Ceasefire “Holding” so Long as Only Non-Israeli-Jews are Murdered

Amnesty International warned on November 27, that “The ceasefire risks creating a dangerous illusion that life in Gaza is returning to normal…. the world must not be fooled. Israel’s genocide is not over.”

Israel has violated the Gaza ceasefire almost 600 times, killed and injured over 1350, including murdering 136 Palestinian children, under various pretexts. Yet, the supposed guarantors of the truce remain hushed. Whatever they may claim to whisper or pressure behind closed doors, Israel’s actions make one thing clear: their opinions do not matter.

The so-called ceasefire served one purpose only: the release Israeli captives. Recent Israeli onslaught across Gaza, West Bank, Syria and Lebanon exposes Israel’s true intention. On November 19, Israel killed 28 Palestinians bombing neighborhoods previously labeled as “safe zones.” A day earlier, its drones struck Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp in southern Lebanon, murdering 13, including 11 teenagers playing soccer.

Three weeks earlier, on October 28 to be exact, and following the massacre of 109 Palestinians throughout Gaza, the Qatari mediator claimed that “both sides remain committed” to the ceasefire. The reply came from Israel on November 18 and 19, in expanded attacks killing 41 more Palestinians across Gaza and Lebanon. Notwithstanding this, Washington continues to repeat that the truce is “holding.” A ceasefire, it seems, only collapses when Israeli Jews die, not when Palestinian blood is spilled.

Since October 10, Israel has murdered 352 Palestinians. Adjusted for population size, this is equivalent to more than 1,500 Israeli deaths. What if Israel was at the receiving end of this murder spree, and 1500 Israeli Jews lost their lives? Would Washington and Europe still call the ceasefire as “holding,” or would we hear the rehearsed cry: “the largest number of Jews killed since the Holocaust,” as if the Holocaust took place in Palestine?

The U.S. president would lead a long procession of European leaders paying homage to Israel. Western media would blanket every screen with the faces and names of those Israelis, cable networks scrambling to interview grieving families. The White House and other Western officials would then defend Israel’s vengeful massacres as “self-defense.”

The above is not hypothetical; we’ve watched it play out, time and again.

However, since the killers are Israeli-Jews, and Palestinians are the victims, then “restrain” and “de-escalation” become Washington’s and EU’s sage policy. The European Nazi Jewish-Holocaust would be religiously invoked, ritualistically and unfailingly—as to temper criticism of Israel’s massacres and genocide of non-Jews.

The fiction of ceasefire is amplified when examining Israel’s covert war in the occupied West Bank. According to reports, the Israeli army and Jewish-mobs have carried out 2,350 attacks in the month of October alone. Human rights organizations have documented a wave of war crimes: Israeli extrajudicial execution of young men at point-blank range, farmers harvesting olives attacked by armed Jewish-mobs, refugee camps are besieged, demolished, emptied and bombed from land and air.

A new 105-page Human Rights Watch field report, “All My Dreams Have Been Erased,” exposed chilling patterns of mass displacement and destruction. 32,000 Palestinian residents of Jenin, and Nur Shams refugee camps have been forcibly displaced and barred from returning to their homes. Hundreds of homes were blown-up and entire neighborhoods erased.

Since October 7, 2023, the Israeli military and armed Jewish-thugs have murdered more than 1,000 Palestinians in the West Bank. Administrative detention (jailed without charge) has surged, land expropriation and the building of Jewish-only colonies have accelerated, freed prisoners re-arrested, and torture of detainees has increased.

For Israel, the ceasefire is a tactical pause, not binding obligations. It curbs Palestinian resistance while permits Israel to violate it with impunity. It serves as an opportunity to ease global outrage, deflect criticism, and give Arab mediators a face-saving role, all while Israel’s war continues unhindered. Arab mediators, eager to please Washington and unwilling to confront Israel, maintain the fiction of a functioning ceasefire while ignoring the everyday Palestinian funerals.

Diplomacy has become a theater, and Palestinians are casualties in a daily live performance. This is not necessarily a breakdown of a ceasefire but rather a fulfillment of its intended purpose. It was devised to keep Palestinian suffering under the radar screen, and whitewash Israeli violations as “little skirmishes.”

Donald Trump, insulated within an Israel-first-bubble, pushed for the ceasefire not to end the starvation in Gaza. Instead, it was a political lifeline designed to rescue Israel from a growing isolation. It wasn’t meant to end the genocide; it was to shield Israel from mounting European pressure and to stop the EU from advancing sanctions against Israel.

A ceasefire that allows Israel to murder unnoticed, is not a ceasefire: it is a tool to fool. It is a managed apartheid killing field normalized by world powers. For Trump’s Israel-first-bubble, the ceasefire is “holding” so long as only non-Israeli Jews are murdered.

The post Ceasefire “Holding” so Long as Only Non-Israeli-Jews are Murdered appeared first on CounterPunch.org.