The Biden Administration’s “Ceasefire” Proposal in Gaza Is Not a Ceasefire

The United States and Israel are engaged in what can only be interpreted at this point as intentional obfuscation around the word “ceasefire” in Israel’s genocide of Gaza. This is why when Kamala Harris says she supports a “ceasefire,” that is not a sufficient explanation because what her boss means by it is not at all what the civilized world has defined a ceasefire to be. Let’s start with de facto White House Public Relations Officer Barak Ravid in Axios giving us the official administration line in his new piece titled “Hamas rejects new U.S. proposal for Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal.”

Zoom in: More specifically, Hamas objects to the fact that the proposal doesn’t include a permanent ceasefire or comprehensive Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

Donald Trump caught a lot of flak for reinventing the meaning of words during his depraved presidency, but this is the exact same thing. In what world is allowing Israel to still occupy the Gaza Strip while putting an expiration date on a ceasefire a ceasefire?

As the excellent writer Adam Johnson has noted time and time again, “The broadly understood definition of a ceasefire, as advocated for by over 500 Biden campaign alumni, OxFam, Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders, 25 Arab and Jewish peace groups in Israel, and 18 United Nations agencies for months, was not ‘Hamas loses.’ It was that the US signal to Israel it would stop backing Israel unless they wrapped up their bombing, siege, and invasion of Gaza within a matter of days, with a political solution to follow in the coming weeks and months.”

If you’re wondering why protesters have pivoted to asking for an end to offensive weapons shipments to Israel, it’s because the Biden-Harris administration has effectively killed the meaning of the word “ceasefire” through their deception. This is as cynical as it gets, and the only word for redefining a phrase around one’s own self-serving priorities and pretending it has broad-based support is Trumpy. Democrats would never accept this kind of outright and obvious deception from a Republican, and those who are swallowing this lie from Biden hook, line and sinker are proving how much partisanship has warped their ability to critically think.

If the Biden administration’s belief is that Hamas must negotiate a political loss and that Israel has a right to both a future Gaza occupation and another offensive, then they should say that’s their position. Asserting that they are on the same side as the protesters because they falsely call their policy a “ceasefire” is pure propaganda and utterly dystopian. The Undecided Movement and other Gaza protesters have signaled that they are willing to give Kamala Harris a chance to prove she is an ally on this issue, but if she is going to actually try to end the genocide her administration is facilitating and not just do the classic empty liberal posturing of “I hear you and I see you,” then she will have to wholly repudiate this morally bankrupt administration’s outright lie about what the word ceasefire actually means.