken over much of Lebanon.
It is supplying arms to Russia, including short-range ballistic missiles for use against Ukraine.
Yet Biden still acts as if Iran is not central to the coordinated attacks on Israel.
Since taking office, he and Harris have lifted sanctions on oil sales, yielding Tehran hundreds of billions of dollars, much of which goes to funding its terror proxies.
The White House also paid $6 billion for the release of five American hostages, and released five Iranian prisoners in a deal widely seen as rewarding the hostage takers.
Iran has also plotted to assassinate Trump and several of his foreign policy aides, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the FBI says.
The mullahs also hacked Trump’s campaign website and sent the contents to the Harris campaign, officials say.
That’s obvious election interference and illustrates that Iran wants Harris to win.
The reasons are obvious: Its leaders view Dems as a soft touch and believe their aim to wipe Israel off the map will make more progress under a Harris administration.
Trump has been saying as much, including in a speech last week where he warned: “If I don’t win, I believe Israel will be eradicated.”
It seems like eons ago that his administration countered Iran’s export of terrorism by droning Quds force general Qasem Soleimani.
He also moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem and recognized Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights, making him enormously popular in the Jewish state.
Trump’s Mideast hope
The historic breakthrough of the Abraham Accords likely would have expanded to include Saudi Arabia had Trump been re-elected.
But the Saudis now say a Palestinian state is required before they recognize Israel, which could be a roadblock to more normalizations.
Meanwhile, Trump has made some cringe-worthy statements about American Jews and their support for Dems.
Because of Biden’s terrible Mideast policies, Trump has accused Jewish Dems of being disloyal to Israel, which is an odd charge given that antisemites often accuse Jews of being loyal only to Israel.
Then last week, after promising to be the best friend American Jews have ever had in the White House, Trump added that if he loses, “Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss.”
Ironically, he said that at an event billed as “Fighting Antisemitism in America,” leading to complaints he was actually stoking antisemitism with talk of blame and disloyalty.
The crude remark suggests a good rule of thumb for voters this year: Judge the candidates by what they have done, not what they say.
by Michael Goodwin NYP
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