Rosita Cipolla The world applauds. Leaders who didn't lift a finger to stop the genocide breathe a sigh of relief. Trump and Netanyahu congratulate each other as if they had played a tennis match. Meanwhile, however, Gaza is no more. That Strip full of life is now a cemetery, reduced to a desert of rubble. And it's hard to truly believe in the word peace, which seems more like a synonym for "mission accomplished" for Israel.
And peace came to Palestine (as if it could be achieved with a snap of the fingers): today people are dancing and celebrating in the streets of Gaza. Finally, a ceasefire and a truce from the massacre.
In the newspapers, the peace agreement reached between Israel and Hamas is being celebrated as “historic,” “unprecedented,” a “great day for the world,” while Netanyahu speaks of a “national and moral victory for the State of Israel” (which should tell us a lot). Israel celebrates the return of hostages, Hamas rejoices halfway, the United States claims credit.
“We are confident that this time peace will last,” “Blessed are the peacemakers”: Donald Trump’s bombastic words ring grotesque over a land that is a desert of pulverized concrete, mass graves, buried dreams, and generations sacrificed on the altar of an inhuman conflict with no winners.
After two years, what remains of Palestine—which Italy and many other countries don’t even deign to recognize—is a hell where it seems absurd that peace could take root. Gaza today is a wasteland of ruins. And personally, I cannot feel joy or enthusiasm, but rather a sense of relief for a people martyred by genocide. And I’m reminded of that phrase Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant (“where they make a desert, they call it peace”) that the Latin author Publius Cornelius Tacitus has the Caledonian general Calgacus pronounce when he tries to instill courage in his army before the battle against Roman troops.
The bombs are silent, but the crimes and wounds remain
Trump celebrates the “fair treatment” of all parties. But what fairness can exist between those who possess the most sophisticated war machine in the Middle East and have acted committing crimes with impunity, and those who are trapped in a strip of land occupied for years? What fairness between those who can bomb hospitals and those who had no escape from bombs and hunger? The bombs are silent, but the injustices and crimes against humanity (which too many governments pretended not to see) remain intact, cemented in the rubble and tent camps.
How do you rebuild trust after fifteen months of extermination? How do you heal the wounds of a society where every family has lost someone? How do you explain to the surviving children, orphaned and traumatized, that now they must believe in peace with those who killed their parents?
A peace that seems more like a fragile truce (and reeks of neocolonialism)
True peace is born from mutual recognition and shared justice. True peace is born after recognizing the exact causes of a conflict. This seems more like a fragile armistice between exhausted enemies and reeks of neocolonialism.
Contemporary wars are no longer won on the battlefield. It’s enough to rebrand the massacre as “territorial reorganization,” destruction as “reconstruction,” surrender as “peace treaty.” Thus that desert becomes a blank page, on which the powerful can write their version of history…
But in all this, the real history has been made by the Palestinian people, who have shown an extraordinary spirit of resistance. It has been made by ordinary people around the world who united to stir consciences and stop the genocide. It has been made by activists who embarked, unarmed and aware of the risks, to try to break the Israeli naval blockade and attempt to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza. Even though Donald Trump is taking credit for ending the genocide, and he did so with perfect timing (the day before the Nobel Peace Prize announcement).
I hope this is the beginning of a new phase for Palestine, the first phase of a journey toward freedom and self-determination.
