What a Ceasefire Means to Us

So Israel has yet another ceasefire. The pattern begins again.

I was chit-chatting with an American friend about things, and I commented that we all just need to wait and see if the ceasefire even holds to know how we should react to it. Then I made a joke. Why not make a pool? We can all bet on how long the ceasefire will actually last. Winner gets the pot.

Now, I was obviously (half) joking. But she seemed horrified at my comments. I had to explain that we folk living in Israel have no choice but to poke fun at the horrors of our situation. Dark humor is a widespread coping mechanism and I didn’t think twice about making a joke. Why would I? I’m surrounded by people doing it all the time.

A Different Reality

It’s very hard living in a reality so different from that of most of the rest of the world. Of course I want an end to the rockets, I want people to return safely to their homes, and I want my people to live with peace and security for the rest of their very long lives.

But living in Israel does not usually afford us such a luxury. Yes, I am relatively safe and sound in my noisy apartment in Jerusalem. But that’s today. Tomorrow is a new day, and who knows what that might bring. That unknown comes with it a share of collective misery and coping. And how we all survive is by any means necessary.

One way is to make light of it all, when possible. I’d make my relatively benign (and not all that funny) joke again without a thought. And I can’t see a reality where anyone here would be taken aback or offended.

The Ceasefire Pattern

But it all makes me think: If our reality is that different, what else don’t people understand about what folk are thinking and feeling over here.

So I decided to write some thoughts and feelings about this ceasefire agreement. Maybe the uninitiated will learn something new.

I am worried about the ceasefire for a handful of reasons.

First and foremost, I don’t think it’ll hold. There’s a psychology here that needs to be understood. Hezbollah has not given up the fight. So why would they agree to a ceasefire if they want to keep battling Israel? The only logical reason is because they fear what would happen to them if the war kept on going, and they need to regroup so they can live to fight another day.

Think about it. Israel has proven repeatedly during this conflict that Hezbollah is very outmatched. If things continue on this trajectory, Hezbollah will be shattered and incapable of ever rebuilding itself. This would obviously be a great outcome for Israel. Not so much for Hezbollah.

So what happens now? Israel’s forever pattern begins once again. We fight, we declare a ceasefire, enemy rebuilds its arsenal, and when they’re ready and think the timing is right, they attack once again. What is a ceasefire in Israel? A temporary halt in aggressions. But no Israeli is deluded enough to think the fighting is over. We don’t have a peace treaty. We don’t have normalized relations. Israel has not been recognized as a country. All we have is a moment to breathe… and a false sense of security.

The Benefits of Breathing

So why bother? Why in the world would we agree to a ceasefire we know is temporary?

There are a number of reasons. Our soldiers are exhausted. It’s easier to fight a war on fewer fronts. People in the north are desperate to return to their homes. International pressure is overwhelming.

Whatever the reason, it’s not peace. It’s not safety. It’s not security. At best, it’s a break. And the world needs to know what it is, and what it is not.

The world is confused.

And humor is, in fact, some level of a break from reality. If we can laugh about the harsh realities in which we are immersed, then those realities feel for just a moment like they’re not happening. They’re not in your face. They’re just background noise we have the ability to not focus on, even if ever so briefly.

I sit at my computer most of my day. Every once in a while I have some meaningless background show on or I watch a funny video or two on YouTube just to take my mind off of things for a bit. But it only helps for a second. One moment I’m laughing at Key and Peele, the next I’m fighting back tears reading about the tragic, untimely death of another few soldiers in Gaza.

No one here gets a proper break from anything. It’s always there. The best we can hope for is temporary distraction. A night of karaoke or line dancing. Something to make the world feel a little less daunting.

And that’s what a ceasefire means to me. Are we still at war with Hezbollah? In a sense, absolutely. The war can’t end until one side wins, which has not yet happened. The ceasefire doesn’t provide victory. It provides a quick moment to pretend like the war was never there in the first place.

Palestine Has No Friends

Another final note about the ceasefire. I think it proves what so many of us understand about the situation that the West struggles with. The Palestinians have no friends. Yes, there are others in the region with common interests. They, like Hamas, loath Israel. And they are willing to take up arms to fight simultaneously with Hamas… until it is no longer in their own best interest.

Hezbollah, Iran, and the Houthis have all been quite active attacking Israel this past year. Maybe they were opportunistic, thinking they could conquer a highly preoccupied Israel. But Iran has been nice and quiet ever since the second time Israel pulled down their pants in the schoolyard. Hezbollah bowed out after Israel demonstrated they really had no chance of winning. And the Houthis, they sporadically jump up and down trying to remind people they exist too.

But Hamas is alone. Their buddies on college campuses will turn to another trendy cause soon enough, and they were always just fluff and noise anyway.

People don’t love Hamas or Palestine. They hate Israel. They always have and likely always will. But that should never be mistaken for devotion to the Palestinian cause. Palestinians are just a tool people use when they want to unleash their anger on Israel. But as soon as that anger is inconvenient or detrimental, they will forever nonchalantly walk away from the cause they never really believed in in the first place.

Palestinians have no real friends. They never have.