“…technocratic,
apolitical Palestinian committee, responsible for delivering the day-to-day
running of public services and municipalities for the people in Gaza. This
committee will be made up of qualified Palestinians and international experts,
with oversight and supervision by a new international transitional body, the “’Board
of Peace.’” (Al Jazeera)
SOUNDS GOOD, right? But the devil's in the details. We'll see how pretty words on paper are translated into facts on the ground:
👉The Board will be chaired by President Trump,
reprising his “Apprentice” role from the popular reality-TV gameshow of a few
years back; if the Palestinians don’t get with the program, he can just "fire" them. As yet, no other names for the governance board have been suggested
save for Tony Blair, the former British prime minister who has blood on his
hands for his complicity in 2003’s infamous “Weapons of
Mass Destruction” (WMDs) hoax that helped launch the Iraq War,
immiserating that country's population and leaving hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead in its wake. One critic suggests Blair’s
potential role as a ‘governor of Gaza' is fitting, in that Trump’s plan looks more
like a return to last century’s British Mandate
rule over Palestine than anything else, especially since Palestinians would—for
at least two years—be denied self-rule while the Board of Peace creates a “Hamas-free”
governance structure. Furthermore, Hamas is to relinquish its armaments, while
a twenty-thousand-strong peacekeeping force called the “International
Stabilization Force” (ISF), made up of volunteers from as-yet-named countries1
who would police Gaza’s 2.2 million Palestinians, until a vetted, indigenous
police force could be established. And beyond the “Yellow Line”, in a swath of
land engulfing the shrunken, broken Palestinian territory, sit thousands of IDF
troops. Will they abide by their withdrawal commitments as outlined in the October
peace plan? That remains to be seen. [Nuh-uh. Ed.] And what exactly do
they mean when they say, “New Gaza”? ‘New’ for
who?
👉WHAT THE SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION does do is cement in blood
stone the current IDF imposed border regions established with the so-called 'cease-fire' that
went into effect October 10 as part of the American president’s twenty-point
peace plan. By force of arms, Israel took over half of the Palestinian
territory, forcing its population into squalid tent camps or life among the
ruins. Sequestered into the “Red Zone”, as the map indicates, the enclave is
cut off from the rest of the Palestinian territories as well as the Egyptian
border where humanitarian aid used to flow directly (though not freely) into the Gaza Strip through
the Rafah gates. Gaza is effectively sealed off from the world by a crescent of
IDF controlled land (the “Green Zone”) and is fully dependent on Israeli
largess with respect to how much aid can enter. And not to forget, Gaza has been called the most densely populated region in the world. Now, its population must contend with half of the land space as before 7 October 2023. Even its gardens and groves, and arable lands have been destroyed by Israel in its frenetic quest to depopulate Palestine of Palestinians.
From March to August 2025 (there had been a temporary pause in
hostilities between January and March), Israel restarted its bombing and blockading
of the Gaza Strip while the world watched in horror as famine and starvation
levels rose dramatically, and pictures of the most vulnerable in Gazan society
(infants, the elderly, medically compromised) succumbed to Israel’s genocidal blockade
policies. Under the Geneva Conventions it is a war crime to use food as a weapon
of war. It’s also immoral and another example of a society that is
psychological ill.
[Note that: In a recent survey,
nearly 75% of the Jewish Israeli population in Israel believe there are no "innocents" in Gaza. 87% support the current government. 56% favour ethnic cleansing of Israeli-Arab (2.1 million in number or 20% of the population); 47% are in favour of killing all Palestinians.]
“These limited
quantities fall far below the minimum humanitarian threshold,’ the office said,
calling for the immediate entry of at least 600 trucks daily to provide
essential supplies such as food, medicine, fuel, and cooking gas.” Furthermore,
with Israel banning high-value nutritional items (eggs, cheese vegetables,
etc.) into Gaza, and at the same time authorizing low-value items (soft drinks,
chocolate, chips, etc.), this proves “‘that the occupation is deliberately
implementing a policy of food manipulation as a weapon against civilians,’ the
media office calls this a regime of ‘engineered starvation.’” (Aljazeera)
BY LATE JULY, while Trump’s peace proposal plan was being worked over by
the black-hearted mandarins in Jerusalem, Israel felt compelled to adopt
temporary humanitarian “pauses” so that needed supplies (like baby formula) could
flow-in to as many Gazans as time permitted. Of course, the effects of famine on
the most vulnerable is generational, with infants’ and children’s
physical and intellectual growth stunted from a lack of nutrition during critical growth periods. President Trump’s peace plan built on those summer pauses of IDF’s operations to establish a shaky general truce3
and a 20-point peace plan presented to Hamas negotiators in Egypt promoting the
establishment of a peaceful and prosperous “New Gaza”. Heck! Who wouldn’t want
that?4
RETURNING to the peace plan, Phase One, the truce is nearing its finish
with most of the hostages and prisoners exchanged in the deal, save for a single body of an Israeli hostage buried deep beneath the rubble. Recall, also, during the so-called ‘ceasefire’ Israel used the so-called ‘tardiness’ of Hamas in retrieving the bodies as an
excuse to launch bombing and drone attacks. [Any excuse is a good excuse
for the IDF to launch missile, drone and artillery fire against Gaza’s
Palestinians. Ed.] As mentioned, this next round of negotiations may prove to
be a non-starter, with Hamas finding clauses in the twenty-point peace proposal
unacceptable, which would probably trigger Israel to renew its murderous
attacks with even greater ferocity.
FOR NOW, negotiations between Israel and Hamas continue in Egypt. Daily
breeches by Israel of the ceasefire become routine; Palestinians die as a result. And they starve or succumb to treatable illnesses, even if at a slower pace. The enclave’s population remains immiserated and
exposed as winter sets in. So it goes.
👉FUN FACT: Israel announced last week that it will begin construction of
the first of many concentration camps to house vetted Palestinians in
the Green Zone. It goes without saying that these residential housing tracts
(tents? trailers? Igloos? TBA) will be closely monitored using Israeli spyware,
drones, biometric scanning etc. Recall
some months ago the Israeli plan to build large, what can only be described as concentration camps to house Gaza’s Palestinians had
been made public. These initial camps will be a test run, housing up to
twenty-thousand inmates who have been cleared of any affiliation with Hamas.
Food, water, and medical services will be provided. Another key component, besides
high-tech monitoring will be the requirement that upon entering the
camps, they can never leave (unless they leave Gaza permanently). Who knows
whether these Orwellian plans will gain a ‘buy-in’ from a significant number of
Palestinians who have been subjected to Israel’s criminal actions for over two
years? Truly, it’s a horror show, but without the rubber masks and fake blood.😈
“Rather than charting a pathway toward ending the
occupation and ensuring Palestinian protection, the resolution risks
entrenching external control over Gaza’s governance, borders, security, and
reconstruction. The resolution betrays the people it claims to protect….
Essentially, it will leave Palestine in the hands of a puppet administration,
assigning the United States, which shares complicity in the genocide, as the
new manager of the open-air prison that Israel has already established.”
Needless to say, there’s a fair bit of work to be done on President
Trump’s vanity project in the Levant. Before it’s too late
CHEERS, JAKE. _____________________________________
* The Trump peace plan says that Palestinians can leave Gaza and return
later should they choose to do so. And if you think that will happen, I’ve got
some lakefront property in the Sinai Desert to sell you.
1. While increasing settler violence and IDF incursions into Palestinian
farms and villages in the West Bank are also increasing, as Gaza simmers to a
boil once more. This is what you get when you let evil actors go unchecked.
2. Many possible candidate countries that would man such a mission are
reluctant to do so, fearing they might be they be tasked with disarming Hamas
by force.
3. Which Israel has violated every day since the ceasefire’s
implementation on October 10, including the continued destruction of Gaza
City’s infrastructure. Over 300 Palestinians have been killed and 900 injured
by Israel’s IDF since the truce was announced.
4. One person initially against Trump’s peace plan, supposedly at any
rate, was the Israeli PM, Benjamin (“Bibi”) Netanyahu. [GMAB! He and his
minions helped craft the thing!] On his fourth visit to Washington this year he
consented to keep in the second-to-last clause of the plan concerning a Palestinian
homeland to be discussed at a later date if Hamas complies with the earlier
requirements of disarming and not seeking a political role in Gaza, etc. We’ll
see how the talks go. We should know in the next week or so when Phase Two of
the negotiations begins which way the wind is blowing.
