Even after multiple assurances from President Joe Biden over recent weeks and months that an Israel-Hamas ceasefire could be right around the corner, U.S. officials are reportedly privately starting to concede that he won’t be able to help secure a deal before his term ends.
Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7 sparked a broader regional war and sent an already chaotic Middle East further into turmoil, prompting the Biden-Harris administration to try to pursue diplomatic solutions to end the conflict and reduce tensions between Arab states. Biden has routinely touted his efforts to secure a ceasefire agreement and hinted on several occasions that a deal was close at hand, but these efforts have largely been fruitless — and now U.S. officials are beginning to believe that it may be impossible to secure anything before Biden leaves office, given the roadblocks that remain between Israel and Hamas, according to sources with direct knowledge of the matter who spoke to The Wall Street Journal.
“No deal is imminent,” one of the U.S. officials told the WSJ. “I’m not sure it ever gets done.”