Thoughts Following a Ceasefire

A bunch of thoughts have been running around in my head ever since the ceasefire announcement yesterday…

My first thought is that I’m worried – I’m really worried what is going to happen to the people in Gaza and the West Bank. Their situation is perilous. We are watching a whole society teetering on the brink… Or perhaps, a better metaphor would be to say: walking a tightrope across the abyss.

Yes, a ceasefire has been announced, and it’s no doubt a welcome pause in the genocide, but how should we trust the Israeli entity that has already spent $40 billion on its Gaza massacre? Or the US one that has spent $22 billion providing Israel with military aid?

As the poet Refaat Alareer wrote: “Ceasefire? What usually happens in occupied Palestine is that Palestinians cease, and Israel fires.” Language is constantly being weaponised against Palestinians and their only option is to painstakingly deconstruct it and turn it on its head. The word ‘ceasefire’ corresponds to a war situation. It’s not relevant to a genocide by colonisers.

As we all know, Refaat was killed by the occupying entity. Before he died, he made an online threat to throw a whiteboard marker pen at any intruder who came through his door (he was a teacher).

Today, what we see in Gaza is the Al-Rashid Al-Sahli coastal highway once more full of Palestinians returning northwards to Gaza City. For anyone who has been watching events, the scenes provoke an uncomfortable sense of deja vu. Palestinians have been here before, only 10 months ago… And subsequently we have watched the result of this return: many thousands of lives lost during the past months.

For anyone communicating with Palestinians, the sense of exhaustion in those messages is palpable. Pleas for help and money come every day. With nearly all means of support removed by the occupying entity, persecuted Gazans find their only hope in the net of support cast by citizens around the world.

The global movement of solidarity with Palestinians is remarkable and has generated fear in western governments. Why else does the UK government outlaw protest against genocide? Why else does the Trump administration try to deport academics who protest the genocide? This global movement will be a powerful support in bringing justice for Palestinians – a justice which is long overdue.

Writing my books about Gaza during the past two years has brought me into contact with many Palestinians who I found very sincere and honest, despite all that they were suffering.

The facts of the matter are very clear: here are 2 million people who are being persecuted and killed in a prison camp. They have no place to escape to and nearly no resources on which to survive. They are now almost entirely dependent on outside aid which their persecutor Israel can block at a moment’s notice. The persecutor, with the aid of its allies, gaslights the world and lies about every heinous crime it commits.

We need to remain hopeful, and hope resides in exposing those crimes to the world every day. It also resides in creative acts such as those you can find on this marvellous web site. More than 1500 examples of them! Let’s pit our creativity against the acts of destruction and against the denialism of our western governments.

Jonathan Wonham (author of poetry books Ceasefire Now! and Dystopia Persecutia)