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Mainstream, Vol 63 No 3, January 18, 2025
Radical Socialist Statement on the Latest Deal Between Israel and Hamas
Saturday 18 January 2025
#socialtagsThe latest Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the envoys of both Biden and Trump that is to start on January 19th has been accepted by Hamas but still has to get formal Israeli Cabinet approval because some far-right partners in his coalition government are opposed to it. However, Netanyahu has the necessary majority both in the Cabinet and Knesset (parliament) to get it accepted. There might be a delay in its starting but with the US supporting the deal it is extremely unlikely that Netanyahu will repudiate it. The core terms of this deal with its three-phase implementation and negotiation structure was there in May 2024. Hamas as well as the three key governments of Qatar, Egypt and the US endorsed it then. But then Netanyahu’s government got away with rejected it because Biden, a deeply committed Zionist since 1973, refused to bring him to heel.
This is where Trump, a more transactional President-elect, has come in. He has long said that other US governments have been too soft on its allies which dodge their responsibilities financial and political for maintaining the Western/global alliance structures and put their own interests ahead of the great USA. It is his job to prioritise US interests above all else which also requires projecting his image globally as a non-nonsense powerful President. Trump wanted a ceasefire before he assumed office. The team that negotiated with Netanyahu included envoys from Qatar, Egypt, Biden’s envoy Brett McGurk and Trump’s own envoy Steve Witkoff. It was his private messaging to Netanyahu that, almost certainly, did the trick. No doubt carrots were also offered. Intelligent speculation suggests the following: (i) It is okay for Israel to annex more land for settlements in the West bank. (ii) The Biden government imposed sanctions on some select individuals, groups and organizations involved in violence and illegal settlements in some parts of the West Bank. Trump may well have promised removal of such sanctions. (iii) Assured Israel of acceptance of its recently expanded ‘buffer zone’ in Syria. (iv) Tougher measures on Iran.
It is easy to understand why Palestinians are celebrating this deal and also why Hamas is claiming a victory. Even a temporary respite from the horrendous genocidal campaign by Israel has to be universally welcomed. The terms of the first phase which is to last for 42 days are that in return for the phased return of 33 civilian hostages (out of the estimated total that could be anything between 65 to 95 that are still living) there will be the phased release of Palestinian prisoners somewhere between 900 and 1700 including a couple of hundred or so serving life sentences who may have to go to countries outside the occupied territories. People can begin returning, along specifically assigned routes and under supervision of troops from Qatar and Egypt, to their homes in the north of Gaza which of course have overwhelmingly been reduced to rubble as 80% of all buildings including homes, hospitals, schools and colleges, water, electricity and other utility networks have been devastated. It is only in the third phase---if it is reached---that there will be the follow of truly massive amounts of international aid to restore over several years, if not more, to anything like its previous functional capacities. Some 600 trucks of aid are supposed to start coming in daily from January 19th carrying fuels and other basic necessities. Israeli troops are supposed to retreat on all sides to a buffer zone inside Gaza but near the Israeli borders.
Although Hamas has lost its top three leaders and has clearly been weakened internally through the loss of many fighters and externally through blows on its supporters Hezbollah and Iran both of which have had their power and influence weakened by the latest developments in Syria that have strengthened the Turkey-Qatar political axis in the wider region. But the Israeli effort to completely destroy Hamas’s armed brigades has clearly failed. Large parts of their tunnel structure has survived as the very fact of their retaining hostages would clearly indicate and Hamas’s fighters have continued to inflict casualties on the Israeli army in Gaza. This has created a certain weariness and even divisions in the top ranks of the army that the task set by the far-right for short-term total elimination through killings or expulsion of not just Hamas but of the Gazan population as a whole is simply not feasible. Whatever the negativities of Hamas’s social and cultural programme and practice as well as the doubts and even justified criticisms about the overall strategic-political value of the decision to carry out the October 7th attack given all that has happened since, Palestinian bitterness has extended much more outwards to Israel rather than inwards towards Hamas. This is particularly so in the West Bank where disillusionment and anger with the docility and subservience of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority(PA) has only grown.
So what now? After sixteen days from January 19th when the ceasefire is supposed to come into effect, there are supposed to be negotiations for carrying out the second phase---also of 42 days---when all hostages and dead bodies will be released along with several hundred more Palestinian prisoners and the full withdrawal of Israel from the Strip. Will this take place? Once all the hostages are released Hamas loses its most important source of leverage. Will Israel resume its assault? Or will even the second phase process carry on smoothly till the inauguration of the third phase when there has to be a prolonged peace for years for necessary re-development and protection against deaths and illness owing to mass starvation and epidemics? We have to wait and see.
A crucial part of the negotiations for the second phase will be around the question of what will be the character and composition of the governing authority in Gaza assuming that this can be set up. Hamas has agreed that it will not be part of this since neither the US nor Israel would accept this. The PA could be brought in as a face-saver while the real power will rest with another body perhaps comprised of representatives of some of the neighbouring Arab countries. Trump, like previous White House incumbents, also wants to provide a ‘compromise’ arrangement that reassures the utterly undeserved and unjustifiable ‘security’ demands of Israel over what is actually its long stolen property over which it should have no rights whatsoever and indeed should be punished for its awful crimes and made to pay full reparations. Elementary principles of justice demand as much but this will not happen. Israel will most likely be given substantial if not full military domination over Gaza. On the other side Trump like his predecessors wants to move towards getting other Arab countries in the region generally, and Saudi Arabia in particular, to establish full normalisation with Israel as in the Abraham Accords. These Arab countries need some concessions from Israel if they are to have any chance of being able to placate their home populations. No serious move in this direction as desired (by these governments though not by their populations) can take place if the war on Palestinians continues or erupts again within a short time-span. This is where there can be some hope that there will be a longer-term end to Israel’s brutal genocidal campaign.
What of Palestine? The Chinese even as they hypocritically maintain their ties with Israel and to increase their influence in the Middle East, did broker a deal between Fatah and Hamas to promote a wider unity and for the latter as well as a number of other Palestinian groups to become part of the PLO, and for free elections to take place both to the Palestinian Legislative Assembly ruling in the occupied territories and for the presidency. But no time-table or implementation mechanism was set up. This process also required the formal, yet to be given, assent of the current president of the PLO, Mahmoud Abbas who all too often by his behaviour appears to make Hamas and internal challengers to him more of an enemy than Israel. Efforts towards a wider unity of all Palestinian forces and the securing of such elections is necessary to bring about a changed leadership which will make Israel’s apartheid system its primary focus not an offensive strategy of military retaliation. A key development over the last 460 days and more has been the expanding awareness of Israel as a world pariah and the criminal shamefulness of support given to it particularly Western powers claiming to represent democratic and humane values as well as by numerous other governments worldwide.
We must play our part in this wider struggle in solidarity with Palestine by exposing the multiple hypocrisies of our own Indian government, of too many of our opposition parties, and of the various media and educational institutions and organisations that place money and obsequiousness to the powers that be, well above the pursuit of justice and morality home and abroad.
January 17, 2025