The false promise of peace in Gaza
Martin Shipton
As a result of the ceasefire, the poor people of Gaza may no longer be subjected to daily bombardment by the IDF, but it would be extremely foolish to assume that their prospects have vastly improved.
There are still ministers in the Israeli government who regard them as animals rather than human beings, and who wish the job had been completed and they were all dead.
Likewise, there is no proposal on the table – or in the ether – that would give them elementary rights of the kind they should be able to take for granted.
As we know, tens of thousands of Gaza residents have been killed, huge numbers have been maimed and the homes of most of the survivors have been destroyed, with whole districts obliterated. Apart from the impossibility of going home to a house that has been turned into rubble and ash, those who remain alive will all be deeply traumatised by the bereavements they have suffered at the loss of parents, grandparents, children, siblings and cousins, let alone friends.
Hatred
It doesn’t take much imagination to understand the hatred that will have been engendered as a result of the destruction of their world by the Israelis.
But devastating as the impact may be on those who are left, this is not a new experience for the people of Palestine. The state of Israel was born in 1948 after the massacre of Palestinians whose land had been stolen. I have despaired at the number of times I have heard journalists or politicians boldly assert that the Gaza war began on October 7 2023 when Hamas crossed the border into southern Israel and killed around 1200 people, most of whom were Israelis, but including some of other nationalities too.
Horrible as the killings of October 7 were, they were part of a continuum of violence that has persisted since Israel came into existence and will continue until there is justice for Palestinians.
Donald Trump’s 20-point plan is being hailed in some quarters as a recipe for lasting peace when it is nothing of the sort. It has all the hallmarks of a colonial-era imposition of an outcome on a people who have not been consulted about their own future.
Having previously indicated support for the extremist Israeli government’s wish to remove Palestinians from at least parts of Gaza, the turning away from such an option is now seen as a positive move.
Racist perspective
Yet according to the 20-point plan, post-war Gaza’s supreme rulers would be Donald Trump and Tony Blair – an idea that sounds like the brainwave of a madman, but in fact is wholly consistent with a racist perspective that sees the Palestinians as people who are inherently inferior and don’t deserve to be consulted about their own future, let alone allowed to decide it.
Anyone looking for a firm commitment to create a Palestinian state in the 20-point plan will be disappointed. Essentially it’s a prisoner swap deal, with the remaining hostages held in Gaza since October 7 2023 to be swapped for Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.
The final two points of the plan contain vague references to a future constitutional settlement:
“19. While Gaza re-development advances and when the PA [Palestinian Authority] reform programme is faithfully carried out, the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, which we recognise as the aspiration of the Palestinian people.
“20. The United States will establish a dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians to agree on a political horizon for peaceful and prosperous co-existence.”
Such statements are meaningless, and bear no resemblance to what Trump and Netanyahu intend to happen. Netanyahu has made it clear that he will not permit a two-state solution and his ministers have authorised the building of a giant new Jewish settlement between East Jerusalem and the West Bank that would make a Palestinian state unviable.
Absurd
The fact is that the US will continue to bankroll Israel whatever it does. Trump, and Biden before him, supplied most of the arms that were used to destroy Gaza and kill its people. The fact that Trump expected to be given the Nobel Peace Prize for brokering a ceasefire that will not lead to a permanent peace is totally absurd.
But absurdity is a perverse adjunct to the entire tragedy of what has happened.
It is absurd, and morally reprehensible, that the UK has continued to sell arms to Israel while it has been committing war crimes in Gaza.
It is absurd, and morally reprehensible, that peaceful protestors including the elderly and disabled, have been arrested for taking a stand against Israel’s genocide while those publicly supporting the genocide have been allowed to do so freely.
It is absurd, and morally reprehensible, that Trump has been threatening countries that take action to oppose Israel’s war crimes with economic sanctions.
Many thousands of people have protested on the streets of Britain against Israel’s war crimes. With the implementation of a ceasefire, there may be a temptation to ease back on the campaigning. That would be a mistake.
No constitutional rights
It’s clear from the 20-point plan that the intention is to keep the people of Gaza in a condition where they have no constitutional rights. The prospect of a Palestinian state coming into existence on the ground is a chimera. In the West Bank fanatical settlers are stealing Palestinian land and using violence, arson and in some cases murder to drive Palestinians away. This cannot be tolerated.
If the Israeli government refuses to implement a two-state solution, there should be a one-state solution, with Palestinians given full equality, including the right to vote. But Netanyahu won’t accept that either. He wants an ethno-nationalist state run along apartheid lines.
After everything that’s happened – the genocidal attack on Gaza, the arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defence minister for war crimes and the continuing refusal to accept a Palestinian state – the international community should treat Israel as a pariah state comparable to South Africa in its era of apartheid.
Proof that Israel has become a state for thugs was confirmed by Amichai Chikli, the Minister for the Diaspora and Combatting Antisemitism in Netanyahu’s government, who last week invited “Tommy Robinson” to visit as some kind of ambassador for the UK.
Absurd and morally reprehensible.
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Thank you Martin. Nice article as always. The language of hatred and the rhetoric of division and subjugation is on par with the story of Moses peace be upon him and the treatment of his people by the pawns and people of the Pharaoh.
Spot on article. Although a ceasefire is a welcome respite for the long suffering Palestinians, this is nowhere near a long term peaceful solution giving justice and long term security fir them.
Netanyahu’s criminal government will do anything to suggest opposition to them is antisemitic. The far right in Britain are only too happy to indulge them in ethno nationalism.
Can’t argue with a lot of this; but at least the bombing and shelling has stopped – at least for the moment. That surely has to be a vast improvement?
Journalists are still not allowed to enter Ghazza. I wonder why?
Incorrect.
No, I am right. They are barred.
There were journalists on the TV last night reporting from Gaza City!
Controlled, not free. Of course they have been journalists allowed in Ghazza fron the beginning. They have to be escorted.
Local Palestinian journalists. Not international journalists.
We’ve been here so many times before. The violence pauses and the world loses interest without anything fundamentally changing, so the cycle resumes once everyone is rested and rearmed. It’s what comes next that will decide if this time is different.
I agree there is a very long way to go; but let’s not confuse dislike of Trump and Netanyahu with at least a temporary halt to the death and destruction.
Trump will deserve full credit if he genuinely solves it. A temporary halt isn’t a solution. There’s a whiff of Dubya’s infamous “mission accomplished” about where we are today.
But it’s a badly needed start surely?
This is Trump’s legacy. If history doesn’t remember him for peace in the middle east it’ll remember him for all the seedy and seditionary stuff. That’s why this might work.
Agreed.
It is not a peace deal. It is a temporary ceasefire.
Show me where I am wrong. Is there a Palestinian state with agreed borders. No. Has the evil zionist government got full control of the borders of Ghazza. Yes.
Not something that I’ve said before, and not something that I expect to say very often in the future, but such peace as has – at least for now and with a lot of reservations – been achieved in this part of the near east has absolutely to be credited to Trump – simply because Trump’s the sole world political figure in a position to unambiguously and effectively bend Netanyahu’s government to his will. Which he’s done. He may have done this mainly in what he perceives to be the USA’s national interest, or even, conceivably, because it benefits his… Read more »
Give Netanyahu a shovel and tell him to start clearing up the bloody mess he has made in Gaza and also charge him with mass murder. He should spend the rest of his life on a shovel.
I’m afraid that Israel’s response was thoroughly justified after the horrors of 7/10, and hopefully Hamas will be now be disarmed and disbanded and the hostages returned. Netanyahu must also be voted out of/removed from office as he is obviously a warmonger. If this happens then the peace deal has a good chance of succeeding and a two state solution has hope.
Rather blase about seventy thousand deaths in Gaza.
Well, it you are taking that track. Then the October 7th attacks were totally justified after the dual attacks on innocent civilians by the settlers and the IDF in Jenin in June and July 2023. And the list goes on. The hate and the blame will continue with the language you are using. By the way, no attacks were justified on either side. This hate and subjugation has gone on long enough.
I agree that the actions of neither side can be justified but Mike T is correct that both Netanyahu and Hamas must be removed from the equation. The sooner the international peacekeeping force gets into Gaza, the better.
Yup, we get nowhere by pretending either side is innocent.
No, you said response was justified. Response was uncontrolled, brutal, genocidal, ethnic cleansing and evil. How was that response in any way justified? They probably killed more hostages through their bombing raids, food and water blockade and incursions. Why was Hamas even allowed to receive funding from Qatar when they had already sworn to destroy zion. How had they even managed to get into zion and where was the IDF at that time? Why was Hamas allowed to keep power in Ghazza? Why reduce the control of Mahmoud Abbas over both regions? I have no love for Hamas either. But… Read more »
Good points you make Adrian.
There can be no lasting peace as long as religious fundamentalists control the Israeli government. For some time they have used the slogan of “Antisemitism” to close down any and every criticism of their actions and their denial of Palestinian rights. There will be no peace in the so-called “Holy Land,”
Have you not noticed that the Gazan government is also controlled by religious fundamentalists?
As Mike T said earlier, pretending either side is innocent won’t get us anywhere.
Credit where it’s due; Trump, ghoulish though he normatively is, has forced Netanyahu into this cease-fire – which, in all likelihood, is all that it’ll turn out to be – and the reality is that no other world leader possesses enough clout over him to force him to do so. The likeliest reason is Trump’s fury that Netanyahu was insubordinate enough to launch strikes against Qatar, an American ally where the US has its major near eastern air base. And I’ve also heard an unverified rumour that Trump has his own personal business interests in that small but very wealthy… Read more »
I agree. I cannot fathom any peace without a change of regimes in both states.