Gaza ceasefire and Palestinian liberation

The announced ceasefire in Gaza has led to celebrations among Palestinians and their supporters and there are raised hopes for an end to two years of genocide.

 

The deal, which has been pursued by the US and urged on by Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey as mediators, is supposed to secure a permanent ceasefire, prisoner exchanges, Israeli troop withdrawal, and a free flow of urgent aid into Gaza.

 

Hamas chief negotiator Khalil Al Hayya expressed appreciation for the persistent global solidarity with Gaza and emphasized the continued courage of those fighting in the resistance.

 

But the Israeli state cannot be trusted. They have violated every ceasefire agreement in the past and we shouldn’t expect anything different from them this time around.

 

Donald Trump is basking in the media spotlight and extolling his own contributions to the agreement, announced just in time for the Nobel Peace Prize unveiling. He didn't win the prize but this will be an ongoing talking point for him as he attempts to prove his credentials as a global statesman. We saw this during his over-the-top victory tour in the region over the weekend. 

 

But we have been down this road before. Just prior to Trump’s inauguration, he announced a ceasefire that led to a temporary lessening of the killing of Palestinians. Israel still bombed the Gaza Strip and ramped up attacks in the West Bank but the overall death toll dropped. But it was followed up by a newly brutal assault on Gaza that now included an aid blockade that led to mass starvation and famine.

 

We are once again seeing the same promises unveiled with a murky blueprint for progress. When that last ceasefire was announced it was to be accompanied by a new influx of aid, but most of the trucks were blockaded by Israelis and the starvation crisis worsened. There are no provisions in this current agreement that would result in a different outcome.

 

This agreement maintains the Israeli siege on Gaza even if the later ‘phases’ are enacted and there is no guarantee that they will be. There is a new border line that shrinks the size of the Gaza Strip by at least 50% but no firm timeline for further withdrawals and Israel is insisting that it be able to maintain its stranglehold including a continued active deployment along the border with Egypt - much to the chagrin of the Egyptian government.

 

This is a smokescreen designed to quell growing international solidarity with the Palestinian people. It is not an agreement for a permanent peace or an end to the injustice that accompanies zionist expansionist aims. 

 

Although many are hopeful, there is no certainty that the Israeli state will fully cease the genocide in Gaza and escalations of violence and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. Since the agreement was signed they have already killed Palestinians in Gaza who were outside of the invisible line of control established by the Israeli military. They have launched more attacks in the West Bank and have continued airstrikes against Southern Lebanon in violation of the ceasefire agreement there. 

 

As long as Israel retains the backing of the US, Canada and various European states who rely on them to maintain a permanent regional base to advance Western imperial ambitions, they will be allowed to act with impunity.

 

The movement to end the genocide and to call for an end to Canadian complicity must stay on the streets. The brutality of the Israeli state has been exposed to the world, and along with it, the myth of the benevolence of the Western imperial powers has been shown to be a fraud. Israel has long ago lost the propaganda war.

 

And this agreement will do nothing to solve the longstanding issues of violent occupation, apartheid and ongoing dispossession of the Palestinian people. Indeed the agreement doesn’t reference the occupation at all. 

 

We need to maintain the demand for an arms embargo on Israel and for a free Palestine - from the river to the sea.