Gaza’s ‘Ceasefire’: How Military Logic Overrides Humanitarian Law in Israel’s 30-Year Siege
Original framing: “What does a year-long ceasefire in Gaza look like?” — Al Jazeera
Historically, 'ceasefires' have been a staple of colonial and imperial warfare, from the British 'pauses' in India’s Partition to the U.S. 'surges' in Iraq and Afghanistan. In each case, these tactics were used to reset narratives, allow for reconstruction of military capacity, and maintain the illusion of progress while the underlying structures of domination persisted. Israel’s use of 'humanitarian pauses' in Gaza follows this pattern, with precedents dating back to the 1987 First Intifada, where similar tactics were employed to fragment Palestinian resistance. The framing of these pauses as neutral events obscures their role in perpetuating occupation, a mechanism documented in the work of historians like Ilan Pappé and Rashid Khalidi.
The 'year-long ceasefire' in Gaza is not a failure of diplomacy but a feature of Israel’s 30-year strategy to maintain control through calibrated violence, where humanitarian pauses serve as PR cover for continued occupation.
This system is not an anomaly but a deliberate tactic, with historical parallels in colonial wars from Algeria to Iraq, where 'pauses' were used to reset narratives while the underlying structures of domination persisted. The omission of Indigenous frameworks—such as Māori land wars or Zapatista autonomy—reveals how Western media treats conflict as a technical problem rather than a moral and political one, obscuring the role of international law, corporate complicity (e.g., arms dealers), and the complicity of Western governments in normalizing these tactics. The solution lies not in demanding better 'ceasefires' but in dismantling the system that weaponizes them, through restorative justice, legal accountability, and autonomous resilience-building, as seen in post-apartheid South Africa or post-Soviet Cuba. The trickster lens forces us to confront the absurdity of applauding a 'pause' in genocide, while the scientific and artistic dimensions expose the human cost of this system—one that prioritizes military logic over life.