How do you make peace, a peace that works, a peace that is sustainable?
Two years of bloody fighting was initiated with an attack on a kibbutz and music festival in Israel, just outside the fenced off region of Gaza on October 7, two years ago.
The attack, which saw 1200 people, mainly young people having a good time, killed. Another 254 people were taken hostage, used as ‘bargaining chips’ in any subsequent negotiations, was vicious, and has been deemed a crime against humanity, a criminal slaughter. And without a doubt it was.
The response by the Israeli government has been to annihilate, totally demolish the Gaza Strip and its inhabitants.
Just a quick reminder, the Gaza Strip is a narrow strip of land bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the west and a fortified fence with a few security check points to control movement of people in and out to the east, and more security systems to Egypt in the south.
To think that the conflict between Israel and Palestinians of Gaza started just two years ago dismisses the history of marginalisation, of ethnic cleansing, of war that has raged on and off for over a hundred years. The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics have claimed that the conflict since the Nakba of 1948, over 130,000 Palestinians have been killed. That does not include the current conflict.
The population in this narrow strip of land is 2.2 million people, one of the most densely populated areas in the world, dependent on the supply of essential services from outside, from Israel, for food, power, water, sewerage, the necessities of life.
The death toll in Gaza is now an estimated 65,000 people. More than half women and children. Non combatants, just like the victims of the October 7 attack were, innocent people just out celebrating life.
A rough estimate, for each Isreali life lost on that dreadful day, there have been about 70 Palestinian lives lost. The cost in Palestinian lives will rise as the rubble of the destruction of just about every building in the Strip is cleared and more bodies are found. The ongoing health and fragility issues caused by the withholding of aid supplies, the destruction of hospitals, an apparent policy of limiting food to well below the bare necessities for the population and the ongoing demolition of anywhere that looks like somewhere people may live continues.
Is it reasonable to put a ratio of deaths on such a conflict? Currently about 70 to one, but when the final peace is secured, when the rubble is cleared, when the deaths from starvation and sustained injuries are finally tallied, with that ration be closer to 100 to one?
Do we need to recap how these people, the Palestinian population of Gaza came to be there, came to be virtually imprisoned in that narrow strip of land? Probably not, since it is ground that had been covered so many times and is yet not understood that a population of indigenous people could possibly be upset about looking through the wire fence to the occupied lands beyond which were 80 years ago farmed by the parents and grand parents of those locked in the Gaza Strip.
The dispossession of the Palestinians was and continues to be a classic form of neo-colonialism. That is patently clear in the establishment of the peace plan drawn up in the last few days, a peace plan which imposes conditions which effectively state that the Palestinians do not know how to govern them selves, are not smart enough, clever enough, sophisticated enough to know what they want, what they need to live dignified lives. They are deemed to be not worthy of self-government. The deal is a take it or face the consequences, a continuation of the genocidal demolition of Gaza.
And so who will be in charge of a ‘transition to self government’?
Who of the Palestinians can be deemed suitable to govern? Who will bend the knee and bow before the Imperial overlords, Accept the deal that is to be presented or the conflict will continue, the job will, in the words of Netanyahu, be finished off. And the rhetoric he uses is a clear indication that there will be no two-state solution.
Hamas have been told in no uncertain terms that they cannot, will not be a part of the governing of Gaza. They after all are a terrorist organisation, forgetting that one person’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter.
Again, we have a definition of a group which has been been around for about thirty eight years and was championed by Israel as a foil to the Palestine Liberation Organisation.
Hamas was a political entity and gained control of the Gaza Strip through an election process, campaigning on a corruption free government and advocating for a resistance as a means to liberate Palestine from Israeli occupation. The social agenda included the development of schools and universities, hospitals health care infrastructure. In other words to dignify lives which were ignored through the colonisation of their lands.
Interestingly, Hamas has supported a Palestinian State based on the 1967 borders, recognising the State of Israel, in line with the two state solution as presented by the UN.
Sticking points include the right of return for refugees, which is part of the UN Declaration of human rights.
But they remain defined as a terrorist organisation, and the sense is that any group which begins to negotiate for the governance of Gaza, and probably also the West Bank will need to toe the Israeli line, be subservient to Israel or be termed a terrorist group. And any one who steps out of line is deemed a criminal. Just go through the numbers of the offered swap of hostages for prisoners. People imprisoned for being Palestinian.
None of this is new, or particularly surprising. We only need to look at post colonial Australia and the criminalisation of being Aboriginal, the rate of imprisonment of our First Nations people. Visit Rottnest Island here off the coast of Fremantle and read of the imprisonment of aboriginal people who were sent there and for the crimes they committed, like the man sentenced to three years imprisonment for killing a sheep because the kangaroo he was hunting was shot by the owner of the sheep which was grazing on land that just a few years before was his country.
Like the Palestinians, their lands were taken away from them without negotiation, a new set of laws were imposed on them, no negotiation, just a whole new legal structure which dehumanised and criminalised on the basis of race, on the basis of being on lands that have been taken from them.
And now a peace offer is on the table. Included is the exchange of hostages for prisoners, and included and the instruction is to ‘accept the peace plan or face the consequences’, those consequences will have the full backing of President Trump to ‘finish the job of destroying the threat of Hamas’. Looking at the destruction both of lives and of the infrastructure in Gaza, it would appear that women and children my pose the threat… Children particularly because they may feel that their treatment, the treatment of the Palestinian people is not particularly good.
The ‘Board of Peace’, the name for the transitional authority will include some interesting people, Tony Blair, the Prime Minister who led the British troops into the Bush war in Iraq, seeking to destroy the non-existent weapons of mass destruction, the chairman will be none other than the aspiring Nobel Peace Prize winner, President Donald Trump. Other members are yet to be named, but I doubt very much that any will be Palestinian.
But it does appear, that while things are changing, everything remains much the same. Palestinians will remain less than the colonisers, available for cheap labour, or otherwise, just superfluous to needs, able to be shoved aside at the will of those far more deserving.
Time will tell.
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“…The attack, which saw 1200 people, mainly young people having a good time, killed…”
There is credible evidence confirming that a significant proportion of the Israelis killed on October 7th died at the hands of over zealous IDF helicopter gunships that shot up numerous Israeli cars attempting to exit the music concert area. Certainly many Israelis also died at the hands of Hamas on that day both in the vicinity of the music concert and a nearby kibbutz. It is also known that an IDF tank opened fire in a kibbutz killing Israeli citizens. US and Israeli media prefer not to publicise these facts.
There will be no peace for the Palestinians either in Gaza or the West Bank so long as Israel, USA and UK continue to ignore the injustices committed daily by Israeli and dual citizen Zionist “settlers” who illegally colonise West Bank and East Jerusalem land previously owned by Palestinians and other minority non-Jewish indigenes.
It matters not whether Hamas accepts or rejects Trumps plan for peace, the Gazans are doomed. The UN is impotent and most world leaders just want this to go away, Trump and Netanyahu can and will do what they like.
Bert
Thank you.
“To think that the conflict between Israel and Palestinians of Gaza started just two years ago dismisses the history of marginalisation, of ethnic cleansing, of war that has raged on and off for over a hundred years.”
From around 2022 to mid 2023 I was commenting on MSN under the moniker Hans Bjelke, so before Oct 7th.
When a Palestinian grandmother,sitting in a chair under a tree in her West Bank garden, was killed by Israeli soldiers I wrote ‘how long will the West turn a blind eye to Israel murdering Palestinians to steal their land?’
When a Palestinian man scuffled with an Israeli commander who was pushing him around, disarmed him and threw the rifle on the ground, only to be summarily executed by that officer I wrote ‘how long will the rest of the world ignore Israel murdering Palestinians to steal their land?’
When a West Bank Palestinian boy was killed by Israeli soldiers as he tried to drag his wounded brother to safety I added ‘Would this be allowed to be ignored in the USA?’
When a West Bank Palestinian boy was killed by Israeli soldiers as he stood at the top of an alley looking to see what was going on 50 metres away at the bottom of the alley, I added ‘Would this be ignored in Vermont? (I mixed up where Biden lived with Sanders lived.)
To quote Caitlin Johnstone “Those who suggest that everything Israel is doing in Gaza can be explained by October 7 have got it exactly backwards: everything we’re seeing in Gaza explains why October 7 happened in the first place.
The sadism and psychopathy we’re witnessing in Gaza didn’t magically appear 22 months ago; everyone in Gaza has been experiencing Israel’s abusiveness in various manifestations throughout their entire lives.”
In 2023,more than 450 Palestinians were murdered in the West Bank by Israelis. In the year before that, I think it was, over 120 were murdered in the West Bank.
https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/latest/palestinians-west-bank-2023-was-deadliest-year-record
‘While Trump praised his own plan as a landmark opportunity for “eternal peace in the Middle East,” the exclusion of all Palestinians from the process is an extension of decades of Western colonial dominance of decision-making surrounding the future of Palestine. At the heart of Trump’s plan is a thinly-veiled ultimatum to Palestinians: bend the knee to Israel, renounce the right of armed resistance, and agree to indefinite subjugation by foreign actors.
….
In the lead-up to the announcement, the Trump administration pushed a familiar narrative to friendly media outlets that he pressured a resistant Netanyahu into the agreement. In reality, Israeli officials were deeply involved with crafting the proposal right up to the moment the White House released the text.
In a video address in Hebrew following his event with Trump, Netanyahu portrayed the plan as a coup for Israel’s agenda, saying it effectively placed an Arab and international stamp of legitimacy on his genocidal plans. “This is a historic visit. Instead of Hamas isolating us, we turned the tables and isolated Hamas. Now the entire world, including the Arab and Muslim world, is pressuring Hamas to accept the terms we set together with President Trump: to release all our hostages, both living and deceased, while the IDF remains in most of the Strip,” Netanyahu declared. “Who would have believed this? After all, people constantly say, the IDF should withdraw… No way, that’s not happening.”
In previous “ceasefire” negotiations, when Hamas has sought to propose amendments or even to clarify phrasing in draft texts, Israel and the U.S. denounced Hamas, falsely accusing it of rejecting peace, and then Israel intensified the military assault on Gaza. Israel, meanwhile, has offered the public perception it agrees to draft deals, while at the same time securing “side letters” from Trump and his predecessor, Joe Biden, authorizing Israel to resume the war if it determines the agreement is no longer in its interests.’
https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/trump-gaza-20-point-plan-hamas-israel-netanyahu
Time will tell, indeed, Bert!
My initial enthusiasm for this twenty-point peace plan is starting to wane. Seeing Bibi Netanyahu leaving the White House beaming happily as he grasped the hand of his orange mentor was worrying.
We now hear that the IDF have stepped up their onslaught on Gaza City with a focus on destroying buildings and infrastructure and with the inevitable killing of civilians, in particular women and children who had vacated their homes just to see them demolished by the IDF.
No mention of Hamas resistance, which one would expect the IDF to highlight if it existed. Indeed, it seems that the only resistance comes from a few desperate residents endeavouring to protect their homes and their families.
Wouldn’t you think that, with a peace agreement pending, the main belligerents would at least slow their onslaught pending implementation of an enduring ceasefire?
Perhaps I have been naive, perhaps Trump’s plan for a ceasefire was a scam, perhaps Bibi was so jubilant leaving the White House because he had avoided any possibility of a ceasefire.
It’s not looking good as both Trump and Netanyahu are saying they are waiting on Hamas to agree to the twenty-point plan, which they had no role in designing, but the evidence is that there is no Hamas in the sense that there is no coordinated leadership group within the decimated Hamas organisational structure who are competent to respond to the ceasefire agreement.
Time will tell but it is rapidly running out!
So far, the war on Palestinians is around 108 years long.
Listening to Netanyahu, the only way it will end is with the total elimination of all Palestinians.
While all Palestinians are called ‘Terrorists’, the rationalisation for killing children may well be that they will not grow up to become terrorists. The rationalisation for killing women may well be that they will not be able to birth future terrorists.
Excuse my cynicism here, but viewing the movie on the Nuremberg Trials a while ago, a scene near ti end of the movie saw an attempt to interview a doctor who had been found guilty of killing people, including children. The question on why he killed children was exactly that, they would not grow up to become terrorists.
Yes, time is rapidly running out.
As I see it, this so-called peace Plan is a scam. Trump and Netanyahu push it through, Netanyahu follows it long enough for DementoDon to get his Nobel Peace Prize (and no doubt part of the bargain is for major Israeli pressure to assist with making that happen), and then it’s back to business as usual with a false flag event as an excuse for finishing off the complete Israeli takeover of Gaza and the West Bank.