There will be no peace in Gaza. Only the temporary absence of war as the history of Israel’s “peace agreements” shows.
The Wailing Wall – by Mr. Fish.
There is no shortage of failed peace plans in occupied Palestine, all of them incorporating detailed phases and timelines, going back to the presidency of Jimmy Carter.
They end the same way. Israel gets what it wants initially — in the latest case the release of the remaining Israeli hostages — while it ignores and violates every other phase until it resumes its attacks on the Palestinian people.
It is a sadistic game. A merry-go-round of death. This ceasefire, like those of the past, is a commercial break. A moment when the condemned man is allowed to smoke a cigarette before being gunned down in a fusillade of bullets.
Once Israeli hostages are released, the genocide will continue.
I do not know how soon. Let’s hope the mass slaughter is delayed for at least a few weeks. But a pause in the genocide is the best we can anticipate.
Israel is on the cusp of emptying Gaza, which has been all but obliterated under two years of relentless bombing. It is not about to be stopped.
This is the culmination of the Zionist dream.
The United States, which has given Israel a staggering $22 billion in military aid since Oct, 7, 2023, will not shut down its pipeline, the only tool that might halt the genocide.
Israel, as it always does, will blame Hamas and the Palestinians for failing to abide by the agreement, most probably a refusal — true or not — to disarm, as the proposal demands.
Washington, condemning Hamas’ supposed violation, will give Israel the green light to continue its genocide to create Trump’s fantasy of a Gaza Riviera and “special economic zone” with its “voluntary” relocation of Palestinians in exchange for digital tokens.
Of the myriads of peace plans over the decades, the current one is the least serious.
Aside from a demand that Hamas release the hostages within 72-hours after the ceasefire begins, it lacks specifics and imposed timetables. It is filled with caveats that allow Israel to abrogate the agreement. And that is the point.
It is not designed to be a viable path to peace, which most Israeli leaders understand. Israel’s largest-circulation newspaper, Israel Hayom, established by the late casino magnate Sheldon Adelson to serve as a mouthpiece for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and champion messianic Zionism, instructed its readers not to be concerned about the Trump plan because it is only “rhetoric.”
Israel, in one example from the proposal, will “not return to areas that have been withdrawn from, as long as Hamas fully implements the agreement.”
Who decides if Hamas has “fully implemented” the agreement? Israel. Does anyone believe in Israel’s good faith? Can Israel be trusted as an objective arbitrator of the agreement? If Hamas — demonized as a terrorist group — objects, will anyone listen?
How is it possible that a peace proposal ignores the International Court of Justice’s July 2024 Advisory Opinion, which reiterated that Israel’s occupation is illegal and must end?
How can it fail to mention the Palestinian’s right to self-determination?
Why are Palestinians, who have a right under international law to armed struggle against an occupying power, expected to disarm while Israel, the illegally occupying force, is not?
By what authority can the U.S. establish a “temporary transitional government,” — Trump’s and Tony Blair’s so-called Board of Peace — sidelining the Palestinian right to self-determination?
Who gave the U.S. the authority to send to Gaza an “International Stabilization Force,” a polite term for foreign occupation?
How are Palestinians supposed to reconcile themselves to the acceptance of an Israeli “security barrier” on Gaza’s borders, confirmation that the occupation will continue?
How can any proposal ignore the slow-motion genocide and annexation of the West Bank?
Why is Israel, which has destroyed Gaza, not required to pay reparations?
What are Palestinians supposed to make of the demand in the proposal for a “de-radicalized” Gazan population? How is this expected to be accomplished? Re-education camps? Wholesale censorship? The rewriting of the school curriculum? Arresting offending Imams in mosques?
And what about addressing the incendiary rhetoric routinely employed by Israeli leaders who describe Palestinians as “human animals” and their children as “little snakes”?
“All of Gaza and every child in Gaza, should starve to death,” the Israeli rabbi Ronen Shaulov announced. He went on:
“I don’t have mercy for those who, in a few years, will grow up and won’t have mercy for us. Only a stupid fifth column, a hater of Israel has mercy for future terrorists, even though today they are still young and hungry. I hope, may they starve to death, and if anyone has a problem with what I’ve said, that’s their problem.”
Nothing New
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat (left), U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin at the conclusion of the Camp David Peace Accords signing ceremony at the White House on Sept. 17, 1978. (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
Israeli violations of peace agreements have historical precedents.
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) — led to the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty, which normalized diplomatic relations between Israel and Egypt.
Subsequent phases of the Camp David Accords, 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 implemented.
The Oslo Accords, signed in 1993, saw the PLO recognize Israel’s right to exist and Israel recognize the PLO as the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people. Yet, what ensued was the disempowerment of the PLO and its transformation into a colonial police force.
Oslo II, signed in 1995, detailed the process towards peace and a Palestinian state. But it too was stillborn. It stipulated that any discussion of illegal Jewish “settlements” were to be delayed until “final” status talks.
By then, Israeli military withdrawals from the occupied West Bank were scheduled to have been completed. Governing authority was poised to be transferred from Israel to the supposedly temporary Palestinian Authority.
Instead, the West Bank was carved up into Areas A, B and C. The Palestinian Authority had limited authority in Areas A and B while Israel controlled all of Area C, over 60 percent of the West Bank.
The right of Palestinian refugees to return to the historic lands that Jewish settlers seized from them in 1948 when Israel was created — a right enshrined in international law — was given up by the PLO leader Yasser Arafat.
This instantly alienated many Palestinians, especially those in Gaza where 75 percent are refugees or the descendants of refugees. As a consequence, many Palestinians abandoned the PLO in favor of Hamas.
Edward Said called the Oslo Accords “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 were around 250,000 Jewish colonists in the West Bank when the Oslo agreement was signed. Their numbers today have increased to at least 700,000.
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.”
Until Today
Israeli forces in Gaza in May. (IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 3.0)
Israel unilaterally broke the last two-month-long ceasefire on March 18 of this year when it launched surprise airstrikes on Gaza. Netanyahu’s office claimed that the resumption of the military campaign was in response to Hamas’ refusal to release hostages, its rejection of proposals to extend the cease-fire and its efforts to rearm.
Israel killed more than 400 people in the initial overnight assault and injured over 500, slaughtering and wounding people as they slept. The attack scuttled the second stage of the agreement, which would have seen Hamas release the remaining living male hostages, both civilians and soldiers, for an exchange of Palestinian prisoners and the establishment of a permanent ceasefire along with the eventual lifting of the Israeli blockade of Gaza.
Israel has carried out murderous assaults on Gaza for decades, cynically calling the bombardment “mowing the lawn.” No peace accord or ceasefire agreement has ever gotten in the way.
This one will be no exception.
This bloody saga is not over. Israel’s goals remain unchanged: the dispossession and erasure of Palestinians from their land.
The only peace Israel intends to offer the Palestinians is the peace of the grave.
Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for 15 years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East bureau chief and Balkan bureau chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor and NPR. He is the host of show “The Chris Hedges Report.”
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With all respect to Mr. Hedges.
Israel, France, the UK and others have done what no one else could do. Admitted and exhibited by their by their actions, televised the world over displaying what a modern day genocide looks like. Right here in front of Dog-ma and everyone else interested en0ugh t0o not turn their heads away.
Again I will remind anyone who is interest to read this, “You do not have to sit by idly and do nothing about this. You letter to your congressmen will make their faces.go white.
Example: Dear Sir(?) can I assume by your inaction you do not have any issues with allowing the governments of Israel and the United States to place what I personally consider a tremendous burden on the backs and minds of every one in their countries. The knowledge our government ‘s have implicate everyone of us in their slaughter of unarmed innocents in Gaza. No one asked me what I thought and I figure they goddamned well should have.
Get off your but and write or email the clowns respresenting you in D.C. or live with guilt knowing you never spoke against it.
Fed, completely the fuck up with this absolute blood lust bullshit.
Even my dog, Cindy, gosh do I mess her’ knew better to attack the innocent. for any reason. May the pox of painful deaths be upon the Fascists and Zionist of the world.
Americans mjst realize when their leadership has lost it’s way (minds) and is involved in the work of EVIL.
Y’all have a nice weekend!
—————————-
A cat with nine lives, a truth from the start,
Is born with nine blessings held close to its heart.
But each act of courage, a peaceful decree,
Erodes one away for the world to see.
A paradox built in the soul’s deep design,
To be truly adorned, you must first be benign.
He who stands naked, no trophies or pride,
Reflects the true worth that the prizes all hide.
A mirror of garments, the Emperor’s new clothes,
Revealing the truth that the public still knows.
For each ribbon gained, a new weight to be borne,
A collection of trinkets, from virtues foresworn.
In one hand, the burlap of “good deeds” you amass,
A heavy-set burden that clogs up your path.
Like tokens in fountains where wishes are tossed,
The reward for the peace, by all others is lost.
In the other, a hairball of greed and of lies,
A mess of false glory, a drain for the cries.
The bitcoin, the fame, the influencer’s claim,
A digital tangle that whispers your name.
From Eden’s first apple, a knowledge was bought,
Decameron tales, of the webs we have wrought.
In pastures of Walden, a simple life sought,
But Grapes of our Wrath, from our hunger were caught.
1984, a perception where fact becomes fear,
And Animal Farm’s fable still rings in our ear.
McCarthy’s harsh whispers, a ghost on the wind,
The dignity shattered, by truths that are pinned.
The law’s broken promise, a psychological game,
A truth is a motive, a motive a shame.
Happy Halloween! The burden of sight,
A mirror for motives in day’s fading light.
Historically, empires have risen and fell,
In political tales, where the good live in hell.
The virtue of truth, the dignity of the weak,
A mirror’s true power is that it can’t speak.
Israel must be dismantled completely. No other viable options exist.
Do we really believe that after more than 70 years of oppression, restricted movement, starvation and reduced amenities that suddenly the zionist apartheid regime is going to play “nice” based on a flimsy piece of paper signed by many collaborators in this GENOCIDE and a lying, 34 convicted felony counts president.
Not in 100 or 1000 years will Israel and the US let Palestine be free and independent. They have been killing since 1948 despite many treaties