The Ceasefire Charade

𝙋𝙞𝙚𝙘𝙚 𝙋𝙡𝙖𝙣 – 𝙗𝙮 𝙈𝙧. 𝙁𝙞𝙨𝙝.

Israel, going back decades, has played a duplicitous game.

It signs a deal with the Palestinians that is to be implemented in phases. The first phase gives Israel what it wants — in this case the release of the Israeli hostages in Gaza — but Israel habitually fails to implement subsequent phases that would lead to a just and equitable peace.

It eventually provokes the Palestinians with indiscriminate armed assaults to retaliate, defines a Palestinian response as a provocation and abrogates the ceasefire deal to reignite the slaughter.

If this latest three-phase ceasefire deal is ratified — and there is no certainty that it will be by Israel — it will, I expect, be little more than a presidential inauguration bombing pause. Israel has no intention of halting its merry-go-round of death.

The Israeli Cabinet has delayed a vote on the ceasefire proposal while it continues to pound Gaza. At least 81 Palestinians have been killed in the last 24 hours.

The morning after a ceasefire agreement was announced, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Hamas of reneging on part of the deal “in an effort to extort last minute concessions.”

He warned that his cabinet will not meet “until the mediators notify Israel that Hamas has accepted all elements of the agreement.”

Hamas dismissed Netanyahu’s claims and repeated their commitment to the ceasefire as agreed with the mediators.

The deal includes three phases.

The first phase, lasting 42 days, will see a cessation of hostilities. Hamas will release some Israeli hostages – 33 Israelis who were captured on Oct. 7, 2023, including all of the remaining five women, those aged above 50, and those with illnesses – in exchange for up to 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.

The Israeli army will pull back from the populated areas of the Gaza Strip on the first day of the ceasefire. On the seventh day, displaced Palestinians will be permitted to return to northern Gaza. Israel will allow 600 aid trucks with food and medical supplies to enter Gaza daily.

The second phase, which begins on the 16th day of the ceasefire, will see the release of the remaining Israeli hostages. Israel will complete its withdrawal from Gaza during the second phase, maintaining a presence in some parts of the Philadelphi corridor, which stretches along the eight-mile border between Gaza and Egypt.

It will surrender its control of the Rafah border crossing into Egypt.

The third phase will see negotiations for a permanent end of the war.

But it is Netanyahu’s office that appears to have already reneged on the agreement. It released a statement rejecting Israeli troop withdrawal from the Philadelphi Corridor during the first 42-day phase of the ceasefire.

“In practical terms, Israel will remain in the Philadelphi Corridor until further notice,” while claiming the Palestinians are attempting to violate the agreement. Palestinians throughout the numerous ceasefire negotiations have demanded Israeli troops withdraw from Gaza.

Egypt has condemned the seizure of its border crossings by Israel.

The deep fissures between Israel and Hamas, even if the Israelis finally accept the agreement, threaten to implode it.

Hamas is seeking a permanent ceasefire. But Israeli policy is unequivocal about its “right” to re-engage militarily.

There is no consensus about who will govern Gaza. Israel has made it clear the continuance of Hamas in power is unacceptable.

There is no mention of the status of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the U.N. agency that Israel has outlawed and that provides the bulk of the humanitarian aid given to the Palestinians, 95 percent of whom have been displaced.

There is no agreement on the reconstruction of Gaza, which lies in rubble. And, of course, there is no route in the agreement to an independent and sovereign Palestinian state.

Israeli mendacity and manipulation is pitifully predictable.

The Camp David Accords, signed in 1978 by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, without the participation of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), normalized diplomatic relations between Israel and Egypt.

But the subsequent phases, which included a promise by Israel to resolve the Palestinian question along with Jordan and Egypt, permit Palestinian self-governance in the West Bank and Gaza within five years, and end the building of Israeli colonies in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, were never honored.

𝐎𝐬𝐥𝐨

Or take the 1993 Oslo Accords. The agreement, signed in 1993, which saw the PLO recognize Israel’s right to exist and Israel recognize the PLO as the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people; and Oslo II, signed in 1995, which detailed the process towards peace and a Palestinian state, was stillborn.

It stipulated that any discussion of illegal Jewish “settlements” was to be delayed until “final’ status talks, by which time Israeli military withdrawals from the occupied West Bank were to have been completed.

Governing authority was to be transferred from Israel to the supposedly temporary Palestinian Authority. The West Bank was carved up into Areas A, B and C.

The Palestinian Authority has limited authority in Areas A and B. Israel controls all of Area C, over 60 percent of the West Bank.

The right of Palestinian refugees to return to the historic lands seized from them in 1948 when Israel was created — a right enshrined in international law — was given up by the PLO leader Yasser Arafat, instantly alienating many Palestinians, especially those in Gaza where 75 percent are refugees or the descendants of refugees.

Edward Said called the Oslo agreement “an instrument of Palestinian surrender, a Palestinian Versailles” and lambasted Arafat as “the Pétain of the Palestinians.”

The scheduled Israeli military withdrawals under Oslo never took place. There was no provision in the interim agreement to end Jewish colonization, only a prohibition of “unilateral steps.”

There were around 250,000 Jewish colonists in the West Bank at the time of the Oslo agreement. They have increased to at least 700,000. No final treaty was ever concluded.

The journalist Robert Fisk called Oslo …

“𝙖 𝙨𝙝𝙖𝙢, 𝙖 𝙡𝙞𝙚, 𝙖 𝙩𝙧𝙞𝙘𝙠 𝙩𝙤 𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙡𝙚 𝘼𝙧𝙖𝙛𝙖𝙩 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙋𝙇𝙊 𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙤 𝙖𝙗𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙤𝙣𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙝𝙖𝙙 𝙨𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙜𝙜𝙡𝙚𝙙 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙖 𝙦𝙪𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙤𝙛 𝙖 𝙘𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙮, 𝙖 𝙢𝙚𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙙 𝙤𝙛 𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙛𝙖𝙡𝙨𝙚 𝙝𝙤𝙥𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙤𝙧𝙙𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙤 𝙚𝙢𝙖𝙨𝙘𝙪𝙡𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙖𝙨𝙥𝙞𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙤𝙛 𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙝𝙤𝙤𝙙.”

Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, who signed the Oslo agreement, was assassinated on Nov. 4, 1995, following a rally in support of the agreement, by Yigal Amir, a far-right Jewish law student.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, now Israel’s national security minister, was one of many rightwing politicians who issued threats against Rabin. Rabin’s widow, Leah, blamed Netanyahu and his supporters — who distributed leaflets at political rallies depicting Rabin in a Nazi uniform — for her husband’s murder.

Israel has carried out a series of murderous assaults on Gaza ever since, cynically calling the bombardment “mowing the lawn.”

These attacks, which leave scores of dead and wounded and further degrade Gaza’s fragile infrastructure, have names such as Operation Rainbow (2004), Operation Days of Penitence (2004), Operation Summer Rains (2006), Operation Autumn Clouds (2006) and Operation Hot Winter (2008).

Israel violated the June 2008 ceasefire agreement with Hamas, brokered by Egypt, by launching a border raid that killed six Hamas members. The raid provoked, as Israel intended, a retaliatory strike by Hamas, which fired crude rockets and mortar shells into Israel.

The Hamas barrage provided the pretext for a massive Israeli attack. Israel, as it always does, justified its military strike on the right to defend itself.

Operation Cast Lead (2008-2009), which saw Israel carry out a ground and aerial assault over 22 days, with the Israeli air force dropping over 1,000 tons of explosives on Gaza, killed 1,385 — according to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem — of whom at least 762 were civilians, including 300 children.

Four Israelis were killed over the same period by Hamas rockets and nine Israeli soldiers died in Gaza, four of whom were victims of “friendly fire.” The Israeli newspaper Haaretz would later report that “Operation Cast Lead” had been prepared over the previous six months.

Israeli historian Avi Shlaim, who served in the Israeli military, wrote that:

“𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙗𝙧𝙪𝙩𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙤𝙛 𝙄𝙨𝙧𝙖𝙚𝙡’𝙨 𝙨𝙤𝙡𝙙𝙞𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙞𝙨 𝙛𝙪𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙢𝙖𝙩𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙙 𝙗𝙮 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙖𝙘𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙤𝙛 𝙞𝙩𝙨 𝙨𝙥𝙤𝙠𝙚𝙨𝙢𝙖𝙣…𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙥𝙖𝙜𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙖 𝙞𝙨 𝙖 𝙥𝙖𝙘𝙠 𝙤𝙛 𝙡𝙞𝙚𝙨…𝙄𝙩 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙃𝙖𝙢𝙖𝙨 𝙗𝙪𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙄𝘿𝙁 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙗𝙧𝙤𝙠𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚. 𝙄𝙩 𝙙𝙞𝙙 𝙨𝙤 𝙗𝙮 𝙖 𝙧𝙖𝙞𝙙 𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙤 𝙂𝙖𝙯𝙖 𝙤𝙣 4 𝙉𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙢𝙗𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙠𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙙 𝙨𝙞𝙭 𝙃𝙖𝙢𝙖𝙨 𝙢𝙚𝙣. 𝙄𝙨𝙧𝙖𝙚𝙡’𝙨 𝙤𝙗𝙟𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙞𝙨 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙟𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙙𝙚𝙛𝙚𝙣𝙨𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙞𝙩𝙨 𝙥𝙤𝙥𝙪𝙡𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣, 𝙗𝙪𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙪𝙖𝙡 𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙩𝙝𝙧𝙤𝙬 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙃𝙖𝙢𝙖𝙨 𝙜𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙣𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙞𝙣 𝙂𝙖𝙯𝙖 𝙗𝙮 𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙥𝙚𝙤𝙥𝙡𝙚 𝙖𝙜𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙨𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙧𝙪𝙡𝙚𝙧𝙨.”

These series of attacks on Gaza were followed by Israeli assaults in November 2012, known as Operation Pillar of Defense and in July and August 2014 in Operation Protective Edge, a seven week campaign that left 2,251 Palestinians dead, along with 73 Israelis, including 67 soldiers.

These assaults by the Israeli military were followed in 2018 by largely peaceful protests by Palestinians, known as The Great March of Return, along Gaza’s fenced-in barrier. Over 266 Palestinians were gunned down by Israeli soldiers and 30,000 more were injured.

In May 2021, Israel killed over 256 Palestinians in Gaza following attacks by Israeli police on Palestinian worshippers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem. Further attacks on worshippers at Al-Aqsa mosque took place in April 2023.

And then the breaching of the security barriers on Oct. 7, 2023 that enclose Gaza, where Palestinians had languished under a blockade for over 16 years in an open air prison.

The attacks by Palestinian gunmen [Al-Aqsa Deluge] left some 1,200 Israeli dead — including hundreds killed by Israel itself — and gave Israel the excuse it had long sought to lay waste to Gaza, in its Swords of Iron War.

This horrific saga is not over. Israel’s goals remain unchanged – the erasure of Palestinians from their land. This proposed ceasefire is one more cynical chapter. There are many ways it can and, I suspect, will fall apart.

But let us pray, at least for the moment, that the mass slaughter will stop.