The diplomatic flurry was over and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu was on the phone telling President Joe Biden that it appeared the furious fighting between Israel and Hamas was about to end. But Biden remained wary even after the afternoon phone call with the prime minister. Things still could go crosswise with hours to go before the cease-fire took effect, Biden’s team reasoned. Nervous White House aides dialed contacts in Tel Aviv and Cairo to suss out whether the truce would hold. Officials in both the U.S. and Israel worried that another barrage of Hamas rockets could sink the Egyptian-brokered agreement, according to an official familiar with the conversations. Then came another call from Netanyahu — his second to Biden that day — with reassurances for the American president that the 11-day war really was halting. Biden’s first extended foreign policy crisis, one he handled largely by avoiding the cameras and maneuvering instead behind the scenes, had abated. The president went before cameras in the Cross Hall of the White House to describe “intensive high-level discussions, hour by hour, literally” by the United States that involved Egypt, the Palestinian Authority and other Middle Eastern countries. All of it, he said, came “with an aim of avoiding the sort of prolonged conflict we’ve seen in previous years when the hostilities have broken out.” The calls between Biden and Netanyahu were a small sample of the furious diplomacy that the White House conducted. The president and senior aides had over 80 engagements, by phone or in person, in search of an endgame to the fighting, according to the White House. Biden’s speech celebrating the cease-fire lasted just 3½ minutes and was delivered in time for evening news broadcasts. He reiterated his belief that Israel has a right to defend itself, expressed condolences for Palestinian civilians who died in the Israeli bombardment and promised that humanitarian aid to Gaza Strip was on its way. It was an enigmatic, and perhaps fitting, bookend to the sort of messy Mideast crisis he had hoped to avoid, particularly early in a presidency already oversubscribed with managing the public health and economic tumult caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The conflict had also exposed a rift between Biden and members of his own party. The president who over nearly 50 years in national politics has burnished a reputation for unwavering support of Israel leads a Democratic Party that has trended toward a far more divided outlook on the proper path to peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Republicans were all too eager to try to make political use of the situation. Biden had studiously avoided extensive public comment about the Israeli military strikes. But he faced increasing pressure from Democrats to speak out against the Israelis as the death toll climbed in Gaza and as tens of thousands of Palestinians were displaced by the aerial bombardment. Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut expressed relief at the cease-fire and commended Biden and his team for their work. But he also laid out ongoing worries, saying, “I am deeply concerned that without meaningful progress towards a two-state future, the conditions of despair will deepen, further fuel extremism and lead to a tragic renewal of the cycle of violence.” The cease-fire announcement came after Biden on Wednesday stepped up his pressure on […]

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