Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – President Joe Biden was at an ice cream shop with late night comedian Seth Myers on Monday, and was asked about the possibility of a Gaza ceasefire, according to Alex Marquardt and Donald Judd at CNN .
He said, “Well I hope by the beginning of the weekend, I mean, the end of the weekend. My national security adviser tells me that we’re close. We’re close, it’s not done yet. And my hope is that by next Monday we’ll have a ceasefire.”
While this news is good, the entire performance struck me as deeply distasteful. Eating an ice cream cone while casually discussing the fate of 2.2 million people whom you have incessantly bombed for months, killing 200 a day and destroying most of their homes? Making an offhand announcement affecting women, children, and thousands of orphans as a photo op while palling around with a comedian? I mean, it is the epitome of white privilege, of playing masters of the universe with other people’s lives.
NBC News Video: “Biden says he hopes to have a ceasefire in Gaza by March 4
Meanwhile, Qatar-based Al Jazeera reports on some details of the behind-the-scenes negotiations between the extremist government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the extremist Hamas movement that had dominated Gaza politics since 2006. Al Jazeera says that Israel has agreed to the main points of an initial framework for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the exchange of prisoners. The negotiations are being held in Paris.
According to the site’s sources, Israel stipulated the ultimate return of Palestinian refugees to the north of Gaza except for men of an age suited to military service. However, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has announced that displaced civilians won’t be allowed to return in their entirety to the north of Gaza until all Israeli hostages are released by Hamas, which is thought to be holding 134 of them. Israel is thought to hold 8,800 Palestinian prisoners, some of whom have been detained for long periods of time without charges or trial. Others have been convicted of acts of violence or terrorism.
For Galant to collectively punish the innocent civilians of north Gaza in this way is a war crime, but then what else is new?
The sources said that Israel has accepted Hamas’s demand for an increase in the aid allowed into the Strip, including temporary housing, and the entry of heavy equipment. Hamas also wants Israeli military forces repositioned outside densely populated areas, and a cessation of aerial overflights, including surveillance, for 8 hours a day.
According to Al Jazeera, Israel has agreed to release 400 Palestinian prisoners, including some with heavy sentences, in exchange for the release of 40 Israeli hostages, comprising women and the elderly. Among the Palestinian prisoners to be released were some who had been released in an earlier, 2011, deal, but who were then promptly re-arrested by the Israeli security forces.
Many of the hostages’ families have joined large demonstrations demanding Netanyahu’s resignation and new elections, on the grounds that he has not done anything to get the hostages back and is prolonging the military campaign for his own political benefit.
Qatari mediators had succeeded in negotiating a week-long humanitarian pause in November, during which 100 hostages were released, 80 Israelis and 20 of other nationalities. At that time the Israelis released 240 Palestinians from prison.
Although Biden has vetoed three UN Security Council resolutions calling for a ceasefire and has continued to arm the fascist Netanyahu government to the hilt, there have been indications that even he is wearying of the daily destruction of Gaza, which has left over 30,000 people dead, most of them women, children and noncombatant men. Opinion polling shows Biden is losing the youth vote over his full-throated backing of the campaign, which the International Court of Justice has found can plausibly be described as a genocide. The polls also suggest that he is losing minority votes — not only Arab Americans and Muslim Americans in the key swing state of Michigan but also African Americans and Latinos, many of whom identify with the Palestinians.
Last week after vetoing an Algerian-sponsored resolution, the Biden administration floated their own text on a ceasefire, which called for a “temporary ceasefire in Gaza as soon as practicable, based on the formula of all hostages being released.” It was the first time the administration has even used the term “ceasefire” as opposed to “humanitarian pause.” The draft that was leaked to the press also opposed an Israeli invasion of Rafah, where 1.4 million Palestinian refugees have been pushed to join the 200,000 who have been living there.
The text said that the UNSC “determines that under current circumstances a major ground offensive into Rafah would result in further harm to civilians and their further displacement including potentially into neighboring countries, which would have serious implications for regional peace and security, and therefore underscores that such a major ground offensive should not proceed under current circumstances.”
If it is finally dawning on Biden that the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip is a political albatross about his neck, I fear it may be too late. Once millions of young people have decided that you are a cold-hearted genocidaire, it is a little unlikely that you can win them back. It would, of course, be nice if people in Washington weren’t sociopaths and actually cared about Palestinian lives. But they don’t even seem to be very good at looking out after their own interests — partly because they are so instrumental that they cannot imagine that others see them as monsters.
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