REPORT: Biden Officials Admit They Never Pressured Israel for Ceasefire, as Israeli Leaders Boast of Playing Washington
“God did the State of Israel a favor that Biden was the president during this period… We fought [in Gaza] for over a year and the administration never came to us and said, ‘ceasefire now.’ It never did. And that’s not to be taken for granted.”
—Former Israeli ambassador Michael Herzog:
A sweeping Israeli Channel 13 investigation has exposed the Biden administration’s complicity in Israel’s 19-month war on Gaza. Nine top Biden officials acknowledged avoiding real pressure on Israel—even as the death toll surpassed 30,000. Israeli leaders openly bragged they dragged out the war, playing for time until Donald Trump’s return.
Former National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Ambassador Tom Nides, and others defended their unwavering support for Israel—even as they admitted enabling a campaign one U.S. aide described as “killing and destroying for the sake of killing and destroying.”
Here’s what the investigation revealed: 🧵⬇️
1. “Killing and Destroying for the Sake of Killing and Destroying”
➤ Ilan Goldenberg, a senior national security aide, described the war’s aimlessness: “If they’re never going to do this, it doesn’t matter what the outcome is, Hamas is still going to control Gaza. You’re just killing and destroying for the sake of killing and destroying. But you’re not building an alternative.”
➤ U.S. officials pushed a post-war plan modeled on the anti-ISIS campaign, proposing that Arab states temporarily secure Gaza—but Netanyahu blocked it, refusing any role for the Palestinian Authority.
➤ Far-right Israeli ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich openly pushed for reoccupying Gaza and rebuilding settlements. Netanyahu refused to advance alternatives, keeping the door open to their demands.
2. “We Fought for Over a Year and the Administration Never Said ‘Ceasefire Now’”
➤ Israeli officials were blunt about the benefits of Biden’s passivity. Former ambassador Michael Herzog declared:
“God did the State of Israel a favor that Biden was the president during this period, because it could have been much worse. We fought [in Gaza] for over a year and the administration never came to us and said, ‘ceasefire now.’ It never did. And that’s not to be taken for granted.”
➤ Biden aides privately admitted Netanyahu was dragging out the war. “He’s undercutting it every step of the way,” said Goldenberg. “All the security people are coming out and saying it.”
➤ He also revealed there were internal discussions in Washington about Biden giving a speech to pressure Israel politically, possibly triggering new elections there—but Biden backed off.
3. U.S. Covered for Israeli War Crimes and Blocked Aid Report
➤ State Department adviser Stacy Gilbert resigned after being cut out of the process of drafting a legally required arms compliance report.
➤ The final version cleared Israel of violating U.S. law—despite overwhelming evidence of aid obstruction. Gilbert called it “shocking in its mendacity,” adding: “Everyone knows that is not true.”
➤ Even as settlers looted Gaza-bound trucks and Israel blocked humanitarian aid, Biden certified compliance—and kept weapons flowing.
4. Netanyahu Sabotaged Captives Release Talks to Prolong the War
➤ Biden officials revealed that Netanyahu deliberately tanked negotiations, fearing a deal would force him to end the war.
➤ American-Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin was scheduled for release the day he was executed. Amos Hochstein confirmed: “There’s no doubt… those hostages would be alive.”
➤ Netanyahu’s public campaign to retain control over Gaza’s Philadelphi Corridor was viewed by Biden officials as a smokescreen to kill the deal.
5. Biden Backed Israel Even After Netanyahu Publicly Undermined & Insulted Him
➤ Biden once told Netanyahu he was “full of shit,” and hung up the phone mid-call. But as Ambassador Tom Nides put it: “Biden saw [Netanyahu] as a manipulator, a magician… But he stood by him through the end.”
➤ In May 2024, Biden announced he was pausing a shipment of 2,000-lb bombs over concerns about their use in Gaza. Days later, Netanyahu accused the U.S. of freezing broader arms deliveries—reportedly pausing Biden’s plans to restore the paused shipment.
6. Saudi Deal Collapsed Because Israel Refused to Make Any Concessions
➤ Biden officials described how a U.S.-Saudi normalization deal—coupled with defense and economic pacts—was nearly complete. But it required Israel to accept a “political horizon” for Palestinians.
➤ Dan Shapiro, former deputy assistant secretary of defense, explained: “We always understood that the Israeli government depended on far-right ministers who would try to block that commitment… that might require an election or a coalition shuffle.”
➤ Former U.S. ambassador Jack Lew called Israel’s refusal to engage “kind of shocking.”
➤ Amos Hochstein said: “I don’t understand the decision not to grab that opportunity as the most important strategic move Israel can make.”
➤ Herzog claimed Netanyahu deliberately stalled, hoping Trump would return to office and take credit: “It was my understanding that Trump preferred for the deal to wait until he got into office so that he’d be the one to do it.”
Clarification: Negotiators were discussing adding American-Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin to the release list on the same day he was executed. He was not yet formally “scheduled” for release. Amos Hochstein said: “There’s no doubt… those hostages would be alive.”
The full investigation in Hebrew is available here:
The U.S.-Iran war escalated sharply Friday, with American forces striking bridges and other infrastructure deep inside Iran as Tehran launched widespread retaliation across the Gulf and beyond. Below is what was reported across the different theaters.
🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia
➤ Iran said it struck Prince Sultan Air Base, which hosts U.S. aerial refueling tankers and surveillance aircraft, in what would be the first attack on the base since late March. The claim could not be confirmed.
🇯🇴 Jordan
➤ Iran heavily bombarded bases hosting U.S. forces, with footage appearing to show Iranian missiles evading Patriot PAC-3 air defenses.
➤ Iran’s regular military, the Artesh, said it targeted U.S. fuel-storage facilities at Muwaffaq al-Salti Air Base in Azraq.
🇰🇼 🇧🇭 Kuwait and Bahrain
➤ Kuwait and Bahrain came under heavy missile and drone attack. Kuwait’s Shuaiba power and desalination complex was struck and several soldiers were wounded, while Bahrain reported a facility on fire.
➤ The Artesh said it targeted a U.S. ammunition depot at Camp Buehring, a major U.S. Army installation in northern Kuwait near the Udairi Range. It also claimed attacks on command buildings, ammunition depots, and several bridges at Ali Al Salem Air Base and elsewhere in Kuwait.
🌊 Strait of Hormuz
➤ Iran struck a U.S.-linked, Thailand-flagged vessel with anti-ship cruise missiles. Separately, Tehran said two tankers caught fire after entering a mined route through the Strait of Hormuz that Iran had declared off-limits; CENTCOM denied that mines caused the incidents.
🛣️ Iran
➤ The U.S. struck another bridge, and possibly several, along routes linking Kerman and Hormozgan provinces, extending its campaign against Iranian transport infrastructure. Iranian authorities said U.S. strikes on bridges in Hormozgan killed at least seven civilians.
🇧🇭 On Bahrain:
🔸Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said it destroyed a depot of U.S. naval drones and Bahrain’s “main artificial intelligence center” in overnight strikes, claiming the AI hub was used by U.S. forces to select targets, according to Iranian state media.
🔸In its statement, the IRGC said the strikes, part of the 17th wave of its Operation Nasr 2, came in retaliation for U.S. attacks on bridges in Iran that killed and wounded civilians. It claimed “a large number” of the American unmanned surface vessels were burned and that the AI center was “completely destroyed” by ballistic missiles and drones. Neither the U.S. nor Bahrain confirmed any damage, and the claims could not be independently verified.
🔸The Guard issued a sweeping threat, warning it would begin targeting the economic, technological, and industrial assets of companies with American shareholders across countries hosting U.S. bases.
“We will raze to the ground the most valuable assets of American companies,” it said, if Washington keeps striking Iranian civilian infrastructure.
The warning follows Iranian threats earlier in the war against Gulf data centers, including OpenAI’s $30 billion Stargate campus in Abu Dhabi.
⚡️ New: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has introduced an amendment that could effectively halt all offensive and defensive U.S. military aid to Israel under current conditions, as part of a package of 11 amendments to the FY2027 National Defense Authorization Act.
🔸The proposal would require all U.S. defense articles and services to be used in accordance with international law and, consistent with Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act, prohibit transfers to countries that restrict U.S.-supported humanitarian aid — unless the president certifies the recipient is complying with those requirements and Congress separately authorizes the transfer.
🔸Its practical force lies in stripping the president’s discretion to look past existing law. Section 620I already bars aid to governments that block U.S. humanitarian assistance, but administrations have repeatedly declined to determine that Israel is in violation despite restrictions on aid entering Gaza.
🔸 Under the amendment, the president would have to affirmatively make that determination, and Congress would have to specifically authorize the transfer through legislation before covered military aid could proceed.
📸 Reuters
Other amendments AOC has proposed would:
🔹 Require the Pentagon to publish a report on its use of military facilities in Puerto Rico.
🔹 Require a certification on human and civil rights violations in Peru following the mass killing of protesters in 2022 and 2023.
🔹 Bar Pentagon security cooperation with Ecuador until its government is certified as complying with human rights laws.
🔹 Require a report on past human rights violations in Colombia and the U.S.-Colombia military partnership from 1980 to 2010.
🔹 Require a declassification review of U.S. government and corporate involvement in Chile’s 1973 coup.
🔹 Require a Pentagon framework to support Puerto Rico’s response to infrastructure failures, including its aging water system.
🔹 Require a Pentagon framework to support Bangladesh’s response to extreme weather.
🔹 Require an unclassified report on the U.S.-Brazil military partnership from 1964 to 1985.
She also cosponsored amendments to:
🔹 Require a report on renewed military exercises and cleanup efforts in Vieques, Puerto Rico.
🔹 Prohibit Pentagon funds from being used to enforce U.S. sanctions on Cuba
🇸🇩🇬🇧THREAD: Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of the Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale School of Public Health, testifying before the UK Parliament’s International Development Committee on the government’s failure to act on intelligence and genocide warnings in Sudan:
1/ 🎥 Raymond is asked whether the FCDO did everything possible to prevent the genocide. He answered no — political will was blocked by the UK's unwillingness to confront the UAE, the primary military enabler of the RSF’s massacre in El-Fasher in October 2025.
CHAIR: So to summarize, your evidence is indicating that FCDO decided to take the relationship with the UAE over calling out the mass atrocities that you could document were going on.
RAYMOND: 100%
CHAIR: Why?
RAYMOND: Because it was easier.
@nattyray11 | @HRL_YaleSPH
2/ 🎥 The Four Steps The UK Government Failed to Take
Raymond lays out four steps he says the UK should have taken to prevent genocide:
▪️declare an imminent risk,
▪️identify the UAE as the enabler,
▪️build an international coalition, and
▪️use the UN Security Council.
He says the government failed at the first two, including issuing only vague statements while Zamzam camp in North Darfur, fell to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) during a full-scale assault between April 11 and April 13, 2025.
3/ 🎥 UN Resolution 2736: A Window That Was Wasted
Raymond says UN Security Council Resolution 2736 briefly halted the RSF advance. Satellite imagery showed vehicles stopping in their tracks after Abu Dhabi reportedly ordered a pause. But once it became clear there would be no enforcement, the offensive resumed. He argues a rare opportunity to stop further atrocities was lost.
💢 BREAKING | Israel has carried out a double-tap strike in Gaza, killing Raghad Ashour, an 18-year-old student from Beit Hanoun who was on her way to take her general secondary education examination per @MosabAbuToha. At least 5 others were wounded, according to initial reports from journalists on the ground.
⭕️Kazem Gharibabadi, Deputy Foreign Minister for Iran:
🔹The immediate and permanent end to the war and military operations on various fronts, including Lebanon, will be announced, starting tonight
🔹From tonight, the end of the US naval blockade against Iran will begin
⭕️ Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi:
“The enemy launched this war to achieve its own objectives, but it failed on every front, while the Islamic Republic of Iran achieved major victories.
🔹 We have ensured that all of Iran’s key demands and positions are reflected in the draft memorandum of understanding.
🔹 Once the agreement is formally signed, the full text will be released publicly. Even before the signing, we will use the news media to explain the contents of the memorandum and outline what Iran has achieved through the negotiations.”
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi:
🔹 “Some of the revisions we wanted in the draft agreement were advanced by the developments in Lebanon tonight and by the statements issued by Iran’s armed forces, which helped move the negotiations forward.
🔹 Iran’s armed forces were fully prepared to deliver a decisive response.
🔹 Trump also took positions critical of the Israeli government, while Hezbollah delivered a firm and decisive response to the Israeli regime’s terrorist attack.
🔹 The military strength Iran demonstrated, along with the threats of retaliation that were made, helped finalize the text of the agreement and advance several of the remaining issues that still needed to be resolved.”
🧵THREAD: Full Remarks by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Friday:
🔹 “Over the course of one year, we went through two very severe wars. That is a reality. After the 12-day war, I think they concluded that perhaps they had not sufficiently prepared their capabilities. Perhaps they realized they first needed to target what they saw as our greatest strength, which is our social cohesion. They made preparations and got themselves ready for a bigger war. In the meantime, we experienced the events of the 18th of Dey [January 7-8], and then we faced the 40-day war, in which they imagined that this time they could finally, in their delusion, finish the job. But instead, they encountered extremely courageous and steadfast resistance from Iran, from Iran’s armed forces, and from the Iranian people.”
🔹 “When I use the word ‘steadfast,’ I do so deliberately. Just a couple of days ago, one Western official said, ‘We did not believe that the Iranian people, or Iran itself, could be this steadfast and resist this stubbornly.’”
🔹 “This steadfastness and resistance, throughout the 40 days of war and afterward during the ceasefire up to the present, is first and foremost owed to our armed forces, who made enormous sacrifices. This has been said many times, but truly every one of us owes a debt to our armed forces and to the martyrs of our armed forces, who gave their lives in sacrifice.”
🔹 “Likewise, we owe a debt to the people, who during this entire period never for a single moment abandoned the armed forces, the officials, or the country as a whole. Every night they were in the streets, and every day they were present in the field. They endured shortages and hardships with resilience and perseverance, and they remained engaged. That is why it is right to speak of a kind of national awakening, even a kind of rebirth.”
Remarks by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Special News Talk Program / Part 2
🔹 “And after all of these come diplomacy and our diplomats. During this period, our diplomats have sought, first and foremost, to be the rightful voice of the Iranian people on the world stage, to defend the interests of the Iranian people, and at the same time to stand alongside and support the armed forces in their resistance and the actions they have undertaken.”
🔹 “The discussion of the battlefield and diplomacy has always been a very serious one. I have always said that there is truly no duality or contradiction between them. Some speak of the ‘unity’ of the two, but I say not simply unity, rather a oneness between them. They move in the same direction, each from within a different trench.”
🔹 “I have always believed there is also a third pillar, and that is the media. In other words, the battlefield, diplomacy, and the media all move together. But this time, a fourth pillar was added: the street. By ‘the street,’ I mean the manifestation of popular participation and the presence of the people. These four pillars moved together.”
🔹 “The duty of diplomacy is to support the battlefield and to consolidate the achievements made on the battlefield.”
🎥 Remarks by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Special News Talk Program / Part 3
🔹 “I think our commanders and friends in the armed forces will testify to the close relationship and coordination between the Foreign Ministry and the armed forces. We moved forward alongside them. Negotiation and the negotiator rely on strength on the battlefield. Negotiations without battlefield strength do not produce results.”
🔹 “The Islamic Republic of Iran truly emerged victorious on the battlefield, and Iran has come out of this difficult confrontation as the winner. Today, the world sees Iran and the Iranian people as a hero and as something remarkable.”
🔹 “We have achieved a strategic victory, and naturally it is at such a moment that the war should end on the basis of an agreement that consolidates that victory. Therefore, one of our principal missions has been to pursue an understanding and an agreement that secures and preserves the victory of the Iranian people, and we have worked to open that path.”
🔹 “Responsibility for the negotiations has been entrusted to my esteemed brother, Dr. Ghalibaf, and the Foreign Ministry and other institutions are at his service. We began a process that is now approaching its conclusion, the result of which is a 14-point memorandum of understanding.”