Dare We Hope That the Gaza Ceasefire Deal Will End the Horror of Israel’s Extermination of the Palestinian People?

17.1.25

Share

An image I created when the ceasefire deal was first announced on January 15.

Please support my work as a reader-funded investigative journalist, commentator and activist. If you can help, please click on the button below to donate via PayPal. Please also consider taking out a free or paid subscription to my new Substack newsletter.




 

Is it really true? After 470 days of the most grotesque, publicly-celebrated, western-backed atrocities that any of us have ever seen, dare we hope that a durable ceasefire has been agreed that will bring to an end the soul-draining horrors of Israel’s relentless efforts to exterminate the Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip?

On Wednesday (January 15), the Prime Minister of Qatar, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, announced the agreement of a ceasefire deal, agreed to by Israel and Hamas, in negotiations involving Qatar, Egypt and the US. President Biden and the President-Elect, Donald Trump, both claimed responsibility for securing the success of the deal, although it was noticeable that the terms of the deal were almost identical to those agreed to by Hamas over eight months ago, on May 6, 2024, which Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, then refused to accept.

This suggests that, despite their protestations, neither Biden nor the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, who also rushed to take credit for the deal, had actually done much at all in the intervening eight months, except to be publicly humiliated by Netanyahu, while continuing to send an extraordinary amount of deadly weapons to Israel, indicating that they were prepared to accept humiliation because they continued to unconditionally support Israel’s apparently never-ending hunger for Palestinians’ blood.

The ceasefire agreement

According to the terms of the agreement, the ceasefire will involve three separate phases, the first two of which will last for 42 days each (six weeks), when the relentless bombing will finally stop, Israel will withdraw its troops close to Gaza’s borders and away from all population centers, prior to a complete withdrawal, and hostage and prisoner exchanges will begin, with 33 Israeli hostages to be released in each phase, including, in phased releases over the first 42 days, women, children and civilians over the age of 50.

In return, Israel will release thousands of Palestinian prisoners over the three phases, including some serving prison sentences, and numerous residents of the Gaza Strip, seized after October 7, who, as Israel concedes, “were not involved” in the attacks.

Israel will also allow civilians to return to their homes — or what remains of them —  throughout the Gaza Strip, including the north, bringing to an end the horrific but under-reported “genocide within a genocide” that Israel has been inflicting on the north for the last three and a half months.

Israel will also finally allow in adequate amounts of humanitarian aid – up to 600 trucks per day — bringing to an end the monstrous “siege” imposed by the defense minister Yoav Gallant at the start of Israel’s genocidal assault, which has largely been maintained ever since.

These aid deliveries will include fuel supplies and “equipment required for the removal of rubble, [to] rehabilitate and operate hospitals, health centers, and bakeries in all areas of the Gaza Strip”, which “will continue throughout all stages of the agreement.”

The United Nations and its agencies, including UNRWA and other international organizations, will be allowed to “carry out their work in providing humanitarian services in all areas of the Gaza Strip”, and Israel will also facilitate “the entry of the necessary supplies and requirements to accommodate and shelter displaced persons who lost their homes during the war (at least 60,000 temporary homes – caravans – and 200,000 tents).”

Israel will also allow wounded Palestinians, including military personnel, to leave the Gaza Strip for treatment, via the Rafah crossing with Egypt, which Israel closed in May, preventing anyone from leaving Gaza under any circumstances, including urgent medical evacuations.

In the third phase, which remains sketchy as of now, a reconstruction plan will be implemented, lasting for a period of three to five years, including homes, civilian facilities and infrastructure, “under the supervision of a number of countries and organizations, including Egypt, Qatar, and the United Nations.”

No deal is yet in place regarding the future governance of the Gaza Strip, which is, perhaps, the most glaring hole in the negotiations, because Israel’s entire policy over the last 15 months has allegedly involved a focus on “eliminating Hamas”, even though that is an unachievable aim (as all credible military experts recognize), and even though it has very evidently only provided a front for the erasure of Gaza and the extermination of as much of the civilian population as possible.

While all the parties involved in the negotiations have their own agendas regarding the future governance of the shattered Gaza Strip, the blunt truth, which many of them will not want to recognize, is that “Hamas” is not the problem; the problem is Israel’s illegal occupation of, and oppression of the whole of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, seized after the Six Days’ War in 1967, which includes not just the Gaza Strip, but also the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The only way to secure a lasting peace is for Israel, the permanent colonial and messianic aggressor, to abandon its claim to the Palestinians’ land, and for the Palestinian people to be given true autonomy over the whole of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as demanded by the International Court of Justice in July, in a hugely significant opinion that Israel and its supporters have almost entirely ignored.

The role of Donald Trump

While Joe Biden and Antony Blinken are trying claim credit for the success of the deal, despite having failed to secure any meaningful break in hostilities since the week-long pause for hostage and prisoner releases in November 2023, it’s abundantly clear that Donald Trump’s role is absolutely central to the confirmation of the deal just before he takes office. Back in July, anticipating victory in November’s Presidential Election, Trump told Benjamin Netanyahu that he wanted the war in Gaza to end before his second presidency began, as the Times of Israel reported at the time.

Trump also clearly wants his inauguration, on Monday, to be accompanied by images of freed Israeli hostages, to send a message to the US, and the world, on his first day in office, that he is a man of decisive action, a heroic statesman who can bring wars to an end and get hostages released, in complete contrast to his predecessor.

It also seems abundantly clear, as Ali Abuminah explained in a perceptive article for Electronic Intifada on January 15, that Trump wants to show Netanyahu who is the boss.

According to press reports, the ceasefire agreement came about primarily because Trump sent his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, “to read Israel the riot act”, as Abunimah described it.

As he further explained:

In a symbolic playing out of the real power relations between Israel and the United States, Steve Witkoff informed the office of Benjamin Netanyahu last Friday that he’d be arriving in Israel the next day and wanted to meet him.

Netanyahu’s aides “politely explained that was in the middle of the Sabbath but that the prime minister would gladly meet him Saturday night,” according to Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

“Witkoff’s blunt reaction took them by surprise,” Haaretz added. “He explained to them in salty English that Shabbat was of no interest to him. His message was loud and clear.”

Netanyahu obeyed orders from Trump’s envoy and showed up at his office as commanded “for an official meeting with Witkoff, who then returned to Qatar to seal the deal.”

Further explaining Trump’s motivations, Abunimah suggested that, “it is not necessary to view Trump as having any sort of sympathy with the Palestinian struggle to understand what might be behind his surprising willingness to pressure Israel now.”

He added that, “While Trump is often unpredictable and mercurial, a consistent aspect of his worldview is that he does not view America’s traditional ‘allies’ as anything more than client states who are taking advantage of American largesse. He appears to have no sentimental attachment to them, nor does he see them as vital to his ‘America First’ agenda.”

Abunimah accurately cited Trump’s disdain for what he viewed as other countries leeching off the US in his first term in office, when, for example, “he accused Germany, supposedly the bedrock of the transatlantic security alliance, of ‘making a fortune’ off US troops stationed in the country. Demanding billions from ostensible allies and partners, he thundered, ‘Why should we defend countries and not be reimbursed?’”

Just last week, he reiterated his position, declaring that “NATO member countries ‘were taking advantage’ of the US and should be paying more than double what they currently are required to pay for their military defense”, as USA Today described it.

As Abunimah proceeded to suggest, “Given Trump’s disdain for countries that have long been revered as — albeit subordinate — partners by the transatlantic ruling classes, the question is why would he treat Israel any differently? This is especially the case when Israel has long been the biggest recipient of American largesse. At the very least, Trump seems likely to take the approach that, with America paying Israel’s bills, America will give the orders.”

The contrast with Joe Biden and Antony Blinken could hardly be more stark. While Trump clearly wants it to be known that he is the top dog, and, in meetings with Netanyahu, has shown little or no warmth towards him, perhaps seeing him as little more than an upstart rival who doesn’t know his place, Biden’s unconditional and uncritical love affair with his beloved “Bibi” has been sickening throughout the whole of the last 15 months, while Blinken may as well have been openly functioning as an Israeli plant.

In addition, the fact that the new ceasefire deal is almost identical to the deal agreed to by Hamas eight months ago, but never implemented, is another blow to Biden and Blinken, as I mentioned above. On May 31, as I explained at the time, Biden unexpectedly held a press conference at which he “announced a new ceasefire plan, describing it as a plan that Israel had agreed to, and which he urged Hamas to accept, even though it was almost identical to the plan that Hamas had, in fact, already accepted.”

As I added, this “seemed to be a ploy to finally put some sort of meaningful pressure on Israel”, but Netanyahu snubbed it, humiliating Biden, who had publicly said that Israel had agreed to it. Subsequently, reinforcing the Biden administration’s feebleness and complicity, Biden and Blinken resorted to dissembling, repeatedly  pretending that the fault lay with Hamas, when that was clearly not the case.

In withering criticism of Biden and Blinken, Ali Abuminah noted that “the progress made in a few days with Trump’s intervention underscores that Washington giving the orders is and has always been the true nature of the US-Israel relationship. These developments expose without a shadow of a doubt that the Biden administration’s failure to achieve a ceasefire was always wilful, and that the Democratic Party government positively chose to arm and support the genocide. There will have to be accountability for that.”

Infighting within Netanyahu’s government

While the ceasefire deal was greeted with joy in the Gaza Strip, that joy was short-lived, as, for Trump’s benefit, it doesn’t come into effect until Sunday, to guarantee that the first hostage releases will take place on the day of his inauguration.

As a result, Israel, whose entire reason for existing has, over the last 15 months, ossified into a grimly relentless obsession with murdering as many Palestinian civilians as possible, has continued to attack Gaza, killing over a hundred people since the ceasefire deal was announced.

The victims of Israeli bombings, on tents sheltering displaced Palestinian civilians, after the ceasefire deal was announced on January 15. (Photo: Adem Rahim Khatib / Anadolu).

So can Netanyahu still derail the deal? From the beginning, he has never wanted the “war” to end, because doing so would expose him to the ongoing corruption charges that he faces in the Israeli courts, as well as providing an opportunity for a robust investigation to begin into the intelligence failures that allowed the October 7 attacks to take place.

Just as importantly, to stay in power he has also persistently had to placate the two far-right messianic settler ministers in his cabinet, who he was required to work with to establish a coalition government in October 2022 — the thuggish Itamar Ben-Gvir, who was made the Minister of National Security, responsible for the police and prisons, and Bezalel Smotrich, who looks like a charming serial killer, who was made Minister of Finance.

Yesterday, Netanyahu pulled a familiar trick — delaying a cabinet meeting to vote on the agreed ceasefire deal by blaming Hamas, claiming that they had “reneged on parts of the agreement reached with the mediators and Israel in an effort to extort last-minute concessions,” creating a “last-minute crisis”, a charge denied by Hamas’ senior negotiator, Izzat al-Reshiq.

More realistic was the report, by Israel’s Kan Radio, that the delay was an internal Israeli problem, specifically involving Bezalel Smotrich’s opposition to the deal. The Guardian reported that “Netanyahu and his defence minister, Israel Katz, met Smotrich … after Ben-Gvir had asked him to join forces and pull their parties out of the coalition – potentially causing the government to fall – if the deal was agreed. According to an Israeli television report, Smotrich presented Netanyahu with a list of conditions for his support, including a pledge that Israel would return to fighting should Hamas manage to retain control of Gaza, and to strictly limit the quantity of humanitarian aid allowed into the territory.”

Later in the afternoon, however, presumably after furious calls from the US, the Times of Israel reported that Aryeh Deri, a colleague of Netanyahu, had stated unambiguously, “I have just received the final call, that all obstacles met and the deal is getting into force.” As a result, the deal has been approved today by the security council.

The future under Trump?

Despite the last-minute panic, and reassurances from Antony Blinken that he was “confident” that “implementation” of the ceasefire would begin on Sunday, as planned, I can’t help but think that, yet again, the role of Donald Trump needs to be factored in, as it seems unlikely that Trump would, in any way, back down on his insistence that a deal be agreed and adhered to.

In his simple-minded embrace of efficient propaganda, Trump has already decided that ending the war and freeing the hostages will confirm him as the super-hero that he is in his own obsessively narcissistic self-regard — as well as dealing a killer blow to the credibility of Biden and Blinken.

That said, Trump remains fundamentally incoherent, capable of holding two mutually exclusive positions simultaneously. No one should forget that, in his first term in office, he moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem, approved Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights, shut down the office of the PLO (the Palestine Liberation Organization) in Washington, D.C., banished the Palestinian Ambassador to the US and defunded the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

In addition, he is surrounded by the most violent and hysterical supporters of Israel in the Republican Party that he ostensibly leads, as well as, crucially, in his choices for departmental leadership roles in his incoming administration. His choices for the defense secretary and the Secretary of State, for example, Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio, both spoke out forcefully in support of Israel at their recent confirmation hearings, with Hegseth stating that “his Christian faith dictates his commitment to supporting Israel and that he wants to see the US ally kill ‘every last member of Hamas’” (and also stating that the US military should not be bound by the Geneva Conventions), while Rubio called Hamas “a group of savages.”

Trump’s pick for National Security Advisor, meanwhile, Mike Waltz, recently spoke about how the Middle East cannot become a “truly stable region if we don’t carve up [the] cancer” of “hostage-taking, murderous rapists and torturers.” He was speaking about Hamas (and ISIS and Al-Qaeda), although he seemed unaware that, objectively, such a description was actually a more accurate description of the persistent behavior of Israel.

There is also, of course, the perennial problem that, as, essentially, a gangster, Trump is eminently bribable, and has taken $100 million from Miriam Adelson, the casino-owning billionaire widow of Sheldon Adelson, a fervent supporter of Israel, who will expect a return on her investment.

In particular, Trump may well believe that, while being the “victor” in Gaza, he can placate his supporters, like Edelman, by allowing Israel free rein to expand its illegal settlements in the West Bank, already wracked with increased Israeli violence over the last 15 months under the influence of both Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, and, as a result, possibly facilitating the Gaza-ification of conflict in the West Bank as a sequel to the erasure of Gaza.

Has time finally run out for Israel’s apparently unquenchable genocidal violence?

All of this is up in the air at the moment. The best we can hope for is that the ceasefire is implemented, and that Hamas’ key bargaining chip — the release of the Israeli hostages in three phases, lasting for 18 weeks at a minimum — provides enough time for international organizations and observers, including representatives of the Arab nations who are essential to the rebuilding of Gaza, to establish a significant enough presence on the ground to ensure that the genocide cannot begin again.

Today the Israeli press is buzzing with reports that Netanyahu has given assurances to Smotrich that, to preserve his coalition, the “war” on Gaza will resume, the suggestion being that, cynically and deliberately, only the first phase of the agreement will be implemented. However, what this suggestion fails to recognize is that, within Israel, the safe return of all the hostages is a hugely significant topic, and one that can’t be achieved without the second and third phases of the agreement proceeding as planned.

Smotrich and Ben-Gvir and the fanatical settlers they represent may not care about the hostages’ lives (as is clearly also the case with Israel’s staunchest supporters of Gaza’s elimination within the US political establishment), but in Israel itself Netanyahu’s refusal to prioritize the hostages’ lives over his own genocidal and territorial ambitions has been a major source of discontent, however much Israel’s western supporters have pretended not to notice.

As the ceasefire deal was announced, and Ben-Gvir and Smotrich both issued threats to resign, the opposition leader, Yair Lapid, promised support in a post on X, in which he stated, unambiguously, “I say to Benjamin Netanyahu, don’t be afraid or intimidated, you will get every safety net you need to make the hostage deal. This is more important than any disagreement we’ve ever had.”

It’s also worth bearing in mind that, however much the politicians — comfortably away from the front lines — envisage a “Greater Israel” in which the military fight forever to kill and conquer, there is increasing evidence that soldiers themselves are becoming exhausted and disillusioned in ever greater numbers. As was reported by the Associated Press just a few days ago, “a growing number of Israeli soldiers [are] speaking out against the 15-month conflict and refusing to serve anymore, saying they saw or did things that crossed ethical lines. While the movement is small — some 200 soldiers signed a letter saying they’d stop fighting if the government didn’t secure a ceasefire — soldiers say it’s the tip of the iceberg and they want others to come forward.”

Seven soldiers who have refused to continue fighting in Gaza spoke with the AP, “describing how Palestinians were indiscriminately killed and houses destroyed”, with some of them saying that “they were ordered to burn or demolish homes that posed no threat, and they saw soldiers loot and vandalize residences.” One, Yotam Vilk, told the AP that the image of colleagues “killing an unarmed Palestinian teenager” was “seared in his mind.”

What is also of huge significance, although both Israel and the US furiously deny it, are the arrest warrants that were issued for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant by the ICC (the International Criminal Court) in November, in which both men were accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity; specifically, “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”

The arrest warrants make Netanyahu and Gallant fugitives from the law in the 125 countries who are States Parties to the Rome Statute establishing the ICC, and the impact of this noose — which must, eventually, encompass numerous other Israeli officials, as well as those in the west who have unconditionally supported Israel’s actions — has already begun to tighten around the necks of Israeli soldiers, who are being hunted down through courts around the world, every time they take what they believe is their entitlement to vacations with impunity, particularly via the work of the Hind Rajab Foundation, named after the five-year old Palestinian girl whose murder by the IDF was a particularly horrific example of Israel’s almost innumerable atrocities over the last 15 months.

Logically, despite the relentless messianic, exterminating fervor of Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, it doesn’t seem implausible to argue that, because of all the above, time has finally run out for Israel to continue to pretend that its military might is either inexhaustible, or that it can deliver the “total victory” that Netanyahu has so persistently promised, or that endless, blood-soaked colonial expansion, on the basis of a warped interpretation of Judaism that is at least as barbaric as Muslim terrorists’ interpretation of Islam, can be allowed to continue unchecked.

Maybe I’m clutching at straws, but I hold out hope, via the relatively long timescale of the phased hostage releases, and the importance of an international presence establishing itself in Gaza, that a renewal of the kind of unparalleled barbarism that we’ve seen over the last 15 months really may not be feasible.

It seems particularly important that Gaza is opened up to outside scrutiny, because, quite frankly, if it is, it seems unlikely that Israel will ever recover from the depths of its depravity that will be exposed. As Ryan Grim of Drop Site News stated on January 14, “According to the conversations in Israeli media, one thing holding Israel back from a ceasefire was/is the concern that when western reporters and human rights groups are allowed in, the true scale of the crime will shock the global conscience in a way it hasn’t yet.”

That, I fear, is sadly true, but it makes it all the more important that, finally, this genocidal onslaught is brought to an end, so that the almost unimaginable task of rebuilding Gaza — and accounting for the carnage — can begin.

* * * * *

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer (of an ongoing photo-journalism project, ‘The State of London’), film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose music is available via Bandcamp). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign (see the ongoing photo campaign here) and the successful We Stand With Shaker campaign of 2014-15, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here, or you can watch it online here, via the production company Spectacle, for £2.50).

In 2017, Andy became very involved in housing issues. He is the narrator of the documentary film, ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’, about the destruction of council estates, and the inspiring resistance of residents, he wrote a song ‘Grenfell’, in the aftermath of the entirely preventable fire in June 2017 that killed over 70 people, and, in 2018, he was part of the occupation of the Old Tidemill Wildlife Garden in Deptford, to try to prevent its destruction — and that of 16 structurally sound council flats next door — by Lewisham Council and Peabody.

Since 2019, Andy has become increasingly involved in environmental activism, recognizing that climate change poses an unprecedented threat to life on earth, and that the window for change — requiring a severe reduction in the emission of all greenhouse gases, and the dismantling of our suicidal global capitalist system — is rapidly shrinking, as tipping points are reached that are occurring much quicker than even pessimistic climate scientists expected. You can read his articles about the climate crisis here.

To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to Andy’s new Substack account, set up in November 2024, where he’ll be sending out a weekly newsletter, or his RSS feed — and he can also be found on Facebook (and here), Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Also see the six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, The Complete Guantánamo Files, the definitive Guantánamo habeas list, the full military commissions list, and the chronological list of all Andy’s articles.

Please also consider joining the Close Guantánamo campaign, and, if you appreciate Andy’s work, feel free to make a donation.


Share

35 Responses

  1. Andy Worthington says...

    When I posted this on Facebook, I wrote:

    Here’s my latest article, assessing the Gaza ceasefire deal, and what appears to be Donald Trump’s key role in it, so that he can begin his presidency as the “hero” who stopped the war and freed Israeli hostages. I also examine how this shows up Biden and Blinken’s fatally compromised inaction, but how none of us should think that Trump means to bring peace to the Palestinians.

    I also express my hopes that, because hostage releases are phased throughout the 18 weeks of the agreement’s three phases, it will be difficult for Netanyahu, as some sources are suggesting, to resume attacks on Gaza in just six weeks’ time, because the safe release of the hostages is such a hugely significant topic within Israel itself.

    I also note how, in any case, the increasing reports of fatigue and disillusionment amongst members of the military — as well as the tightening noose of the ICC arrest warrants, and the legal pursuit of soldiers vacationing abroad — may signify that resurrecting the policy of endless extermination is no longer viable.

  2. Andy Worthington says...

    S Brian Willson wrote:

    I do not believe that Netanyahu can be trusted for a minute.

  3. Andy Worthington says...

    Nor do I, Brian, but the focus is now back on the hostages, as it hasn’t been since the “pause” in November 2023, and it’s going to be very difficult for him to break the terms of ceasefire significantly now that they’re back in the spotlight within Israel itself. With the deal involving phased releases over 18 weeks in total (at least), my hope is that this will allow time for an international presence to be established in Gaza that will prevent the wholesale extermination policy from being revived. I can only hope. No war – even a death camp extermination policy disguised as a war – lasts, forever, after all.

  4. Andy Worthington says...

    Ward Reilly wrote:

    There’s nothing left of Gaza.

    “Bring on the war crimes trials” … (that will never happen)

  5. Andy Worthington says...

    I know, Ward, but with 18 weeks at least in which the release of the hostages is now back in the spotlight, as it hasn’t been since the “pause” at the end of November 2023, it seems possible that the direct slaughter, at least, may finally end. It’s been nearly 14 months, after all, since the non-stop barrages, snipers, drones and armed quadcopters last fell silent; if aid is going to be allowed in, and if medical emergencies are going to be addressed, it does seem possible that the carnage may not resume.

  6. Andy Worthington says...

    And also, Ward, although the war crimes trials aren’t going to happen, the impact of the ICC arrest warrants hangs over Netanyahu, however much the US and Israel strive to pretend that they’re illegitimate. The contagion is spreading. Wise advisers in the 125 countries who’ve signed up to the Rome Statute will be advising their leaders not to try and discredit the ICC by indulging Netanyahu in any way, as an actual fugitive from the law, and, perhaps most tellingly, the impact of the arrest warrants is already spreading, as The Hind Rajab Foundation in particular is doing such admirable work tracking down Israeli soldiers and then pursuing them through the courts when they try to take vacations abroad. The road to pariah status is one-way.

  7. Andy Worthington says...

    Leigh Bowie wrote:

    Trump unfollowed him on social media. As evil as Netanyahu is, I don’t think he can risk angering Trump any more than he has already.

    By some miracle, Jeffrey Sachs has apparently got the ear of Trump. 🙏

  8. Andy Worthington says...

    I didn’t know he’s unfollowed him, Leigh, but it really does seem that Trump doesn’t like Netanyahu – and why would be? He’s an arrogant SOB who thinks the US is there to be played, and while that worked so well with Biden and Blinken, it’s pretty much guaranteed to do nothing but enrage Trump.

  9. Andy Worthington says...

    What I liked from what I saw of the posts about Trump liking the Jeffrey Sachs video, Leigh, is that Sachs called Netanyahu a “deep, dark son of a b*tch”, which maybe had some resonance for Trump.

  10. Andy Worthington says...

    Leigh Bowie wrote:

    Andy, I’m hoping and praying it enrages Trump! 🤞🙏

  11. Andy Worthington says...

    Yes, me too, Leigh. He should probably meet Ben-Gvir and Smotrich too, as I’m pretty sure he’d hate both of them as well.

  12. Andy Worthington says...

    Ward Reilly wrote, in response to 6, above:

    Andy, no one I know has worked longer-and-harder for peace than our anti-war family, Brother. I get it.

  13. Andy Worthington says...

    I’m sure, Ward, and I’m full of admiration for all of your dedication over so many decades. We humans have so much to offer, and yet looking back through history there have rarely been occasions when any group has been free of the tyranny of killers, who take, or rise up to assume positions of extraordinary violence.

    As I’ve also learned from two decades working on Guantanamo, the struggle is endless, and the best we can really hope for is the occasional victory. I hope those following us recognize this truth sooner rather than later, breaking out of the self-absorbed entitlement culture that is so prevalent now, and developing the skills they’re going to need for the biggest struggle of all – to survive the increasing hostility of the climate towards our very existence, all brought about by the most genocidal humans who ever lived: those in charge of the fossil fuel industry.

  14. Andy Worthington says...

    Kären Ahern wrote:

    No, I don’t dare hope until the People of Gaza are truly safe from the evil of Israel, aid is in, they are sheltered, the criminal Govt. of Israel are locked up, the Settlers are kicked out, and Palestine has total control over their destiny. Knowing the plan is for Mercenaries arranged by a top Biden/Harris donor to do “security” in Gaza has kept me awake at night. It needs a complete plan to truly free Palestine.

  15. Andy Worthington says...

    I agree with you, Kären, but first of all the bombs just need to stop – and the snipers and the drones and the armed quadcopters. Do you remember, at the end of November 2023, during the six-day pause for the exchange of hostages, people talking about how, for the first time in what was then seven weeks of non-stop carnage, there was silence, and, in particular, the incessant whining of the drones stopped.

    That has never left me – that glimpse into being endlessly hunted, 24/7. Yes, Israel must pay, yes, Israel must fall, for having dragged us deeper into the depths of human depravity than any of should ever have had to experience, or even to witness from afar, but first they need to stop killing. It is all they have been living for for 15 months, and their very humanity must have become exhausted and hollowed out, they must be husks of people who no longer even know what life is, because they have replaced it with death.

  16. Will the Gaza ceasefire deal end Israel’s extermination of the Palestinians? - IndieNewsNow says...

    […] I hope that you have time to visit and read my latest article, Dare We Hope That the Gaza Ceasefire Deal Will End the Horror of Israel’s Extermination of the Pal… […]

  17. Andy Worthington says...

    Ward Reilly wrote, in response to 13, above:

    Andy, I agree with you, Brother. In the post-9/11 struggle, Manning was pardoned, Assange is free, there are no U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and only a few left in Iraq (?), there to guard Exxon/Mobil (lol). Those certainly are tangible victories that we can all share in, just like back when I was in the active-duty GI Resistance to Nixon and *that* Occupation. In my 3 years involved with the GI Movement from ’71 to ’74, , the Draft was ended, the Peace Treaty was signed, and Nixon Resigned in disgrace … and by 1975, the last U.S. troops were gone from Viet Nam. All tangible victories … and we are slowly-but-surely getting all the innocent out of Guantanamo, although their lives are already ruined.

  18. Andy Worthington says...

    The remarkable thing about so many former Guantanamo prisoners, Ward, is how extraordinarily resilient they are, although obviously some of them have been thoroughly broken, including some of the 15 men who remain, and who I’ll be writing about in detail soon.

    Thanks also for that helpful list of victories. But how dispiriting it is that war, the great enemy of life, is still such a central component of almost all western politics. As I noted in an article in September, I actually think that, across the west, our leaders have suffered a kind of collective psychic collapse over the last three years, particularly prompted by their inability to deal with the implications of catastrophic climate collapse, and how it has undermined the entire neoliberal order that they have been celebrating for the last 40 years.

    Like the broken and inadequate individuals that they are, with their tawdry ambitions and corruption, they have all swung to endless war as the only antidote to the humiliation of having their delusions exposed, beginning with Ukraine, and then Gaza – with the latter, of course, even more monstrously turbo-charged through the complex web of deference, guilt and settler-colonial enthusiasm that engaging with Israel entails.

    Here’s that article: https://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2024/09/01/if-we-should-live-our-scribes-will-record-2024-as-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-humanity/

    The good news is that evil is more clearly visible than ever before and it’s all corporate – the arms companies, the fossil fuel companies, the healthcare “insurance” companies. The question is whether enough people can figure this out and come together to defeat it. The prognosis isn’t good, but then our very survival has never been at stake before.

  19. Andy Worthington says...

    Kären Ahern wrote, in response to 15, above:

    I have two friends with families who message me often with photos of body parts they pick up of their dead friends, their children too hungry to sleep, a missing newborn in a hospital blown up, the maggots in flour, eating grass if they could find it, just hoping they would die in one piece so they could be buried and their wives and children not left alone. They are husks and I cannot imagine what it will take to bring them back to life, physically, mentally or emotionally. But, they are the most courageous and grateful people I have ever had the honor of knowing. The killing must stop, of course, they are desperate for proper shelter, the torn tents do not keep water out, they need so much and the infrastructure is gone. The U.S. is so very responsible for this. I cannot even imagine how any shelter or sewage handling facilities can be built quickly enough and who will pay for it? Israel wants their high rise redevelopment that the Saudis and US leaders are in on … who will help Gaza become livable and free?

  20. Andy Worthington says...

    Those are such heartbreaking stories, Kären, and just two out of hundreds of thousands of similar experiences that the Palestinian people have been going through, month after month after month. It’s so important for this ceasefire to hold, not just for the killing to stop, but also so that aid on a scale that is required can get into Gaza. It’s clear from the agreement that detailed discussions have taken place regarding not only the provision of 600 aid trucks a day, but also adequate shelter for those made homeless, and on a vast scale, and also provision for field hospitals, while Gaza’s destroyed hospitals are rebuilt.

    Food, water, shelter, medicine, medical equipment and fuel. Unless these are delivered in vast quantities, along with people able to help with their distribution and with reconstruction, the secondary death toll with dwarf the numbers killed so far. I hope Qatar and Egypt in particular, but other Arab states as well, understand their responsibility to act as soon as the direct killing stops.

  21. Andy Worthington says...

    Natalia Rivera Scott wrote:

    More than 150 Palestinians have been murdered by Israel since the ceasefire was announced … they just won’t stop! They keep killing innocent civilians!

    And Blinken … he’s one of the most evil people in modern history … like so thirsty for blood, so cynical, yet he keeps believing they’re the good guys … justifying violence. I am so happy the ceasefire deal is done, Andy, and thank you for explaining the phases and what it means and how it will work. I want also for Israel to pay. Where are these people returning to? They have no homes. How will they rebuild their lives? Breaks my heart.

  22. Andy Worthington says...

    It’s all so horrific, Natalia. Who can forget, on Wednesday night, as the Palestinians were out in the streets celebrating the ceasefire, Israel once more stepping up its vile cowardly genocidal attacks – hitting 50 military targets, it claimed, as it set tents ablaze and crushed houses on top of their occupants. Every hour for the last 15 months, Israel has been engaged in atrocities against civilians that, in any other context, would be headline news, and yet it is as though they don’t even exist.

    It’s a huge uphill task to bring any kind of justice to them when western countries have so consistently dehumanized them, and still continue to do so, and it’s not at all reassuring that, in the US, one group of butchers are being replaced with another. Trump may be the loose cannon, evidently unwilling to befriend anyone, like Netanyahu, who doesn’t recognize him as the top dog, but behind Trump are monsters at least as vile as the miserable hypocrite Blinken and his addled genocidal boss.

    But as I said on Wednesday, the most essential thing right now is for the relentless killing to stop, and for Gaza to be flooded with aid, and, crucially, for supportive outside entities and individuals to be allowed in to assist, to chronicle and to rebuild.

  23. Andy Worthington says...

    Vicky Moller wrote:

    Excellent article.

  24. Andy Worthington says...

    Thanks so much for the supportive words, Vicky. I’m so glad that you had time to read it and appreciated it.

  25. Andy Worthington says...

    Bernard Sullivan wrote:

    Very soon, Al Jazeera will be broadcasting a new documentary, “Palestine Laboratory”. It will describe how Israel, a small country which is 98th in terms of 2025 world population, is 9th in terms of its military hardware production which is being tested against the people of Gaza. Elbit Systems UK plays a considerable role in weapons development for Israel and carries a huge responsibility for facilitating war crimes. This will be an eye opening programme. Look out for it.

  26. Andy Worthington says...

    Thanks, Bernard. I look forward to seeing it, and I also recommend Antony Lowenstein’s book of the same name that first exposed it, on which the two-part Al Jazeera series is based: https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2684-the-palestine-laboratory

    Here’s Antony’s post about the forthcoming Al Jazeera series: https://www.facebook.com/antony.loewenstein/videos/936138185297832

    He also created a four-part podcast series for Drop Site News a few months ago: https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/the-palestine-laboratory-podcast-trailer

  27. Andy Worthington says...

    In an interesting analysis of the Gaza ceasefire deal for +972 Magazine, Meron Rapaport suggests that, although the much-touted pressure exerted on Netanyahu by Donald Trump, via his envoy Steven Witkoff, may well have shown more spine that 15 months of Biden and Blinken’s persistent capitulations to Netanyahu’s belligerence, the main reason that Netanyahu agreed to the deal was because of political pressure within Israel itself.

    As Rapaport explains, “Inside Israel, the war in Gaza has become a burden on the government, the military, and society as a whole. In all the recent polls, a clear majority — between 60 and 70 percent, or even higher — supports ending the war.” He points out the significance of the weekly demonstrations led by the families of hostages, and suggests that “never before have so many Israelis taken to the stage at such large protests and so bluntly called for an end to a war while Israel is waging it.”

    He also stresses that the military is “showing signs of fatigue”, pointing out that Hamas continues to inflict casualties, especially in the north, despite the “significant efforts” to ethnic cleanse it since the start of October (via the “Generals’ Plan”), that rescuing the hostages “appears impossible”, according to the testimony of serving soldiers, and that, as a result, “All that remains is the destruction of northern Gaza for the sake of it.”

    As he explains, “A reserve officer, who has served more than 200 days in Gaza, told me that the prevailing mood among soldiers is that the war is going nowhere — not because of moral opposition (62 percent of Israelis agree with the statement “there are no innocents in Gaza,” according to a recent survey), but because its goals are unclear.”

    Rapaport also suggests that “it is likely that Netanyahu himself has begun to reassess the notion that he has nothing to gain from ending the war and only stands to lose.” Despite what have been touted in the Israeli media as the “sweeping victories in Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and Gaza”, his popularity has dropped, meaning that he “may have decided that now is the time to cut his losses”, looking to the next election — meant to take place in 20 months’ time, but which he could bring forward — and reckoning that, even if he loses the support of Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, he might win by bringing the rest of the hostages home alive, as well as “presenting the scalps of Sinwar and Nasrallah.”

    As Rapaport describes it, Trump’s intervention is the perfect excuse of Netanyahu to walk back without humiliation from his promise of “total victory”, because “he can claim he fought valiantly against the ‘leftists’ in the Biden administration but was powerless against the unpredictable and easily angered Republican from Mar-a-Lago.”

    Although Rapaport concludes that Netanyahu can resume hostilities at some point in the ceasefire negotiations, he finds it extremely unlikely, again not because of Trump, but because of the political situation at home. As he describes it, “it is not fear of Trump that will stop Netanyahu from restarting the war, at least not by itself. Fear of the rage of the families of hostages left behind in Gaza will be more of a factor. The army’s concerns about reoccupying Gaza City, after hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have returned during the first phase of the agreement, could also have an impact. The Israeli public, which will experience moments of euphoria with the return of the hostages, will not easily accept a return to war — not to mention the army reservists who are already showing up less for duty, the economic costs, and the general desire to return to normalcy.”

    I hope he is right.

    Read it here: https://www.972mag.com/ceasefire-trump-netanyahu-gaza/

  28. Andy Worthington says...

    Ward Reilly wrote, in response to 18, above:

    Andy, re “their inability to deal with the implications of catastrophic climate collapse”
    A staggering article on the subject, that Mike Ferner shared with me yesterday.
    January 17, 2025
    Risks of Ecosystem Crash-Landings
    Robert Hunziker
    https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/01/17/risks-of-ecosystem-crash-landings/

  29. Andy Worthington says...

    Thanks for the link to that chilling but entirely appropriate analysis of the end times we’re facing, Ward. It’s yet another reason to hate the genocidal aggressor. As if the grisly, gleefully-inflicted horrors of the last 15 months aren’t bad enough, they have also obliged all of us with functioning hearts to have had to put the urgency of climate collapse aside for all this time.

    In addition, of course, Israel’s unprecedented military assault has also been ecocidal for the whole of the Gaza Strip, and has also revealed how, as well as redefining barbarism, they’re also inestimably stupid. All those dreams of turning Gaza into a beachfront resort blithely ignore how toxic Gaza’s landscape is now, and, when we look into the future, it’s even more ridiculous that the messianic settlers believe that their deranged religious obsession with the land can somehow miraculously overcome the fact that, in a few decades’ time, the whole of the Levant may be uninhabitable – although much more so for colonial settlers than for the Palestinians, who have lived on the land for so long, and, if left to their own devices, know how to live in harmony with it.

  30. Andy Worthington says...

    Kären Ahern wrote, in response to 20, above:

    Andy, I so hope there will be a Global Surrounding of them to help them. Every basic need possible including sanitation to prevent further disease spread is needed. I wish the ICC could make every country who supplied weapons and funding be obliged to rebuild Gaza. I know the two families I know well there have nothing to stay for, everything is gone. The evil of having demolished structures that were livable so they could not return are war crimes in themselves. I have never been so bereft at the inherent evil humans are capable of as what we have witnessed through this. Israel needs to be disbanded to stop them from further occupation and usurping, destroying the lands of others. Who will stop them?

  31. Andy Worthington says...

    I hope they’ll destroy themselves, Kären, as the scourge of PTSD spreads throughout the country, their economy suffers, and they’re treated as pariahs. I’m pretty sure all of the above is coming, and I can only hope it’s enough.

  32. Andy Worthington says...

    Kay Reid wrote:

    Andy, let’s hope so!

  33. Andy Worthington says...

    I have never hoped for anything so much in my life, Kay. It’s unimaginable what the people of Gaza have endured, but even from afar the impact of the premeditated annihilation of so many civilians – and with the full support of our leaders – has been more morally and existentially corrosive than anything any of us have experienced before.

  34. Andy Worthington says...

    Kay Reid wrote:

    Andy, yes, it has been such a heartbreaking time. What little faith I had left for our species is just about gone. There is no coming back from this.

    Thank you for all your hard work!

  35. Andy Worthington says...

    Thanks for the kind words, Kay, and also for your analysis of the situation. I agree that it’s hard to have faith in humanity, perhaps more than ever before, but I do think it’s significant that so many people have showed such support for the Palestinian people, far outnumbering Israel’s supporters, even though there’s such a huge problem with almost everyone in a position of political and corporate leadership.

Leave a Reply

Back to the top

Back to home page

Andy Worthington

Investigative journalist, author, campaigner, commentator and public speaker. Recognized as an authority on Guantánamo and the “war on terror.” Co-founder, Close Guantánamo and We Stand With Shaker, singer/songwriter (The Four Fathers).
Email Andy Worthington

CD: Love and War

The Four Fathers on Bandcamp

The Guantánamo Files book cover

The Guantánamo Files

The Battle of the Beanfield book cover

The Battle of the Beanfield

Stonehenge: Celebration & Subversion book cover

Stonehenge: Celebration & Subversion

Outside The Law DVD cover

Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo

RSS

Posts & Comments

World Wide Web Consortium

XHTML & CSS

WordPress

Powered by WordPress

Designed by Josh King-Farlow

Please support Andy Worthington, independent journalist:

Archives

In Touch

Follow me on Facebook

Become a fan on Facebook

Subscribe to me on YouTubeSubscribe to me on YouTube

The State of London

The State of London. 16 photos of London

Andy's Flickr photos

Campaigns

Categories

Tag Cloud

Abu Zubaydah Al-Qaeda Andy Worthington British prisoners Center for Constitutional Rights CIA torture prisons Close Guantanamo Donald Trump Four Fathers Guantanamo Housing crisis Hunger strikes London Military Commission NHS NHS privatisation Periodic Review Boards Photos President Obama Reprieve Shaker Aamer The Four Fathers Torture UK austerity UK protest US courts Video We Stand With Shaker WikiLeaks Yemenis in Guantanamo