On May 31, US President Joe Biden made a crucial announcement regarding Israel’s acceptance of a “lasting” ceasefire in Gaza. Later that day, Hamas welcomed Biden’s peace plan and his call for “a permanent ceasefire, withdrawal of [Israeli] occupation forces from the Gaza Strip, reconstruction and prisoners exchange”. According to Biden, this was Israel’s plan for a multi-stage end of the war.

The way in which Biden ‘unveiled’ the deal created an impression that backdoor diplomacy may have worked and Israel and Hamas may already have found a common ground. But this was not the case, and peace remains far from achievable. As such, humiliating as it may sound, the Netanyahu government has already rejected what the Western media quickly began to call a historic turning point, with Netanyahu insisting that there will be no permanent ceasefire until Hamas is completely destroyed. Even more humiliating for Biden is the fact that the Netanyahu regime ended up calling the plan a “non-starter”. This has led to Biden’s overall failure in the Middle East.

This failure has its roots in history but became more prominent with the initiation of the so-called Abraham Accords that sought to brush aside the Palestine question and legitimise Israel regionally. The Biden administration did nothing to discontinue this policy. In fact, it accelerated this policy by trying to convince Saudi Arabia to join the accords. However, the fact that the Biden administration is now unable to control Israel means that it is unable to control a........

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