By Ranjan Solomon
A ceasefire between Hamas and Israel was finally been agreed on. But the uncertainties persisted until the very end. Israeli airstrikes has killed at least 130 people in the war-ravaged territory after the ceasefire was announced. Israel wanted maximum mileage of the extra time before the ceasefire was to come into force. Such is their arrogance and the way they cock a snook with international agreements beginning with International law. Netanyahu had signaled unresolved issues.
The premature celebrations in Gaza before they were expected to take effect on Sunday, January 19 were a sign of their relief that the war was finally over.
The agreement is a three-staged process. In the first stage, Hamas will release 33 hostages (both alive and dead) while Israel will release some prisoners and suspend bombing for 42 days, while arrangements are made for the next two phases. The population of Northern Gaza will be permitted to return to their destroyed homes and humanitarian aid allowed to enter.
It is common knowledge that the ceasefire does not have appeal among key Ministers in the cabinet. Should they carry forward the threat that they would resign, Netanyahu is a goner. This is why there is speculation that Netanyahu’s statements were made to keep his restless coalition together.
Israelis who have lost loved ones in the war treat the cease fire deal contemptuously. Families of Israeli soldiers killed fighting in Gaza held a demonstration against a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. The Gvura Forum opposed the deal, saying it won’t lead to Hamas’ destruction and that it will free Palestinians convicted of deadly crimes against Israelis
Trump had repeatedly threatened that “all hell will be let loose if the fighting does not end on the day he takes office on 19th January”. Today, rumors are making the rounds that there could be a tacit arrangement between Netanyahu and Trump. They assume that the silencing of guns and fighter jets will lower the guard of Hamas, and the 42 waiting period may just allow for provocations with Israel refreshed and rearmed. If this were to happen, Trump would be reduced to a mere Donald Duck. He would reduce himself to being a distrusted and dishonest US President by the world. Weakened by his own stupidities and dishonesty, the rest of his term would make him a comic persona.
Trump is a hard-nosed business person and will look at profit and loss as the ultimate template. His interests go much further than war and peace. They are, in his view, irritating obstacles in the way of his ambitions of a kingdom of opulence and unrivaled power to do as he wants. He knew for certain that Israel would have to give in. In doing so, he presented them a face-saver. Imagine Israel having to close down the war for want of capacity to reach its boastful goals. 15 months after the war begun, all they could show for it is a devastated Gaza Strip. And, that is a scandalous certificate of ethnic cleansing and a similar holocaust that Jews themselves were victims to during the 2nd World War from 1941-1945.
Still, the optimists among the Gazans would prefer to think that these are rumors. Hopes glimmer for the oppressed even in the worst of times. Gazans have astonished the rest of the world with their resilience. Israeli’s lack this quality and, as a consequence, many have fled Israel like rats deserting a sinking ship. A few will probably return to assess if things have better prospects in the post-war scenario. Those who have learned that a genuinely peaceful Israel can be real are grim will never return. Moreover, they have shifted out their investments, insurance arrangements, and transferred their moneys to wherever they have fled.
Israel has learned yet another lesson: that the age of accountability has begun. Many had indulged in dancing around the dead bodies of dead Palestinians in Gaza and disseminated it in social media post. Sick humor, you can call it. In another movement, some 200 soldiers signed a letter saying they’d stop defending Israel if the government didn’t secure a ceasefire. Those numbers may just be the tip of the iceberg given the extreme war-fatigue. They are mobilizing to add to their numbers. These are among the many forms of creative resistance against continued armed fighting
Has Israel recognized the folly of its ways after a war in which the world has declared Hamas the winner and Israel the loser? They will not easily admit it publicly. Israel has fallen into a precipice, and it will now struggle to resurface. Since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza, Tel Aviv has already learned humiliating lessons. They now know that its army is no longer “invincible”, its economy is relatively small and highly dependent, and its political system is fragile, as seen in the last few years when it struggled to keep a government in place. In times of crisis, it is barely operable.
There are wise people who have even forecast that Israel is on the verge of dissolution and collapse. Mainstream media concealed the harsh reality that the war was shifting away from Israel’s hands. Antony Blinken made a spectacular acknowledgment of this reality when he said: “Hamas has recruited almost as many new militants as it has lost.”This is a unflattering admittance that Israel’s war effort has failed to achieve its stated goal of eliminating Hamas. It merely prompted a cycle of violence, deepened humanitarian suffering, and further destabilized the region.
As Ramzy Baroud, writer and founder of “Palestine Chronicle” states, “Israel’s goals have all been thwarted. There will be No ‘Nakba Two’2, no ethnic cleansing, no ending the Palestinian cause, no destroying the Resistance. Israel has learned that its military superiority, backed by the United States, can no longer guarantee victory or political outcomes. Palestinians—hungry, displaced, trapped, betrayed, and bleeding has won against all Western arms concentrated in the hands of a brutal military enemy that respects no laws”
This is the greatest defeat of Zionism since its inception and the greatest defeat of imperialism in the Middle East since the signing of the Sykes-Picot Agreement in 1916. Baroud concludes: “What’s extraordinary is that this victory has been achieved by ordinary people, through their faith, persistence, resilience, and sumoud (Arabic for steadfastness). We’ve lost more loved ones than I can count, many of whom have been decomposing in the rubble of Gaza for months. But in the end, their sacrifices have ignited hope that evil can be challenged and defeated. This is Gaza’s message to the world—and a gift to humanity”. He pleads: “Please don’t squander it”.
Donald Trump likes to be touted as the President for Peace and no-war. He kept his promise of ending the Gaza war on Day 1 of his administration. A solution to the question of Ukraine still evades him. He has too many lobbyists on the side of the screen regardless of the fact that Zelensky is illegitimate and touted as, perhaps, the most corrupt politician around. This same Peace President has threatened Canada, Panama, and Greenland with takeovers of Canada to be incorporated as the 51st State of USA. The 100-year old Panama Canal deemed to be an engineering spectacle which traditionally linked the Atlantic and Pacific oceans was a gold mine. Just 25 years back it was returned to Panama by the US. Trump has set his eyes on it not to ‘Make America Great Again’ his MAGA slogan) but to get riches which are not America’s to claim anymore.
His ambitions to complete his much flaunted ‘normalization’ agreements to prevail based on the Israel Relations Normalization Act of 2021 are somewhere on the top of his agenda. That Act “supports and seeks to expand the previously concluded peace and normalization agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco”. His economic advisors swear that these agreements have the potential to transform the region and enhance prospects for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
But there is a huge obstacle in the way. The Act can no longer be bulldozed. To succeed, they must guarantee that these Israeli-Arab partnerships line up with crucial U.S. national interests. Further normalization prospects rest on achieving a long-range solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A two-state must take its place that actualizes a democratic Jewish state of Israel and a viable democratic Palestinian state based on 1967 boundaries -living side by side in peace, security, and mutual recognition. If the remaining countries that Trump has target to incorporate into his “Normalization Plan”, the Israeli persecution of Palestinians and other neighboring countries must end. These countries fear their own streets, especially after the Gaza war. The most powerful of these rulers is Mohammed bin Salman who, as Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia, is deemed a strongman and is tough on any political opponents and public criticism. He, it was, who firmly reminded Trump of the assassination of Sadat only because he signed a peace deal with Israel. He did not want to meet the same fate. The entire region is ruled by dictators who secretly side with Israel in the hope of economic ties of gain to themselves. Israel and the USA will be the greatest benefactors of ‘Normalization’. In the current mood of the Arab peoples, this is a grey zone, the space in between peace and war in which state and non-state actors engage in competition.
Europe played ‘footsie’ all through. Western regimes and media they were actually sowing the seeds of anti-Semitism, not combating it as they claim. They must now squarely face up to what principles they will swear and abide by. Theirs is a troubling role because the Jewish expulsions were of their making historically. Germany, the chief culprit, of the Jewish holocaust now turns to do the same to Palestinians. Germany Chancellor delivered 30% of weapons to Israel. ’ The Campaign against Arms Trade’ has established that the UK has granted arms export licenses to Israel amounting to £574 million ($727 million) since 2008, including £42 million ($53 million) in 2022. India is considered to be an all-weather ally of Israel, and bilateral relations have reached their highest point yet in history. The USA, of course, account for the largest armament transfers amounting to 66%. Public opposition to US government aid to Israel is growing intense and being publicly monitored. The armaments and huge financial grants are sent to prop a regime that was enabled to dominate the Palestinians and the entire region.
Israel with its assumptions that mere military power could put down the valiant never-say-die Gazans has learned the hard way. The US is politically dull and arrogant. Every war they have fought in the last decades has seen them lose at the hands of much smaller countries armies: Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Syria. It has a bitter record of support to dictatorships in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. According to Freedom House’s rating system of political rights around the world, there were 49 nations in the world, as of 2015, that could be fairly categorized as “dictatorships.” As of fiscal year 2015, the last year for which there is publicly available data, the federal government of the United States had been providing military assistance to 36 of them, courtesy of US tax dollars. The United States currently supports over 73 percent of the world’s dictatorships! That’s huge. That’s undemocratic because dictatorships are, inherently, autocratic.
Israel leaves this war weakened, even humiliated. The Middle East will never be the same again. There will follow political permutations and combinations that will make the region more dialogical, multilateral, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Egypt will develop new roles, and no one will allow Israel to do what it did to Gaza anymore.
Gaza will need trillions of dollars and a 20-year time frame to rebuild. A steadfast and clear Arab world could be the precursor for a two-state solution, and Palestine an independent, sovereign UN member. Hamas, by contrast is stronger. Israel is too weak to sustain another war. A resilient Gazan says: “Gaza is now devastation, it has become uninhabitable … but I will stay … I will not leave, and I will not accept resettlement anywhere else. I hope peace will prevail here and that this grief will end soon.”
Ranjan Solomon began his active association with the ‘Question of Palestine’ with the First Intifada in1987.
21 January 2025
Source: countercurrents.org