Zinaida Miller

The Israeli military claims that each individual strike in Gaza is justified but ignores their collective consequences. A reason is given for each ruin: this hospital sheltered fighters, that school sat above tunnels, this apartment block concealed weapons, that ambulance moved without co-ordination, this residential building housed ‘Hamas operatives’. But a justification that covers nearly every hospital, school, bakery and water plant is no longer a justification of isolated incidents.

Unlike peace agreements – which require negotiation, compromise and (ostensibly) long-term commitment – ceasefires are by definition temporary, partial and immediate. But they also construe violence narrowly and reinforce imbalances of power. They are as much a way to govern a population as a road to peace.

The Yellow Line is supposed to be temporary, but history suggests otherwise. Under ostensibly transient arrangements, Israel has annexed Palestinian land, displaced large numbers of people and expanded its control. Each time, Palestinians are told to wait for the next stage of the plan, while Israel’s gains become the baseline for the next round of negotiations. And the waiting never ends. Each phase is temporary, but every loss is permanent.

At a congressional hearing on 5 December, Elise Stefanik, a Republican congresswoman, asked Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard, if she agreed that the ‘call for intifada is to commit genocide against the Jewish people in Israel and globally’. The university presidents’ tepid, legalistic responses to Stefanik’s questions were widely criticised, but the most harmful outcome of the hearing was the failure to contest her bogus premise. Conflating intifada with genocide makes both terms unintelligible.