Ceasefire shows the limit of military power
For nearly 50 days Israel showed its military might and its ability to cause massive destruction. But despite all this power, it has so far failed to accomplish its stated goals. It has not crushed Hamas, and it has not been able to secure the release of all its citizens.
Some Israeli commentators said from day one that eventually Israel would have to negotiate the release of Israelis and would have to give something in return for their freedom. Israeli strategists probably reached the same conclusion. Instead, the carnage wreaked in Gaza showed that Israeli political and military leaders were more interested in causing harm to all Palestinians than they were in accomplishing goals that even their US allies said were next to impossible.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, detested by at least half the people of Israel even before the events of Oct. 7, is expected to be the big loser. Few analysts expect him to survive politically once the current round of violence is over. He will be held personally responsible for what happened — asleep at the wheel, caring only for his own survival and neglecting his own people. That Netanyahu is facing criminal charges for corruption has been and will continue to be the major motivation in his political decisions. In his mind, the only thing that can save him now is a military victory.
Under normal circumstances, any onslaught on a population like that suffered by the Palestinians in Gaza would have led to a rapid surrender. But Palestinians have shown over seven decades that they are not the type of people who surrender: Hamas, like other religiously motivated movements around the world, doesnot have the word in its dictionary. As a result, the world has witnessed a bloodbath of pure revenge on a civilian population that should have produced global sanctions against Israel. Instead, because of the blind support for Israel by the Biden administration and other Western governments, the result has been international public condemnation but a weak response by people’s leaders.
The humanitarian pause that began on Friday has exposed a number of largely ignored facts. While Israel’shasbara (Hebrew for “explanation” but in effect propaganda) has been focused on the civilian hostages captured by Hamas and others, the release of dozens of Palestinian women and teenage boys —most of whom have been held in Israeli prisons without charge, prosecution, trial or conviction — shines a light on a hidden aspect of Israeli policy. The much-trumpeted “only democracy in the Middle East” has been indefinitely detaining hundreds of Palestinians, including children, based on draconian emergency laws enacted under the British Mandate in Palestine in 1945 and incorporated into Israeli domestic law in 1948. These laws, which allow for administrative detention based on suspicion alone, sometimes as part of a pressure tactic on families to produce a relative, are conducted in a totally unethical and illegal way. The release of Palestinian women and children from administrative detention could, if the international media were not so obsessed with Israelis, show the world the undemocratic actions of an occupying power. These same decades-old laws are responsible for other forms of collective punishment of Palestinian families,whose homes have been demolished as a form of revenge for the actions of a family member.
In a strange way, exposing these issues may contribute to greater global understanding of the discriminatory Israeli apartheid policies that international human rights organizations have been complaining about but have stayed under the radar.
The current ceasefire will enable the delivery of humanitarian relief, including food, medical supplies and fuel for power generation, all of which have been desperately needed for the past seven weeks of Israel’s illegal blockade. The fact that Israeli military and political leaders actually boasted of their intention to cut off the Gaza Strip is perfect evidence of a full-fledged war crime: the laws of war are clear that a civilian population should not be part of attacks against combatants.
The Western world has been almost united in its condemnation of Russia’s targeting of civilians in its war on Ukraine. But when it comes to Israel’s targeting of Palestinian civilians in Gaza — the deaths, the denial of food, the attacks on schools, hospitals, refugee camps and places of worship — there is only mealy-mouthed equivocation about the “right to self defense.”
Much of what will be accomplished during this humanitarian pause in Gaza could have taken place weeks ago if Israeli leaders had given priority to the safety of both Palestinians and of their own people — forced to live in shelters, and whose lives, like those of the Palestinians, have been shattered.
The success of diplomacy that has brought this small breakthrough should be the basis for further pauses, a full-fledged permanent ceasefire, and a parallel political process that can bring about an end to the Israeli occupation and the realization of the Palestinian dream of an independent state of their own.
