There is a back history to the US' "negotiations narrative." In earlier rounds of "negotiations" centred on the Ukraine conflict, Trump regularly would suggest that political negotiations with Russia were ongoing, when in practice, Witkoff and Kushner were simply engaging in a series of endless talks with the Europeans about establishing a ceasefire and the putative European-led "peacekeeping" role that the Europeans were demanding. In fact, these "peace plans" were never shared, or shown to Russia's Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov.

A prolonged "ceasefire" then was seen by the White House as the bypass strategy to trying to resolve the entrenched security architecture issues between NATO and Russia's sphere of security interests. Russia simply said "no" to Trump's attempt to "kick the security architecture can down the road."

The same pattern of dissimulation was evident in the Gaza ceasefire talks: Ceasefires were proposed without specifying any details of what might follow in Phase Two of the ceasefire.