The White House, for the second time in as many days, put the squeeze on Israel in its negotiations with Hamas terrorists to reach a cease-fire for hostages deal.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby expressed optimism on Tuesday that the "gaps" can and should be filled to reach a deal despite Israel saying no such thing, Axios reported.
"Hamas responded yesterday and there were amendments offered. Again, that's the task of negotiating. That's what negotiations are all about. It's our understanding from looking at the text that we feel it suggests that we should be able to close these gaps," Kirby said at Tuesday's White House press briefing.
It's the second consecutive day the White House has put Israel in a bad light. Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Blaine Holt and retired Army Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer told Newsmax on Monday that the White House ensnared Israel in a "trap" after Hamas announced it had accepted a cease-fire offer that Israel had no part in authoring.
Instead, Hamas accepted a watered-down proposal authored by Egypt and Qatar, one that Israel said the U.S. knew about it but failed to warn Israel before Hamas "accepted" it, according to Axios.
That was reinforced by a Hamas political official on Tuesday.
"The ball is in the Israeli court and in the court of the American administration because this agreement, the text we agreed to, before it was presented to us, was approved by all the mediators, including the American side," Osama Hamdan said.
The mediators, Hamdan said, had given guarantees that Israel would implement the agreement.
An Israeli official told Reuters the whole thing was "a ruse intended to make Israel look like the side refusing a deal."
"This was a trap. This was what we call an information operation. It was designed to have the outcome you witnessed," Shaffer told Newsmax on Monday.
Now on Tuesday, Kirby's assertions that terms of a deal can "absolutely be closed" runs afoul to Israel's position that the gaps remain wide.
Israel did, however, send a delegation to Cairo on Tuesday despite its disappointment with the Biden administration and Egypt, according to the Axios report. The Israelis will be joined by the terrorist Hamas delegation along with Egyptian and Qatari mediators and CIA Director Bill Burns.
"The delegation traveled to understand the depth of the gap and the level of flexibility that Hamas has. They will come back and report and then we will see what Israel is required to do," a senior Israeli official told Axios.
"Everybody's coming to the table," Kirby said. "That's not insignificant."
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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