There are no ceasefires on stolen land

by TITHI BHATTACHARYA

Liberation, not Liberal Zionism

Social media is filling up with images of what can only be called joyous determination—images of Gazans returning to their devastated city and rebuilding, reconstructing, renewing. I cannot stop watching videos of children hugging their cats, of women and men laying bricks on a bombed-out home, of twins reuniting. All this amidst what the IOF called “finishing touches” to their two-year holocaust: as they were forced to retreat from Gaza, they set fire to food, homes, and a critical water treatment plant in their own version of “festival of the oppressor.”

The current ceasefire includes consistent bad faith deals from the usual suspects. The Israeli list of Palestinians to be released as part of the hostage exchange has carefully left out the names of several popular leaders whose release Hamas has insisted upon. Among them are Marwan Barghouti (popular leader, often called the Palestinian Mandela), Ahmad Saadat (Secretary-General of the Marxist group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine), Hassan Salameh (Qassam Brigade member with forty-eight life sentences, the third highest among all Palestinian prisoners), and Abbas al-Sayyed (senior Hamas Leader).

The two sides at the negotiating table seem to have been negotiating for completely different realities, with Hamas asking for a permanent ceasefire guaranteed by the United States and Israel asking for a “demilitarized Gaza” with Hamas completely dismantled. In his televised address to the nation, Benjamin Netanyahu declared that “If this is achieved the easy way—so be it. If not—it will be achieved the hard way.”1 The United States of course has refused to comment on any of this—perhaps the President is waiting for Jared Kushner’s riviera plan with Leo DiCaprio’s hotel chain?

In these circumstances every Palestinian—and everyone serious about winning freedom for Palestine— knows that the ceasefire is simply a respite, and an unstable one at that. After all, the IOF still controls 53 percent of Gaza. Even if the active genocide moves away from the headlines (undoubtedly to the relief of mainstream Western media), all of us know that the everyday violence will continue in Gaza and the West Bank. Ceasefire or no ceasefire, settlers and the IOF will continue to harass, violate, and kill Palestinians. Under these circumstances, nothing is more urgent than an assessment of the ceasefire and a collective discussion of future strategies for the international Palestine movement. It is the movement, of course, that has brought us to this point.

What Ceasefire on Stolen Land Looks Like

While is true that the Zionist project continues, the current respite has won some short-term victories:

  1. Israel has been reduced to a global pariah.
  2. None of the Palestinian leadership has been exiled.
  3. The Blair Witch Project—Mouin Rabbani’s brilliant term for former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s prospective leading role in Gaza’s interim authority—seems to have been put on hold.2
  4. Some aid is trickling in.
  5. Most importantly, Palestinians are finally returning to their homes in a city where caring for the living can never be paused, even for a moment, to mourn the dead.

While the wins may seem momentous after two years of publicly broadcast genocide, the alarming aspects of this ceasefire deal are also becoming more evident:

  1. Israel has yet to be held accountable for their internationally recognized war crimes.
  2. No major Western power has cut financial ties with Israel or imposed sanctions.
  3. The plans for an archipelago of “Bantustans” in Palestine have not been withdrawn. Nor have the grotesque plans for Gaza as a beach resort.
  4. Despite the two-year long holocaust, a full 76 percent of US Jews still view Israel’s existence “as vital for the future of the Jewish people” (though many of those remain critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza).3 The idea that Zionism and settler colonialism are the only solutions to (very real) European antisemitism continues to thrive.

Once the deal is weighed thus, it becomes clear that there can never be any permanent ceasefire on stolen land. For the movement, then, “right of return” and “land back” remain our goals.

Moving from Respite to Liberation

Let me clarify at the outset the social movements that I think brought us this small respite: the global spread of large internationalist marches, the campus revolts, the flotillas, the magnificent general strike in Italy, and the less spectacular but equally significant labor actions on campuses and other workplaces.4 And, finally and most importantly, Palestinian actions against the Occupation in Gaza and the West Bank. These actions, taken together, are what constitute “the movement” at this current moment. This movement, in all its component parts, needs to be strengthened and spread in order to move from respite to liberation.

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