Alert: Amidst the talk of negotiations, truce and ceasefire, it is very important to keep a firm grip on the fact that Israel continues to threaten the invasion of Rafah, ceasefire or not. It is extremely important—it is imperative—that all those who stand against the genocide not be taken in. 

An Israeli invasion of Rafah would be a bloodbath! Over a million Palestinians, including 600,000 children, driven from their homes are sheltering there in the most desperate conditions. People need to be prepared to bring protest to a whole other scale and level if there are even the beginning signs of that happening!

Action is urgent.

At this writing, Israel’s U.S.-supplied bombs, missiles, and tanks have killed 34,622 people in Gaza, almost half of them children. There are a further estimated 10,000 more bodies buried in the rubble of destroyed homes, hospitals, and schools. In the north of Gaza, Israel-imposed famine is already underway, meaning children and adults are dying of hunger on a daily basis. Israeli bulldozers and bombs have ruined agricultural resources—greenhouses, olive trees, farm machinery, and soil—in a way that will cause hunger and even greater dependency for years.

The devastation is unfathomable.

Talk of Ceasefire While Slaughter Continues

As defiant mass protests against Israel’s genocide in Gaza sweep across campuses from New England to Southern California, U.S. news has been filled with speculation on supposed progress on U.S. moves to arrange a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Genocide Joe Biden wants to portray the U.S. as a supposed “peacemaker” in Gaza after shipping billions of dollars of death machinery to Israel to continue the genocidal slaughter of overwhelmingly defenseless Palestinians. His secretary of state, Antony Blinken, uses every opportunity to put the blame on Hamas for not going along with what he claims is a “generous offer”—while Netanyahu (Netan-Nazi) makes clear that with or without a ceasefire he intends to invade Rafah.

What Would a Ceasefire Mean?

For millions of decent people around the world, an immediate, permanent ceasefire is the absolute minimum needed. Right now! That is not in the picture.

Based on leaked proposals in Israeli media, and a May 1 summary in the New York Times, the basic provisions of a U.S.-sponsored ceasefire are along the following lines:

• A 40-day cessation in what is being framed as a “war” between Israel and Hamas (in essence, a one-sided massacre of defenseless Palestinian civilians). 
• Release by Hamas of 33 surviving Israeli civilian hostages it seized in its raid on Israel on October 7 in exchange for release of Palestinians held in Israeli torture chambers. 
• Allowing Palestinians sheltering in primitive tents around the southern border city of Rafah to return to homes they were driven from in central and northern Gaza, with promises of increased access to aid.
• “Gradual” withdrawal of Israeli forces from some places in Gaza.

A ceasefire along the lines described in news coverage would not come anywhere close to addressing the incredibly urgent needs of two million people, many starving, without homes, medical care, or a way to live. It is not in the universe of a just solution to the horrific oppression of the Palestinian people. And any “agreement” the U.S. gets Israel to sign will be a promise made to be broken.

That said, a ceasefire that at least reduces Israeli bombing and missile attacks and provides some space for people to try to survive might provide some, if very minimal, very temporary relief for the Palestinian people in Gaza. 

But is even that what the U.S. ceasefire initiative is all about? Keep reading.

Weaponizing Ceasefire Negotiations to Cover Up Israel’s Crimes

On May 1, Blinken met with Netan-Nazi and Israel’s liberal genocidal President Herzog. Blinken claimed, “We’re determined to get a ceasefire that brings the hostages home, and to get it now,” but the “only reason that wouldn’t be achieved is because of Hamas.”

That’s total bullshit. 

In fact, the Israeli paper Ha’aretz wrote on May 4 that just as a hostage deal with Hamas reached a critical point, Netanyahu announced that “in contrast to reports, Israel will under no circumstances agree to end the war as part of a deal involving the release of hostages. The IDF [the Israeli army] will enter Rafah and destroy the Hamas battalions remaining there, whether there is a temporary truce for releasing the hostages or not." 

The reality is dominant forces in the Israeli government are the ones most openly blocking a ceasefire deal that would free the remaining Hamas-held hostages. Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s powerful finance minister and a Zionist who is even more open in his genocidal rhetoric and stance than Netan-Nazi, said on April 30 that accepting a ceasefire deal would mean “raising a white flag, and a victory for Hamas.” 

The next day Orit Strook, Israel’s settlements minister, who is overseeing the violent pogroms—massive violent racist riots against Palestinians in the West Bank region of Palestine—lashed out at calls for a ceasefire to free the hostages. She told Israeli military radio that any government that made a deal “to save 22 or 33 or I don’t know how many” hostages has “no right to exist.”

Think about the implications of those terms being set by one of the most powerful people in Israel. “White flag”? “Victory for Hamas”? That means anyone, including Netan-Nazi, who agrees to a ceasefire is a traitor surrendering to Hamas. Smotrich and the rabid thugs are setting the terms now in the Israeli government.

Clashing Interests, but U.S. and Israel Agree on Invasion of Rafah

At the same time, the increasing outrage in the rest of Israeli society over the fact that the Netan-Nazi government clearly doesn’t attach any priority to freeing the hostages, as well as the growing struggle within the U.S., Israel’s main provider of arms and diplomatic cover, means that Netan-Nazi must at least go through the charade of at least not opposing a ceasefire.

None of this means that a ceasefire is impossible; it does mean that there are powerful forces arrayed against it within Israel. And whatever reservations and differences the U.S. may have about how Israel asserts that control over Gaza, Israel is too important to their strategic domination of the world for them to break with it. As Bob Avakian has argued:

This is not because of “the power of the Jewish lobby”—or because of some ignorant, ridiculous and outrageous notion that “Jews are controlling everything.” It is because Israel plays a “special role” as a heavily armed bastion of support for U.S. imperialism in a strategically important part of the world (the “Middle East”). And Israel has been a key force in the commission of atrocities which have helped to maintain the oppressive rule of U.S. imperialism in many other parts of the world.

However It Is Done, the Invasion of Rafah Would Be a Bloodbath

An invasion of Rafah could, in the words of the World Health Organization (WHO) “lead to a bloodbath.” More than 1.2 million Palestinians, driven from their homes, are sheltering in Rafah with many unable to move. WHO reports that “A new wave of displacement would exacerbate overcrowding, further limiting access to food, water, health and sanitation services, leading to increased disease outbreaks, worsening levels of hunger, and additional loss of lives.” 

The scale of humanitarian catastrophe would certainly provoke global outrage against Israel and the U.S. on a whole other level than exists now. And Biden is genuinely desperate to put some limits on how openly Israel carries out this bloodbath. 

But the “line” Biden is drawing, according to a piece by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, is: “We are not saying to Israel, just leave Hamas be. We are saying that we believe there is a more targeted way to go after the leadership, without leveling Rafah block by block." [Emphasis added.]

Without leveling Rafah block by block! That’s Biden’s red line?! Anything short of leaving Rafah and all the people in it in a pile of rubble is OK??!!

Remember what the World Health Organization identifies as the factor that would cause a bloodbath: any invasion that that would create “a new wave of displacement.” Pause here. Envision for a moment a million desperate, starving, traumatized people attempting to flee for their lives without any resources, refuge, or protection! And how, on top of the death and destruction from Israeli bombs, missiles, tanks, and stormtroopers, this would constitute a horrific escalation of even the war crimes Israel has committed so far.

The Struggle Must Intensify

As we post this dire warning of the threat of an invasion of Rafah by Israel backed by the U.S… As we post this exposure of the duplicitous, lying weaponization of ceasefire talks to whitewash and enable Israel’s crimes… and as the rulers of this country suppress protest on campuses with demonization and violence…

We, all of us, must spread the resistance to the genocide in Gaza—on the campuses and throughout all of society! As part of this, we must prepare and organize now that if there are indications an invasion of Rafah is about to begin protest must go to another level, including defending ALL anti-genocide students and protesters! And even if there is a ceasefire, not only must vigilance remain high but the struggle to free Palestine… and the larger struggle to put an end to the capitalist-imperialist system that has committed this and so many other outrages, historically and right now—must be intensified. 

There is a way to do this through revolution… in this time, not in some far-distant time. There is a way to do this that would mean a giant step forward in the emancipation of all humanity. You who have been fighting, and learning about, imperialism need to hear the truth about how a revolution to overthrow and uproot it could happen and how the current struggles relate to that—in the social media messages 1 through 11 at @BAOfficial and BA’s new messages coming out now on important developments and key strategic questions in the struggle now raging.

The stakes—for Palestine, for the U.S., for the world—are extremely high.