The ceasefire agreement and the fight for a free Palestine

The announced ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas is welcome news. We join in the hope that the daily massacres in Gaza can finally end.

 

But it is difficult to believe the Israeli state is going to implement the agreement as outlined. Indeed, as people in Gaza met for celebrations on the streets the Israelis launched new attacks killing more than 80 people in one day.

 

Netanyahu is already trying to accuse Hamas of breaking the deal even though it hasn’t officially begun. He is also stalling on seeking cabinet approval for the deal which is set to take effect on Sunday.

 

The details are still being worked out but it appears there is a set of three stages to the agreement. Each stage is then to be assessed by the parties to see if they will move on to the next step.

 

This gives the Israeli state a lot of wiggle room. They are, for example, allowed to alter terms if they deem that certain conditions have or have not been met and their penchant for misinformation and distortion may come into play here.

 

It begins with a prisoner swap and a withdrawal of Israeli forces to a buffer zone within Gaza although they will maintain the Netzarim Corridor which cuts across the middle of Gaza. There will be a partial opening of the Rafah crossing for those requiring medical treatment to go to Egypt. There are also provisions for increased aid to the Palestinians through Rafah and in the north of Gaza.

 

The details of further stages are still being ironed out. They involve further prisoner swaps and an eventual withdrawal of all Israeli forces.

 

But the real problem is that Israel has never actually abided by any ceasefire agreements in the past. After they were defeated in Lebanon in 2006 they violated the ceasefire agreement there with cross border attacks tens of thousands of times according to the UNIFIL forces charged with policing the border.

 

We have no indication that they will operate differently this time, unless some kind of threat has been issued by the US but, again, on that front details are murky at best.

 

The Netanyahu government is also aware that far-right settler groups that he relies on to maintain his power are unlikely to support the agreement. They have spoken publicly against any agreement that ties their hands and curtals their expansionist ambitions in relation to both Gaza and the West Bank. In fact, they have been selling land in Gaza to settlers throughout this genocide.

 

This creates a volatile situation in Israel itself and within the government and a potential political crisis for Netanyahu.

 

There is also the problem of Israeli right wing groups that have physically blocked aid. It is again unlikely that the Israeli state will stop them from interfering for fear of a backlash from the right.

 

And either way, the agreement will still place the Palestinian people in the position they were in before the current genocide started - living in a massive concentration camp with little hope for the future.

 

So while an end to the daily massacres would indeed be a better situation that we have seen over the last 15 months, none of this addresses the key issues of land theft, apartheid rule and ongoing violent settler colonialism.

 

Until those issues are firmly put to rest we will not see anything resembling a lasting peace.

 

And the dynamics of the zionist project and its rapacious need for further expansion ensure more violence will be likely. The key role that Israel plays for the western imperialists has also not changed thus ensuring that injustice will continue.

 

The only solution is to campaign for the rights of Palestinians to return to their land and to call for the dismantling of the violent ethno-nationalist zionist state.

 

But the mass mobilizations over the last 15 months have radically reshaped the public perception of the Israeli state and the role of the US globally. Both have been increasingly isolated because of their steadfast support for the genocide. We have seen a growing number of official agencies, NGOs, international courts and academics that have denounced the Israeli aggression and have cemented the idea that Israel is a genocidal state.

 

There is no going back to the status quo that existed before the October 7 resistance break-out but there remains a long climb to truly end the oppression of the Palestinian people and to dismantle the imperial architecture that enables it.

 

We must maintain the call for an arms embargo, and continue the fight to end all Canadian support for the Israeli state.