Trump's Ceasefire is a Lie
"It's over," the message goes, and the masses dutifully shift their gaze - to Musk's Hitler salute, to Trump's USAID closure, to whatever spectacle comes next. Meanwhile, Palestinians continue to die.
The machinery of death grinds on. While Western media trumpets a ceasefire in Gaza, Israeli forces are systematically destroying the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank. Houses demolished. Streets bulldozed. Hospitals attacked. The familiar choreography of ethnic cleansing continues unabated, barely registering in the collective consciousness of a West numbed to Palestinian suffering.
Indeed, the West has perfected the art of selective humanity. "Never again," it proclaimed after the Holocaust - but the fine print was always there: “Never again - but only for those we consider worthy of humanity”. In the perverse logic of Western supremacy, the “worthy” people are the very ones implementing apartheid and committing genocide — Zionist racial supremacist settlers who mirror its own colonial brutality.
“There is no Future for You in Your Homeland”
In the West Bank, Israeli settlers have erected massive billboards displaying images from the 1948 Nakba, showing Palestinians fleeing their homes. The Arabic text delivers their message with chilling clarity: "There is no future for you in Palestine." This isn't just psychological warfare - it's the colonial project declaring its endgame with unprecedented brazenness. They no longer feel the need to obscure their intentions behind diplomatic niceties.
And why would they? They rape children in detention centers, torture doctors to death, and burn medical patients alive on camera - yet Western political classes and media pundits transform the perpetrators into victims and the victims into perpetrators. The colonial script remains unchanged: those carrying out mechanized violence are "defending themselves," while those resisting their own extermination are labeled "terrorists."
Colonial Mentality: The Ultimate Victory of Empire
The Western political establishment's complicity stands naked before the world, its hypocrisy weaponized against the very principles it claims to uphold. International law has become a cruel joke - a tool wielded against the weak while the strong operate with impunity. We've created a system where three nuclear-armed powers - Britain, America, and Israel - can lay siege to an imprisoned population, half of them children, while claiming moral superiority.
At the heart of this system stands its perfect instrument - colonial mentality, manifested most clearly in the Palestinian Authority. A native administration transformed into occupation's subcontractor, arresting, torturing, and killing its own people to facilitate their further subjugation. This is empire's most insidious victory - not just breaking bodies, but colonizing minds so completely that the oppressed are enlisted in their own oppression, believing there is no alternative to serving power.
Indeed, the colonial mentality manifests just as powerfully among Jews - among the vast numbers of Western Jewry who continue supporting Israel even after witnessing over a year of documented genocide. Their identity has become so thoroughly entangled with the imperial project that they cannot separate being Jewish from supporting Zionist fascism. This represents perhaps the ultimate triumph of colonial psychology - when the powerful successfully convince the oppressed that their liberation lies in identifying with their oppressor.
The Ceasefire is a Lie
The ceasefire is a tactical fiction, allowing the occupation to redirect its violence to the West Bank while our Western conscience takes a holiday from its guilt. But the fundamental project of Palestinian dispossession continues unabated, supported by our governments, our silence.
The ceasefire is a grotesque political theater, choreographed days before Trump's inauguration through backroom deals with Netanyahu. Even as Western media celebrates this hollow peace, Israeli bombs continue falling on Gaza. The documented death toll stands at 62,000, but the true count lies buried in the pulverized concrete of what was once a lively society.
The ceasefire has merely freed up military capacity for intensified operations elsewhere. In an unprecedented escalation, Israel has begun conducting air strikes in the West Bank - a new frontier of aerial terror previously unseen in this territory. The assault on Jenin refugee camp, dubbed "Operation Iron Wall,” was prepared in advance with the willing collaboration of the Palestinian Authority.
As journalist Matt Kennard points out, "Operation Iron Wall" carries the weight of Zionist ideology's darkest dreams. It echoes Jabotinsky's vision of crushing Palestinian resistance through overwhelming force, of creating not just a physical barrier but a psychological fortress of terror. The same message screams from the Nakba billboards erected across the occupied West Bank - the colonial project no longer bothers with euphemism. It speaks in the raw language of ethnic cleansing: leave, or be destroyed.
Nothing to See Here, Look Elsewhere
The — so called — ceasefire is empire's way of manufacturing forgetfulness. It creates the illusion that we can look away, that our moral duty to witness has been fulfilled. "The fight is over," the message goes, "now you can focus on more important matters." And the Western masses oblige, turning their attention to the spectacle of Elon Musk's Hitler salute or Trump's closure of USAID. Meanwhile, Palestinians continue dying - but their deaths no longer make headlines. This is how empire maintains control - not just through violence, but through our carefully manufactured forgetfulness.
The machinery of state power has already begun weaponizing this façade of peace against Palestine's supporters. "No need for more Gaza marches if the ceasefire holds," declares London Mayor Sadiq Khan - as if temporary pauses in bombing somehow erase the ongoing kidnappings of orphans, the systematic abuse of women in Israeli prisons, the daily dispossession of families, or the grinding machinery of apartheid and genocide. "Nothing to see here, move along," power whispers. This is empire's sleight of hand: using brief moments of quiet to normalize occupation's violence, to make the systematic erasure of a people seem reasonable, even civilized.
We cannot let a temporary ceasefire make us turn away and forget. Each protest march, each voice raised, each refusal to stay silent - these matter now more than ever. While they try to hide what's happening behind peace talks and ceasefires, the truth is clear: Palestine is being destroyed in plain sight, while the world is being told to move on. This is why we must keep speaking out, keep watching, keep resisting. Because power's greatest trick is not its violence - it is making us think that their violence is just how humans are, that it's normal and nothing can be done about it.
- Karim
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Good article, Karim, thank you.
We are now living in a delusional world, perfectly predicted by George Orwell in his novel "1984": War is pace, Slavery is freedom, Ignorance is strength.
I would like to add my own bit: Genocide is life.