Reporting about the tentative Israel-Hamas ceasefire makes it clear that politics is just plain nuts to at least some people. There is way too much lying, demagoguery, crackpot reasoning and opacity to make sense of a lot of it, or to trust whatever the players are saying. Some commentators give most credit to Israel, some credit to Biden and a little credit to DJT. Biden claims all the credit. DJT claims all the credit. I don't know what Israel is claiming, but it probably isn't true. It is not clear if a ceasefire will last for the initial six weeks the deal proposes.
The reporting indicates that this deal is basically the same one that Biden claims to have proposed last May, about 8 months ago. Israel's agreement to the ceasefire now apparently was driven by a combination of humanitarian, political, military advances, and strategic considerations. The deal plans to get some hostages released, addresses the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and navigate the complex political landscape both domestically and internationally. As of January 15, 2025, the Gaza Health Ministry reported that at least 46,707 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza. This includes about 18,000 children. The deal proposes entry of about 600 humanitarian aid trucks daily, which is a substantial increase from previous ghastly restrictions. Last October, one source reported that the United Nations says Israel has blocked the entry of 83 percent of food aid into the Strip since the war began. It said about 50,000 children below the age of five would need urgent treatment for malnutrition by the end of 2024.
and we all know it
Repair cost estimates range from
$40 billion to $1 trillion
$50 billion as of May 2024
$80 billion, Aug. 2024
$1 trillion, Jan. 2025
From a realist-rationalist point of view, claiming "credit" for the ceasefire arguably is nonsense. "Blame" is a more accurate label. How can seeing blame possibly be realist or rational?
Well, if one looks at the decades of "peace talks" and what they have yielded, including the current war with its mass slaughter and vast infrastructure damage, the concept of a meaningful Israel-Palestine peace deal arguably is dead and gone, assuming there ever was one, which I now doubt. Some people have argued this point and many local people have the same opinion.
The entire situation can be reasonably seen as a failure by just about everyone significantly involved, if not everyone, including Iran, Russia and the US. One can blame Israel for not accepting the ceasefire 8 months ago and for not having arrived at a comprehensive peace many years ago. One can also blame the US for not forcing and maintaining a peace many years ago. US foreign policy was and still is a big, fat failure. Of course, one has to blame Hamas for starting the current horror by slaughtering about 1,200 Israeli civilians. And, one can rationally blame Israel for genocide and the US for complicity in it. So exactly what is there to take credit for in this bloody catastrophe? The 18,000 dead children? No one wants credit for that, so that inconvenient fact gets conveniently ignored or cynically downplayed.
Of course, lots of people vehemently reject the accusation of genocide by Israel, some claiming that they personally have seen genocide and Gaza isn't it. The reasoning there is that Israel has the right to self-defense and dead civilians are regrettable collateral damage. Tell that to the dead 18,000 collateral damage children. When one reads international law on genocide, Israel literally fits the description of bad acts needed for genocide. The International Court of Justice said so. But as we all know, the genocide argument will never be settled. The bickering will be endless. There probably will never be significant repercussions for anyone responsible.
So, when one hears Biden claiming credit, one has to wonder how far his senility has progressed. Or, is this ceasefire something worth fighting for credit over? Who gets credit or blame for what?
International genocide law defines genocide as the deliberate and systematic extermination of a group. It includes acts such as:
- Killing members of the group
- Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
- Deliberately inflicting conditions of life that bring about the group's physical destruction
- Imposing measures to prevent births within the group
- Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
Elements of genocide
- The perpetrator intended to destroy the group
- The perpetrator inflicted conditions of life that were calculated to bring about the group's physical destruction
- The perpetrator's conduct was part of a pattern of similar conduct against the group
