The Horrors of Gaza Won’t End Until Liberals Admit Biden and Harris Are Lying About ‘Ceasefire Talks’
Democrats have entered a kaleidoscope of sophistry, double meanings, and evasion to avoid the messy reality of what a ceasefire actually entails.
The term “ceasefire” has a broadly understood meaning—or at least it did until this past February. It’s when two warring parties cease firing, typically pursuant to some longer-team peace arrangement or truce. In the context of Gaza, what a ceasefire is, and what it entails, was long clear to peace activists, aid groups, UN officials, and everyone begging for the daily horrors in Gaza to end. I’ve written on this topic consistently for months, so I won’t reiterate all my arguments in great detail. But the short version is: What Biden and Harris are calling a “ceasefire” isn’t one in any meaningful sense. Under the cover of negotiations over hostage exchanges (which would involve a brief pause, and was somewhat of a real negotiation), the White House is simply restating, again and again, its terms of capitulation—it’s demand for total and unilateral surrender by Hamas, which is to say anyone in Gaza with a gun.
Realizing they had a massive PR problem on their hands last spring, as calls for a ceasefire grew louder and louder—and the never ending string of live-streamed war crimes in Gaza began to break the psyche and morale of lower level bureaucrats—the Biden White House decided to pivot from banning the “c” word to embracing it, but redefining it to mean something else entirely. This tactic has worked remarkably well, getting protestors and liberal media off their backs, and recasting them not as the primary patron and arms dealer for a genocide, but a good faith, if unsuccessful, agent of peace that simply can’t bring the two obstinate sides to agree on anything. “Ceaseifre” no longer meant two warring parties ceasing fire, it meant one side surrendered and the other achieved “total victory.”
Previously, in the 4,700-year recorded human history of conflicts, “ceasefire” did not mean one side surrendered. This was a feature of conflict reserved for words like “surrender” or “capitulation.” But, as of spring 2024, ceasefire now means “one side wins the war and achieves all of its military aims.”
This PR campaign, of course, continues unabated. Propped up by the likes of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who used her DNC speech in August to lie about Harris “working tirelessly to secure a ceasefire,” Harris continues to play her role in this elaborate production of feign concern and empathy. The Vice President, speaking yesterday about the killing of Yahya Sinwar by the IDF, reaffirmed that her support for Israel will not stop and she—and presumably Biden—are committed to Israel’s nominal war aim of eliminating Hamas.
"It is time for the day after to begin without Hamas in power,” Harris told reporters.. “We will not give up on these goals."
Yet, all of the headlines continue to indulge the frame that Biden/Harris were seeking a “ceasefire,” “end of the war,” and “peace deal,” giving the impression that this is something immediate. “Biden Hopes for ‘Path to Peace,’ but Hamas Is Defiant,” reads a characteristically dishonest New York Times headline.
Yes, because “peace” to the White House, using their own words, is the destruction of Hamas as a military and political actor in Gaza.
This is not what the word ceasefire means. Traditionally, it means both parties remain intact. If they don’t, this is just called “one side surrendering” or “one side completely winning the war.”
This has been the 9,000 pound elephant in the room for months that virtually no one in liberal or centrist media wants to address. Ever. Militants with guns fighting what they view as a war of national liberation aren't going to simply disappear by magic. The current liberal line on this is:
Achieve lasting ceasefire, end war
???
Palestinian militants disappear and surrender via magic.
Rent-A-Arab mercenary occupation takes over, rebuilding begins.
When will someone, anywhere in mainstream US media, note that none of this makes any sense at all?
Given how convoluted and evasive the liberal position has been since February, it’s useful to point out that Republicans and Netanyahu—while being equally violent and chauvinist—are being far more honest about the reality of the “war” than Democrats and center-left media. Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio, Eli Lake, Benjamin Netanyahu openly say what their aims are and that “destroying Hamas” will take years to achieve. To the extent that this “war” looks remarkably like a genocide, they are just as evasive on this issue as their liberal counterparts. But on the basic premise of ignoring calls for a ceasefire, they are far more transparent than Democrats who—by continuing to support arming both genocide and its logic while feigning Deep Concern for civilian deaths—continue to want to have their cake and eat it too.
One possible rejoinder to this critique is that the implication in calls for an "end to the war" are that Hamas would have a say in post-war Gaza, but saying so is politically nuclear, so no one does. (Indeed, Biden's May 31 speech vaguely did this.) But Harris' latest remarks explicitly reject this, and there’s no reason to believe she is lying. There is every reason to believe that Harris—and, it’s worth noting, Trump as well—if elected, will continue arming and backing Israel as it continues a “war” that Israel’s top officially openly discuss as taking years more to complete.
Until liberals break the taboo and are honest about what an immediate ceasefire, in reality, would mean, namely that Hamas have a role post war, then no one is being honest and everyone is continuing to provide the PR cover for the continued genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza. Ceasefire Theater is now entering its ninth month, and there’s little reason it won’t be around for 20, 30 more months, because, as a PR tactic, it mostly works. Center-Left media continues to indulge this dishonest framing, avoids defining any terms, permits US officials to play the role of neutral third-party peacemaker. Meanwhile, children continue to be shredded by US bombs, and the starvation reaches new depths of hellish collective punishment. If both parties are going to continue to support an ongoing genocide, at least they can both be honest about doing so, rather than having one openly bloodthirsty party, and another—unconvincingly—playing the role of powerless, bumbling humanitarian.