Ceasefire in Words but Death and Explosions in Action Israel

American Policy in the Middle East

Professor(Retd) Sukhdev Singh

Nearly two year long war by Israel on Palestine to revenge HAMAS for killing 1,200 and taking 251 Israelis as hostages on October 7th, 2023 has no sign to end. Since then, more than 70,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, yet neither have the hostages been released, nor has the war ended. The International court of justice has condemned the wat as ‘genocide’ and has called for immediate ceasefire while the US has been assuring of peace negotiations, on the one hand, and supplying ammunition to Israel, on the other.
HAMAS has already consented to join negotiations “with all seriousness”. But the Israeli PM, Benjamin Netanyahu, has arrived back Israel from his third visit to US after nomination of Trump for Nobel peace prize without ‘a ceasefire in the Gaza’, as was being repeatedly claimed by Trump.
Netanyahu has said that has said that Israel will seek peace only on the conditions; “If it is not achieved through diplomacy, it will be achieved by force.” The UN human rights office has reported that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) has killed at least 798 people trying to receive food aid in Gaza while the peace negotiations were on.
Earlier, the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, claimed: “the president [Trump] wants it to be over. The Prime Minister [Netanyahu] wants it to be over. The American people, the Israeli people, want it to be over”. Advocating Netanyahu’s sincere interest in ceasefire, according to the CNN, Trump has said: “He wants to. I can tell you he wants to. I think we’ll have a deal next week”. Then the question is who doesn’t want ‘the war to be over’ and why.
In reality, the Israeli prime minister and his right wing government has the agenda of full Jewish control in the region. He may want the war to postpone the election and the court trial for corruption charges pending against him in Israel. Defending Netanyahu, Trump had called for dropping the ‘bribery, fraud and breach of trust’ charges against Netanyahu in Israel court since 2019, describing the charges as a “political witch-hunt” that can delay ceasefire negotiations. Rejecting the proposal, the Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid had called it an external intervention “in a legal process of an independent state”.
The US-led western governments have been shielding Netanyahu, advocating his war as a ‘legitimate self-defense’ and by supplying him war materials. They have been using ‘anti-Semitism’ to shield Netanyahu-led right wing Israeli government actions against the world wide protests. Trump administration has acted against the US universities like Harvard for their inability to control the protests against the Israeli war on Palestine’ in the name of “ant- Semitism”.
To punish the critics of Israel’s war in Palestine, the US State Department has sanctioned the UN special rapporteur for Gaza Strip and the West Bank region, Francesca Albanese for her criticism of global corporations to profit from genocide by supplying weapons, heavy machinery and funds for the war. On social media the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has written: “Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated…We will always stand by our partners in their right to self-defence,” The US “has revoked the US visas for the members of the UK based Bob Vylan music band in light of their hateful tirade at Glastonbury, including leading the crowd in death chants.” Through its ‘politically charged’ music the British rap punk band named Bob Vylan targets the inequality, racism, sexism, and homophobia and in its musical performance at Glastonbury, UK, the band lead, Bob Vylan, had chanted -“Free, Free Palestine” and “Death, Death to the IDF” aiming to protest the ‘genocide’ of the Palestine by the IDF in Gaza. Although Bob has clarified that he did not mean “death of Jews, Arabs or any other race or group of people” and the band is for dismantling “a violent military machine.. that has destroyed much of Gaza”, yet the band, according to The Guardian, is being condemned for anti-Semitism. The UK Prime Minister has described the chant as “appalling” and the police have initiated a criminal investigation to determine the criminality of the chants.
The seamy side of the story is that shooting civilians in Gaza is said to be the IDF field commanders’ ideological plan passed down to the troops who chant “death to Arabs” and “may their villages burn” while they shoot the people. According to a WION TV video report, some Jews participating in the Jerusalem Day march on May 26 chanted slogans- “Death to Arabs’ and ‘May their Villages Burn”- as they passed through the Palestinian area. There is no visible condemnation of such chants by the same governments; there is no potent pressure from the said governments to end the war declared ‘genocide’ in the International Court of Justice.
The geopolitical and economic interests of the US-led western governments and Israel are more than obvious in the war for the complete control in the region. The war is instrumental in creating the lucrative market for warfare corporates. In her report, From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide, Albanese has argued: “While life in Gaza is being obliterated and the West Bank is under escalating assault, it is lucrative for many”.
Another side of the story is ‘to weaponise hunger’: first, Israel laid a complete blockade to the UN humanitarian aid to Gaza; then in late May, under pressure from the international condemnation, it created a US-Israel backed and the US private security companies supported Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the only agency distributing the aid from only four locations replacing the four hundred locations operational before March.
The UN has called the GHF system “inherently unsafe” and “a killing field”. As of July 12, more than 800 Palestinians are said to have been killed at GHF aid distribution points. More than 170 NGOs have objected to the GHF food aid distribution system for putting civilians at risk of death and injury. Amnesty International has accused Israel and GHF of using starvation as a weapon to bend Palestinians.
The US president Donald Trump, acting as an international peace negotiator and now a nominee for Nobel peace prize, has been batting for the end of the 21-month war in one breath but justifying it as ‘self-defense’. Reflecting on the situation, an ordinary Palestinian said to the BBC: “In the news we hear a ceasefire is near, on the ground we see death and we hear explosions”. Every day there is a claim of peace negotiations and every night there are killings of Palestinians. Even as ‘peace’ is a buzz word for Trump, the IDF continue to use American weapons for killing Palestinians seeking food, nutritional supplements or medicines from relief camps or sitting, standing or sleeping in shelters day and night. This explains the bluff of ceasefire statements and Israel-American war performance in the Middle East at the same time.
It is not that Peace is impossible; it is that the ‘genocide’ in Gaza does not threaten ‘any real political or economic costs’ on those controlling the Gaza war. The war serves political interests of the PM Benjamin Netanyahu to avoid trial for corruption charges and his government in Israel to delay elections, to the US political economy for its world leadership and arms sale and to the US -led west in sharing resources and arms market in the Middle East. The peace-making players are spraying both fuel and water on the war at the same time. Thus the permanent peace is likely to remain an illusion in the near future for the common Palestinians, although hoping against hope may sustain hope.

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