Is a ceasefire approaching?

By Jawad Al Anani

Does the intensification of the battles with the Palestinian and Lebanese sides indicate that these battles will end soon? Are pressures being exerted on the warring parties, especially Israel, that the time has come for the war to end, and for the civilian victims to be given the attention they deserve so that a window of hope can open up for them?

It seems that there are Jewish groups in the world who do not want the war to continue and have begun to actively approach the Arabs they can contact, and those who fear for the future of Israel from the bloodbath in which the extremist, oppressive government is drowning, and they have begun to say that the time has come to stop this bloodshed, and to move forward towards a solution that will recover what remains of a glimmer of hope for the possibility of reaching a just peace that ends this great tragedy in the twenty-first century.

It has been noted recently that news channels have begun to focus more on the effects of the war on the global economy, from chaos and confusion in global stock markets, to the rise in gold and precious metals prices, and the recovery of oil prices, which reached more than eighty dollars in the North Sea, compared to about 75 dollars a few days ago.

There is fear within the United States, especially the Democratic administration, that the continued rise in prices will accumulate economic burdens on poor and middle-class American families, who will either refrain from voting in the elections next November, or will side with Republican candidates in their states, especially the so-called swing states, in which Kamala Harris has begun to make some slight progress at the expense of her competitor Donald Trump.

Also, the continuation of the war will increase pressure on international supply chains, because this continuation will mean that Israel will strike Iran, even if this strike has not been agreed upon in detail. If the matter is left to Netanyahu's individual decision, he, his army and his government will strike Iranian oil depots and facilities, or he may go so far as to seek to destroy the Iranian nuclear facilities that are said to be located in Isfahan and Tabriz.

In this case, Iran will send hundreds, if not thousands, of ballistic missiles to Israel, causing great destruction there, embarrassing the Biden administration and the Starmer government in the United Kingdom, to the point that it will participate with Israel in striking Iranian military bases. And what if Russia then exploits the dangerous results of this war to expand its occupation of Ukrainian territory or occupy Kiev and neutralize the Zelensky regime, or China occupies islands in the Pacific Ocean.

An Israeli soldier on a boat at a naval base in Haifa, November 23, 2023 (AFP)

Position

What comes after all that is happening?

A commentator on an Arab news channel said that Iran possesses nuclear weapons and that it can produce them. Although such a matter is not settled or definitive, such as the claim of killing the new Hezbollah leader Hashem Safieddine, or killing the leader of Hamas forces in Gaza Yahya Sinwar, Iran could produce a dirty bomb, according to some experts, because such a bomb would be highly effective but less harmful and easier to produce than a regular nuclear bomb.

Therefore, the risk of continuing the war according to multiple scenarios harms the major interests of many parties in the region and the world, and even Israel, whose leaders are eager to continue the war, expand its scope and intensify its violence, is exposed to such a risk. However, the current battles remain limited in their harm, compared to the use of missiles with high-intensity explosive warheads, or nuclear bombs, even if their enrichment rate is lower than the level at which they are called nuclear bombs.

I had the opportunity to watch an important television interview on the American CNN channel, in which the presenter of the program "Connecting the World" met the mediator in exchanging the prisoner Gilad Shalit with Palestinian prisoners. The name of this mediator is Gershon Baskin, who presented a formula for an agreement that he said Hamas had agreed to.

The formula for the agreement includes a ceasefire for twenty-one days, during which Israeli military and civilian prisoners, estimated at one hundred or one hundred and one, will be exchanged for a large number of Palestinian prisoners, during which an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza will take place, and an agreement to start a political process that will lead to a just and acceptable solution to the Palestinian issue, in which Hamas will not participate, and the resistance movement will pledge not to return to war or acts of resistance.

Baskin stated in the interview that the Arab parties negotiating had accepted this proposal, but the Netanyahu government and its prime minister themselves were the ones who obstructed this deal, which, if it had been completed, would have returned the prisoners to their families, the war would have stopped, the battle in the north on the Lebanese border would have ended, the Iranian ballistic attack on Israel would not have occurred, and Hassan Nasrallah would not have been killed. It seems that the military leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, has accepted this matter, and that he did not object to moving to a safe place.

In light of Baskin's words, the movement demanding an agreement with the resistance to stop the fighting and release the prisoners has intensified, and peaceful demonstrations have returned to the streets of Israeli cities and many European and Arab countries.

Why is the war on Gaza still going on?

Baskin has prepared a letter from Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to US President Joe Biden, informing him that the Israeli government agrees to the framework agreement approved by Hamas, and includes the most important points he presented during the interview with CNN, including providing international guarantees after the complete Israeli withdrawal from the Strip that no attack against Israel will be repeated like the one that occurred on October 7, but Netanyahu did not sign this letter.

It seems that activists, Israelis and Jews in many Western countries who want to end the bloody war have begun to move, and are demanding that Arab countries like them do the same. Some of them from the United States and the United Kingdom have told me that they are ready to visit Jordan and talk to opinion leaders and politicians there, to convince them that there is a large segment of Jews and Israelis who do not see the current Israeli government as representing them, but rather seek to exonerate themselves from it, and that they are ashamed of the positions and language it adopts, and the threats it issues.

We are now standing on the threshold of the door of Raddad, either it opens towards light and hope, or it closes on darkness whose extent and calamities only God knows.

A few days ago, I had the opportunity to listen to Prince Hassan bin Talal during an Iftar on Saturday, October 5, 2024. He presented an in-depth analysis of the reality in the region, and the need for Jordanian researchers to develop strategic studies to put Jordan’s internal house in order and confront its problems and challenges, and to organize regional and international relations. He stressed the need for the role of strategic research in Jordan to contribute to developing its vision on this subject. The main lesson we learned is that our future should not remain hostage to decisions made by others, of which we are victims and forced to deal with them, because they will directly and undeniably affect our strategic interests.