The Israel-Palestine Conflict After Ceasefire
With no definite solution on the table, history is bound to repeat itself.
The past ten days of sheer devastation and warfare have brought the unrelenting rift between Israel and Palestine to the forefront, and with a ceasefire finally brokered, the world could finally come to reckon with all the injustices that took place.
On Thursday, following more than ten days of intense fighting—with the Israeli force displacing tens of thousand in Gaza on top of the more than sixty children slaughtered and dozens of buildings leveled—the two combatants have finally come to an agreement to bring their deadly operations to a halt.
Yet, even as peace is right around the corner and the suffering of innocent civilians about to meet an end, we find ourselves ever more skeptical of the peace process in the region.
Like so many previous instances, this truce feels all so familiar—a temporary solution that is bound to meet more problems in the future, like nearly all past endeavors have been. This has been feeling too long like the reminiscent cycle of moderate peace, hatred, which fuels and erupts into boiled conflicts.
In a sense, many of the analysts are correct in knowing that conflicts will only make things worse. And aggravate an already grim outlook.
During much of this bloodshed, I’ve read deft analysts, many published by well-respected sources like The New York Times or The Atlantic, floating the idea of a “third intifada” or anticipating how this ten-day war just may be the finale all these decades of animus and tragedies have culminated into.
In a sense, these people are correct in knowing that with every scuffle and every abuse the Israeli forces inflict on Palestinian people—many of whom children—a fresh layer of fury is sprayed, as if bolting a countdown to the ultimate conflict to end all hatred.
However, what we must remind ourselves with the situation in the region is that this conflict is not one that’s only been present for months or a few years, but a disputed altercation surrounding history, religion, and basic facts. It’s a rift that’s long torn people apart for their origin, a shadow cast on one side of the aisle as the other cries the beam of rays.
With every new war between Palestine and Israel, this rift simply deepens and widens until a point, if this point has not yet been reached, where the two sides will forever not see one another eye to eye.
Now, even as a brand new flare-up of violence has been tamed, the world must still view the status quo as what it is—the worsening of relations between regular people of the two sides and the prospect of reconciliation swept off the table.
Looking back at the trajectory of events and what led to all this desolation today, the truce has accomplished none but brought back the ephimeral, apparent peace that has smothered the region as long as we could recall. Those who had initiated all the havoc are walking free, the far-right wields power in Israel and continues to be on the rise with a momentum more promising than ever as Hamas saw a surge in public support—what lies on the horizon is a menacing, unnerving picture of a land embroiled in unending despair.
At the end, as the world had come to know all too well, politicians are the ones who inflict pain at a whim, and the vulnerable are those in a position of no choice but to take it. As long as people view this clash as religious, ideological, or historical rather than in terms of the powerless taking on the powerful, we will almost find no end in sight.
All in all, the ceasefire, despite ending the hideous massacring of people on the soil of Gaza, accomplished anything but what people had hoped for. It restored the status quo that culminated into this conflict, it sought to band-aid a scar too deep to heal, and it’s bent on resolving the issue through subjugation, omitting the thought of due retribution for the evil.
It had attained all we wanted. It had also impeded the path to real tranquility.
