Did Biden just endorse a ceasefire? Senior official is forced to clean up messy statement that went viral

The White House was forced to clean up this week an unhelpful and confusing message posted to one of President Joe Biden's social media accounts suggesting that he had endorsed a formal ceasefire in Gaza.

On Tuesday, the president's official X account posted this three-sentence statement:

Hamas unleashed a terrorist attack because they fear nothing more than Israelis and Palestinians living side by side in peace. To continue down the path of terror, violence, killing, and war is to give Hamas what they seek. We can’t do that.

The statement suggested a "major shift in tone" and left open the possibility that he was accusing Israel of committing "terror" acts.

More importantly, the statement was widely viewed as an outright endorsement of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which the White House has been careful not to support while at the same time urging Israel to commit to short-term "humanitarian pauses" to allow the safe release of hostages.

But a senior Biden administration official told Jewish Insider the president has not changed his policy regarding a ceasefire.

"The president continues to strongly believe that Israel has every right to defend itself from an active terrorist threat. We have seen Hamas officials say publicly that they want to try to commit the atrocities of October 7 again and again," the official said. "As the president has said many times, Israel has every right and even the responsibility to protect its citizens from an active terrorist threat, so the president continues to strongly stand with Israel as it defends itself from Hamas."

In fact, the statement was pulled verbatim from a speech Biden gave last week, the context of which centered on ending the "cycle of violence" in the Middle East.

The official said Biden "meant that we can’t lose hope for peace" and that his remarks reposted on social media were a "reference to how Hamas does not want peace."

"We want this to be the last war, and we recognize that for that to happen, Hamas can't be the governing authority," the official told Jewish Insider. "They have to be out of power, because if you have Hamas in power, you’re likely to have another conflict."

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