JAMIL F. KHAN | A ceasefire without freedom: How Israel’s ‘peace plan’ tightens its grip on Palestine

For many, the news of a ceasefire agreement in Palestine comes as a great relief and the start of a victory against the brutality of the genocidal Israeli regime. It seems as if the world, led by the US, has woken up to the moral failure of what has been allowed to unfold over the last two years and that sense has finally prevailed.

This is not the first ceasefire agreement negotiated by Israel and Hamas and previous agreements were almost immediately violated by Israel which claims to want lasting peace and security in the region. The latest ceasefire agreement delivers on the bare minimum of demands the global community has made of Israel, but it is just that – the bare minimum.

Though plans for a phased withdrawal of military forces have been shared, currently Palestinians are still being killed by Israeli forces, some of which are civilian forces.

What we should all remain keenly aware of is that this ceasefire does not indicate a change of heart about the humanity of Palestinians by Israel but implements a carefully timed geopoliticalstrategy that will see Israel maintain occupation of Palestinian land and life. The oppressor can now claim to be the liberator too.

The international community of nations which has stood by and offered platitudes about international law show great support for the “peace plan” put forward by Donald Trump which completely disregards Palestinian self-determination by installing Western war criminals as overseers of the plan.

Central to this plan is that Western powers, as they have after every colonial atrocity, enjoy significant decision-making authority and oversight of Palestinian reconstruction.

This feature of the plan ensure that Western interests remain salient in a “peaceful” future for the Middle East which, as it currently exists, is a construction of the West.

What these 2 years of relentless bombing, violence and terror has ensuredfor the state of Israel in a population of thoroughly demoralised, exhausted and devastated Palestinians whose human rights have been so denigrated that they only left with the capacity to be grateful that they are alive.

This brutal obliteration of human resolve has aimed to create docile Palestinian subjects who are too traumatised to engage in resistance against the Israeli state. This is how the supposed peace deal achieves its goals.

The West and its allies also demonstrate that this intervention operates on the belief that the Palestinian population, which is still largely comprised of West-hating terrorists, has now been subdued in the interests of Israeli liberty and safety. This is the real victory.

This is demonstrated in the fact that Israel has sent 154 Palestinians held hostage in Israeli jails for years into exile, denying them reunion with their loved ones, while those in the West Bank have been warned not to celebrate the releaseof captives.

To this extent, Israel wishes to control even Palestinian emotions in a plan that insists on their submission. The belief that Palestinians are a threat comes through in the words of Condoleezza Rice, former US Secretary of State under George W. Bush who oversaw and encouraged war crimes in the 2001 US invasion of Iraq. In a recent interview about a way forward, she said:

“Here’s what the Palestinians could start to do: they’ve got to start to recognise that Israel is going to exist, and it’s going to be a part of this Middle-East. And that means, change the lessons that you teach your kids about the state of Israel. Stop putting up maps that the state of Israel doesn’t exist. Don’t create another generation of Palestinians who believe that somehow the resistance is the way to peace and security.”

In this statement, Rice places the responsibility squarely on Palestinians to accept their colonisation, to rewrite their history, and relent in their efforts for justice. She states colonial occupation as a fact of life that must be accepted and suggests to Palestinians that their only hope is to submit to their oppressors.

This statement also reveals the imperial logics of the plan put forward by the US to “end the conflict”. As nation states stood by and watched a systematic erasure of people, considered terrorists through Western eyes, this outcome of a decimated, weakened population that can be controlled.

With the help of its allies, the genocidal regime of Israel has achieved the first phase of its colonial ambitions. Its plan for peace is nothing other than a diplomatic smokescreen for a more “civilised” occupation aimed at quelling the fears of a Western world losing all credibility in a farcical human rights-based world order.

The pageantry surrounding these “negotiations” will satisfy most states which arewell aligned to imperial nation making, allowing them to declare an end to an atrocity that has just begun and washing their hands of responsibility.

As we were considered terrorists for fighting our oppression under apartheid, so are the Palestinian people. The players who brand Palestinians this way are the same players who branded us so.

This diplomatic dog-and-pony show will certainly deliver more control to Israel and vanquish hopes for Palestinian self-determination. All gestures that recognise Palestinian statehood but attach a laundry list of conditions that appease Western interests are hollow.

The truth is, the West does not believe that Palestinians should exist outside of their control. This is no justice and our work is far from over. We cannot yet rest our efforts to resist the colonial occupation of Palestine.

Those of us outside the halls of institutional power must now intensify our efforts to isolatethe state of Israel, socially and economically, as was done with apartheid South Africa. We must continue to pressure our government to sever diplomatic ties and trade with Israel, and demand that none of our money contributes in the smallest way to Israel’s prosperity.

In a speech addressing the Israeli parliament, Donald Trump said that “Israel cannot fight the world”. With this, he does not mean governments, he means the people of the world. Time and time again “people power” through boycotts and divestment campaigns has remained the only way to end atrocities. We still have that power and as South Africans we cannot look away as we see the same forces that kept us in chains, walk Palestinians down the same path. Our work is far from over.

Jamil F. Khan is an award-winning author, doctoral critical diversity scholar, and research fellow at the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study.