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Ron Kronish

The good news and the bad news about the agreement between Israel and Hamas

wiki commons images. The Kidnapped and Missing Square in the plaza of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art
wiki commons images. The Kidnapped and Missing Square in the plaza of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art

During the good ol’ days of the Oslo Peace Process in the 1990s, I often began my lectures about Interreligious Dialogue and Peacebuilding to groups from abroad and to audiences in the USA and Europe, with the following statement: “Even though I am Jewish, I have some good news for you.”

I don’t know the origin of this joke, but apparently it reflects a pervasive ambivalence among Jews whereby we are so used to bad news that it is hard to accept some good news. This has certainly been the case during the last two years since the establishment of the Netanyahu/ Ben Gvir/ Smotrich government and especially during the last 15 months, since the surprise attack by Hamas in the south of Israel and the bloody and destructive war that has taken place since then.

Since the news emerged yesterday that there is finally an agreement between Israel and Hamas for a ceasefire, an exchange of hostages for prisoners, and a phased process of many weeks which could end this horrible war and restore some stability and sanity to Israel and the region, I have been overwhelmed with mixed feelings about the whole thing.

There is much hope in the good news:

  • Israeli hostages will start come home on Sunday, January 19th, after more than 15 months in captivity. This is very important for Israeli society. Thousands of people have been working and demonstrating for this day for a long time. It will begin to bring some psychological relief to the families and to Israeli society, which has been focused on this issue.
  • A ceasefire will mean that Palestinians and Israelis won’t be killed almost every day in Gaza in a senseless war of attrition, with no end in sight.
  • There is now an end in sight: the full cessation of war, the return of all the hostages, the rebuilding of Gaza, the rebuilding of the Israeli economy, and the search for new regional arrangements, including with Saudi Arabia, which will ensure security in the region, especially for Israelis and Palestinians.
  • The extreme right wing of the Netanyahu government is severely weakened. Hopefully they will make good on their threats and leave the government!

And yet, like at a Jewish wedding—when we break the glass and remember the destruction of the first and second temples and other Jewish tragedies—we are still in the midst of trauma and post-trauma from the massacres, kidnapping and the mini-invasion of Israel on October 7th, 2023. We are suffering from great anxiety from this situation and from despair of our current leadership, who have behaved dangerously, irresponsibly and cruelly since they formed their extremist government in December 2022. Accordingly, even with this diplomatic agreement, which our immoral and incompetent government is going to accept grudgingly, we are beset with many disturbing questions:

  • Will Bibi and his partners abide by the agreement or will they torpedo it and return to war after the first phase, as some of their spokespersons are already threatening? Are they only interested in the first phase or are they serious about full implementation of all phases of the agreement?
  • Similarly, will Hamas do things to break the agreement, to make it harder of impossible for it to go all the way?
  • If this government does not implement all phases of the agreement, does this mean that they are prepared to seal the fate of the remaining 65 hostages in Gaza.? And does it mean that they prefer a forever war in Gaza, and resettlement there, as opposed to reaching an end to this war?
  • There is a pervasive feeling in Israel that this government could have reached this agreement six or more months ago, thus saving many lives, and that their refusal to do so was political, and that their agreement to do so finally now was political, i.e., supporting Trump as against going along with Biden and the Democrats and allowing them to get some credit for a diplomatic achievement.
  • There is also a pervasive unease in Israel as to why this agreement has to have so many phases, with so many tense negotiations taking place during each phase. If the goal is to end the war, why couldn’t this have been done in one phase, with all hostages being returned in exchange for 1000 Palestinian prisoners? Families of the hostages who will not be released for six more weeks are concerned that they will never be released, and Israeli society will be going through psychological hell for the next six weeks, as only small numbers of hostages are released.

Nevertheless, the good news outweighs the bad or problematic news. An agreement has been reached. Thank God, and thanks to all the mediators—the USA, Qatar, Egypt—who have made it happen, against the will of our current government in Israel.

The great hope now is that this process will be fulfilled in all of its phases and this destructive and detrimental war will finally end. This will enable the governments and the people of Israel and Palestine to return to the tasks of governing, which include taking care of the health, welfare and education of their citizens. This will not be easy, nor will it be quick, but it will be essential for the benefit of Israelis and Palestinians and for our common good.

Let the work of rebuilding begin now, without further delay.

Rabbi Tarfon said: the day is short, and the work is plentiful, and the laborers are indolent, and the reward is great, and the master of the house is insistent. It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it. (Ethics of the Fathers, 2:15-16

About the Author
Rabbi Dr Ron Kronish is the Founding Director the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel (ICCI), which he directed for 25 years. Now retired, he is an independent educator, author, lecturer, writer, speaker, blogger and consultant. He is the editor of 5 books, including Coexistence and Reconciliation in Israel--Voices for Interreligious Dialogue (Paulist Press, 2015). His new book, The Other Peace Process: Interreligious Dialogue, a View from Jerusalem, was published by Hamilton Books, an imprint of Rowman and LIttelfield, in September 2017. He recently (September 2022) published a new book about peacebuilders in Israel and Palestine entitled Profiles in Peace: Voices of Peacebuilders in the midst of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, which is available on Amazon Books, Barnes and Noble and the Book Depository websites,
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