Israel in Focus

Is that all a ceasefire is? Is it just a pause in the fighting until the next time someone pulls the trigger? If so is this the objective to push for instead of pushing for real peace?

By definition yes. All it is is an agreed upon pause in fighting with conditions or without for a defined or undefined amount of time. Either way, it doesn’t end the war.

However, in today’s western world a ceasefire means a whole lot more than that. Today a ceasefire is all that matters it seems. If you look at world leaders statements when fighting breaks out everyone jumps on the ceasefire bandwagon. No one calls for actual lasting peace, all they want is a ceasefire, so they can be proud of themselves for stopping the fighting. Even though this is proving less and less effective at actually bringing lasting peace and instead just brings another round of fighting later.

In some ways maybe this is a good thing. War is terrible and death is horrible. Stopping it is a good thing. However if you are just delaying the inevitable then it may be worse the more you push it off. The best case study for this is Israel-Gaza. Israel kept accepting ceasefires, under international pressure, with Hamas for years before October 7th happened. Maybe if one of those times Israel had decided to continue fighting October 7th wouldn’t have happened.

I could go on about the failure of the ideology of the western world when it comes to war in the rest of the world, but that’s not this blogs topic. So to answer my question…

If you are dealing with two sides that want to uphold the status quo, then a ceasefire is a good thing as it ends the war and paves the way for diplomacy. Clearly one side felt the other was moving the goalposts too much and felt they needed to take action. In this case a ceasefire ends the fighting and diplomacy can take the main stage.

However, in a case like the middle east, where almost everyone is imperialistic, a ceasefire generally is just a pause until the next round of fighting. It gives each side a chance to breathe and re-arm before the next fight to the death. So is this ceasefire between Israel and Iran a path to peace, or is it just the beginning of the next war between the two powers. Time will tell…