Within hours of the announcement that Israel and Hamas had agreed to a ceasefire and the return of 33 Israeli hostages, Republicans were crowing that the deal had been made because of “the Trump effect” — political plates shifting in advance of Donald Trump’s impending inauguration.
The Trump transition team put out a news release Jan. 15 that said, “President Trump secures Gaza ceasefire deal.” Even The Atlantic, generally no fan of the 45th and 47th president, published a piece by Yair Rosenberg that said “Trump made the Gaza cease-fire happen.”
That’s not how Joe Biden sees it.
The president, when asked by a reporter who should get credit for the deal, answered “Is that a joke?” before turning and leaving the room. Others have also sharply shut down any talk about Trump being responsible, including columnist Sophia A. Nelson, who wrote on X, “America has one president at a time.”
In this case, however, it’s complicated. Both the outgoing and incoming administration were involved. More importantly, at this time, the question of who was most responsible for the deal is irrelevant, and partisan chest-beating distracts from a remarkable moment of cooperation worthy of celebration — and emulation.
Both the Trump and Biden teams were involved in negotiations, and each side acknowledged the bipartisan work. “The terms largely echo a proposal laid out by Biden himself in May 2024, but the incoming president dragged the parties over the finish line,” Rosenberg wrote for The Atlantic.
The factor that Biden must confront is the timing. Like the release of the Iranian hostages in 1981, minutes after Ronald Reagan took the oath of office, the planned release of 33 Israeli hostages right before Trump takes office is certainly not coincidental, particularly since Trump has been threatening “all hell to pay” if the hostages weren’t freed before he takes office. Any argument that Biden brokered this deal would have been more credible if the ceasefire had come during the summer. Even then, the claim would have been dubious amid the debate over whether Biden could remain president given his disastrous debate performance in June and questions about his competency. Even now, there are some who suggest that Biden himself isn’t calling the shots.
The ceasefire agreement is not a total victory for any of the parties involved — there are believed to be 98 hostages still held by Hamas, and it’s unclear how many of them are alive. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under fire in some quarters for agreeing to the deal. And there is a chance it could yet fall through, as Israel has continued to strike targets in Gaza and Israel’s vote on the deal won’t take place until Friday, amid virulent pockets of opposition over Israel’s concessions, including the release of about 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.
Still, there is much to be hopeful about. As The New York Times reported, when Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy, met with Netanyahu in Jerusalem over the weekend, Biden adviser Brett McGurk was on the speakerphone, calling from Qatar. This is an astonishing turn of events, given that there are ordinary Americans who aren’t speaking to each other because of political animosity and too much coverage of Jimmy Carter’s funeral last week involved which political leader or spouse snubbed another one at Washington National Cathedral.
In contrast, the ceasefire deal was “a vivid example of cooperation between two men representing bitter political revivals,” David E. Sanger and Michael D. Shear wrote for the Times. “Rarely if ever have teams of current and new presidents of different parties worked together at such a high-stakes moment, with the fate of American lives and the future of a devastating war hanging in the balance.”
Equally remarkable was the fact that the collaboration emerged from Trump’s meeting with Biden the week after the election — an apparently genial get-together enabled by the fact that it was Vice President Kamala Harris, not Biden, who had just lost to Trump.
It’s as if our leaders were acting as ... leaders.
Unfortunately, rather than highlighting those brief shining moments of grown-up behavior, both Biden and Trump are trying to claim credit for a ceasefire and a hostage return that has yet to happen. Common sense suggests this is not a great idea. If things fall apart spectacularly, as things are prone to do in geopolitical conflict, both the president and the president-elect may yet wish they had not been so quick to take credit.
Moreover, anything we know now about what happened behind the scenes is subject to change. For decades, the prevailing narrative about the release of the Iranian hostages was that the Carter administration’s response had been ineffectual over the course of the crisis, which lasted 444 days, and that the prospect of stronger leadership under Reagan was what led to the hostages’ release on Inauguration Day.
In fact, whether Carter or Reagan was more responsible for the outcome is still being debated, with some arguing that it was the Carter administration’s negotiations during the fall that precipitated the release, and others accusing Reagan campaign officials of actively working to delay the release until Reagan assumed office.
In his terse exchange with the reporter who asked who should get the credit for the Israel-Hamas deal, Biden let his famous temper get the best of him. In doing so, he lost an opportunity to give the right answer, the best one.
Who should get the credit?
It doesn’t matter.
What matters is that the bloodshed and destruction of the past 15 months stops and that the hostages come home.