Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal (Part 2): Trump and Biden claim diplomatic success
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Welcome to The World in 10. In an increasingly uncertain world, this is The Times' daily podcast dedicated to global security. Today with me, Stuart Willey and Alex Dibble. As the world digests details of a long-awaited ceasefire and hostage release agreements between Israel and Hamas, both Donald Trump and Joe Biden are claiming credit for getting it over the line. After eight months of non-stop negotiations,

By administration, by my administration, a ceasefire and a hostage deal has been reached by Israel and Hamas. This plan was developed and negotiated by my team.

and it will be largely implemented by the incoming administration. The deal could see hostages released on Sunday, the night before Donald Trump's inauguration. He took to social media, claiming the deal only came about because of his victory in November. Reporters then asked Mr Biden, who should get credit? He answered bluntly, is this a joke?

Let's discuss this in a bit more detail with our guest today, The Times' correspondent in Washington, Alistair Dorber. Alistair, many are seeing this as relatively unedifying stuff, both of them claiming credit. Where do you think the truth lies? I think they're both right and they're both wrong. You've got Joe Biden last night saying that this is a deal that he first presented to the various parties in the Middle East back in May.

And he's right. The bones of it are his deal. And yet I don't think it's a coincidence to say that it happens five days before Donald Trump returns to the White House. And we've heard lots from Donald Trump in recent weeks since he won the election about how, you know, there will be, and this is a quote, hell to pay if the hostages weren't out by the time he got back into office.

I think if you scratch a little bit below the surface, though, you sort of get to the answer. Trump has appointed a guy called Steve Witkoff, a very wealthy real estate tycoon, to be his Middle East envoy. He was playing golf with Trump when there was an assassin found in the woods. They're very close friends. And he's been speaking to Benjamin Netanyahu. He's been on the calls. At the same time, Brett

Brett McGurk, who does the same job at the moment for the administration, was in Qatar. There was a call at the weekend and all three of them and other people, but principally, McGurk and Benjamin Netanyahu were all on the call. So, in fact, it's quite a, quite a, you say it's an identifying spectacle of both men claiming credit for it. That's true. But it's also been quite an interesting and illuminating event.

process to watch because both sides have actually worked pretty closely together. And regardless of how long it's taken and who takes credit, the ultimate result is that the hostages, certainly the majority of civilians in the first wave are coming home. There's going to be a surge of humanitarian aid into Gaza. It's the result people wanted. Now, there are other stages to come and it might not go completely to plan, but it's a pretty good outcome regardless of who claims credit for it.

Something, Alistair, that really struck me was Qatar's prime minister thanking Steve Witkoff really pointedly ahead of Brett McGurk. Is there a sense that this is all part of the secret source of the Trump foreign policy we've got to look forward to? Yeah, I think that, I mean, there's no doubt that Joe Biden and his team will have played by...

the rules-based international order doing things they should have done. You know, Donald Trump's approach to foreign policy, as we know from his first term, is extremely different. I think cracking skulls is their sort of unedifying phrase, but it's true.

you know, he will not tolerate something that he doesn't believe should be happening and believes there should be an end to it. And he has the power to do it. I do think it was telling that the Qataris mentioned Witkoff ahead of McGurk. McGurk has spent the last 15 months of his life doing pretty little else other than trying to work on this deal. And I think, you know, he's a very clever, very cerebral kind of chap. I'm not sure he's necessarily too bothered about who gets the plaudits, but it must have hurt a little bit, I think.

This deal, Alistair, is a three-phase deal. There's plenty of opportunities, obviously, for disagreement, for arguments, especially those two phases later on. That is just six weeks away, isn't it? So is there a sense that President Trump is going to keep at this process? Yeah, look, I mean, I'm sure Trump will stick to it. He's been invested in this process for the last few weeks. There's no doubt about that. He has claimed credit

as we said, he will not want this to fall apart on his watch. Whether it's sustainable or not, who knows? I mean, I think there are big, big questions about how it's implemented. Six weeks is not such a long time. Yes, Hamas is weakened. Yes, its allies are weakened. But quite how you get to a stage where

Gaza starts seeing rebuilding work being done and humanitarian aid coming in and the people that come from Israeli prisons back into Gaza, how they, the roles that they play and what sort of job they, the jobs they get within groups like Hamas remains to be seen. I think there are a lot of unanswered questions. I mean, it was put to me yesterday, it's T's being crossed and I's being dotted. I think there's more work than that left to be done yet.

Alistair, you touched on Trump's skull cracking, his tough talk. Now, over this war, we've had some fairly tough talk from Team Biden as well. Coded and sometimes not so coded criticism of Netanyahu's pursuit of this war. What's changed to get Israel's prime minister to turn away from that insistence that he wanted total victory and get this over the line?

I think that you're right. Frustration hasn't been coded. It's been out in the open and pretty clear over the last few months, especially in the last six months of last year. I think that Netanyahu feels he works better

with Republican administrations in the US. I think he's more fearful of what a Trump administration might do in terms of relations with Israel if he crosses a line that the Trump people don't like. Biden has got 50 years in Washington of being in ardent support of Israel. Trump expresses the same views. But as we've known, every

bit of trade diplomacy everything Donald Trump does is transactional exactly the same will apply here and Netanyahu knows that Trump's coming into office you've got four years he won't stand by alliances if it doesn't suit Donald Trump far better to get this deal done I think in Netanyahu's eyes now than wait for what many people think is a bit of a lottery when Trump returns to office

Something that perhaps is a lottery as well is Trump's cabinet coming together. Some of those nominations, as you've been reporting, may struggle to get through the process of confirmation. Where are we at with Trump's cabinet when it comes to security and defense? And what can we take from the picks that he's made in the area so far?

I think we've got some very different characters in those jobs. I mean, we were watching Marco Rubio's confirmation hearing in the Senate yesterday. It was a breeze for Marco Rubio. We had plenty of Democrats saying that they thought he was the right man for the job. This is as he very clearly articulated the idea that he will implement Trump's America First agenda when it comes to diplomacy. But Marco Rubio, I think, we talked during the last Trump administration of these guys, the grown-ups in the room, people

people who as it said probably a bit disparagingly put guardrails around what what what trump did i think we can expect a little bit of that from from rubio but then you look at something like the pentagon uh and the defense secretary it's going to be a guy called pete hegseth pete hegseth's

a former fairly junior officer, a Fox News presenter. He is not of that character. He's never led a big organization. The Pentagon employs more than a million people and billions of dollars in annual spending. It'll be a challenge, but he's in there, I think, to shake things up. Conversely, I think the generals might be quite happy if he's concentrating on stopping woke things happening in the DoD. It'll allow the generals to carry on the business of warfighting.

I think then you look at other jobs and the director of national intelligence, America's top spy, to give it its colloquial name, he's picked a woman called Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman. She's

made various statements in recent years that seem very sympathetic towards Russia. She visited Bashar al-Assad in Damascus in 2017, spoke about her respect for him. I think that there are a lot of people on the Hill who are very, very concerned about her agenda, her beliefs and thoughts. I think that Tulsi Gabbard may have more trouble and certainly have much of a bigger fight during her confirmation hearing next week.

I guess if we look back to Tulsi Gabbard's former party, the Democrats, we see pundits talking about how the issue of Gaza had...

had some impact on Kamala Harris's defeat. How will the Democratic Party be looking back at this 15-month war? I think that, frankly, to my mind, is to underestimate the war in Gaza. I think it played a huge role in her defeat. Michigan, the state with the biggest Muslim population in the US, really was one that the Democrats should have won, and they lost it quite significantly. Just from travelling around the country before the election, the war in Gaza came up time and time again among Democrats.

Joe Biden came into office in 2021 talking about a tilt to Asia and concentrating much more on the Indo-Pacific. But as with other American presidents, he's been dragged back, kicking, screaming, I think, to the quagmire that is the Middle East. You know, he couldn't have predicted what happened on October the 7th, no less than anyone else. But it's certainly been interesting.

the event, I think, of his presidency. He has managed on his watch just about to bring at least an end to the war as we stand now, getting the hostages out, especially as an American president, the American hostages who were

Thank you, Alistair. Alistair Dorber is The Times' Washington correspondent. Now, earlier today, we released an episode with The Times' Middle East correspondent, Samir Al-Atrush, analysing the deal itself.

the detail of it and the potential problems that could arise in the future as a result of it. So do go back and listen to that. And also Qatar has been a mediator in these talks and has played a big role in the last 14, 15 months or so. And on The World in 10, we covered this. We had a look at Qatar and its role in global diplomacy today before Christmas. So do go back and find that. Qatar, the quiet power broker. You'll find that in the episode rundown.

That is it from us for now. Thank you for taking 10 minutes to stay on top of the world with the help of The Times. We'll see you tomorrow. ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's the show that we recommend.

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