After years of calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, a ceasefire was recently announced and…those calling for the ceasefire are upset about it. There are some valid reasons to hold off on celebrating, but I worry this represents a deeper issue with how we conceive of peace and how we study the Middle East. And this will only hurt the Palestinians these voices claim to champion.
The ceasefire
The ceasefire the Trump Administration negotiated—or pushed on Netanyahu, which may be more accurate—is supposed to be step one of a “20 point” peace plan. The immediate steps involve Israel withdrawing from part of the Gaza Strip and allowing in humanitarian aid, and Hamas releasing hostages. Hamas is then supposed to disarm, and the Gaza Strip will be redeveloped.
The content should be agreeable to both sides. Israel promises not to annex Gaza, an international force will work to stabilize Gaza and then transition to an “apolitical” Palestinian leadership. There’s even a mention of interfaith dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians.
Of course, it’s the practice that matters. There’s been a lack of enforcement of Israel’s commitments in the past. Israel has not been granted the security it needs as part of peace deals, contributing to their collapse. The Trump administration gutted the State Department, including its Middle East offices, complicating the detailed diplomacy needed to move the deal forward.
And the ceasefire is under strain. Israeli forces have come under attack by Hamas and other unnamed “terrorists.” Hamas has also been slow to release the bodies of all hostages. Israel, in turn, launched air strikes against Gaza and paused the promised resumption of aid. The recent Knesset vote on annexing the West Bank is (rightly) seen as a provocation.
It’s interesting how the arguments on the desirability of ceasefires have shifted.
But it’s a ceasefire. Palestinian in Gaza can move around relatively safely (more on that below). People are still dying, but at a much lower rate. And it creates a foundation and set of commitments for peace. Even if one side or the other breaks these commitments, the international community has something to hold them to.
The reaction to the ceasefire
So there’s reason for cautious optimism. You wouldn’t know that based on much of the discourse about Israel, however.
Think tanks generally gave the standard responses. The Council on Foreign Relations’ Steve Cook expressed skepticism that the ceasefire would develop into real peace, but gave a useful analysis of how this came together. The Cato Institute and the Center for American Progress both celebrated the deal, while decrying the US role in the conflict (for Cato) and calling on serious diplomacy to bring about peace (for CAP).
Outside of such outlets, the takeaway is that this ceasefire is immaterial or worse than continued fighting. The Nation rejected this as “only a brief ceasefire agreement.” The latest I could find from Jacobin was an interview with an anti-Zionist Knesset member. Although an article from earlier this year Jacobin rejected a ceasefire, arguing that “unless the root causes of Palestinian misery are dismantled” no peace deal will matter. A Middle East Eye op-ed dismissed the deal as “Oslo 2.0” and said that the real goal of any agreement should be “dismantling” the “Zionist national project and capitalism.” Scanning BlueSky, I see either outright attacks on the deal or posts on Israel’s cut-off of aid.
Beyond outright criticism of the deal, there’s also been a slant in reporting. The Middle East Eye has emphasized Israeli air strikes as a violation of ceasefire, discussing Hamas delays on its obligation at the bottom of the reporting without mentioning Hamas attacks. The Guardian pointed to criticism of the EU in delaying sanctions against Israel because of the ceasefire, while a timeline of the ceasefire from that paper only mentions Israeli actions.
Struggling for consistency
As I said, there’s plenty of reasons to be skeptical of the ceasefire and peace plan. But calls for a ceasefire began almost immediately after Israel began attacking the Gaza Strip. The goal was for Israel to stop fighting immediately, and all other considerations (like the fate of hostages or future security concerns) were secondary. US Senator Bernie Sanders, darling of the Left, was torn apart for not calling for an unconditional ceasefire a month after the October 7th attacks. I remember going to the Burlington, VT Christmas tree lighting with my family and getting swarmed by Boomer leftists who showed up to protest Sanders (scheduled to give a talk). If an immediate stop to the fighting was necessary then, why not now?
It’s interesting how the arguments have shifted. At the time, Israel and its supporters pushed back on a ceasefire because the issues involved in the war weren’t resolved. Hamas had the hostages, Hamas still represented a threat to Israel. Now, those pushing back on the ceasefire are doing so because they don’t trust Israel to follow through on its end of the deal, and the underlying issue—the occupation of the Gaza Strip, let alone any discussion of the West Bank—has not been addressed.
I thought Israel had a right to attack Hamas after October 7th to defend its people and prevent a future attack. I had concerns about how it was conducting this operation, however, in terms of both effectiveness (it wasn’t really implementing the counterinsurgency strategy needed to control Hamas) and its violations of international law.
But if we want to resolve this conflict we need to be able to talk about it consistently. That’s not happening.
And I’m honestly a little frustrated with the attacks on the ceasefire. Some of it seems to be a projection of broader anger at the Trump Administration. That’s justified, but it undermines the validity of criticisms if you can’t support something you’d praise when done by Biden (or a President Harris). But beyond that, it’s a little unclear what people are looking for. I know there are well-thought out arguments rejecting an imperfect deal as worse than no deal (Rashid Khalidi presents some of this in his recent book). But this isn’t even the peace deal being negotiated; this is a pause in the attacks on Gaza. There are hints in the Nation article I linked to that they want the fighting to continue until Israel is completely isolated. Is that the case? Is that really worth it?
And critics of the deal seem to be going out of their way to avoid talking about what Hamas has been doing. I don’t just mean the strikes on the IDF, which one could argue are still in the “fog of war” territory. I mean Hamas’ refusal to disarm, which is causing Arab states to be wary of engaging in a peace deal. And I mean Hamas’s brutality against Gaza’s population, which has resumed with the IDF’s withdrawal.
Confusions about peace, and Middle East Studies’ blinders
Some may not see a problem. Critics of Israel may be more interested in ensuring the Palestinian people are protected than conducting an objective analysis of the situation. Some may say reactions on BlueSky don’t matter (or as the motto used to go “Twitter isn’t real life”). But peace and justice for the Palestinians will only come through a peace deal with Israel, which will only come through real discourse on this issue.
I think part of the issue involves confusion over what peace is. I have criticized approaching peace as simply the cessation of fighting in the past. I still believe that, and am not going to celebrate this shaky ceasefire as peace. Instead, any peace must be a just peace that resolves underlying issues and produces what some call a thick recognition among combatants.
Most application of just peace to the Israel-Palestine conflict focus on the latter party. Just peace is used to criticize “peace deals” that provide security for Israel but nothing for the Palestinians. And that’s fair, but just peace properly defined should apply to both sides in a conflict. That’s why Sanders was right to push back on an immediate ceasefire; that would not have been a just peace.
Moreover it’s important to remember that justice and peace are not in competition. In this case, a short-term peace—the ceasefire—may be a prerequisite for justice.
Additionally, I think some of this has to do with the issues with Middle East Studies I’ve raised before. A “common wisdom” seems to take hold on certain issues, undermining analyses. I’m not about to write Ivory Towers on Sandpart 2, but it does keep popping up. Assumptions about Saudi-Iran tensions became ingrained in a manner that made it difficult to predict the outcome of tensions between those countries. while Middle East studies’ predisposition to oppose Trump’s Israel-Palestine deal-making led them to dismiss the Abraham Accords, which have been consequential.
I’m not asking people to support the peace deal, or cheer Trump and Netanyahu. It should be clear I’m doing none of that in this piece. But if we want to resolve this conflict we need to be able to talk about it consistently. That’s not happening.
But how can we take seriously anyone who says they seek just peace while also stating the goal of an agreement is “dismantling” the “Zionist national project”? If the only “peace” they will accept involves the dissolving of Israel, then what is there to talk about?