The most important feature of the ceasefire agreed between Israel and Hamas is that, for the moment at least, the slaughter that has already killed more than 46,000 Palestinians and turned Gaza into a sea of ruins will stop.
But the legacy of hatred left by this ferocious conflict will shape attitudes in the Middle East for decades to come. In this respect the conflict may prove as influential as the Palestinian Nakba, or catastrophe, of 1948, when 750,000 Palestinians were forced to flee their homes. This time around, 2.3 million Palestinians were forced to flee their homes, but with nowhere to escape to.
The Gaza war – starting with the Hamas raid into Israel on 7 October, 2023 – initiated other wars in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah that will not go away. Israel, backed unreservedly by US political and military power, has won a huge, though not necessarily permanent, victory. It has radically shifted the balance of power against the Arabs and towards Israel and the US.
Hezbollah in Lebanon has been decisively weakened. The Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad imploded last month. The Syrian state, for half a century the most powerful hostile Arab nation state in Israel’s neighbourhood, may not be resurrected. We have entered a period when Greater Israel and, to a much lesser extent, Greater Turkey, have become the dominant regional powers in the Middle East.
The Hamas raid 15 months ago was geared to destroy the status quo in the Middle East. It succeeded in doing so, but not necessarily to Palestinian advantage. An Israeli annexation of all or some of the West Bank looks more and more likely with a fiercely pro-Israeli US administration in the White House.
The surprise development which made the current war between Israel and the Palestinians, and that between Israel and Hezbollah, different from in the past is that President Joe Biden and his administration gave unprecedented backing to Israel. As Gaza was reduced to ruins, the US continued to supply Israel with arms and ammunition. The same was true of the war in Lebanon. Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” turned out to be something of a paper tiger.
A crucial question now is whether Israel will be able to get the US to back it in a war aimed at regime change in Tehran or destruction of Iranian nuclear facilities. Another question will be whether or not Iran, with its allies in Syria, Lebanon and Gaza much weakened, will decide that it must acquire a nuclear deterrent.
In the shorter term, will the Gaza ceasefire hold, and how far will it really be a ceasefire? It is likely to be tenuous for all sorts of reasons and it is ominous that the ceasefire in Lebanon has not stopped Israeli air strikes and artillery bombardment.
Whatever else it has done, the prolonged Israeli onslaught has not destroyed Hamas and there is no Palestinian entity able to replace it. Palestinians say that the only Palestinian armed force competing with Hamas for authority in Gaza is mafia-type gangs of looters.
It appears that the present deal could have been reached six months ago had the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu wanted it and the Biden administration forced him to agree. It was always obvious that the only way any of the Israeli hostages could be brought back alive was through a ceasefire, since Hamas would shoot any hostages that Israeli military forces appeared likely to free themselves.
President-elect Donald Trump is probably correct in saying that it was his impending inauguration that led to the ceasefire. Netanyahu did not want a row with him at the beginning of his administration.
But how much has fundamentally changed? Seven million Palestinians still live in Gaza, West Bank, East Jerusalem and Israel itself. They are not going away.
For all Trump’s wish for a deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia, the seeds of new conflicts and wars have been laid by what has happened in Gaza and it will prove impossible to draw a line under such prolonged butchery.
Angela Rayner is ready to make her move