What Does 'Ceasefire' Mean, Exactly?

Explain it to me like I'm five

What’s left of it, and the people who once lived there. | Photo by Emad El Byed on Unsplash

I remember growing up in my grandmother’s old house.

I’d wake up every morning to the smell of old musty sheets and dust, the kind of scent that clings to an old house’s rarely-swept upstairs. Light would filter in through a faded, dirty old window pane that none of us could reach the outside of to clean.

Though, thinking back on it, I’m not sure any of us ever tried.

I’d lay in bed for a moment, listening to the sound of my mother’s steady breathing in the room next to mine, which was essentially a walk-in closet repurposed with a child sized bed.

Downstairs, I’d hear my grandmother’s radio, already spilling the morning news and weather reports for her while she enjoyed her morning tea. She was an early riser, my grandmother. She had health issues that required an early start to manage.

We had an easy morning routine. My mother had to work, as did my grandmother’s partner, so it was often just the two of us. I’d get up, get dressed with my mom, and go downstairs. By the time I was five or six, I knew the basics of making my own breakfast.

I was starting to learn to cook on my own, albeit under my grandma’s watchful eye as she sat in her favourite kitchen chair and gave me instructions. She more or less let me make whatever I wanted out of her rather sparse pantry.

As a result, we ate a lot of cake back in the day. Boxed cake mixes were relatively cheap. I was a kid, what do you want?

I remember what it was like to live in that small house in a small, impoverished town full of people scraping by as best we knew. It was all we knew. A tight-knit community where everybody knew everybody and people were getting by by the skin of their teeth.

I remember that. And then I try to imagine what it would be like to have bombs fall on our rooftop.

No more cozy mornings in the old rickety house. I try to picture it reduced to rubble.

It makes me sick. I think it would make us all sick. I don’t take the next step, imagining family trapped under the broken bricks. I can’t.

Many people in the Middle East don’t need to imagine it. That’s what’s happening to them right now.

Homes gone. Cozy mornings obliterated. Comfortable memories ripped apart, forever destroyed, tainted with the visceral sound of collapse and bombs and bullets striking concrete.

Some people wonder why I’m critical of Israel. It’s not anti-semitism on my part, I can assure you. Criticism of a country’s leadership is not an insult to the entire Jewish community abroad — in fact, I remember when assuming all Jewish people were connected to Israel was, itself, a damningly anti-semitic trope.

My critique stems from an inability to accept genocide as a rational or reasonable response to anything, even terrorism.

I just don’t think dropping bombs on innocent civillians who aren’t involved in a conflict is okay.

That’s really it.

It’s not just Gaza or the West Bank, either. It’s everywhere. How many times has Israel declared a ceasefire, and then immediately started shooting and bombing again just as soon as the other side lowered their weapons?

Netanyahu never met a ceasefire he couldn’t violate. It’s like he’s confused on what the word means. Granted, Hamas has also violated prior agreements, but there’s definitely a power imbalance with regards to destruction.

Hamas isn’t going to be able to do nearly as much damage to Israel as Israel does to the Palestinian people as a whole. The death toll is staggering.

But like I said, it’s not just Gaza and the West Bank. Israel has repeatedly bombed Lebanon in the middle of a supposed ceasefire over the course of several months.

This, after the horrific terror attacks involving exploding pagers that killed dozens of people and injured thousands more all across Lebanon and Syria. Including children.

And even now, despite obvious crimes and destruction with seemingly no reasoning beyond mass murder, people still defend Israel. They support the country’s government and military, and are pleased that their country also backs them.

They’re mad when their governments criticise them.

I don’t get it.

Maybe I’m just a bleeding heart liberal idiot — though I would be deeply insulted if you called me a liberal — but I just can’t stand for genocide.

I’ll let you guys be the judge of that. Am I crazy? Am I out of bounds? If you think so, I don’t know what you’re doing here.

Solidarity wins.

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