Trump’s Fake Peace Plan

It is a sadistic game. A carousel of death. This ceasefire, like previous ones, is a commercial break. The moment a condemned man is allowed to smoke a cigarette before being killed in a hail of bullets.

Once the Israeli hostages are released, the genocide will resume. I don’t know how soon. Let’s hope that the massacre is postponed for at least a few weeks. But a halt to the genocide is the best we can hope for. Israel is on the verge of evacuating Gaza, a Gaza that has been almost destroyed in two years of relentless bombing. It is not going to stop. This is the height of the Zionist dream. The United States, which has given Israel a whopping $22 billion in military aid since October 7, 2023, will not shut down its pipeline, the only tool that might stop the genocide.

Israel, as always, will blame Hamas and the Palestinians for not adhering to the agreement, possibly by actually refusing or failing to disarm, as the proposal calls for. By condemning Hamas’s alleged violation, Washington will give Israel the green light to continue its genocide in order to create Trump’s fantasy of a Gaza Riviera and a “special economic zone” with the “voluntary” displacement of Palestinians in exchange for digital tokens.

Of the many peace plans over the decades, the current one is the least serious. Aside from a demand that Hamas release hostages within 72 hours of the ceasefire, it lacks detail and an imposed timetable. It is full of caveats that would allow Israel to cancel the deal. And that’s the point. It is not designed to be a practical path to peace, something most Israeli leaders understand. Israel Hume, Israel’s largest-circulation newspaper, founded by the late casino mogul Sheldon Adelson to act as a mouthpiece for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and champion of Messianic Zionism, instructed its readers not to worry about Trump’s plan because it is “rhetorical.”

In one example of the proposal, Israel “will not return to the areas from which it withdrew until Hamas fully implements the agreement.”

 

Who decides whether Hamas has “fully implemented” the agreement? Israel. Does anyone believe in Israel’s good faith? Can Israel be trusted as an impartial arbiter of the agreement? If Hamas – portrayed as a demonized terrorist group – objects, will anyone listen to it?

How is it possible for a peace proposal to ignore the July 2024 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, which reaffirmed that the Israeli occupation is illegal and must end?

How can it fail to mention the Palestinian right to self-determination?

Why are the Palestinians, who have the right to armed struggle against an occupying power under international law, expected to disarm when Israel, the illegal occupying force, does not?

By what authority can the United States establish an “interim transitional government,” the so-called “peace commission” of Trump and Tony Blair, that ignores the Palestinian right to self-determination?

Who authorized the United States to deploy an “International Stabilization Force,” a polite term for a foreign occupation, to Gaza?

How are the Palestinians supposed to reconcile themselves to accepting an Israeli “security barrier” on the Gaza border, which is a confirmation of the continued occupation?

How can the genocide and gradual annexation of the West Bank be ignored?

Why is Israel, which has destroyed Gaza, not required to pay reparations?

What are the Palestinians supposed to say about the proposal’s call to “de-radicalize” the Gaza population? How is this expected to be accomplished? Re-education camps? Mass censorship? Rewriting school curricula? Arresting offending imams in mosques?

And what about addressing the fiery rhetoric routinely employed by Israeli leaders, describing Palestinians as “humanoid animals” and their children as “little snakes”?

 

“All of Gaza and every child in Gaza should starve to death,” declared Israeli rabbi Ronen Shaulov. “I will not show mercy to those who will grow up in a few years and show us no mercy. Only a foolish fifth columnist, an Israel-hater, will show mercy to future terrorists, even though they are still young and hungry today. I hope they starve to death, and if anyone has a problem with what I say, that is their problem.”

Israel’s violation of peace agreements has a long history.

The Camp David Accords, signed in 1978 by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin without the participation of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), led to the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty, which normalized diplomatic relations between Israel and Egypt.

The next steps of the Camp David Accords, which included Israel's promise to resolve the Palestinian issue with Jordan and Egypt, allowing Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza within five years, and ending settlement construction, are: Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, were never implemented.

The 1993 Oslo Accords, signed in 1993, indicated that the Palestine Liberation Organization recognized Israel’s right to exist, and that Israel recognized the Palestine Liberation Organization as the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people. However, what followed was the stripping of power from the Palestine Liberation Organization and its transformation into a colonial police force. Oslo II, signed in 1995, detailed a peace process and the creation of a Palestinian state. But this plan also failed. It stipulated that any discussion of illegal Jewish “settlements” would be postponed until “final” status negotiations. By then, Israel’s military withdrawals from the occupied West Bank were to be completed. Governing power was to be transferred from Israel to a supposedly provisional Palestinian Authority. Instead, the West Bank was divided into Areas A, B, and C. The Palestinian Authority had limited powers in Areas A and B, while Israel controlled all of Area C, more than 60 percent of the West Bank.

The right of return of Palestinian refugees to the historic lands that Jewish settlers seized from them when Israel was created in 1948—a right enshrined in international law—was revoked by Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization. This immediately alienated many Palestinians, especially Gaza residents, 75 percent of whom are refugees or the children of refugees. As a result, many Palestinians abandoned the Palestine Liberation Organization in favor of Hamas. Edward Said called the Oslo Accords “a tool for Palestinian surrender, a Palestinian Versailles,” and criticized Arafat as “the Palestinian puppet.”

The planned Israeli military withdrawals under Oslo never took place. When the Oslo Accords were signed, there were about 250,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank. Today, their number has grown to at least 700,000.

Journalist Robert Fisk called Oslo “a deception, a lie, a ploy to embroil Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization and force them to abandon everything they had sought and fought for for more than a quarter of a century, a way to create false hope in order to undermine the cause of statehood.”

 

On March 18, Israel unilaterally broke the two-month-old ceasefire by launching surprise airstrikes on Gaza. Netanyahu’s office claimed that the resumption of military operations was in response to Hamas’s refusal to release hostages, its rejection of offers to extend the ceasefire, and its efforts to rearm. Israel killed more than 400 people in the initial overnight attack and wounded more than 500, massacring and wounding people in their sleep. The attack destroyed the second phase of the deal, which was supposed to see Hamas release the remaining male hostages, both civilians and soldiers, in exchange for a Palestinian prisoner swap and a permanent ceasefire, along with Israel’s eventual lifting of the blockade of Gaza.

Israel has been carrying out deadly attacks on Gaza for decades, cynically calling the bombing “mowing the lawn.” No peace agreement or ceasefire has ever stopped it. This one will be no exception.

This bloody saga is not over yet. Israel’s goals remain unchanged: dispossession and removal of Palestinians from their land.

The only peace Israel intends to offer the Palestinians is peace after death.

 

Taken from Global Research website

Author: Chris Hedges American journalist, author and commentator