President Biden on Friday announced that he had pressured Israel into backing a cease-fire proposal that would allow Hamas to survive.

Because Biden waited until Shabbat started in Israel to make his announcement, there is not yet a response from the Israeli government. But Biden said that the proposal would be broken up into three phases.

In phase one, which would last for six weeks, Israel would withdraw from populated areas of Gaza and release hundreds of prisoners to Hamas in exchange for “some” unspecified number of hostages, both living and dead. In this period, there would be a “surge” in humanitarian aid and Palestinians would return to their homes as the parties — the U.S., Israel, Hamas, and Qatar — negotiated a permanent cease-fire.

In phase two, there would be a total end to the hostilities and Israel would completely withdraw from Gaza in exchange for the release of the remaining living hostages.

Phase three would bring a “reconstruction of Gaza” and the return of the bodies of any remaining dead hostages.

At the outset of the war in Gaza, Biden was clear that he believed that Hamas needed to be “eliminated.” But today, he demanded that Israelis allow Hamas to survive intact.

Biden said that Israelis “can make this offer with no further risk to their security because they’ve devastated Hamas forces over the past eight months. At this point, Hamas is no longer capable of carrying out another October 7.”

Though their current capabilities may have been degraded, Hamas’s leaders, who have vowed more massacres like October 7, remain in power. The deal that Biden outlined would allow them the breathing room to recruit new rank-and-file members and rebuild.

This is something that Biden himself admitted in March, when he said Hamas “would like a total cease-fire across the board, because then they see they have a better chance to survive and rebuild.”

Now he is scolding Israel, attempting to disabuse them of the idea of defeating Hamas by arguing that “indefinite war in pursuit of an unidentified notion of total victory will only bog down Israel in Gaza.”

For months, Hamas has refused to release hostages and has rejected deal after deal being offered to them for a cease-fire. Biden’s response has been to pressure Israel to give the terrorist group even more.