THE Americans had two reasons for pressuring Israel to accept a ceasefire. Hamas had just one basic reason. We begin with Hamas. The militant, freedom fighters are determined people. Their ranks include teenagers who are willing to die but Hamas met a cul-de-sac in Gaza.
Hamas came to the conclusion that Israel’s intention was to completely destroy Gaza and make it impossible to build back and to kill off the Palestinian people in Gaza. Hamas then had no choice.
If it did not accept the ceasefire, then within the next three months the entire Gaza would be wiped out along with the Palestinian people. The mathematics was simple even for a primary school student.
If you keep bombing for another three months, whatever buildings are left will be blown away and this includes every physical structure, whether it is schools, hospitals, refugee centres.
Hamas knew that within another six months there would be no living Palestinian in Gaza. The mathematics, I repeat is simple. If you kill 60 Palestinians each day for another six months then you are looking at the completion of a genocidal act.
I don’t think Hamas put into the calculation when the bombing began in the first year that Israel’s intention was genocide. But when the genocidal intention became clear, Hamas still believed Israel would stop for two reasons – Arab nations would not allow genocide to take place and the Europeans would put pressure on Israel.
Those two expectations were dashed. The Arab leadership in the Middle East has not been moved by genocide of the Palestinians. Secondly, Europe showed its true colours both literally and figuratively. Europe stood with the White Jewish race and the Palestinians were expendable.
Hamas then had nothing to fall back on, and so its latitude and manoeuvrability evaporated. Hamas would have accepted even the most lop-sided ceasefire arrangement (and this one is not far from being-lopsided) because it knows Israel would have removed Gaza from Planet Earth and with it the two million people living there. Sadly, Hamas had no choice. The ceasefire leaves an Israeli military presence in 30 percent of Gaza.
The Israelis were not interested in any kind of ceasefire but accepted the imposition from the US. Two reasons explain the US volte-face. One was tied to the Nobel Peace Prize thing that President Trump had his eyes on. The other reason was the Netanyahu’s arrogance which Trump thought was personally insulting.
This arrogance took the form of Israel bombing the capital of Qatar to target Hamas leaders. Trump was livid because (1), the US was not consulted. (2) Trump felt that in things like that, Israel has to notify the US and (3), Trump saw the bombing as jeapordising his only successful foreign policy venture – an increasing political and economic closeness with the Arab nation under his watch which began with the Abrahams Accord during his first term.
Any amateur analyst has to know that Qatar read the Riot Act to Trump. Qatar would have said three things to Trump. 1- This is your subordinate, so you had to know. 2- Friends do not do such things to each other. (3) Rein in Netanyahu. Trump would have assured Qatar that he did not know because Netanyahu acted on his own. He would have agreed to rein in Netanyahu.
Against this background, Trump imposed the ceasefire as a fete accompli and Netanyahu had to comply. Although one can say Netanyahu lost out because his intention was complete genocide, the real loser is Hamas. The acceptance of Hamas must seriously be considered as a defeat.
Netanyahu may have the last laugh because once the hostages are released, Hamas has nothing to bargain with. What Netanyahu is going to do is give the ceasefire a couple of weeks, then violate it by inventing a violent act against a Jew and claim it was a revenge act of Hamas and he will resume bombing.
The second act of violation by Netanyahu is that he is going to order the army to expand on the territory that the Jewish army is now confined to. There is going to be a slow, incremental advance by the Israeli army and the young Hamas fighters are going to confront the Jewish soldiers and once more conflict will erupt.
The tragic losers in all of this are the Palestinian people. The world will not move to help them. I guess, the English historian Arnold Toynbee was right – history is cyclical. Once more the world is seeing the rebirth of genocide, Hitler and Nazism. And they are all in Israel.
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