Peace has finally come to Gaza... but at a terrible price
The timing of the Gaza ceasefire – a near-exact copy of the deal brokered by Joe Biden and Antony Blinken last May – suggests that it was Donald Trump’s bluster and threats that made the difference, says Sean O’Grady
Great relief, then, at the Gaza ceasefire, such as it is – but also great sadness. There is no real reason why this deal, or something very much like it, couldn’t have been concluded when US president Joe Biden and his secretary of state Antony Blinken first put it on the table last May.
The “sticking points” that were obvious then haven’t materially altered in the many months since. But the price of delay has been paid by untold thousands of dead and injured civilians, the continuing pain of the hostages’ families, and the transformation of the poor but busy territory of Gaza into a desolate, uninhabitable moonscape.
The greatest of the tragedies have been inflicted on the children. It seems obvious that war crimes have been committed, just as surely as the series of events that triggered this particular phase in the Middle East, on 7 October 2023, amounted to a terrorist atrocity and an act of war.
Whatever else may be said about the inevitability of what followed, the state of Israel should never have allowed itself to be in a position whence it could be arraigned on a charge of genocide at the International Court.
The timing suggests that it was Donald Trump who made the difference, even if he was the beneficiary of the many months of frustrating negotiations carried out by the Biden administration. Perversely, Trump’s bluster and threats about the hostages being released by his inauguration day (next Monday) seem to have been the factor that finally got this deal over the line – on Joe Biden’s watch.
Whether Benjamin Netanyahu wanted to delay things in order to present the ceasefire as a welcoming gift to Trump, or whatever calculations were going through the minds of what remains of the Hamas leadership, it is Biden who can claim credit for this rather than Trump, though no doubt Trump will claim it all as his own.
No matter. What matters is that the war is paused – and that presumably, the associated auxiliary battles on the West Bank, in southern Lebanon with Hezbollah, with the Yemeni Houthis and with the Iranians will also be quietened, if not concluded, for the time being.
As the phases are put into operation over the coming weeks and months, history teaches us that this will not be a seamless process – there will be violations and delaying tactics. It is, though, the first moment of real hope since that terrible day when so many young people were slaughtered at the music festival and in the kibbutzim. What should the hope be?
Again, if we are trying to be optimistic, it is also a time to consider how the Trump factor will play out. It could be that Trump reverts to the kind of blank-cheque diplomacy he practised in his first term: Israel, right or wrong. That was the Trump who gave Netanyahu anything he asked for, who disparaged Muslims and Arabs, who recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moved the US embassy there to prove the point.
But there was also the President Trump who framed the Abraham Accords, and extended the process of normalisation of Israeli diplomatic and economic relations with her Arab neighbours – including, most importantly, Saudi Arabia. This was the process that was stalled, and then destroyed, by Hamas’s terrorism, as they no doubt hoped would be the result of their murderous actions.
The ceasefire in Gaza and the neutralisation of Iran now give a different context to the diplomacy of Trump, his new secretary of state Marco Rubio, and his emissary Steve Witkoff, who has been so busy with the parties in Qatar. If Trump, the soi-disant master of the art of the deal, wants to restore the Abraham Accords and build a new partnership between Israel and Saudi Arabia – a tremendous and historic geopolitical prize – he will need to accede to the one thing the Saudis must demand: a provable and irrecoverable American commitment to a viable Palestinian state, co-existing with Israel in the classic two-state solution.
Even if Trump doesn’t particularly care whether the Palestinians get their state or not, he does care about making the deal that ends the Middle East conflict, isolates Iran, and further marginalises Iran’s terrorist allies.
It might be rather fanciful, if not ludicrous, but just imagine if Trump, attending the state funeral of Jimmy Carter, was prompted, inspired even, to emulate the Camp David Agreement between the then implacable enemies Egypt and Israel. Trump might even dream about a Nobel Peace Prize. It would certainly appeal to his vanity to surpass Biden, Obama, Bush and Clinton, and to succeed where they so sadly failed. Trump the peacemaker is an unlikely prospect, but he seems to fancy himself in the role.
Of course, the more likely outcome is a messy ceasefire that always threatens to erupt into another terrorist outrage and another war, and one that drags Israel, America, Iran and Russia closer to direct confrontation, with incalculably dire consequences. But, as I say, any ceasefire is a moment of change, and hope springs eternal.
It has to.
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