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WILL THE CEASEFIRE BRING AN END TO THE ISRAEL-GAZA WAR

Writer's picture: Mike Lyons Mike Lyons

Ceasefire


A ceasefire took effect on Sunday 19 January 2025 under which Hamas is to release 33 hostages during Phase-One while Israel has agreed to release some 1,900 Palestinians from Israeli jails. On that Sunday, three Israeli women, Romi Gonen, Emily Damari and Doron Steinbrecher were set free after being held hostage in Gaza for 471 days. Israel released 90 Palestinian prisoners. These were the first of several exchanges to take place during Phase-One of the six week ceasefire[i]. Four more hostages, Liri Albag, Daniella Gilboa, Karina Ariev and Naama Levy were released on 25 January. The remaining 26 are to be released over the next five weeks. During each exchange, Palestinian prisoners will also be released by Israel.


The ceasefire is to take place over three phases. The first will last for 42 days. Negotiations for the second phase are intended to begin after the first two weeks of Phase-One.


The Lead Up


The Sydney Opera House was illuminated in the colours of the Israeli flag following the attack by Hamas on Israeli civilians who were raped, burned alive, shot and decapitated on October 7. However, protesters massed at the Sydney Operate House flying Palestinian flags and chanting “F . .k the Jews” and “Gas the Jews”. Dozens of the protesters should have been arrested and charged. No one was. It was Sydney’s night of shame.


By the end of 2024, Israel had eliminated Hamas’ military capability and killed its leader, Yahya Sinwar. A recent BBC podcast suggested that one could destroy Hamas militarily but you could not destroy its ideology. The Nazis were destroyed during World War II with the loss of millions of lives but the Nazi ideology did not live on (with the possible exception of some cells, including in Australia). The German people showed themselves to be human after all, and they are.


On 20 January 2025 Ittay Flescher wrote that of all the factors that make peace impossible, perhaps the greatest is “dehumanisation” as a result of which most believe that the other side does not want peace but wants their opponents dead. To achieve peace Flescher suggests turning to Rabbi Hillel who taught: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour". Palestinian Muslims and Christians could embrace the Hadith of the Prophet Mohammad: “None of you truly believes until you wish for others what you wish for yourself.”  Was this all just “wishful thinking ?”


Israel disabled much of Hezbollah’s operatives, destroyed its command structure and killed its leader, Hassan Nasrallah. Iran fired 180 missiles into Israel causing only limited damage. Israel retaliated successfully striking Iranian targets including its anti-aircraft systems and a nuclear-weapons research facility. In late January, Al Jazeera reported that following the Israel/Gaza ceasefire, Yemen’s Houthis would limit their attacks on commercial vehicles to Israel-linked ships. A Houthi spokesperson has told Al Jazeera that the group would halt its military operations against Israel as well as commercial ships in the Red See if the truce came into force on Sunday (which it did).


Benjamin Netanyahu


In late December 2024, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was triumphant referring to how Israel’s campaign has changed the Middle East. Since the October 7 attack, Israel had roared back, crushing Hamas and defanging Hezbollah. However, the story is also one of loss for Israel. More than 800 Israeli soldiers have been killed. For a small country like Israel, that is a profound loss.


Netanyahu blasted the Australian Labor government for supporting pro-Palestinian resolutions at the United Nations, referring to its anti-Israel position. Australian Jewish leaders have accused Australia’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Penny Wong, of waging an obsessive campaign against Israel.


Protecting Civilians


Despite never-ending allegations of “genocide” by the Israeli army:


  1. The Israeli army took over the Lebanese television station to warn Lebanese civilians to evacuate their homes before Israel struck and wiped out most of Hezbollah’s ballistic missile stockpiles.


  2. Retired Col Richard Kemp (who had commanded Britain’s forces in Afghanistan) said, “None of us is aware of any army that takes such extensive measures as did the IDF last summer to protect the lives of the civilian population”. He was challenged about the number of Palestinian casualties. He replied saying it was the Hamas strategy to position its fighters in civilian areas, knowing that Israel would have no choice and that civilian casualties would result [ii].


  3. Brendan O’Neill wrote that criminalizing a state for fighting back against a terrorist army that raped, tortured and butchered more than 1,200 Israeli citizens would send a chilling message to every nation: “Defend yourself at your peril”. It is a war which Hamas started with its atrocities. Hamas was founded with the express intention of killing Jews. Muslims should “fight Jews and kill them” according to its 1988 charter. After October 7, a Hamas leader warned, “We will do this again and again” [iii].


So much for “Genocide”!


Will the Gaza Ceasefire Hold? [iv]


The ceasefire deal will initially stop the fighting for 42 days. Israel will withdraw from Gaza’s most populated regions and allow aid convoys to enter. During that period, Hamas will release 33 hostages and Israel will release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Will the deal move past Phase-One towards a permanent peace? There are some in Israel who want to see the war prosecuted indefinitely. On the Palestinian side there are those who want revenge. In the Arab world there is a sense that the US aided, abetted and armed a genocide against the Palestinian people. The agreement is fragile.


Could there be an effort to restore the Palestinian Authority in Gaza? However, the PA is a shell of its former self and lacks legitimacy. Hamas remains the only organisation with the capacity to control things in Gaza but there is no way Israel will allow Hamas any kind of formal participation. Nevertheless, Hamas will need to be dealt with in any move to Phase-Two which is one of the reasons why, according to Marc Lynch, the ceasefire seems unlikely to yield a durable peace.


As to the possibility of a two-state solution, Lynch believes the answer is “Absolutely not”. To him, Israel and the Palestinian territories constitute one state and that reality is now even more obvious. The war has only strengthened the one-state paradigm.


Stamping Out Antisemitism In Australia


While no Arab Muslim country in the Middle East will accept their brethren in Gaza as refugees, the Australian Labor Government has brought in thousands from Gaza with minimal screening and although there has never been a sovereign state of Palestine, the Australian government actively supports the creation of a Palestinian State [v].


Australia’s former Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg declared that the government’s handling of anti-Semitism would be an election issue, saying that the Australian Prime Minister had vacated the space on anti-Semitism and failed to follow the leadership of his predecessors, Bob Hawke and Julia Gillard.


Opposition Leader Peter Dutton recently announced that under his future leadership, new provisions would criminalise threats of violence against places of worship. His government would introduce a six-year minimum sentence for terrorism offences including the firebombing of synagogues and a minimum one-year sentence for displays of prohibited hate symbols. Dutton also committed to provide the resources and legislation to stamp out anti-Semitism in Australia, describing the October 7 attacks as “The most significant and horrific attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust” [vi]. [The Crimes Act 1900 (NSW) was amended following the 2005 Cronulla riots to provide for imprisonment for five years for assault, and seven years where the assault occasions actual bodily harm. Those provisions apply in New South Wales but not at the Federal level.]


Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese responded, “What I’ll continue to do and what people are looking for when it comes to anti-Semitism is to unite against abhorrent instances”. Having dismissed calls for a national cabinet meeting, Albanese abruptly changed his mind and convened such a meeting, but only after the firebombing of a childcare centre in Maroubra which was also vandalised with the words “f. . k the Jews”. There were 13 major anti-Semitic incidents in New South Wales over the previous 16 days including fire-bombings, arson attacks, and targeting of synagogues, restaurants, private homes and vehicles.


Dutton described the surge of anti-Semitic attacks as a “national crisis” saying “We are having rolling terrorist attacks in our community, and the Prime Minister is being dragged kicking and screaming to hold a meeting of our nation’s leaders”. The national cabinet eventually met but, it was just another “wet lettuce leaf” event, even after the ASIO director-Gen, Mike Burgess had said there were neo-Nazi cells in Australia and what they were prepared to do was of “grave concern to [ASIO] and should be of grave concern to all Australians" [vii].


Peter Jennings (Director of Strategic Analysis Australia) remarked that the national cabinet meeting showed the repeated failure of the Albanese government to get ahead of the anti-Semitic tide sweeping Australia. He was finally pushed into a meeting, yet the only outcome was an agreement “to establish a national database to track anti-Semitic crime and other anti-Semitic incidents and behaviors".


On 21 January, a man was sentenced to a custodial sentence for firebombing attacks at two Bondi businesses one of which was a Jewish kosher deli. The sentence included 10 months for destroying property. The New South Wales Premier Minns reacted, “That offence carries a 10 year jail sentence and the individual was handed a 10 month sentence! The NSW Police are appealing the sentence”.


The nation’s police chiefs have finally united to establish a cross-nation task force to fight anti-Semitism. There has been a significant increase in the number of investigations, arrests, detentions and charges.


International Remembrance Day


With International Holocaust Remembrance Day falling on 27 January (commemorating the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz), the UN rights chief said that anti-Semitism was rampant and that Remembrance Day was a wake-up call to the dangers of indifference, complacency and apathy, and a reminder of the duty to stand against intolerance. The Albanese the government has appointed Penny Wong to attend together with Attorney-Gen Mark Dreyfus (whose father fled Nazi Germany and whose great-grandparents were killed in the Holocaust).


A petition calling for Wong to be replaced was signed by thousands of petitioners complaining that she had not shown the level of understanding, empathy or compassion that the Jewish community expects and deserves. Peter Dutton who supported the petition said Wong is “the most inappropriate person” to represent the country because of her stance in the Gaza war. The petition fell on deaf ears [viii].


A Strong Israeli Government


Gemma Tognini recently returned from a visit to Israel. After referring to the attack at the Lindt Café in Martin Place, Sydney in 2014 she remarked “In Israel, they live this multiple times a week".  She understood why the Israelis nevertheless feel safe, saying “It’s about strength in their government’s position. Heaven forbid if Australia were under attack, our federal government would be under the cabinet table clutching a blanky”.  She added that the government’s actions were marked by “appeasement and weakness” and “The Albanese government lacks strength, which is no surprise when you consider that to act on conviction, you actually need to have it" [ix].


AUDI ALTERAM PARTEM – HEAR THE OTHER SIDE

___________________________


[i]   CBS News, Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal begins, 20 January 2025

[ii]   Impossible Thanks Longer, by Daniel Gordis, published 2023

[iii] Penny Wong snubs Israel in its darkest hour of need, The Australian 30 November 2024

[iv] Will the Gaza Ceasefire Last? Marc Lynch, Prof political science at George Washington University and director of

       its Middle East Studies program – Foreign Affairs, 17 January 2025

[v] The Spectator, 18 January 2025

[vi]  [Mandatory jail for terror acts, National Cabinet on anti-Semitism under Coalition, The Australian 20 January 2025

[vii] Multiple reports, The Australian, 21-24 January 2025

[viii] ABC News 24 January 2025

[ix]  As missiles rained down over Tel Aviv, I felt as if time stood still, Gemma Tognini, The Australian 12 January 2025

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