A long time ago when our mom wanted to send us to sleep she would always tell us the story of the ‘oil jar’.
She would start by saying: Should I tell you about the oil jar? We’d say in one voice: Yes, tell us. She would repeat: Should I tell you it or not…the story of the oil can and we would plead again: Yes. But every time, the affirmation would sink lower as we would yawn incessantly till we fell sleep.
https://www.addustour.com/articles/1521982
As we grew up we found there was no story to tell, she would repeat the oil jar tale so that we forget and go to sleep. I remember the story as I follow the news on the Trump’s mysterious 20-point plan on Gaza; there is no point among the 20 that are clear except the one on the handover of the hostages. The rest need astrologers and psychologists to decipher.
And there are others that say the plan is a “Trumpian trap” coordinated with Benjamin Netanyahu to free the hostages from the grip of Hamas while there there is no exact date for the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, no time detail for the entry of aid to the enclave to help the starving people and most important there are no guarantees to the Palestinian side that everything would be ok.
The only guarantee is that of Trump; there is no UN, no Russia, no China, the biggest powers on the international scene. There is no Security Council whose Article 7 emphasizes the use of military force against the party that opposes the execution of the agreement.
Unfortunately, the US president is not a man of his word. He says something and says the exact opposite the same day and even in the same sentence. What is the meaning of “peace through strength?” We understand that peace is derived through negotiations; And what about the meaning of “Hamas must agree or else face the gates of hell”.
Gaza has experienced: Trump has not kept to his promises for when the US hostage Eidan Alexander was released last May Trump praised the Hamas step, regarding it as a goodwill gesture towards the US. He saw the release as a “historic day” on the way to ending the barbaric war on Gaza.
But what happened to this historic day as described by the US president? The Netanyahu government became a wild beast with the Israeli army killing on average 100 Palestinians a day and with those injured double that number not to say anything about the starvation of tens of thousands.
The Israeli army increased its force on the enclave, invaded Gaza City and today it controls 80 percent of the enclave. We have no choice but to pretend that we believe in Trump and see what’s going to happen next and have to wait to see the outcome of his statements as the fairytale about the oil jar.
Subscribe to Our Newsletter
Get the latest CounterCurrents updates delivered straight to your inbox.
This opinion was originally written in Arabic and translated and published in crossfirearabia.com.