
Palestinians and Israelis are breathing sighs of relief that after fifteen months of killing, famine, torture and destruction across Gaza, the Israeli Netanyahu government and representatives of Hamas have agreed to a ceasefire.
US negotiators from the Biden and prospective Trump administrations are claiming credit for this pause in fighting, an achievement fuelled partly by steps towards some kind of peace in preference to continuing violence and war. Yet Israelis know that Prime Minister Netanyahu has just agreed to a deal which is the same as the one he could and should have signed many months ago. Instead, in pursuit of ‘total victory’ he continued his ‘existential war’ despite terrible human costs.
Grateful citizens of Gaza are impressed but not impressed. After 467 days of killing, the bombs have stopped falling, humanitarian aid might be increased. Although there are signs of safety, over 80 Gazans have been killed since the ceasefire was announced. An end to fighting is imperative, they say, but this does not end war and could be only a postponement in the genocide. They are celebrating but with no homes, sparse aid and no guarantees of a permanent end, not just to death in Gaza between October 2023 and January 2025 but to 77 years of ethnic cleansing by Israel.
Roadblocks and missing pieces
A First Phase in the ceasefire will see release of 33 Israeli hostages, 110 Palestinian prisoner, up to 1000 Gazan detainees and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from densely populated areas. Proposals for phased relief of hostages have been opposed by their families who know that the implementation of a Phase Two permanent ceasefire and release of most of the rest of the hostages, depends on negotiators keeping their word in the 42 days allowed to implement Phase One.
Within Israel, within Hamas and in the attitudes of an international community, not just the US, progress towards some kind of lasting peace will be obstructed not so much by explicit resistance as in road blocks, but by political jigsaw pieces which will have to be identified and assembled.
On the Israeli side hangs the notoriously unreliable Netanyahu, apparently preoccupied with staying out of jail, still having to appease religious zealots in a potentially crumbling cabinet. Throughout the devastation, a war mongering Israeli government intent on eliminating Hamas, had paid no attention to a post war settlement in Gaza and on the West Bank. Questions about a two state solution had been dismissed but replaced by a realisation that crafting peace is much more demanding than persisting with the violence of war. Resisting the world wide movement to hold Israeli leaders and Israeli military for war crimes, could also take priority over the demanding diplomatic and political tasks needed to implement this ceasefire.
On the Palestinian side, enforcement of the hostage release and willingness to cease fighting will depend on Hamas’ influence across Gaza. It is not certain that their authority will be accepted and they do not have influence on the West Bank where a weak and authoritarian Palestinian Authority (PA), still cooperates with Israeli armed forces. Nevertheless, western governments’ distrust of ‘terrorist Hamas’ prompts them to think that keeping faith with an incompetent PA would be a solution to future government in Gaza where Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar represents his people’s interests, and as a competent player in ceasefire negotiations seems unlikely to be replaced.
The international community’s role goes beyond observing and applauding a ceasefire. Western governments, including Australia’s, had supported the US supply of arms to Israel, and have been unwilling to implement the rulings of the International Court of Justice, (ICJ), let alone condemn the Israeli slaughter. Western governments may soon show a convenient capacity for forgetting famine, torture and deaths which according to The Lancet amount to more than 80,000 people, the vast majority women and children. Such forgetting would look like collusion in efforts to exterminate a people and their way of living, which is a genocide in the eyes of any honest and frank observer. Yet Australian political parties are preparing for an election with their heads in summer sand, pretending that the end of time slaughter in Gaza should have nothing to do with the election of human rights respecting, internationally law respecting candidates for office. Dishonesty and cowardice beggar belief. Australian politicians’ ignorance rests on the assumption that terrorism was initiated by Hamas in October 2023 and that Israeli terrorist murder and mayhem from 1948 to 2023 did not occur or should be forgotten.
In the international community puzzle, the most elusive, unpredictable piece is incoming President Trump. Once intent on letting all hell loose on Hamas, his real estate development appointee as a US ceasefire negotiator proved pivotal, frail though the agreement may be.
The absence of peace making perspectives
Well rehearsed theories about conflict resolution remain the crucial, easily overlooked pieces needed to convert ceasefires into a permanent peace, but there is little evidence that conflict resolution is part of the political philosophy of the parties involved in deliberations about a Palestinian state or how that new state’s government would be constructed. The UN has immediately appealed for financial aid and for the overnight delivery of humanitarian supplies to Gaza by at least 600 trucks per day, a necessary immediate response but without obvious long terms plans as to how a ceasefire transitions to a permanent peace.
In Australia and in any UN supporting countries, advice from the Australian peace theorist, former head of his government’s Department of International Affairs, John Burton, would be invaluable. He argued that so called political realists were misguided if they regarded dominant power as a key to ending conflicts. Netanyahu’s failure to rescue only eight hostages by military force displays the futility of this notion that massive power always wins. By contrast, Burton showed that ‘identity thinking’ pays attention to the development of cooperative relationships and thereby to conflict prevention.
Applied to Gazans’ urgent need for shelter, water, food and medical supplies, Burton’s essential premise can be applied endlessly. He taught that meeting basic human needs is the prerequisite for building peace, let alone for pursuing notions of justice and democracy. In his perspectives, basic human needs included respect for identity, for recognition (of a Palestinian state) for autonomy and equity.
In the next several months and in the following decades, even after parts of Gaza have been rebuilt and the worst effects of human loss and trauma lessened, the need for theory about mechanisms to build peace and prevent further conflict, will be permanent.
If Phase One of the Gaza ceasefire progresses to Phase Two and from there to justice for Palestinians as a means of security for Israelis, the latest horrendous months of death and destruction in Gaza, on the West Bank and regarding Israeli casualties may not have been entirely in vain.