Virtually everyone in the world says they want the nightmare in Gaza to stop. But ceasefires come and go while the slaughter just grinds on. Every time the US announces a deal, Hamas agrees and then Israel rejects or ignores it. It’s happened four times since 2023.
Israel has been recently engaged in hostilities in Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Iraq and Yemen as well as Palestine. But this is nothing new in Israel’s history. It is a warrior state and always has been. There were even attacks on the local Arabic community back in 1886, long before Israel existed, by Zionist European Jews who settled in Palestine as refugees from pogroms in Tsarist Russia.
Well before Israeli independence in 1948, Palestinian communities faced attacks from paramilitary gangs of Zionists – the Irgun and Lehi (Stern Gang) – as well as from British colonial forces. In the 1940s, these Zionist militias turned on the British in a terrorist campaign to win independence. The worst atrocity was the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in July 1946 by the Irgun, that killed 91 people including 17 Jews.
Their leaders became the Israeli government and formed an army strong enough to rebuff an invasion from five neighbouring nations. Israel has waged repeated wars against its Arab neighbours, almost always supported by its powerful friends in Europe and the US.
Given this history, the ‘forever war’ against Palestine should come as no surprise. Israel has no intention of sticking to any negotiated settlement.
- A three-stage deal was agreed in late 2023, but after exchanging some hostages Israel simply resumed bombing Gaza.
- In May 2024, US President Joe Biden announced that Israel had proposed a plan. Hamas concurred and it was endorsed unanimously by the UN Security Council. Israel then rejected it.
- In July 2025, President Donald Trump said Israel had agreed the ‘necessary conditions’ for a ceasefire in Gaza. A ‘Board of Peace’ proposal came into being in October but Israel ignored the ceasefire element and has since killed more than 1,200 people.
- In July this year, Trump announced that Israel was ‘very happy’ about stage 2 of the plan, involving the disarmament of Hamas and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel ‘does not accept the document’ – even though it had been changed in Israel’s favour, requiring Hamas to disarm completely before Israel must withdraw.
Israel has only ever said that it might withdraw behind its own ‘yellow line’ defining the area it controls, if Hamas was totally disarmed. In fact it has stated it is expanding its occupation of Gaza to 70% of the territory.
Netanyahu has also made clear that Israel would ‘absolutely not’ agree to part of the plan requiring it to hand over security in Gaza to a new International Stabilisation Force.
Trump seems to believe he can make the world fall into line with his pronouncements. He ran for office on a promise to end America’s involvement in ‘forever wars’. He claims to be the great peacemaker, ending ten wars since his election. But of these, four are still raging and two he started himself!
The facts speak for themselves. The constant factor in all Middle East conflict is Israel’s incessant warmongering. Israel will never end its control and assault on the Palestinians of its own accord.
It is to the shame of western political leaders and media that they refuse to face up to this, take action to end Israel’s ‘forever war’ on Palestine, and hold it to account.
Sanctions on settlements alone will not reverse the decades of cruel occupation that Palestinians have suffered.
