Breaking: Ceasefire in Gaza, Israel agrees to main Palestinian demands
On the 26th of August, reports emerged that a long-term ceasefire has been reached in the Gaza War of Summer 2014. Israel has agreed to open it's borders to "humanitarian aid" to Gaza, and to allow Gaza fisherman to fish from a larger area in the Mediterranian Sea. Israeli demands for Palestinian disarmnament have been put off for later talks. If this ceasefire holds, the people of Gaza will not only have suceeded in forcing Israel to the table but may have won their demands in this war. There are a lot of #VictoryForGaza tagged posts on Twitter right now, and it appears Gaza may have won this war. though at a huge price.
There have been thousands of Palestinian civilians killed by Israel's rockets and bombs, while Palestinian mortars and rockets killed exactly 4 Israeli civilians. Less than 100 Israeli soldiers were killed according to most reports, yet this toll was far more than Israel faced in other recent wars. Modern industrialized armies usually don't get a lot of soldiers killed outright these days due to excellent body armor, but sustain far more soldiers seriously wounded with life-changing injuries. In the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars there have been just over 6,800 US soldiers killed in action so far, but over 52,000 wounded in action-and 970,000 disablity claims filed with the Veterans Administration for service-related injuries since the wars began. As of this morning the Washington Post declared the war between Israel and Gaza to be a "war of attrition," my guess is that the Israelis decided that as a small country they cannot afford to be drawn into that kind of war. In Gaza, by comparison, the siege that had continued for so many years meant people may have felt they had far less to lose by fighting.
At any rate, if the Siege of Gaza is indeed over, this will have validated the strategy of resistance as practiced in Gaza rather than that of accomodation and negotiation as some say is practiced in the West Bank, which is still overrrun with Israeli settlements. The number of settlements in the West Bank continues to grow, while Israel removed all settlements from Gaza years ago in the face of unrelenting resistance.
This has implications for all other social struggles, regardless of whether political or military tools are used in them. From resisting tar sands mines and fracking projects that cause childhood cancer on Native American land, to racist police murdering African American youth, to opposing gentrifying real estate gangsters who bring Apartheid to the cities of the US, one message from Gaza is clear: resistance works!
