In Gaza, a Ceasefire is not a Truce

To silence a gun, or even hundreds or thousands of them, in Gaza is not a truce. It is only a ceasefire. And it occurs to me that I with many others have come close to confusing the two.

The Israeli Prime Minister, however, has not. This unilateral ceasefire is only the offer of a calm before another potential storm threatening the Gazan population.

At some point, if Hamas has not run out of rockets to fire at Israel, or men to fire them, then the onslaught, replenished perhaps with the containers from the Wehr Elbe, will inevitably begin again.

We do not yet know what conditions the Israelis will impose in return for a truce. But they have achieved almost total military control of the lives and health of the Gazan population. no oil, petrol, gas, water, food, will flow without their consent. If the blockade they have insisted upon is controlled by them, then they can starve the entire population at will. And will.

At some point, no doubt, they will hope that Gazans will flee their country by the hundreds of thousands, perhaps to an unwilling but fearful and compromised Egypt, finally worn down and beaten violently in submission. Whether that can be achieved is doubtful. The UN, after all, cannot establish artificial refugee islands in the only other exit, the Mediterranean.

We return, yet again, to ask, if the ‘military goals’ have been fulfilled as the Israelis say, of what use is that without political ones? Except, once more, an example of the eagerness of some militaries to begin a war while paying attention to nothing more than the logistics of moving troops this way and that. To invade; to destroy; to kill; to withdraw. It is the Duke of York, but using his firepower as well as his men’s boots.

There has been mention of somehow installing, in a shattered society and over a submissive and psychologically shattered people, some form of outpost of the Palestinian Authority with Abbas as leader . . . If I were Gazan, and was able to laugh instead of weeping, I would laugh at the patent absurdity of the idea of re-imposing a political leader who had already long ago lost the confidence of the people of Gaza and in this war (and for long before) has been entirely impotent and ineffective.

There is only one real solution, and that is a truly viable state with both the West Bank and Gaza physically connected. The one, in fact, that Israel has spent thirty years making impossible. And now, by demonstrating yet again—Olmet actually threatening on as many words even as he announced the ceasefire—that it has the will, the power, a disregard for the world, and the ironmongery to devastate any neighbouring country (providing the US stays silent and continues to supply it with the materials) Israel has made a statement that it will never allow it.

‘Carthago delenda est.” I chose the harsh and bitter war cry of Cicero deliberately. Israelis would insert ‘Palestine’ , the ‘West Bank’ or ‘Gaza’ for ‘Carthage’. History, however, if there is ever to be a Palestinian State (which I for one now doubt), will have to replace that north African city with ‘Israel’.

Perhaps the Palestinians are destined before this decade is out, finally to become the itinerant successors to the Jews. Once a population is dispersed in a diaspora, then unification strong enough to regain a homeland is almost impossible. As Israelis know perfectly well. It is a part of their mythology. It took the distractions of colonialism and its jealousies, and two world wars, to create a situation in which a Jewish state could be founded.

But I see no appreciation of irony in the Israelis that that is where their policies and actions lead.