[Salon] Unfinished War: Why the Ceasefire is a Battle in the Global Intifada



Unfinished War: Why the Ceasefire is a Battle in the Global Intifada

Summary: the recent ceasefire in Gaza marks not a peace agreement but a tactical retreat by Israel, which failed to achieve its military objectives despite a devastating two-year war. This conflict has sparked a global awakening, exposing the complicity of Western media and governments and galvanising a worldwide resistance that, drawing on historical precedent for liberation struggles, has fundamentally shifted the momentum in favour of the Palestinian cause.

The world that existed before October 7th is gone. It was a world shrouded in a carefully managed narrative, where the reality of Israel’s decades-long occupation and apartheid against the Palestinian people was filtered through a media lens that rendered their suffering abstract, distant, and palatable. October 7th was a violent rupture, not just in the security apparatus of a nuclear-armed state, but in the global consciousness. It tore away the veil, and in the brutal, two-year genocide that followed, humanity was forced to watch, and in watching, to see.

What followed was a period of profound disorientation and collective awakening, both in the Arab world and in the West. The sheer, graphic horror of the violence unleashed upon Gaza, the levelling of entire neighbourhoods with explosives equivalent to nearly 13 Hiroshima bombs, the systematic destruction of hospitals, the images of burned children and families obliterated in their tents, the rape of detainees, was met not with universal condemnation, but with a shocking, bewildering defence from the very institutions and politicians in whom many had placed their trust. We witnessed the full power of the state, the media, and the military-industrial complex leveraged to support what could only be described as a genocidal campaign by a racist settler colony.

The psychological tremor was deep. How could every mainstream media outlet, every government official in Washington and London, either implicitly or explicitly, support the Zionist project’s most violent excesses? We were fed lies about 40 beheaded babies and systematic rape, while the actual, documented war crimes were downplayed or justified. We saw the vilification of UN experts like Francesca Albanese and political pressure applied to the International Criminal Court. The illusion of a civilized, democratic West, committed to human rights and equality, was stripped away, exposing the raw colonial power structure that truly governs the world. For two years, we were not just witnessing a genocide; we were being gaslit on a planetary scale. The complicity was so total, so absolute, that it forced a fundamental question: who, exactly, controls our governments and our media?


The Gaza holocaust has exposed the Zionist regime and its Western backers as genocidal and therefore illegitimate in the eyes of the world, especially the youth in the West

Against this backdrop of global outrage and Israeli failure, the recent ceasefire agreement emerges not as a triumph of diplomacy, but as a tactical retreat by a regime in crisis. Despite unleashing a holocaust that killed tens of thousands, Israel failed to achieve a single one of its stated goals. The Palestinian resistance, Hamas and its allies, remains intact and undislodged. Its tunnel network endures. Its political will is unbroken. On other fronts - in Lebanon against Hezbollah, in the Red Sea against the Huthis, and in its shadow war with Iran - Israel and its superpower backer, the United States, similarly failed to secure victories.

This ceasefire is a reflection of that comprehensive failure. Israel has become a global pariah, and even its most steadfast allies are facing unprecedented domestic pressure. The global Zionist project, a powerful amalgamation of wealthy ethno-supremacists, Western oligarchs, and imperial interests, reached a cold-eyed conclusion: the Israeli regime was destroying itself. The global momentum was turning decisively against them, with millions taking to the streets from London to Sydney, and a generation of youth becoming radicalised against the colonial project.

The Western media’s portrayal of this moment as a "new beginning" or a "fresh start," with credit due to figures like Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, is a deliberate and desperate act of narrative reclamation. It is political theatre, a ceremony staged for television to de-escalate the global intifada and re-bilateralise a conflict that the Palestinians could never win through negotiations alone. The reality is that this deal, negotiated under the genocidal auspices of a Trump administration that armed, funded, and vetoed ceasefires for two years, does not challenge Israeli control in any fundamental way. It provides a respite, a humanitarian pause, but it leaves the power dynamics of occupier and occupied intact.

Both sides now use this fragile pause to prepare for the next, inevitable phase of the struggle. For the Palestinian resistance, this means a critical period of consolidation. The agreement to release Israeli prisoners of war - uniformly labelled "hostages" in Western media while ignoring the thousands of Palestinian women and children held in Israeli dungeons - is a strategic calculation. This leverage was insufficient to stop the genocide, and relinquishing it buys precious time. This time will be used to strengthen military infrastructure, expand the labyrinth of tunnels, re-arm, and prepare for the next round.

This aligns with the historical strategy of Protracted People’s War, a disciplined philosophy of attrition against a superior enemy. The first phase, the strategic defensive, where the weaker force mobilises the masses and wages a guerrilla campaign, has just concluded. We now enter the second phase: stalemate and consolidation. The resistance will use this time to build strength, establish revolutionary base areas, and spread its influence, patiently waiting for the moment when the enemy is sufficiently worn down to launch a final, strategic offensive. This is not a quest for a quick win, but a patient, enduring struggle that trades space for time.

Israel and its global backers are equally busy. Their failure on the military battlefield has been matched by a chilling success on the domestic front in the West. The last two years have seen an unprecedented assault on civil liberties in the name of defending Zionism. Universities are censored and defunded, doctors, lawyers and journalists are silenced, and social media platforms are systematically silencing Palestinian voices. Vast swathes of the media have been acquired by Zionist supporters to control the narrative. This is not an isolated phenomenon; it is one front in a global war. The same oligarchs, corporations, and intelligence agencies that support Israel’s genocide are the ones dismantling privacy, free speech, and accountability in the West. Palestine is the canary in the coal mine, and its fate is inextricably linked to our own.

The ceasefire is fragile, the fighting will likely soon restart. The racist, ethno-supremacist core of the Zionist project remains unchanged, and ethnic cleansing continues unabated in the West Bank. Yet, the situation is fundamentally different than it was two years ago. The world has been awakened. The comprador Arab regimes in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been exposed as collaborators, utterly disconnected from their people. The hypocrites in Western governments and corporations have been unmasked. A global resistance has been born.

History offers a clear precedent. The Algerians lost the Battle of Algiers, the Viet Cong’s Tet Offensive was a military failure, and the Mau Mau rebellion was brutally suppressed. Yet, all marked irrevocable turning points that shattered the status quo and set the stage for eventual liberation. These struggles demonstrated that there are no stunning, overnight victories against an overwhelming colonial power. Liberation is won through a long, painful struggle that makes the cost of oppression intolerable for the oppressor.

The Palestinians, backed by a global movement that now understands this is a fight against Zionism, imperialism, and a dystopian system of global control, are closer to that goal than ever before. The Israeli regime is divided and morally bankrupt. Its backers are scrambling. The veil has been lifted, and it can never be put back. The path ahead remains long and fraught with suffering, but the direction of history is clear. The relentless spirit of a people demanding their humanity, amplified by a world that can no longer look away, is a force that, in the end, no wall, no bomb, and no propaganda can contain. When we say "Free Palestine," we are not just calling for the liberation of a strip of land; we are demanding a future free for all of us.

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