A Biden speech urging national Israeli reckoning was shelved at the last minute. Here’s why
Top aides crafted address on Israel’s choice between integration and isolation, but instead went with another speech exposing details of Jerusalem’s freshly submitted ceasefire offer
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
In a speech from the White House State Dining Room on May 31, US President Joe Biden exposed key details of a proposal for a ceasefire and hostage-release deal that had been submitted by Israel to Hamas four days earlier.
The high-stakes address was aimed at forcing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stand by the concessions he had thus far only been willing to make in private, while simultaneously placing the ball in Hamas’s court by calling on the terror group to accept the Israeli offer.
Two and a half months later, the breakthrough in the negotiations sought by Biden has yet to come. However, the multiphase proposal he outlined still serves as the framework for the deal that mediators are trying to drag across the finish line as they gather for a pivotal meeting in Doha on Thursday.
But as critical as Biden’s May 31 address was, it was not the speech he was originally meant to give that day, three US officials told The Times of Israel.
Earlier in May, several of his top aides had drafted an address that was even more far-reaching.
That one too advocated for a ceasefire, but the truce was presented as merely the first part of a broader regional initiative that the Biden administration hoped to advance.
In this earlier version, Biden was slated to present the Israeli public with a choice between two paths.
Washington already feared Netanyahu’s government was heading toward the first one — an indefinite Israeli occupation of Gaza; a spillover of the fighting sparked by Hamas’s October 7 onslaught that ignites the already-deteriorating situation in the West Bank; a chilling, if not a severing, of Israel’s ties with Arab allies; and broader international isolation.
The second path was one that the Biden administration had spent the previous eight months trying to solidify. It featured at least five Arab countries assisting in the postwar management of Gaza. Those countries would include Saudi Arabia, which would also agree to normalize relations with Israel — a move that would be conditioned on Israel agreeing to create a political horizon for the Palestinians, but would allow for the solidification of a regional security network to counter Iran, which Jerusalem has long sought.
“It was a speech that was supposed to present the Israeli public with a clear understanding of where they were heading and where they could be going,” said one US official.
“The hope was that it would provoke a national reckoning in Israel that would not only convince Netanyahu to agree to a hostage deal, but also move toward a path of regional integration, despite pushback from some of his coalition partners,” said the US official, referring to far-right ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.
Ultimately however, this “two paths speech” — as a second US official termed it — was shelved just days before Biden was slated to deliver it on May 31.
The decision to write a different address came after Israel submitted a hostage deal proposal on May 27 that many in the administration believed created an opening for a breakthrough in the long-stagnant negotiations between Israel and Hamas.
White House Mideast czar Brett McGurk — backed by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan — led the crafting of this new speech that focused more squarely on the Israeli proposal, the US officials said.
“As the [US presidential] election got closer and the prospect of a Saudi deal waned, the feeling was that getting a ceasefire was the most pressing issue at hand. The speech the president gave was designed to advance that goal most immediately, even if it meant overshadowing some of our other regional goals,” said the second US official.
The new speech still included references to some of the messaging that was integral in the first version.
“A comprehensive approach that starts with this deal will bring hostages home and will lead to a more secure Israel,” Biden said in the May 31 address, noting that it would “unlock” the possibility for calm between Israel and Hezbollah
“With this deal, Israel could become more deeply integrated into the region, including a potential historic normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia. Israel could be part of a regional security network to counter the threat posed by Iran,” Biden said.
But these lines were toward the end of a speech that was constructed around describing the latest Israeli hostage deal proposal.
A version of the original speech Biden was slated to give was actually used one month later, but not by the president, the US officials said.
Instead, Vice President Kamala Harris’s national security adviser Phil Gordon ended up being the administration official to present Israelis with the two paths in a speech he gave on June 24 at Reichman University’s Herzliya Conference.
“I would just ask all of you to contemplate the two paths I have just described. In one direction, indefinite conflict in Gaza alongside growing tensions and violence in the West Bank; the absence of a Palestinian political horizon as fuel for Hamas and other terrorist groups; the looming threat of serious regional escalation; and growing Israeli isolation on the world stage,” Gordon said.
“In the other direction, the path to a strong, secure and prosperous Israel; at peace with its neighbors; backed by the United States; and integrated in the region as never before,” he continued. “The choice should be clear.”
But this speech largely flew under the radar, as it wasn’t delivered by the US president himself, and came weeks before Harris became the Democratic party’s presidential nominee after Biden dropped out of the race. Gordon’s name has been floated as a likely White House national security adviser if Harris wins in November.
A third US official defended the decision to swap out the speeches in May, arguing that the one that Biden ended up giving put the administration clearly on record in support of a ceasefire. It also helped build international support for the US-backed Israeli proposal after months in which Washington felt increasingly isolated internationally over its positions on the war, they added.
But the third US official said that the original speech — or at least its main message — could still be delivered by Biden at some point because the door for Israel to fully integrate into the region still remains open if it is willing to offer the Palestinians a pathway to a future state.
Responding to this story, a White House official said, “Elements of earlier drafts were in the final draft. But earlier drafts were not a speech he meant to give.”
“The speech he meant to give is the final draft speech he did give, which also led to a global endorsement of the hostage deal and Hamas then agreeing to the framework on July 3, with the talks now on the implementation,” the official added in a statement.
