Israel rejects peace. Again.
A permanent ceasefire is a "non-starter" for Netanyahu
Everyone from Joe Biden to Anthony Blinken to numerous members of Congress and prominent politicians across the West are calling on Hamas to accept the latest Israeli-U.S. ceasefire proposal. And, even if we set aside the fact that Hamas proposed a remarkably similar plan nearly four months ago, there is a still bigger problem here. Netanyahu and his government are refusing to accept the very premise of a permanent ceasefire.
On Friday, Joe Biden gave a speech, saying that it’s time for Israel's attack on Gaza to come to an end. This is an important milestone in that it’s the first time the President explicitly outlined a call for a permanent ceasefire. In his speech he laid out a three-phase plan, a plan he attributes to the Israeli government, but which he announced for reasons that are still obscure. The first phase would last six weeks and include a "complete cease-fire," the withdrawal of Israeli forces "from all populated areas of Gaza," and the release of "a number of hostages," including women, the elderly, and the wounded. In exchange, Israel would release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
In the second phase, the temporary cease-fire would become permanent if “Hamas lives up to its commitments” according to the speech. That permanent line, the entire idea of a permanent ceasefire, is, again, very important. It’s both a new high watermark in Biden’s remarks on Gaza and the line that prompted an immediate reaction from Netanyahu.
In addition to the “non-starter” language, Netanyahu went on to say “Israel's conditions for ending the war have not changed.” Now that does not mean the first phase will not be implemented. Netanyahu is more alone than ever on the world stage, and is reportedly isolated even in his own government, stranded between the most extreme elements of his Cabinet, who want the total annihilation of Gaza, and those elements who realize that a ceasefire must be reached.
But Netanyahu is, at this moment, still doubling down on the idea that Hamas must be permanently destroyed before a permanent ceasefire is reached. Even leaks to favorable outlets trying to spin this moment as Israel and the U.S. being in total alignment, like a piece in Axios yesterday, acknowledge that “Israel's conditions for the end of the war have not changed: destroying Hamas' militant wing and the group's ability to govern, the release of all hostages and ensuring Hamas can't attack Israel in the future.”
This is not the Biden plan, or rather the plan the White House says is Israel’s. The total destruction of Hamas is both not a prerequisite to the permanent ceasefire in the plan outlined by the President on Friday, and not a realistic goal. U.S. intelligence reports claim that one-third of Hamas fighters have been killed since October 7th, but in the same breath claim that Hamas has managed to recruit thousands of new fighters in recent months. This surge in recruitment apparently has allowed Hamas to reestablish control in areas from which the IDF has withdrawn. These facts have been relatively undiscussed in U.S. media, but have been reported on in Israel.
Barring a rapid and substantial change of course from Netanyahu, or in the composition of Israel’s government, the permanent ceasefire in phase two of this latest plan will not yet come to pass. While Hamas has now proposed various ceasefire agreements, and agreed to one less than a month ago, the idea of lasting peace appears to indeed be a “non-starter” to Israel’s leadership. Netanyahu and others have made that point clearly, and repeatedly. Their refusal to move toward peace is not a surprise. What is strange is that Biden, as well as countless Democrats and Republicans, continuing to hitch their wagons to the genocidal disaster that is Israel, and Netanyahu in particular.
We all know the power of AIPAC, both in terms of financial contributions to countless campaigns and the broader shaping of the discourse around Israel. The Zionist lobby is a force to be reckoned with, even if its sway over voters has plummeted over the past eight months in the face of the brutal reality we witness day after day in Gaza. But none of this excuses the abject failure of the U.S. to decouple itself from Israel's genocide, namely to stop supplying the IDF with bombs to be dropped on civilians, to stop sending billions of dollars with no strings attached, and to stop providing cover for Israel on the world stage. The Biden administration could have taken all these steps and more. Even something as simple as insisting that aid gets through to Gaza has been rejected in favor of a pier in the Mediterranean, which was never a serious proposal. And that was before it fell apart without delivering a single meal, but after costing U.S. taxpayers $320 million.
What Biden needs to do is clear. It has been clear for some time. The United States needs to stop arming Israel. We need to stop sending billions of dollars and playing senior partner to a genocidal apartheid state. Every American should be organizing and pressuring our government to make that a reality. Instead of continually getting embarrassed by a fascist government on the world stage, a government whose leaders the ICC hopes to arrest, a government that attacks international courts, the UN, U.S. citizens and more, we should make Israel a pariah like apartheid South Africa before them.
This approach is not just reasonable, it’s in line with international law. Thus far, the United States has aided and abetted a genocide instead of doing everything within our power to stop it. While numerous factions continually insist that “the far left” is anti-Israel because of antisemitism amid other dishonest narratives, the simple truth is that most Americans want a ceasefire in Gaza, every major international body insists on a ceasefire in Gaza, and a majority of Americans, including American Jews now want Biden to stop arming Israel. The path is clear. Stop supporting genocide. It will take all of us organizing, agitating, and escalating to make that a reality, despite how clear it is that doing everything possible to halt the slaughter is infinitely preferable to continually being embarrassed by a fascist hellbent on endless mass murder.
What’s right and ethical unfortunately plays little role here, as obvious as that course may be and as egregious as the war crimes are, and even what’s most likely to win reelection appears to have gone out the window some time ago. As Assata Shakur famously said, “Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.” It will take resistance. It will take organizing. It will ultimately take we, the people, building enough power to force our government to cut off Israel, to stop arming and funding a genocide. It should never have come to this, but it has. We need to take this charge into our hands, and shut down our country’s participation in this atrocity.
And citizens of countries allied with the USA have to take a cold, hard look at who those governments are serving.
Our demonstrations are ignored, our standards of living are falling, war is raging -- our governments are not serving us.
We need a systems change. We should not allow our countries to support Israel's genocide of Palestine. It is immoral and illegal, and doesn't have the consent of people in these countries.
What do we need to do so that we actually have democracies that have the best interests of all of us at their hearts?
Amotherfuckingmen.