by MEDEA BENJAMIN & Nicolas J. S. DAVIES
Other nations must be allowed to mediate for a diplomatic end to the war.
On June 13, Hamas responded to persistent needling by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken over the U.S. proposal for a pause in the Israeli massacre in Gaza. The group said it has “dealt positively . . . with the latest proposal and all proposals to reach a ceasefire agreement.” Hamas added, by contrast, that “while Blinken continues to talk about ‘Israel’s approval’ of the latest proposal, we have not heard any Israeli official voicing approval.”
The full details of the U.S. proposal have yet to be made public, but the pause in Israeli attacks and release of hostages in the first phase would reportedly lead to further negotiations for a more lasting ceasefire and the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in the second phase. But there is no guarantee that the second round of negotiations would succeed.
As former Israeli Labor Party prime minister Ehud Barak told Israeli radio on June 3, “How do you think [Gaza military commander Yahya] Sinwar will react when he tends to agree and then he’s told: ‘but be quick, because we still have to kill you, after you return all the hostages’ ?”
Meanwhile, as Hamas pointed out, Israel has not publicly accepted the terms of the latest U.S. ceasefire proposal, so it has only the word of U.S. officials that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has privately agreed to it. In public, Netanyahu still insists that he is committed to the complete destruction of Hamas and its governing authority in Gaza, and has actually stepped up Israel’s vicious attacks in central and southern Gaza.
The basic disagreement that the smoke and mirrors of Blinken and President Joe Biden can not hide is that Hamas, along with every Palestinian, wants a real end to the genocide, while the governments of Israel and the United States do not.
Biden or Netanyahu could end the slaughter very quickly if they wanted to—Netanyahu by agreeing to a permanent ceasefire, or Biden by ending or suspending U.S. weapons deliveries to Israel. Israel could not carry out this war without U.S. military and diplomatic support. However, Biden refuses to use his leverage, even though he admitted in a June 4 interview that it was “reasonable” to conclude that Netanyahu is prolonging the war for his own political benefit.
The United States is still sending weapons to Israel to continue the massacre in violation of an order by the International Court of Justice to halt its offensive in Rafah. Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and Senate have invited Netanyahu to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress on July 24, even as the International Criminal Court reviews a request by its chief prosecutor for an arrest warrant for Netanyahu for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and murder.
The United States seems determined to share Israel’s self-inflicted isolation from the voices calling for peace from all over the world, including large majorities of countries in the U.N. General Assembly and Security Council.
Unconditional U.S. support for Israel’s illegal occupation and annexation of more and more territory over the past fifty-seven years has corrupted Israeli politics and encouraged increasingly extreme and racist Israeli governments to keep expanding their genocidal territorial ambitions. Netanyahu’s Likud party and government now fully embrace their Greater Israel plan to annex all of occupied Palestine and parts of other countries, wherever and whenever new opportunities for expansion present themselves.
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