The U.S. Ceasefire Proposal Does Not Cease Fire
Nuvpreet Kalra
This is part of their charade to continue the endless “ceasefire process”, whereby they can declare they are working to stop the killing while meeting all of Israel’s demands for the decimation of Palestine.
Earlier this week, U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, visited Israel for the 10th time since October. He emerged from a three-hour-long meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu and declared that Israel had agreed to a ‘ceasefire’ deal. The deal, later labeled a ‘bridging proposal’, would make no change to the current onslaught in Gaza. In fact, it only entrenches Israel’s plans to further occupy and siege Gaza, and allow the U.S. to continue its influx of weapons into Israel while proclaiming they have brought about peace.
More occupation, more displacement
The proposal, which has not been officially announced, does not include a permanent ceasefire nor a withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. It concedes to Netanyahu’s demand for a release of Israeli hostages in Gaza, but permits Israel to continue to attack Gaza even after their return. Further still, the deal stops the release of Palestinian hostages, who are being systematically tortured, abused and murdered by the Israeli Occupation Forces.
Instead of meeting any condition for an actual end to Israel’s assault on Gaza, it would give Israel control of the Rafah border and the Philadelphi Corridor (the border between Egypt and Gaza). The inclusion of this new element indicates that the U.S. continues to concede to Israel’s demands, as the proposal from June, which Hamas accepted, required the removal of Israeli troops from Gaza, including the Rafah crossing.
Palestinians would not be able to return to their homes in the north of Gaza. The U.S. deal supports Israel’s demand of a permanent “Netzarim Corridor”, which cuts from the Gaza-Israel border to the Mediterranean Sea. This was the site of the IOF’s initial invasion of Gaza in October 2023, which they have only further developed, to give them access through Gaza. As of May 2024, satellite images have shown that the IOF have paved a 4-mile road with multiple lanes for large military vehicles to access. This is how the IOF is carrying out massacres in northern and central Gaza. This corridor separates the north and south of Gaza, and would stop Palestinians from returning to their homes in northern Gaza. More than 80% of Palestinians in Gaza are refugees. Since October, almost the entire population of Gaza have been forced out of their homes. The U.S.’s plan would make more Palestinian families refugees in their own country.
The so-called ceasefire deal goes back on the U.S.’s proposed plan from June, which was adopted by the UN Security Council and accepted by Hamas. The deal, which copied almost identically Hamas’ proposal from February, was labeled “Israel’s proposal” by the United States. After U.S. officials pushed the false narrative that if Hamas agreed, the fighting was stopped, it turned out that Israel had not agreed to the deal at all. In response to the recent proposal, Hamas has reiterated its acceptance of the June proposal. So far no U.S. official has commented on this.
The endless and empty “ceasefire”
The June proposal was silently swept aside, but not after being picked up by mainstream news which commented on “Israel’s proposal” and U.S. officials calling for Hamas to accept it, even after they had.
The bottom line is that the U.S. does not want the genocide in Palestine to end. Not only because of their vested interest in the white supremacist settler colony, but because the billionaires backing our politicians are making a killing on all of the weapons they are selling to commit genocide. But as the demands to stop the genocide grow only louder, the Biden administration has opted for a tactic of to subsume the demand of a ceasefire and turn it into a propaganda pawn to try to rinse their hands of the blood of genocide.
The cycle: Blinken visits Israel, he publicly proposes a deal, says Israel has accepted it and places the onus on Hamas. All the while, U.S. politicians and spokespeople can declare the administration is doing all it possibly can. Eventually it comes out that Israel did not accept the deal and Netanyahu will echo the same statement he has been since October that he will not end the war until he destroys Hamas. Blinken visits Israel, and the cycle continues.
But this of course could not be further from the truth, not for the past ten months nor the 76 years before that.
U.S. and Israel are the obstacles
In a press conference this week, Blinken declared this proposal as the “possibly the last opportunity” for a ceasefire and the release of the Israeli hostages in Gaza. This is a laughable assertion from the Secretary of State for the government who is actively sending the weapons to the entity committing the violence! It is truly a farce that the hand that makes and sends the bomb can plead those being bombed to accept their continued occupation under the guise of a distorted word.
Equally ridiculous, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield has urged Hamas to take the U.S. deal. The world does not so easily forget the images of Thomas-Greenfield raising her hand to veto two different UN resolutions for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. On October 18th 2023, the U.S. vetoed a proposal for “humanitarian pauses” to deliver aid to Gaza. Then on December 8th 2023, Thomas-Greenfield again raised her hand to exercise the U.S. veto against a UNSC ceasefire motion. Most recently, on February 20th 2024, they vetoed another UN ceasefire resolution.
Since 1945, the United States has vetoed 37 draft resolutions about Palestine.
Israel, like its ally, has blocked every single ceasefire deal since October. In October 2023, Israel rejected four different ceasefire proposals offered by Hamas which would have released all Israeli hostages in Gaza for the release of Palestinian hostages in Israel. Even when the only condition for the release of hostages was to stop the bombing of Gaza, Israel refused. In November 2023, Israel rejected the Qatari proposition for a 3-day truce in exchange for the release of 50 Israeli hostages. Between January and March 2024, Hamas proposed four ceasefire deals that Israel refused all of. Last month, Israel murdered Hamas’ chief negotiator, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran.
The obvious takeaway from this order of events is that the U.S. and Israel are actively and deliberately impeding negotiations to end Israel’s genocide in Palestine. But somehow, they have been allowed to paint themselves as the sober diplomats rather than the cause of continued horrific genocide.
We don’t have to look further than Ukraine, where we find another clear example of the U.S. and its allies stopping negotiations to end war, and instead provoke more conflict and violence. Only weeks after the beginning of the war, it was the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson who objected to the peace process and the U.S. government who continues to send hundreds of billions of dollars in weapons. The proxy war against Russia is only continuing to escalate, threatening the lives of more Ukrainians and Russians, for the sake of the U.S. empire.
While Palestinian resistance groups have been offering deals to exchange hostages since October, it is Israel and the United States who have refused every time. At the DNC this week, it was Vice President Kamala Harris who got to play her part in the charade of the “ceasefire process” by announcing that she and Biden “are working to end this war”. Not even two weeks ago, the Biden/Harris administration approved $20 billion in more weapons for Israel.
Every accusation is a confession.
The co-optation of the “ceasefire” represents how the U.S. and Israel lie to justify their ongoing genocide of Palestine. It is based on fabrication. They make every effort to block a ceasefire of the genocide they are committing and they say Hamas is the obstacle. Just like they continue to repeat the lies of Hamas sexual violence on October 7th, despite the overwhelming amount evidence of systematic sexual violence and torture of Palestinians by Israel.
Only recently, Israeli and American media said Noa Argamani, a former Israeli hostage held in Gaza had been beaten and had her hair cut when she was in Gaza. Argamani herself had to post publicly to clarify this was a lie, and in fact she had been injured because the building she was in was bombed by Israel.
We must continue to expose these lies for what they are: propaganda. The United States has been using the same tactics for decades, but we will not fall for them. Our demands for a ceasefire must continue, but a ceasefire alone can never be enough, particularly when the word has been chewed in the mouths of those who do not want to see the liberation of Palestine. We must back the calls for a full arms embargo, to end the siege on Gaza and occupation of Palestine, and a free Palestine from the river to the sea.
Nuvpreet is CODEPINK's Digital Content Producer.
Nuvpreet completed a Bachelor’s in Politics & Sociology at the University of Cambridge, and an MA in Internet Equalities at the University of the Arts London. As a student, she was part of movements to divest and decolonize, as well as anti-racist and anti-imperialist groups. Nuvpreet joined CODEPINK as an intern in 2023, and now produces digital and social media content. In England, she organizes with groups for Palestinian liberation, abolition and anti-imperialism.
Perfect summation of the mendacity and mass murder commited by Israel with the US in its usual role as mob boss
It’s cocktail hour in front of the tv watching the genocide every night. But it’s better to be engrossed in the Trump vs Harris soap opera. The mendacity and self-righteousness would meet the approval of Miles Standish were he alive. An even better parallel is my Substack “Israel’s Final Solution” juxtaposing the photo of Netanyahu’s speech to Congress and a photo of Hitler’s speech in the Reichstag announcing his final solution. Dinner is ready. Another cocktail?