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Time to acknowledge that the president chose the circumstances that led to US complicity.

By Trita Parsi, Responsible Statecraft

There is little doubt that President-elect Donald Trump’s posture vis-a-vis Israel is a key reason why a ceasefire in Gaza has finally been achieved. According to a diplomat briefed on the matter, this was “the first time there has been real pressure on the Israeli side to accept a deal.”

This means that for 15 months, Israel has dropped American bombs on children in tents, on refugees sheltering in schools, and on patients seeking help in hospitalswithout President Joe Biden exerting any “real pressure” on Israel to stop.

And once the mere posture of pressure was exerted on Israel by an envoy representing a man who isn’t even President yet, lo and behold, a ceasefire was secured.

U.S. President Joe Biden meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office at the White House on July 25, 2024 in Washington, DC.

All these senseless deaths, all the American credibility lost, all the Biden voters who stayed home in protest on November 5 could have been avoided.

The truth of the matter is that every day for the past year, Biden could have secured a ceasefire by using America’s vast leverage.

And every day for the past year, from all the evidence we have today, Biden chose not to.

That is the crux of the matter. It is precisely the fact that Biden chose this path that will damage America for years to come. It wasn’t that he lacked the ability or strength to stop the carnage. It’s not that he really wanted to stop it but sadly couldn’t. It wasn’t that his hands were tied. It wasn’t that Congress forced him. Or that polls showed that he or Kamala Harris would lose the elections if they pressed Israel. It wasn’t any of that.

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Militarism and Foreign Policy