When Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire in January 2025, on the last day of the Biden administration, President Joe Biden demanded credit. "This is the exact framework of the deal I proposed back in May. Exact," he said. Of course, that raises the question—if the deal was on the table earlier, why didn't Biden secure it then?
That ceasefire fell apart after only two months. Seven bloody months later, the Trump administration has finally brokered a new one. President Donald Trump, like Biden before him, wants the credit. "BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS!" he declared in his announcement of the ceasefire, waxing biblical. (Trump also, bizarrely, tried to credit his tariff policy for the truce.) But like Biden before him, Trump deserves scrutiny for the violence that dragged on when a deal was already on the table.
