While jubilant scenes have marked the end of the fighting and the return of hostages and prisoners, the route to lasting peace in Gaza is far from certain.
Donald Trump, credited with achieving the breakthrough, has devised a 20 point peace-plan. Difficult issues remain, though, such as whether Hamas will disarm and how and by who Gaza will be governed. Such matters could reignite the conflict.
Will the peace in Gaza last? The i Paper’s experts offer their perspectives.
Ehud Olmert: ‘There is only one route to lasting peace’
When we put aside the rhetoric and inflated expectations what we have now is a very significant agreement to end the war in Gaza. President Trump deserves the credit for having what possibly no one before him had, which is the ability to order Benjamin Netanyahu to do what he wants.
But everyone understands that this is a very preliminary stage of what may turn out either to be a new direction or regrettably keep the same status quo that preceded the war, and which may return again if new peace initiatives are not undertaken.
There are many ideas, many plans. Some of them are completely extreme, reckless, irresponsible, crazy, unacceptable and undoable. One is the annexation of the territories of the West Bank and Gaza and for them to become an integral part of the state of Israel. The alternative which is advocated by the extreme factions on the Palestinian side is to carry on the war endlessly, which is equally crazy. There are some who believe that Israel can remain an occupier of the territories without providing the Palestinians what they deserve: self-determination.
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None of these are solutions. They are just a repetition of what was. In those past conditions Gaza was almost destroyed and an exorbitant number of people killed. The only solution is two states.If Trump will have the courage, the interest, the perseverance to push forward, peace stands a chance. If he will not, the ceremony in the Knesset today will be remembered as a theatrical burlesque that everyone would prefer to forget.
Ehud Olmert is a former Prime Minister of Israel
Baroness Hussein-Ece: ‘Peace without justice rings hollow’
With enormous relief we must welcome this long overdue ceasefire and fragile peace plan, the release of all Israeli hostages and many Palestinians prisoners, including children held in detention, many without trial or charges. According to senior American officials this deal is virtually the same as a deal that was in front of Biden a year ago. It took President Trump to get it done.While there are celebrations in Tel Aviv at the release of their loved ones, there’s not much joy for many Palestinians after two years of death and destruction. There are thousands of orphaned and traumatised children who need help.
Many families have lost everything trying to survive amid airstrikes and displacements. Humanitarian aid is now set to resume, while mediators from Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey have pledged that this truce signals a “permanent end” to the war. Let’s hope so.
The Palestinian Authority want the “establishment of mechanisms that protect the Palestinian people, ensure respect for the ceasefire and security for both parties, prevent the annexation of land”.
We can’t lose sight of the fact that UN experts, genocide scholars, including Israel’s own B’Tselem, have described this as a genocide: over 67,000 Palestinians killed, a third of them children, and more than 90 per cent of homes reduced to dust. Peace without justice will ring hollow for millions around the world.
Baroness Hussein-Ece is a Liberal Democrat peer
Donald Trump at the Knesset in Jerusalem (Photo: Reuters)Professor Yossi Mekelberg: ‘There’s little hope unless the root causes are addressed’
There were very few days to feel optimistic over the last few years. But this feels like a ray of light at the end of a very long tunnel.
Yet, no one should be complacent that this ceasefire is beyond the danger of collapsing, as the one before it in March did. Love him or loathe him, President Trump remains the most crucial guarantor of this ceasefire.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is hardly in a position to defy a president of the US, especially not the current one. Similarly, Hamas with its militarily capability hit hard during the war, would equally be taking a huge risk to defy the other mediating countries, Egypt, Qatar and Turkey. Moreover, the majority of both Israelis and Palestinians are in dismay of their leadership that has brought on them a calamity of biblical proportion.
However, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has proven to be one of the most intractable in world affairs. And unless the so-called Trump Plan doesn’t move quickly into resolving the root causes of this conflict, it is likely to flare up again.
Without a full withdraw of Israel from Gaza, reconstruction of the Strip for the benefit of the Gazan people, the establishment of new governance for both Gaza and the West Bank that doesn’t include Hamas, and a different government in Israel that is prepared – together with a Palestinian leadership – to end this conflict along a two-state solution, the resumption of bloodshed is not only possible, but sadly inevitable.
Yossi Mekelberg is a professor of international relations and senior consulting fellow of the Chatham House for its Middle East and North Africa programme
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: ‘This deal is a sham and the cycle of violence will continue’
Gazan civilians have been in unspeakable anguish for two years – the area turned to dust, over 67,000 killed, many displaced, starved and denied water. Hamas’s atrocities gave Israel an opportunity to use its might and power over Palestinian people and territories.
Palestinians are understandably relieved and hope this peace deal gives the living back their stolen and broken lives. It is the hope of the hopeless, faith of those who have nothing else.
I have no such hopes, no such faith. The peace deal led by Trump and Netanyahu is a sham. Blair, who cannot wash the stain of Iraqi blood from his record, would be like an old colonial administrator lording it over sullen natives, were he to serve on the “Board of Peace” planned to oversee Gaza.
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There will be no viable Palestinian state. Disaster capitalism will creep in. Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, had his eyes on the real estate possibilities in bombed-out Gaza. There will be no end to Israel’s state terrorism. Young Palestinians will grow up hating that state. Some will commit terrible acts. Israel will, once again, wreak terrible revenge. And become even more of a pariah state.
My scepticism may turn out to be injudicious. I hope so. I want to be wrong. But I fear that it is the optimists who are on a fool’s errand.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is a columnist at The i Paper
Donald Macintyre: Both sides are exhausted – that’s why it may be different this time
It’s easy to identify the ways the Trump plan could go wrong: neither Hamas disarms, nor Israeli forces pull out of Gaza as it envisages. Or with the hostages back. Trump loses interest and Netanyahu seizes another chance to “finish off” Hamas, illusory as that goal surely is.
If “peace” means not another shot fired in anger in the Gaza Strip, that’s a stretch. And that’s without considering the gigantic task of rebuilding a ruined Gaza – and the devastated lives of its over 2m surviving residents – let alone solving the wider conflict.
And yet. Hamas is no position to cross the Arab states by launching another attack on Israel, even if it could, which it probably couldn’t. Conversely, the international pressure on an increasingly isolated Netanyahu – despite the praise lavished on him today by Trump – may finally be enough to stop him going rogue again, especially as even more of the suffering inflicted on Gazans comes to light.
No-one got rich in the past half-century betting on a positive outcome to an Israeli-Palestinian development. But there is a real chance that at least the daily horrors in Gaza over the past two years are over. Let’s hope that’s more than wishful thinking.
Donald Macintyre is a former foreign correspondent and the author of Gaza: Preparing for Dawn
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