Trump And Netanyahu’s Ceasefire Plan Won’t Heal The Scars In Gaza
Gaza's war leaves a legacy of hatred — a generation scarred as antisemitism and Islamophobia spread worldwide.
The Gist
Ceasefire Plan Amidst Ongoing Conflict
- 67,000 Palestinians have died, with significant destruction in Gaza.
- The plan involves a partial withdrawal of Israeli forces and potential Palestinian statehood.
- Global antisemitism and Islamophobia are expected to rise as a result of the conflict.
Two years and two days after the terrorist attack by Hamas fighters from the Gaza Strip that killed around 1,200 Israelis, and the beginning of Israel’s brutal retaliation, that leading genocide scholars and a UN Commission have labelled genocide, a ceasefire plan appears to be taking hold.
The plan, jointly announced by US president Donald Trump and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, seeks Hamas’s surrender and return of the remaining hostages who are still alive and the bodies of hostages who have died, in return for ceasefire, partial withdrawal of Israeli Defence Forces from Gaza, and the possibility of Palestinian statehood at the end of a period of reconstruction and consolidation when Gaza would be administered by a steering group headed by Trump, with former British prime minister Tony Blair as a member.
As many as 67,000 Palestinians have been killed, 30% of them children, and thousands of young Palestinians have had their physical and mental development stunted, probably permanently, by prolonged starvation and trauma.
Fallout Of The War
Gaza is now rubble. Palestinian schools and hospitals lie in ruins. Israeli occupation can be expected to continue for weeks more, as they seek to systematically destroy the tunnel network that Hamas had built and has been using to shelter their fighters and arms from Israeli raids.
Compulsive seers of the bright side, the likes of those who would pick up a book to read utilising the light provided by their house going up in flames, could see Gaza presenting itself as new terrain for developing planned, organised, energy-efficient settlements that would make one of the most densely populated areas of the planet a little more livable than it was two years ago.
Whether peace holds or not, there is no gainsaying the bitterness that the war has created and the poisoning of relations between Palestinians and Israelis. Antisemitism and Islamophobia are guaranteed to thrive across the globe for many years to come, as a direct fallout of the Gaza war.
US Shutdown Continues
The US government shutdown has entered its second week. Air traffic controllers continue to work, although they would not be paid. Many ATC personnel have reported sick, and planes are getting delayed across the US.
Trump and the Republicans blame the Democrats, who are holding out, refusing to pass a budget appropriation bill before the healthcare benefits for the poor that have been taken away by Trump’s One Big Beautiful Budget Bill are restored. The markets have not reacted too badly to the government shutdown, but things could change.
Trump continues with his public displays of ignorance. He has promised to bring down drug prices by 1,000% and 600%, apparently oblivious to the implications. If the price of a drug is brought down by 100%, the drug becomes free. If it is brought down by more than 100%, the drug company would have to pay the drug buyer money for the service of buying the drug.
A New PM In Japan
In Japan, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party has elected a woman leader for the first time, making her the prime minister. A former drummer in a heavy metal band, she might be, but Takaichi Sanae is no women’s libber. She opposes the idea of a woman on the Chrysanthemum throne, meaning only a man can succeed the current emperor. She also opposes the idea of women retaining their maiden names after marriage.
Japan, like South Korea, experiences severe demographic decline, as many young women refuse to get married and have children, taking on, in the process, the burden of caring for the old and looking after the home, while also holding down a job, even as the male spouse makes zero contribution to domestic chores.
A smaller Japanese population might one day get a more progressive leader who sees that the population would continue to decline in the absence of gender justice.
Boom Or Gloom?
India continues to witness an IPO boom, the calendar year expected to see public issues totalling some $20 billion. The success of the LG Electronics issue is remarkable, like the Hyundai issue last October. In either case, a foreign multinational company has been raising capital in India. The Korean parent is selling a chunk of its holding in the Indian subsidiary in either a public issue. It is free to take the capital so raised back home to Korea.
Capital account convertibility is restricted only for Indian nationals. In its last meeting of the the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) monetary policy committee, the central bank decided to accelerate the internationalisation of the rupee. The capital market has been internationalising the rupee already.
The RBI also decided to liberalise bank lending to capital market intermediaries, and to raise the ceiling for loans against shares and credit availed of to subscribe to share purchases. Considering that the bulk of initial public offerings these days witness promoters offloading their shares to a public hungry to own shares, the liberalised bank lending will go to boost share prices, rather than form productive capital on the ground.
Capacity utilisation in the manufacturing sector remains stuck below 76%, according to the RBI’s survey on capacity utilisation. This year’s Budget promised to announce public-private-partnership policies to draw private investment into infrastructure building. No policy has followed. Will a debt-fuelled stock market boom do much to revive India’s stalled growth?
The answer will not be blowing in the wind, if only for the reason that parts of Northwest India are entering a phase of reduced wind speeds, leading to the accumulation of pollution that brings air quality down to dangerous levels. Stubble burning to prepare the fields for a fresh crop and Diwali crackers add to the pollution load precisely in this period.
The Prime Minister has inaugurated Mumbai’s second international airport, at Navi Mumbai. This is built by the Adani group, as part of a public-private partnership deal. Airport development is the only form of PPP that has survived into the post-UPA era.
Old Evils, New Wounds
India’s old social evil of caste refuses to go gently into the receding past. It is taking new energy from religious revival, and blighting the present. An Indian Police Service officer of Haryana, a Dalit, committed suicide last week, alleging sustained harassment based on caste discrimination. Dalits being thrown out of Navratri’s garba dances form a story that gets renewed every year.
An elderly lawyer threw a shoe at the Chief Justice of India, who is a Dalit. Justice Gavai provoked religious ire by a remark he made while refusing to grant the support of the law to a demand to ‘restore’ an idol of Lord Vishnu to the temple of Khajuraho. Justice Gavai asked the petitioner to pray to the Lord himself to do something about the restoration of his idol. A retired Supreme Court justice, Markandeya Katju tweeted that the chief justice invited the shoe-throwing response with his comment, seeming to justify the act.
The Nobel prizes awarded so far this year recognise work with direct practical applications. The one for medicine recognises work that explains why our immune system does not attack our healthy cells. This opens up the possibility of using our own immune system to fight cancer.
The Physics prize goes to quantum scientists who have made quantum computing possible. The Nobel for chemistry honours the creators of reticular chemistry, which builds entirely new materials, Metal-Organic Frameworks and Covalent Organic Frameworks, which have applications in very many areas, ranging from filtering water out of the air, and carbon capture to electronics manufacture.
