A Pause at last in Gaza: Ceasefire and its Possibilities

by Rajan Philips

Finally, after nearly fifty days of scorching there is a ceasefire in Gaza. The first phase of the truce will provide for the release of fifty hostages by Hamas and the release of 150 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails by the government of Israel. Hostages will be all children and women in the first phase, while the Palestinian prisoners are teenage boys and young women jailed for stone throwing and rioting. For humanitarian agencies and the truly heroic doctors within borders in Gaza, the respite means more supplies of medical and livelihood essentials.

Israel has indicated that it would agree to more pauses and more freeing of Palestinian prisoners in return for additional releases of hostages by Hamas. The human barter involves a total of 240 hostages and 300 prisoners. Agreeing to a ceasefire with Hamas and exchange of hostages and prisoners is a comedown for the Netanyahu government after its arrogant insistence that Hamas must be destroyed before any ceasefire could be considered.

It is also a retreat for the Biden Administration after its initial and continuing rejection of a ceasefire and the insistence on Israel’s right of self-defense in the wake Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israeli civilians. President Biden, America’s mourner in chief, was genuine in his initial response of empathy for the Jews after the Hamas attack. But his choice of words and manifestly one-sided actions at the outset made it virtually impossible for him to restore any credibility for the Administration that the US could be a neutral mediator between Israel and the Palestinians.

While the horror of the Hamas attack justified some retaliation by Israel, there was no justification whatsoever for the Netanyahu government to use it as carte blanche to devastate Gaza. It was the scale of that devastation that finally pushed the Biden Administration to pressurize the Israeli government. There has been worldwide condemnation of the Israeli government’s relentless onslaughts in Gaza.

At the UN, Israel and the US are isolated, except for a dozen or so minion countries who vote with them in opposition to UN resolutions critical of Israel. Modi’s Hindutva India too isolated itself from its traditional and natural allies in the Global South by siding with Israel and the US at some of the UN votes.

There are protests everywhere, but mostly in the Arab world and in the western countries – ironically, all of them targeting Israeli and western governments. The US is not spared. Biden has heard an earful from within his own Democratic Party and even internally within the State Department – where officials, post-Vietnam-war, are allowed to voice their dissent internally in writing to official policy positions. Gaza is a no-brainer to express disagreement with the Administration. And dissent may have done its part in pushing the Administration to push for a ceasefire deal after vehemently rejecting it for weeks on end.

Even for Netanyahu, the pressure became overwhelming. “We need this deal,” Netanyahu told Brett McGurk, Biden’s Middle East coordinator, according to CNN. This was on November 14, in Tel Aviv, after the Israeli Prime Minister had indicated to President Biden that the Israeli government was ready to “accept the broad contours of a deal” with Hamas. The deal is the result of diplomatic efforts by Qatar, the oil rich state of 300,000 people that is projecting itself to be a global mediator.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is in Qatar’s own backyard, and it has intimate access to all the principal players in the conflict. President Biden calls it America’s most important non-NATO ally, providing accommodation to a significant US military base. Hamas too has its political offices in Qatar and benefits from Qatari largesse.

The country is close enough to Israel for Netanyahu to detail his Mossad chief David Barnea to negotiate with Qatar to work out a deal for freeing the hostages. Mr. Barnea and CIA chief William Burns have had joint meetings with Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, in parallel with meetings between Qatari mediators and Hamas officials based in Qatar.

Turning Points

The fact of the matter is that despite their vehement disavowals of Hamas, both the US and Israel have been dealing with Hamas through Qatar. The habitat that Hamas has in Qatar is not without American consent. Netanyahu’s stratagem has been to use Hamas to frustrate the emergence of a democratic administration among Palestinians. He would rather have Hamas around to frustrate the universal call for a two-state solution. October 7 has shattered that scheme. It has also shattered President Biden’s now well-reported strategic decision not to touch the Palestinian question during his term (or terms) in office.

In his voluminous memoir, White House Years, Henry Kissinger speaks of a different turning point more than fifty years ago. That was turning point for America’s effectiveness in the Middle East, and it came with the realization among Arab leaders that the path to settlement with Israel would not be via Moscow, but Washington. At the height of the Cold War, the Americans were not expecting this, and according to Kissinger, they were also slow to respond because their priority then was the Soviet Union. Perhaps the Arab leaders saw the dead-ending of Moscow sooner than the Americans.

Over the years and after the end of the Cold War, American Presidents have made varying efforts to find a path for peace in the Middle East through Washington. Nothing worked, and everything crashed during the Trump presidency and Netanyahu’s premiership. After October 7, Arab and Palestinian leaders cannot be hopeful about Washington as their predecessors were fifty years ago. Their dilemma is also that there is no one else who can step in.

China is making plenty of peace waves, but it has a long way to go before it becomes an influential player in the Middle East. And the Palestinians do not deserve to have to wait for China to come of age as a full superpower to solve a problem that is as old as China itself. But China can add its significant weight to initiate a process for peace in the Middle East. That also means pressurizing Washington from the outside, and adding to the pressure that is already building within the US and western countries in general.

The pressures within western polities and schisms over Gaza are quite unprecedented. The far right that has been stridently antisemitic is now staunchly pro-Israel. The far left that has always been opposed to antisemitism is now being accused of antisemitism because of its opposition to the Israeli government and the refusal to describe Hamas as a terrorist organization. The political terrain in the middle is now the site of new fissures and fractures.

In the US, the youth, progressives and Muslims who voted for Biden in 2020 are threatening that they will not vote for him in 2024. This could be crucial in critical swing states where the margin of victory is small and defeat would mean disaster in the Electoral College tally. In Britain, Labour leader Keir Starmer has come under fire for refusing to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.

This is quite the reversal for the Labour Party leadership that accused Jeremy Corbin, Starmer’s predecessor, of antisemitism. In Canada, Prime Minister Trudeau is doing a fine balancing act between pro-Palestinian Muslims and the influential Jewish community. The backdrop to these fissures is old school racism spewing both antisemitism and Islamophobia.

One of the more positive political fallouts of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the firing of Suella Braverman (nee Fernandes), Britain’s pseudo-racist Tory politician, from cabinet by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. This was after she criticized London Police for allowing pro-Palestinian marches in the City, and called them “hate marches.” Mr. Sunak used the occasion of Braverman’s eviction to execute a mini cabinet shuffle and bring in former Prime Minister David Cameron as the new Foreign Minister, to consolidate his (Sunak’s) position in the Party. On the other hand, there have been right wing populist victories, although not outright, in Argentina and in Netherlands. Islamophobia and anti-immigration rhetoric were patent factors in the Dutch election.

Ceasefire Dynamic

At the time of writing, the ceasefire that was a day late, has been on for five hours, starting at 7:00 AM local time on Friday. Lorries of essential supplies are entering Gaza from Egypt, while 13 Israeli hostages are to be freed today, and 37 more over the next three days. Some 150 Palestinian prisoners will also be released in exchange. The British Foreign Secretary is scheduled to meet Palestinian leaders today, and he is supposed to facilitate getting as many supplies into Gaza as possible. What will happen after the current ceasefire agreement is over?

Sporadic fighting and even air strikes reportedly went on right up to the start of ceasefire at seven o’clock. Will they resume with a vengeance, or will there be more pauses to facilitate further releases of hostages in exchange of prisoners? Israel’s offer to release 300 Palestinian prisoners is seen as an incentive to Hamas to release more hostages.

Hamas may respond positively, but a deadlock will arise if and when Hamas stops releasing hostages to maintain the only leverage it has in the current situation. It could become a numbers game, with Hamas insisting on the release of larger numbers of Palestinians from the reportedly 7,200 currently in jail. 88 of them are women and 250 are children under 17, most of whom are expected to be released in the current phase.

The US is now back on to the two-state formula, but it will have a hard time nudging Mr. Netanyahu to embark on any long-term settlement process. But the Israeli Prime Minister has his own short-term problems. After seven weeks of devastating Gaza, there is admission that the operation has hurt Hamas’s fighting resources, but it is nowhere near the goal of eradicating Hamas. And there is still no hard evidence that the al-Shifa hospital has in fact been used by Hamas as its operation centre to the extent claimed by Israel.

The present al-Shifa hospital was in fact designed by Israeli architects and built by the Israeli government in the 1980s, as part of improving the living conditions in Gaza. That was when the idea of co-existence in a two-state set up was actively pursued. After Netanyahu’s long spells as Prime Minister, the two-state solution has been shelved away. The US has its work cut out in bringing it back to the table. More immediately, however, it will have to find a way to stop Prime Minister Netanyahu from resuming the war after its current pause.