Former Biden administration official Phil Gordon on Saturday rejected makes an attempt by supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to painting Brett McGurk’s new e-book and interviews as vindication of Netanyahu’s conduct of the struggle in Gaza.
“Netanyahu supporters appear to be profiting from Brett McGurk’s e-book and interviews to assert vindication for Netanyahu’s conduct of the struggle in Gaza,” Gordon wrote in a put up on X. “However whereas Brett’s front-row account is efficacious, that does not imply it’s definitive or its views broadly shared — together with amongst former members of the Biden administration.”
“I’d say most of my former colleagues assume that President Biden ought to have put extra strain on Israel to conduct the struggle in a different way and finish it sooner,” Gordon wrote, including that “few assume that the largest mistake Biden made was to point out daylight with Israel.”
Gordon argued that even McGurk’s personal account confirmed that securing the discharge of the hostages was not Netanyahu’s high precedence, and that US strain on Israel may produce outcomes when it was truly utilized.
For instance, he pointed to Biden’s telephone name with Netanyahu following the World Central Kitchen strike, saying that US strain after that incident “labored.”
Biden aide says Netanyahu went in opposition to Israeli safety chiefs, delayed Gaza deal
Gordon stated, nonetheless, that McGurk’s account omitted one other vital episode: a July 4, 2024 telephone name by which Biden pressed Netanyahu to conclude a hostage deal after Hamas had, in accordance with Gordon, accepted the essential framework.
“Hamas had lastly accepted the essential framework, dropping its demand that Israel decide to a everlasting ceasefire earlier than any hostages have been launched,” Gordon wrote.
Fairly than agreeing, Gordon alleged, Netanyahu launched a collection of extra situations “in opposition to the recommendation of his personal safety chiefs,” making a deal unimaginable for an additional six months.
Gordon stated that in that interval, almost 9,000 extra Palestinians have been killed and extra Israeli hostages died, together with the six hostages executed by Hamas in August.
Among the many Israeli adjustments cited by Gordon was a requirement that Israel retain forces “alongside Gaza’s whole border with Egypt,” which the IDF had seized solely after the unique proposal had already been made.
He additionally cited “a brand new enforcement mechanism to display screen Gazans who have been returning house to the north,” which he stated would have required Israeli troops to stay in central Gaza.
Gordon emphasised that each of these situations have been finally dropped from the settlement reached in January 2025.
Ex-Biden aide: No model of Gaza struggle ‘vindicates’ Netanyahu
Gordon went on to sharply criticize Netanyahu’s broader dealing with of the struggle, arguing that nothing in McGurk’s e-book or elsewhere altered what he described as the basic document of the battle.
“Nothing within the e-book or elsewhere adjustments the truth that October 7 occurred on Netanyahu’s watch,” Gordon wrote.
He accused Netanyahu of prioritizing “whole victory” and “the upkeep of his coalition” over both a hostage deal or an finish to the struggle.
Gordon additionally wrote that Netanyahu’s conduct of the struggle and his administration of its humanitarian penalties have been “catastrophic,” arguing that that they had left Israel “extra remoted and insecure” and had “deeply broken, maybe irreparably, Israel’s relationship with america.”
The previous Biden official stated Washington ought to have finished extra “to alter Israel’s conduct reasonably than allow it.”
“There was by no means a straightforward approach ahead in Gaza,” Gordon concluded, “however no model of the story vindicates Netanyahu.”
