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palestine
The Cease-Fire Won’t Put an End to Palestinian Oppression
Early signs already indicate that the second Trump administration will, at the very least, further enable illegal Israeli expansion, especially upon the occupied West Bank.
Jan 16, 2025
Until recently, the American-funded Israeli genocide of Palestinians unsurprisingly continued without a stop in sight. On January 13, 2025, Israeli attacks assassinated at least 45 Gazans. Shortly after these attacks, however, a cease-fire and hostage deal (reportedly split into three phases) was confirmed on January 15, 2025. Importantly, Steven Witkoff, selected by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to be his special envoy in the Middle East, has forced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a cease-fire and hostage plan in two months, existing in stark contrast with the Biden administration’s incompetent (and frankly cruel) inability to pressure Netanyahu into accepting a plan over the past year.
Nevertheless, even though the incoming Trump administration secured a cease-fire and hostage deal, it’s impossible to truly know what will come next. Trump is notoriously unpredictable. According to recent estimates from Gaza’s Health Ministry, at least 45,000 Palestinians have been slaughtered since October 7, 2023. In the days leading up to his presidential inauguration, many around the United States and the world at large are uncertain about how Trump will treat Israel’s ongoing genocide and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a whole. To help answer these questions, I interviewed a variety of scholars.
First, it’s important to assess Trump’s impact on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during his first term. On the one hand, Trump perpetually enabled Israeli expansionism. “Trump recognized Israel’s illegal annexation of Jerusalem, [and] he recognized Israel’s illegal annexation of the Golan Heights,” political scientist Norman Finkelstein told me. Further, the two-state proposal that Trump disclosed in 2020 radically reversed the policy of his predecessors by allowing Israel to annex the Jordan Valley and the vast majority of illegal settlements in the West Bank, while merely allotting 15% of historic Palestine toward a Palestinian state. Trump’s first administration simply didn’t value Palestinian sovereignty, a sentiment shared by the Biden administration. “Biden could have reversed [Trump’s] decisions, but elected not to,” Finkelstein further explained to me. The Biden administration’s encouragement of Israel’s genocide are simply an outgrowth of Trump’s previous policies, which approved of Israeli expansionism.
Although criticizing Liz Cheney and other members of Washington’s war machine, Trump remains perpetually ignorant of his own hawkish behavior.
On the other hand, Trump partly abandoned the Palestinian issue during his first term. “Trump (or more precisely, Kushner and others) tried to sideline the Palestinian issue completely and to focus on promoting normalization between Israel, the Gulf States, and Saudi Arabia instead,” international relations scholar Stephen Walt told me. After feeling deserted by the Trump administration, many Palestinians, according to Walt, came to believe that they “had no options other than violence.” Since the Biden administration continued Trump’s policies of abandonment, “October 7 was the result.”
While Finkelstein and Walt highlight the negative consequences of Trump’s policies toward Israel, famed Israeli revisionist historian Benny Morris views Trump’s previous actions differently. “[Trump] recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, which previous U.S. presidents should have done, but apart from giving Israelis a good feeling, it had no impact on the conflict,” Morris told me. Nevertheless, by arguing that Trump was right to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and that previous American presidents “should have,” Morris explicitly acknowledges and approves of the Israeli expansionism that Trump fomented, undermining Morris’ credibility to speak on behalf of whether or not the Palestinians perceived Trump’s actions to be escalatory.
Early signs already indicate that the second Trump administration will, at the very least, further enable illegal Israeli expansion, especially upon the occupied West Bank. Two of Trump’s key appointees, Pete Hegseth (Defense Department) and Mike Huckabee (ambassador to Israel), dismiss a two-state solution. Further, Huckabee habitually denies Palestinian existence itself, identifies the West Bank as “Judea and Samaria,” and believes that the entirety of the West Bank belongs to Israel. David Friedman, who remains a close associate with Trump and was U.S. ambassador to Israel under his first administration, recently wrote a book arguing for a single Jewish state, which would include the West Bank and likely Gaza. Understanding that a second Trump presidency enables further Israeli expansionism, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich stated that “now is the time” to seek sovereignty over the settlements in the West Bank.
It’s entirely likely that the second Trump administration will encourage Israeli expansion over the West Bank to a degree that would guarantee the prevention of an independent Palestinian state from emerging. Former Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) representative Sari Nusseibeh, previously one of the most visible Palestinian peace activists advocating for a two-state solution, maintains, “Under Trump, Israel’s policy will be the geographic and political dismemberment of the embryonic Palestinian state, bringing all this under a hegemonic Israeli authority, with total disregard to international opinion.”
Although a cease-fire and hostage deal has been achieved, Trump promised Netanyahu that his administration would maintain support for Israel even if it violated the agreement, according to a recent report. While a cease-fire was previously reached between Israel and Lebanon, Israel has continued air striking southern and eastern Lebanon. Neither the Trump nor Biden administration has punished Israel, and it’s unlikely that they will. Recently, Hegseth expressed his support for Israel to kill “every last member of Hamas.” In practicality, this entails that high-ranking members of the Trump administration approve of Israel intensifying its indiscriminate assault on Gaza. In addition to the possibility of “the elimination of Gaza as a Palestinian entity and the continuing [encroachment] on the West Bank and its absorption into the state of Israel,” it’s very likely that there will be “more killing and ethnic cleansing” under the second Trump administration, cultural studies scholar Iain Chambers told me. Such wariness regarding the possible perpetuation of genocide and Israeli expansionism under a second Trump administration is also shared by Walt: “The genocide/ethnic cleansing will continue, and I think it is likely that Israel will annex the West Bank (and perhaps portions of Syria and Lebanon).”
Although the future is never entirely given, it’s possible to gauge how the second Trump administration will treat Israel. Based on Trump’s disastrous actions toward Palestinians (during his first term and now), it’s plausible to assume that the second Trump administration will sharply enable Israeli expansionism at the very least, although the simultaneous escalation of Israel’s genocide is also a likely option. Although criticizing Liz Cheney and other members of Washington’s war machine, Trump remains perpetually ignorant of his own hawkish behavior. While hopelessness may ensue upon the realization that the second Trump administration will have disastrous consequences for Palestinian livelihood, one must resist feeling discouraged. Perpetual, collective political action still remains the only viable form of resistance to Washington’s endless support of oppression.
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Rights and Relief Groups Welcome 'Long Overdue' Gaza Cease-Fire Deal
"Continued pressure is needed to ensure the terms of the deal are followed and push for a long-term political solution that brings an end to forced displacement, occupation, and apartheid in Palestine," said one group.
Jan 15, 2025
While welcoming government mediators' Wednesday announcement that Hamas and Israel agreed to release captives and cease fighting in the Gaza Strip, human rights advocates, humanitarian groups, and United Nations leaders also renewed calls for accountability and an influx of aid to the besieged Palestinian enclave.
The three-phase agreement—negotiated by Egypt, Qatar, and the outgoing Biden and incoming Trump administrations—comes after a 15-month, U.S.-backed Israeli assault that has killed at least 46,707 people in Gaza and injured 110,265. Experts warn the true death toll since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack is likely far higher.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the subject of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant, said that the final details are still being sorted out, but several organizations and leaders around the world framed the "long overdue" deal—set to take effect Sunday—as progress and issued clear calls about what should come next.
"Our most urgent call is for immediate and unhindered access to humanitarian aid and support, ensuring that vital resources and medical assistance can reach those in dire need."
"After so much devastation and death, we celebrate this cease-fire deal even as it comes far too late," said the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), which has supported humanitarian efforts in Gaza since 1948. "We urge those in power to abide by the terms of the deal and their obligations under international law."
Noting that "in Lebanon, Israel has violated the cease-fire terms approximately a hundred times without consequence," AFSC stressed that "continued pressure is needed to ensure the terms of the deal are followed and push for a long-term political solution that brings an end to forced displacement, occupation, and apartheid in Palestine."
"As a U.S.-based Quaker organization we want in particular to hold our own government accountable," AFSC added. "We need an embargo on U.S. arms sales to Israel in order to deter future atrocities. Genocide on this scale would not have been possible without billions of dollars in U.S. military funding, and the Biden administration could have forced a cease-fire at any time over the past 15 months."
Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for slaughtering tens of thousands of Palestinians, decimating Gaza's civilian infrastructure, and significantly limiting the flow of necessities including food into the enclave. AFSC said that "it is imperative that the cease-fire brings a measure of relief and a surge of lifesaving humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza."
Many other groups also demanded a flood of aid, including the International Rescue Committee, which has had teams on the ground in Gaza. Calling the cease-fire "essential and overdue," IRC president and CEO David Miliband said that "we are determined to expand our scale and impact as conditions allow. The scars of this war will be long-lasting, but a surge of aid is desperately needed to provide immediate relief to civilians. This will take flexible funding and the free flow of aid and aid workers."
Refugees International explained that "the deal, while a start, does not go far enough in outlining the explicit protections Israel and Hamas are obligated to provide Palestinian civilians. We are particularly concerned that the agreement ties the delivery of humanitarian aid and civilian protections—which are obligations under international law—to both sides' compliance with prisoner exchanges."
"Every cease-fire attempt between Israel and Hamas has ended in violations, and this should not be permitted to again imperil humanitarian action," the group said. "Humanitarian aid is a right under international law, not a bargaining tool. Humanitarian access must be ensured under any scenario, and the Israeli government must allow unimpeded humanitarian aid and access into all parts of Gaza, through all functional border crossings."
Sally Abi Khalil, Oxfam's regional director in the Middle East and North Africa, similarly said that during the initial phase, "our most urgent call is for immediate and unhindered access to humanitarian aid and support, ensuring that vital resources and medical assistance can reach those in dire need. The opening of all crossings for aid deliveries is vital. Israel must allow the unhindered flow of aid and restore commercial activity to reach every corner of the besieged enclave to avert famine."
"Israel has waged terrible collective punishment upon Palestinians in Gaza including crimes against humanity—using food and water as weapons of war, forcibly displacing virtually the entire population, besieging North Gaza, and rendering Gaza virtually unlivable," the Oxfam leader added. "Thousands of Palestinians have been unlawfully detained and tortured without due process. These actions must not go unanswered—international law and norms must be applied universally, including to Israel, who must be held to account for its war crimes, to ensure justice for victims and deter future violations."
Dr. Zaher Sahloul, president and co-founder of MedGlobal, which has provided medical care in Gaza, pointed out that detainees in Israeli custody include doctors who attempted to care for war victims as Israel laid to waste the strip's healthcare system.
"This cease-fire is cause for celebration, even as we know that it was needed many months ago, and that far too many have been killed, maimed, and rendered homeless or bereft of their family," said Sahloul. "We cannot forget that many Palestinian healthcare workers, including Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya and six other MedGlobal colleagues, remain unjustly detained and imprisoned by Israel. These medical personnel must be immediately released, and the safety and neutrality of healthcare providers and facilities must be guaranteed—as required by international humanitarian law."
"To promote true peace, prevent further suffering, and to help the people of Gaza recover from their terrible ordeal, all phases of this cease-fire must be fully carried out to bring a definitive and lasting end to the war," the doctor added. "The United States and the entire international community must commit to a massive program of aid and rebuilding in Gaza."
Welcoming the agreement and commending the mediators, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said that "the United Nations stands ready to support the implementation of this deal and scale up the delivery of sustained humanitarian relief to the countless Palestinians who continue to suffer. It is imperative that this cease-fire removes the significant security and political obstacles to delivering aid across Gaza."
"I urge the parties and all relevant partners to seize this opportunity to establish a credible political path to a better future for Palestinians, Israelis, and the broader region," Guterres continued. "Ending the occupation and achieving a negotiated two-state solution, with Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace and security, in line with international law, relevant U.N. resolutions, and previous agreements, remain an urgent priority."
Other U.N. leaders echoed his remarks, including United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Executive Director Catherine Russell, who noted that "the war has exacted a horrific toll on Gaza's children—reportedly leaving at least 14,500 dead, thousands more injured, an estimated 17,000 unaccompanied or separated from their parents, and nearly 1 million displaced from their homes."
"The cease-fire must, finally, afford humanitarian actors the opportunity to safely roll out the massive response inside the Gaza Strip that is so desperately needed," she said. "This includes unimpeded access to reach all children and families with essential food and nutrition, healthcare and psychosocial support, clean water, and sanitation, education, and learning, as well as cash assistance and the resumption of commercial trucking operations."
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk also emphasized that "food, water, medicine, shelter, and protection are the top priorities. We have no time to lose."
"Those responsible for the heinous acts of October 7, the subsequent unlawful killings of civilians across Gaza, and for all other crimes under international law must be held to account," Türk added. "The right of victims to full reparations must be upheld. There is no true way forward without honest truth-telling and accountability on all sides."
Some organizations, like AFSC, called out their governments for enabling the devastating Israeli assault. As the United Kingdom's prime minister, Keir Starmer, addressed the deal in a lengthy statement, Tim Bierley, Gaza campaign manager at Global Justice Now, said that "far from using its position to help end the bloodshed, the U.K. has provided Israel with weapons and diplomatic cover throughout its attacks, even seeking to deepen trade ties with the country amid daily massacres."
"While the U.K.'s role in this atrocity cannot be reversed, Keir Starmer's government must now work with other countries to prevent further violence, seek justice for Palestinians, and address the root cause of the conflict: Israel's occupation of Palestinian land," he argued. "This means pulling every lever necessary to end the occupation, including suspending the U.K.'s cozy trade relationship with Israel which serves to prop up the illegal occupation, supporting international measures to hold Israel's leaders to account, and suspending all remaining arms sales to Israel."
U.S. campaigners also urged their government to cut off weapons to Israel. Jewish Voice for Peace said that "as Americans, we understand that the Israeli genocide has been carried out with U.S. bombs, U.S. funds, and U.S.-facilitated impunity—we continue to demand a full weapons embargo now. We also demand an end to the complicity of corporations that profit from genocide."
"Left in the hands of the U.S. and Israeli governments, weapons manufacturers, and warmongering institutions, this fragile respite will not mean an end to Israeli genocide, or to the violent status quo of Israeli apartheid," the group warned. "Every day of the last 467 days, millions of people around the world have come together to demand an end to the genocide and Palestinian freedom. Together, we must ensure this agreement becomes a step on the path toward Palestinian liberation—the only way to achieve a just peace for all."
Some critics specifically took aim at outgoing President Joe Biden, who proposed a very similar cease-fire agreement back in May. The Democrat is set to leave office on Monday and, because Vice President Kamala Harris lost the November election, he will be replaced by Republican President-elect Donald Trump—who has been pushing for a Gaza cease-fire, or at least the appearance of one, before he returns to the White House for a second term.
"A recent YouGov poll found that 29% of nonvoters who supported Biden in 2020 cited ending Israel's violence in Gaza as the primary reason they chose not to vote for Kamala Harris," Uncommitted National Movement co-chairs Layla Elabed and Lexis Zeidan highlighted. "This underscores the Biden-Harris administration's failure to exert meaningful pressure on the Israeli government at critical moments when decisive action could have saved countless lives."
"We are also alarmed by reports that the Netanyahu government has allegedly struck deals with the Trump administration—promising settlement expansion, the curtailment of humanitarian aid, and an eventual return to Gaza military operations—in exchange for boosting Trump's image ahead of his inauguration," the pair added.
Center for International Policy president and CEO Nancy Okail said, "The fact that Netanyahu is finally accepting the deal mere days before his favored candidate in the recent U.S. presidential election will return to the Oval Office is confirmation of what Israeli, Arab, and even some U.S. officials involved in negotiations have been saying for months—that Netanyahu obstructed and delayed a cease-fire and hostage release to further his own personal political interests."
"Netanyahu's acquiescence to Donald Trump's insistence that a cease-fire be in place when he takes office next week ironically shows how effective actual pressure can be in changing Israeli government behavior," she continued.
"It will forever be part of the legacy of President Biden and his top foreign policy advisers that they not only provided diplomatic cover for and enabled Netanyahu's prolonging of this horrific war, but continued to arm Israeli atrocities against civilians in Gaza in clear violation of international and U.S. law," Okail added. "Thanks largely to his role in sustaining the carnage in Gaza, Biden hands over to Trump a foreign policy landscape in which international norms and U.S. credibility have been further eroded rather than strengthened."
Demand Progress senior policy adviser Cavan Kharrazian pledged that "as details emerge over the exact contours of the interim cease-fire agreement, we will continue to pressure Congress and the incoming administration to support a permanent, comprehensive end to this conflict—one that addresses its root causes, secures the release of all hostages, and paves the way towards a durable two-state solution that respects the rights, security, and dignity of all parties."
"Additionally, it is imperative to immediately begin the unimpeded delivery of critical humanitarian aid to Gaza and the restoration of full funding to UNRWA," Kharrazian said, referring to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. "We also continue to oppose the proposed
$8 billion arms sale to Israel and, while we support related efforts to negotiate for regional stability and peace, we strongly reject any plans for a defense treaty with Saudi Arabia."
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Report Says Biden's 'Empty Threats' on Gaza Fed Israeli Impunity
One Middle East expert said that it's "hard to avoid the conclusion" that the U.S. administration's ultimatums to Israel "have all just been a smokescreen."
Jan 15, 2025
New reporting published Wednesday details the impotence and insincerity of President Joe Biden's "multiple threats, warnings, and admonishments" to Israel as it annihilated the Gaza Strip, killing tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians while receiving tens of billions of dollars in U.S. arms and unwavering diplomatic support.
Writing for ProPublica, Brett Murphy showed how multiple "red lines" issued by Biden administration officials were ignored by Israel with impunity. Murphy highlighted Secretary of State Antony Blinken's October 2024 demand that Israel take "urgent and sustained actions" to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza—mainly by allowing far more aid into the embattled strip—within 30 days or face a military aid cutoff.
"Netanyahu's conclusion was that Biden doesn't have enough oomph to make him pay a price."
Thirty days came and went without significant improvement or letup in Israel's onslaught. Yet the Biden administration insisted it found no indication that Israel was using U.S.-supplied weapons illegally. The arms flow continued.
As Murphy reported:
That choice was immediately called into question. On November 14, a U.N. committee said that Israel's methods in Gaza, including its use of starvation as a weapon, was "consistent with genocide." Amnesty International went further and concluded a genocide was underway. The International Criminal Court also issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister for the war crime of deliberately starving civilians, among other allegations.
"Government officials worry Biden's record of empty threats have given the Israelis a sense of impunity," wrote Murphy.
This reporting is so utterly damning. www.propublica.org/article/bide...
[image or embed]
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes.bsky.social) January 15, 2025 at 1:55 PM
Ghaith al-Omari, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute, told Murphy that "Netanyahu's conclusion was that Biden doesn't have enough oomph to make him pay a price, so he was willing to ignore him."
"Part of it is that Netanyahu learned there is no cost to saying 'no' to the current president," al-Omari added.
Conversely, Murphy noted: "On Wednesday, after months of negotiations, Israel and Hamas reached a cease-fire deal. While it will become clear over the next days and months exactly what the contours of the agreement are, why it happened now, and who deserves the most credit, it's plausible that [U.S. President-elect Donald] Trump's imminent ascension to the White House was its own form of a red line."
"Early reports suggest the deal looks similar to what has been on the table for months," he added, "raising the possibility that if the Biden administration had followed through on its tough words, a deal could have been reached earlier, saving lives."
As Stephen Walt, a professor of international affairs at Harvard Kennedy School, told Murphy, "It's hard to avoid the conclusion that [Biden's] red lines have all just been a smokescreen."
"The Biden administration decided to be all-in and merely pretended that it was trying to do something," Walt added, as Israel kept killing Palestinians with U.S.-supplied weapons and continued a "complete siege" blamed for widespread starvation and sickness in the Gaza Strip.
Murphy wrote that Trump "will inherit a demoralized State Department" in which many officials who haven't already resignedhave "become disenchanted with the lofty ideas they thought they represented."
As one senior department official told Murphy, Gaza "is the human rights atrocity of our time."
"I work for the department that's responsible for this policy. I signed up for this," the official added. "I don't deserve sympathy for it."
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