“Hard Choices” (4): “Gaza: Anatomy Of A Cease-fire”
The headline “Gaza: Anatomy Of A Cease-fire” could easily be from a news article on the cease-fire announced today between Israel and Hamas. In fact, coincidentally it is the title of a chapter I have read today in “Hard Choices”, the memoir of Hillary Clinton’s four years as US Secretary of State.
Clinton assumed her role just after the Israeli ground invasion of Gaza in January 2009 which resulted in a death toll of 1,400 and she was determined to prevent another invasion in November 2012. She successfully negotiated a cease-fire that time which prevented such an Israeli assault.
In her memoirs, she writes:
“As our motorcade raced through the streets of Cairo that night, I wondered how long – or even if – the cease-fire would hold. The region had seen so many cycles of violence and dashed hopes. It would take only a few extremists and a rocket launcher to reignite the conflict. Both sides would have to work hard to preserve the peace. And even if they succeeded, there would have to be difficult talks over the coming days about all the complex issues we had deferred in the agreement. I could easily be back here soon, trying to put the pieces back together again.”
In fact. it was not Clinton who was back – she stepped down as Secretary of State in February 2013 – but her successor John Kerry. The point is that Israeli’s action in January 2009 did not prevent the crisis in November 2012 and the cease-fire in 2012 did not prevent the current crisis. Once we have a cease-fire that holds, substantive issues will have to be negotiated and genuine concessions will have to be made by both sides, otherwise we will simply be back in another crisis in a few years time and all those Palestinian and Israeli lives will have been lost for nothing.
My good friend Eric Lee – with whom I travelled to Israel in April 2007 – has made some very constructive suggestions here.