It was suddenly pushed by the White House that Biden would be making a major speech on the Middle East. I feel that this was an odd call to make, as bad news hit his primary opponent in the upcoming elections yesterday, and thrusting national attention back onto the Middle East, where fee have been satisfied with Biden's handling of the situation, feels foolish. Regardless, Biden plowed ahead, and actually gave the speech before the initially reported time (a rarity for government officials). It was nothing really significant, as he laid out a proposal for an enduring ceasefire between Israel and Hamas which was already in line with what the United States was pushing for. The only real change is that it was more specific on some details. Across the board, there was tepid to full fledged support from large chunks of the American audience, international community, Hamas, and Israel. Many have pointed out that the proposal is quite similar to ones put forth by both Israel and Hamas. But having a third country make the proposal, let alone one with the best of the United States, seems to have done something. While they don't trust each other, they at least hold less antipathy and distrust towards the United States government than for each other. It's a low bar, but an important one to clear if there is any chance for more talks to take hold. There seems to be one main point of clarification needed from Biden's proposal, which is the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza. His plan called for them toesve the "populated" parts of Gaza. The strip is of course extremely urban, but some outlying parts are more agrarian, and Israel has effectively depopulated parts of the strip with their military campaign, leaving room for ambiguity. Hamas has maintained that for any ceasefire to take hold, that Israel must pull out of all of Gaza.