On Friday, US President Joe Biden presented a ceasefire proposal for the war in Gaza. The plan includes three stages in which Israel and Hamas would negotiate an exchange of captives, a possible permanent cessation of hostilities and the reconstruction of homes and public facilities.
He called on Israel and Hamas to immediately accept the deal and move quickly toward a full resolution of the conflict. He now seeks an immediate and long-term ceasefire and associates his name and reputation with its achievement.
What should we think about it? To begin with, Biden described the proposal as an Israeli offer to Hamas, but it could very well be a US initiative crediting Israel, or even a refurbished Hamas proposal from months ago, dressed up in American clothing to make it acceptable to the warmongers.
The plan is intriguing because it includes all the key factors of the conflict, but also of its resolution: end of fighting, release of all detainees, expulsion of Israel from Gaza, removal of the underlying motivation that pushed Hamas to attack Israel and the reconstruction of Gaza. the band.
Hamas almost immediately responded that it viewed the proposal positively. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government responded with its usual combination of bravado and ambiguity – saying it would cease its attacks and leave Gaza only after a complete victory over Hamas, even if the captives were freed. Still, Biden said Hamas’ military power had been diminished to the point it could not repeat its Oct. 7 assault, suggesting Israel has achieved its goal and can now leave Gaza.
Why have Biden and Netanyahu, the genocide brothers, who until recently scoffed at longer-term ceasefire proposals, suddenly changed their minds? I have no doubt that this is their shared despair. Their reputation has been dragged through the mud and their political position is threatened. Desperation is a powerful engine of political innovation.
Biden fears losing the November election, while Netanyahu fears being thrown in prison for corruption by an Israeli court or for overseeing genocide by the International Criminal Court.
Biden will try to claim credit for spurring peacemaking. But it is impossible to reconcile peacemaking efforts with his eight months of non-stop financing, arming and diplomatically protecting Israel’s genocide in Gaza – openly, joyfully, proudly and at every opportunity. He revealed his true nature, earning him the nickname “Genocide Joe”.
Netanyahu is caught in the grip of irreconcilable pressure of his own making, designed to keep him in power and beyond the reach of the courts. Biden’s proposal is completely incompatible with the war frenzy of far-right Israelis within his government. Like all politicians, but especially practitioners of apartheid genocide, he has made contradictory promises to different audiences that he needs to stay in power. Biden’s proposal allowed him to smoothly escape from his dilemma.
Whatever dance Biden and Netanyahu perform in front of the cameras, the allure of moving forward with a plan to “end this war and start the next day” – as the US president put it – will quickly encounter serious obstacles on the way. to permanent peace. Ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict involves many actors who must negotiate on multiple axes, involving forces in multiple countries – all driven by unpredictable motivations and conflicting needs.
Tensions between the following key players must be resolved: the US and Israeli governments; Biden and Netanyahu; Netanyahu and several far-right Jewish ultranationalists in his government; the Israeli government and Israeli citizens who rejected its ideology well before October 7; the Israeli government and many Israeli citizens who support the demands of the captives’ families to end the war and release them; Biden and much of his Democratic Party base who are demanding that he reverse his support for the Israeli genocide in Gaza or they will not vote for him in November; Biden and the many Democrats and Republicans who want to continue the Israeli genocide; U.S. leaders and most people and governments around the world who support equal rights for Palestinians and Israelis and oppose U.S.-backed genocide; the Israeli government and Hamas whose respective fundamental objectives are almost, but not entirely, achieved in the Biden proposal; and the US government and Hamas which now negotiate indirectly, but remain antagonistic on most issues related to Palestine-Israel and US hegemony in the region.
If the first of three stages of the plan comes to pass, difficult negotiations will then have to address the most difficult questions, such as the form of Palestinian governance that will ultimately take charge in Gaza, the security guarantees that regional and world powers give to the Israelis. and the Palestinians, and how they resolve them permanently. the most controversial underlying issues – such as ending Palestinian refugee status, limiting Zionist settler colonialism, and peaceful coexistence as separate sovereignties in a single country or in adjacent states.
On the issue of Palestinian governance, Biden made an intriguing point in his Friday speech when he said that “at this point, Hamas is no longer capable of organizing another October 7,” which means that Israel has achieved a key objective of seriously degrading Hamas and it could now stop the war and leave Gaza.
Israel may or may not agree, but the US president may be preparing the ground to engage a different Hamas in a post-war era, as he did with the Taliban and his predecessors with Viet Nam. Cong after decades of fighting them as “terrorists”. “. When wars end, amazing things happen.
Hamas, or an entity that reflects its nationalist and militant determination to exercise self-determination in Palestine, will have to be part of the new system of governance in Palestine, alongside other Palestinian factions that agree to live in peace alongside Israel. But this will only happen if – and this is the most important part of this whole equation – Israel and its American backers explicitly, openly and sincerely accept the full freedom and self-determination of the Palestinians, as well as the peaceful coexistence of Israelis and of equally sovereign Palestinians in the world. Historic Palestine.
It would be a truly bold step toward lasting peace – if an American president ever decides to take this path, motivated by a sincerity that is hard to discern in the current offer.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Tel Aviv Tribune.
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