After rejecting previous offers, Israel finally agreed to a ceasefire with Hamas, figuring it had killed enough Palestinian civilians. Yet, does the belated move betray an admission of defeat?
First they came for the children, the adults, the schools, and the hospitals
After slaughtering 248 people, including 66 children, and wounding 1,900, the Zionist regime finally agreed to a ceasefire on May 21. Until then, it had displaced 72,000 civilians and damaged 16,800 housing units (of which 1,800 had become unfit for living and 1,000 were completely destroyed), 51 schools and educational facilities, six hospitals, and 11 primary health centers, including Gaza’s only Covid-19 testing laboratory.Such cruelty was shocking but expected. Like its imperial mentor the US, the Israeli regime often initiates such violence to distract public attention from domestic problems. And few needed the distraction more than its embattled leader Benjamin Netanyahu, currently on trial for corruption. Zionist leaders see slaughtering Palestinians as a low-cost technique to try to bolster their popularity. Israeli voters remain divided over which figurehead to choose to bomb Palestinians; four elections in two years have failed to produce a decisive result.
The tactic isn’t always successful, though. The unconditional ceasefire is an embarrassing change of heart for the regime, after it had already rejected previous ceasefire offers.
A probable reason is that Hamas proved to be more resilient than Israel had expected or bargained for. Despite killing 248 people in Gaza and flattening whole neighborhoods, it still wasn’t winning. It failed to stop rocket attacks, while its arsenal of costly Iron Dome interceptors was getting depleted.
So was international goodwill. The UN Security Council was united in its desire to issue statements condemning Israel, save for one member, the United States, which blocked three attempts in just one week. Global public solidarity, including surprisingly in America, stood largely with the Palestinians being bombed. Israeli civilians were also increasingly sick of the violence; the mayor of Lod openly declared that “civil war has broken out” and said he had “lost control of the city.”
Even some US politicians started speaking out, especially controlled-opposition puppets such as Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. While little more than a meaningless exercise in wokeness to appease their young liberal voter base, the criticism still came as a shock. The regime is not used to even such performative opposition, given its overwhelming influence over the US Congress and media. Anything short of uncritical support was a huge setback. When once expressing even the slightest sympathy for slain Palestinians (even children) was scandalous, today it’s becoming increasingly accepted in US society and politics.
Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory
The grudging acceptance of a unilateral ceasefire represents a significant humiliation for the Zionist regime. It claims to have one of the world’s most advanced militaries, and still had to capitulate in front of a resistance force it considers militarily inferior. And despite also boasting of one of the world’s strongest propaganda networks, its defeat in the PR battlefield was even worse than in the actual battlefield.Admitting anything short of absolute victory, however, would’ve been unthinkable. For decades, Israel has strived hard to create an aura of military invincibility. Yet, while this propaganda was once actually backed by (US-aided) Israeli victories on the ground against much weaker enemies, it is today pushing up against recent debacles – as well as the reluctance of Israeli soldiers to risk death to appease their political masters.
The Israel ‘Defense’ Forces, or IDF, are a vital source of national pride for Israeli people – and an even more vital source of legitimacy for the Israeli regime. It cannot afford to be seen to lose a single war, even when it actually loses. In the pro-Israel media and academia, Israeli atrocities are often whitewashed by euphemistically referring to the situation as “complicated” or saying “both sides are at fault.” Similarly, Israeli defeats and failures are often glossed over with phrases like “both sides claim victory” or “stalemate.”
Or, occasionally, “ceasefire.”
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