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153 countries have voted for the ceasefire, beside the governments, many people around the world demonstrate against the war and asks Israel to bring an end to the war. My question is that, what compensation do these proponents of ceasefire consider for the Israel? As the officials of the Israel have repeatedly declared, the war has two goals:

  • saving hostages
  • destroying Hamas

One who thinks that Israel must stop the war may have options for achieving these two goals with other approaches, or may think differently and believe that these goals are not legitimate or does not make the war legitimate. I want to know is there any claim that suggests any alternative for Israel instead of war from the supporters of the ceasefire?

Italian Philosophers 4 Monica
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Amir reza Riahi
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7 Answers7

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There is likely not one goal among all those nations, but multiple.

  • Obviously, some countries openly support the Palestinians and consider Israel an enemy, including a good number that share the goal of wiping Israel off the map.
  • Some countries are not openly hostile to Israel, but on a geo-political scale (which the UN is), they oppose Israel either for strategic reasons or because they are allies or dependent upon a country in the first group. Iran proxies come to mind, but also anyone who needs someone like Saudi-Arabia to be friendly. This group may also include countries who see Israel as a US-proxy and vote against it because they consider this as opposing the US.
  • Some countries vote for reasons of internal policy. Many European countries have seen large pro-Palestine demonstrations on their streets and a vote like this is basically free - it doesn't require resources to be allocated, money to be spent or anything - it's a quick and easy way to offer these protesters something.
  • There are probably reasons I haven't covered. Politics can be complicated.

All these groups have different "alternatives" in mind. Some genuinely want to support Hamas. Some hope/believe that negotiations, peace, two-state-solution or something else is a better way than this war. Some understand that the vote does nothing and accomplishes even less and use it simply to show their allegiance with whoever they want to cuddle up to. Some want the death & destruction to disappear from their local news because it upsets their voters.

Note that IMHO none of these considerations include the officially stated humanitarian reasons. In the words of a famous politician of my home country: "Countries do not have morals, only interests."

Tom
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  • The quote got me interested in it's origin but I can't find it. Where is it from? (Closest I can find is "“Nations do not have permanent friends or enemies, only interests" apparently first spoken in Britain by Henry John Temple (aka Lord Palmerston) and possibly repeated (in slightly modified form) by Henry Kissinger. – Kvothe Dec 18 '23 at 13:33
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    @Kvothe I remember it as a quote attributed to German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. There is apparently a similar quote by Charles de Gaulle ("Countries don't have friends, only alliances.") - it appears that it was a fairly common piece of wisdom around their time. – Tom Dec 18 '23 at 18:17
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Frame Challenge: A ceasefire doesn't always mean "An end to the war", nor does it mean that one side of the conflict definitively met all their established goals.

Calling for a ceasefire can be considered attempting to achieve a permanent state of peace between Israel and Palestine, but that's a little optimistic. Even the ceasefire and treaty of Europe's "World War 1" (Originally referred to as "The war to end all wars") didn't guarantee that "World War 2" didn't kick back up 20 years later, after all.

But that's about wars that had a ceasefire armistice...followed up with an official treaty to end the war. We don't have to set our hopes that high, as there is precedence for a ceasefire without a treaty; namely, the Korean Armistice Agreement.

While there's more to the armistice there than I can cover, a few key points:

  1. Both North and South Korea declared that the peninsula should be united under their government, and they didn't get that from the armistice;
  2. They both agreed to abide by the terms of the armistice, even as it had terms about a demilitarized zone (DMZ) that was intended to stand as a buffer between the two nations until a peace treaty could be ratified;

Granted, for 2.), the peace treaty...hasn't come through, and one can argue about the effectiveness of the armistice, given other details that came up, and stuff like one side announcing that they wouldn't abide by it ~6 times since (According to the above link, North Korea announced they would no longer abide by the terms in 1994, 1996, 2003, 2006, 2009, and 2013. Don't know enough about the conflict to comment on South Korea's abidance by it, short of the President at the time of the armistice signing process refused to sign it, but agreed to abide by the terms in it.).

The above is why the phrasing is about a "Ceasefire" and not a "Peace Treaty" by people asking for a cessation of hostilities. Ideally, a ceasefire is the first step to the latter, but we can..."Get by" on a ceasefire for a while, even if neither side is meeting their intended and stated goals.

A ceasefire can contain some of a side's goals

Again, focusing on the Korean Armistice Agreement, there's this clause in it:

Within sixty (60) days after this agreement becomes effective each side shall, without offering any hindrance, directly repatriate and hand over in groups all those prisoners of war in its custody who insist on repatriation to the side to which they belonged at the time of capture.

So hypothetically, if Hamas and Israel agree to a ceasefire, part of the terms agreed to could be the safe return of hostages. It could include a DMZ between the parties of the ceasefire, and it may even contain terms to come to a peace treaty. What actually is part of the terms depends on what they'll agree to, and that is something that would have to be hashed out in negotiations of the ceasefire, and even some terms can be indicated as necessary for the relevant peace treaty and similar aspects, if possible to delay some goals until after a ceasefire is established.

NoDataDumpNoContribution
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Alexander The 1st
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    The Korean example is interesting, but missing some context. Before the armistice you mention, how many times was there a cease-fire that was broken by one side brutally attacking the other side by surprise? This is important, because repeated breaking of cease-fire reduce the trust to the level that an armistice becomes impossible. – Erel Segal-Halevi Dec 18 '23 at 19:28
  • @ErelSegal-Halevi: I may need to update the answer as a result of checking that, because while I don't know about before the armistice was agreed to, after the armistice was agreed to and North Korea apparently announced they weren't going to abide by it 6 separate times (My immediate search didn't indicate why they even could do that 6 times, but I presume they relented over negotiations), there is the Panmujom Declaration in 2018, which. might actually be the peace treaty that I mentioned that 2.) didn't lead to. Timewise it's late - – Alexander The 1st Dec 18 '23 at 23:00
  • So I'd need to check if it's actually a proper peace treaty in alignment with the armistice, or if it counts as a renewed armistice that was signed by both parties, or specifically what it would count as.
    • – Alexander The 1st Dec 18 '23 at 23:01
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    An "announcement they weren't going to abide by it" does not count. The question is whether they actually attacked South Korea, killing many citizens, after a cease-fire was agreed. – Erel Segal-Halevi Dec 19 '23 at 06:20
  • @ErelSegal-Halevi: I mainly focused on those statements since it was one party stating that they were planning on violating the terms - our next best option is relying on South Korea's claims that North Korea committed 221 provocations between 1953 and 2011, which is an opposing party claiming the other party violated the terms - the ones I mentioned was the apparently violating country itself declaring their intent to violate the armistice. That said, violations of past armistices don't necessarily prevent future possible armistices – Alexander The 1st Dec 19 '23 at 09:07
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    The ceasefire the 153 countries voted for was a unilateral one by Israel wasn't it? I may have missed it but I didn't see a requirement for Hamas to agree to anything. – Simd Dec 19 '23 at 15:12
  • @Simd: You might note that the Korean Armistice Agreement was negotiated between North Korea and the U.S. (And later the UNC). - South Korea essentially wasn't bound by it initially, and even opposed it.. That said, the terms of the Armistice included the phrase "complete cessation of all hostilities in Korea by all armed forces,", which implies it effectively was going to affect them anyways, hence why South Korea wasn't a signatory, but did agree to abide by the terms. This could be similar. – Alexander The 1st Dec 20 '23 at 02:29
  • @Simd: One of the complications leading to that sort of "Technical workaround" is that Palestine being recognized as being govered by Hamas in that area is...complicated enough as to be a point of contention during a peace treaty later on - the ceasefire could affect all parties without all parties being signatories, until said peace treaty resolves official recognition terms, if it ever does (Again, see 1.) - technically, South and North Korea see each other as illegitimate.). (See also: China and Chinese Taipei/Taiwan, and U.S.'s "Strategic ambiguity.".) It won't be simple. – Alexander The 1st Dec 20 '23 at 02:40