A ceasefire has been reached at last in Gaza. Or has it? Soon trucks full of aid will roll in and horrendous starvation and slaughter will end. Or will it? The hostages who are still alive will finally come home, and thousands of Palestinian prisoners will be released. Or will they?
Many people are rejoicing at this news, pundits are optimistic and in Palestine young men, some of them, are dancing in the streets. I would like to rejoice, as well, but it’s hard to trust it. It’s a little like finalizing an arbitration with an abusive ex who has violated every agreement he’s ever made. Is he going to follow through this time? Or revert back to beating you?
Young men were dancing in the street last January, but the cease-fire fell apart as soon as real negotiations were in order. Since then, Israel has assassinated negotiators and starved the civilian population of Gaza, destroyed schools, homes and hospitals, and slaughtered thousands more.
I’m not a political expert on the Middle East. I’m just a person who stands between, on that edge between the Israeli narrative and the Palestinian reality. I was raised in the post-war Jewish community, steeped in the mythology of Israel as our place of safety, our spiritual home reclaimed after the horrors of the holocaust. I made the painful, personal journey to see the reality of oppression Israel unleashes on the Palestinians, and to support the non-violent civil resistance against the Occupation. I have been with Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, eaten in their homes and slept in their bedrooms to deter home demolitions, negotiated at checkpoints to let fathers go home from work, supported teams in Gaza after human rights workers were murdered by Israeli forces.
I know the attacks of October 7, horrific as they were, did not come out of nowhere, but out of decades of oppression and denial of Palestinian aspirations. When I was in Rafah, twenty years ago, the streets were filled with traumatized children, playing in the rubble of shelled buildings, dodging sniper bullets from Israeli towers. I deplore Hamas’ terrorism, but I am not surprised that a child who grew up doing homework while bullets thudded into the walls of his living room might grow up with a moral compass skewed toward violence.
I understand the deep emotional attachment Israelis and many Jews worldwide feel to that land. Palestinians feel the same. I do not understand why the land cannot be fairly shared, why that mutual connection could not be a ground of mutual collaboration to tend, heal and nurture the land. I do not understand how people who have suffered genocide can justify afflicting it, how anyone can justify bombing, torturing and starving others, especially children.
And it doesn’t take an expert in policy to know the obvious: that no lasting peace can be made in that land unless it is built on a foundation of justice. If Palestinians do not have the leading voice in determining their future, if their sovereignty and self-determination is continually undermined or blatantly ignored, they will continue to feel angry, frustrated and resentful. Force breeds resentment, resentment breeds retaliation. If Israel responds with more force and greater repression, they ramp up the cycle of violence. If Israel destroys Hamas but doesn’t change the conditions that fostered Hamas, some new agent of retribution will arise in its stead.
An end to the bombing and the slaughter is a good thing: a ceasefire is what we’ve all been working, advocating and praying for. The release of the hostages will be a moment of joy for the world, and so should be the release of Palestinian prisoners, who include children. Trucks rolling in again with food and medicine will be a lifesaver for Palestinians who are on the very edge of starvation.
But if Israel continues to hold Gaza under a state of slightly-less-repressive siege, as it has done for decades, if international forces conspire to divvy up the resources of Gaza and redevelop it for the benefit, not of the Gazans, but of others, if Gazans are pushed out physically or economically to make way for a new Trump tower on the seashore, peace will not last. It doesn’t take a prophet to see that future, just anyone who has the most rudimentary understanding of human beings and how we all respond to repression.
There is another path, although it seems unlikely that the world will take it. Palestinian architects and engineers could direct the rebuilding. Palestinian doctors and nurses could take the lead in reopening hospitals; Palestinian teachers and professors could revive schools and universities with international support. Most importantly, Palestinians could determine for themselves their priorities, their goals and their future. Then there would be grounds for reconciliation instead of retribution, friendship instead of enmity, and for a truly lasting peace.
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This post has been syndicated from Starhawk’s Substack, where it was published under this address.