Biden's Farewell Address and Refusal to Share any Credit for a Cease Fire and Hostage Release Agreement

Was it really like the Gettysburg Address?

On Wednesday, Joe Biden delivered what the White House and others pitched as his “Farewell Address.” Biden opened by touting that “a cease-fire and hostage deal has been reached by Israel and Hamas. . . .” He then ignored the contributions of anyone else and attempted to garner for himself alone all the laurels for this supposed breakthrough.

The White House’s label of “Biden’s Farewell Address” was another futile attempt to compare Biden to George Washington. That attempt to draw a parallel with Washington’s Farewell Address, however, is doomed to failure. That is because Biden’s divisive comments are better described by a prediction by Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg address: “The world will little note nor long remember what we say here. . . .” And although Lincoln’s self-deprecating prediction about the memorability of his comments was way off the mark, they are an accurate prediction of the longevity of Biden’s “Farewell Address.” And that is because of the next clause in Lincoln ‘s speech at Gettysburg: We “can never forget what [Biden] did here.”

So, no Joe, we “can never forget” what you have done here, the attempted destruction of our way of life, of our foreign policy, of our very country. And because we cannot forget that we will not remember the false platitudes in your “Farewell Address.”

There are many ‘false platitudes’ to criticize in Biden’s speech, such as his calls for more censorship by faceless 25-year old “fact checkers” in social media companies, his heretofore unobserved concern that “an oligarchy is taking shape in America,” his lack of self-awareness about “an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation enabling the abuse of power,” his calls for higher taxes, term limits for the Supreme Court, and more. . . .

But I wish to focus on just one aspect — his attempt to misappropriate 100% of the credit for the reports that a cease-fire agreement has been reached with Hamas that will include the return of some of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas on October 7, 2023.

I should add at this point that I think there are many unanswered questions and problems with this proposed agreement, which may be one of the reasons that the Israeli cabinet has not yet signed off on it, despite Biden’s representation that Israel had agreed to the deal. I do not purport to argue here that the agreement is a good one or a flawed failure. Perhaps a follow-up on that in the coming days. For now, the Biden administration has touted it as a great success, and for purposes of this article only I shall assume that it is a correct assessment.

Here is how Biden opened his address to the country:

My fellow Americans, I’m speaking to you tonight from the Oval Office.

Before I begin, let me speak to important news from earlier today. After eight months of nonstop negotiation, my administration — by my administration — a cease-fire and a hostage deal has been reached by Israel and Hamas, the elements of which I laid out in great detail in May of this year.

This plan was developed and negotiated by my team, and it will be largely implemented by the incoming administration. That’s why I told my team to keep the incoming administration fully informed. Because that’s how it should be: Working together as Americans.

There you have it. The cease-fire and “hostage deal” were brought about by one man — Joe Biden — and his administration, i.e., “my team.” Biden and “my administration” engaged in “nonstop negotiation” that lead to the “hostage deal.” Biden and his “team” didn’t just carry the water in negotiating. They both “developed and negotiated” the plan.

Wait a minute . . . . What about Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Israelis? Did they do anything worthy of recognition or credit in this Farewell Address? Did they have anything to do with planning and negotiating? If Hamas is serious about a deal now, it is because Israel resisted all the pressure that Biden, Blinken and Sullivan put on them to cave and cut a deal before decimating Hamas. But according to Biden’s statement, they get no credit. Israel is not even mentioned except in the opening paragraph quoted above, incorrectly claiming that it had reached a deal with Hamas. Biden and “my team” were the only players who merited any mention. Any others were nameless supporting actors only.

Negotiators and mediators from at least two other countries — Qatar and Egypt — also played significant roles in the negotiations. But Mr. Foreign Policy expert did not see fit to mention their contributions because it might have dimmed the light he sought to shine on himself. Biden’s only mention of President-elect Trump or his people was to say that it will be the job of the “incoming administration” to “implement” what Biden will already have handed to them.

And was Trump’s role and that of his envoy Steve Witkoff you may ask. Does Trump deserve any credit for bring Hamas to the point of serious negotiations? That’s a joke, right? Well, it is according to Biden:

Others in Biden’s own administration were more forthcoming. The US State Department’s Matthew Miller acknowledged in a briefing that,

when it comes to the involvement of President-elect Trump’s team, it has been absolutely critical in getting this deal over the line. . . .

I – let me – I will just say lastly I don’t know if it’s unprecedented to have envoys from an outgoing and an incoming administration sitting at the same table negotiating a ceasefire agreement of this kind, but if it’s not unprecedented, it’s certainly unusual, and we of course thank the Trump team for working with this, on this ceasefire agreement. We think it’s important that they were at the table and I think it shows that when Americans are worked – are willing to work together across partisan lines as we were willing to do on this occasion because it’s in the national interests of the United States, there’s a lot that we can get done.

The NSC and fill-in Press Secretary John Kirby concurred. He said that Biden’ lead negotiator Brett McGurk and Trump envoy Steve Witkoff were talking "multiple times a day, and Mr. Witkoff actually helped clinch down some of the details. There was great coordination."

So, despite Biden’s close hold on giving anyone else credit in this Farewell Address, the State Department spokesman and John Kirby both made appropriate remarks sharing credit for the agreement.

And in considering Trump’s role, one must ask, ‘Why now?’ More that fifteen months after the hostages were kidnapped and moved to Gaza, just days before Trump is to take office, Hamas finally agrees to a deal. Is that timing just a remarkable coincidence or did it have anything to do with Trump’s repeated promise as reported by Foreign Policy Magazine that,

“All hell will break out in the Middle East” if the hostages aren’t returned by the time that he takes office. “It will not be good for Hamas. And it will not be good, frankly, for anyone,” if a deal was not reached before he took office?

Note that Trump did not say that ‘all hell would break out in Gaza.’ He said, “in the Middle East.” Iran understood what he was saying.

As Victor Davis Hanson has written,

Much more likely, the election of Donald Trump and his threat to unleash terrible retribution on Hamas (and implicitly on Iran) had prompted the terrorists’ tardy willingness to negotiate a release.

Everyone who understands the role of pure power in Mideast politics, knows that Trump’s repeated threat was taken seriously by Iran and other key players and likely motivated the timing of the agreement.

So, Trump does deserve some of the credit for the agreement — along with Israel, Egypt, Qatar, and . . . yes, the Biden administration. It was just another display of Biden’ petty and vindictive small mindedness for him to deny it as a “joke.” In his Farewell Address, Biden missed a last opportunity to display true leadership and statesmanship by responding that the agreement was a bipartisan team effort and credit was due to the entire team, including all of the above players. He could have demonstrated what he claimed in his Farewell Address — a “commitment to be president for all Americans.” But he chose not to.

Biden has made his bed of a legacy, now he must lie in it.