Forgetting extermination is part of extermination

 

Jeffrey St. Clair>>

 The far-right Religious Zionism party said it would only stay in Netanyahu’s government if the prime minister promised to resume fighting in Gaza after the completion of the first stage of the hostage and cease-fire deal with Hamas.

The Trump and Netanyahu camps keep referring to the “ceasefire” as a “hostage deal,” which is an indication that the “ceasefire” is actually a pause–perhaps lasting only long enough to secure the release of the American hostages with Trump hailed as their liberator and, possibly, eventual avenger. I hope I’m wrong. History, though, is on my side. Israel pulled similar bomb-and-switch ceasefire tricks in 2009 and 2014, prolonging its assaults long after deals had been reached.

I’m a natural-born cynic, of course, but I can’t help but think that this ceasefire, this lull in the killing, is meant to erase, if not the memory of, at least the responsibility for, the killing that has come before. As Baudrillard wrote: “Forgetting extermination is part of extermination.”