A few days ago, the city council of Worcester, Mass., voted not to consider a resolution calling for a “ceasefire” in the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. This provoked outrage from some, including a couple council members who incited a riot that resembled Jan. 6. Regardless, rejecting the call for “ceasefire” was the right thing to do. The council was hemmed in from discussing the resolution due to its rules, but there are substantive reasons to have rejected the citizen petition, which are discussed below.
Even if now were the appropriate time for a ceasefire (it’s not), the specific wording of the resolution would have made it unacceptable to anyone who is not an anti-Israel extremist. Organizers claim to have collected more than a thousand signatures from Worcester voters, but it is unlikely that those who signed reflected on the wording. In the city council chamber, in the ceasefire demonstration outside, and in the media, there was no description of the document. Consequently, it is worth reflecting on what, beyond a nebulous “ceasefire,” these people are calling for.
It is understandable that the average person wants to see an end to the war. No one wants innocent civilians to die. The average person who signed the ceasefire petition likely simply thought to themselves something along the lines of, “I hate war and want people to live in peace.” This is laudable. The problem, however, is that an unjust peace can be worse than war.
The text of the resolution, prepared by the “Multi-Faith Coalition for a Worcester Ceasefire Resolution” can be found here. Below are the most problematic excerpts in italics followed by commentary.
Civilians vs. combatants
AND WHEREAS the ongoing war on Gaza has resulted in over 42,000 Palestinian lives lost, more than 50% being women and children,
This number comes directly from Gaza’s Ministry of Health, which is controlled by Hamas. Consequently, there is no way to verify these numbers, and higher numbers are to Hamas’s benefit in the battle of ideas. Even if the numbers are real, what do they tell us? Hamas makes no distinctions between combatants and civilians. The jarring “women and children” number tells us nothing about who was a Hamas terrorist and who was an innocent civilian. The IDF recently uncovered proof that Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad use child soldiers. That these groups do so is not controversial and has long been known. 20 years ago, Amnesty International – no friend of Israel – reported on Palestinian factions’ use of children, citing the discovery of an eleven-year-old with a bag of weapons and a 16-year-old preparing for a suicide bombing.
And while the death of any innocent civilian is to be mourned, it is not something uncommon during warfare. Indeed, according to John Spencer of the Modern War Institute at West Point, Israel has created a “new standard” in urban warfare, killing far fewer civilians per combatant – and using far more safeguards – than any other country in the history of urban warfare.
To better understand how these numbers can be used nefariously, let’s look at a historical analogy. In 1944, the pro-Nazi Bund could have produced even starker language. More than a million German civilians have died in this war, they could have said. They could have added, “Hundreds of thousands were women and children!” By 1945, they could have said that more than 11 percent of the entire German population had been killed. While these numbers are depressing, are they a reason to have opposed American involvement in World War II? For reference, there are now more people living in Gaza than before the war began, due to births outnumbering deaths.
Conflating innocent hostages and jailed criminals
AND WHEREAS Israeli hostages in Gaza and Palestinian detainees in Israel have died in custody and face ever-increasing risks of dying… This language continues in the “BE IT RESOLVED” section of the resolution, which calls for, “Immediate release of hostages and detainees on all sides.”
This is perhaps the most grotesque part of the resolution, because it conflates innocent hostages captured by Hamas on Oct. 7 with tried-and-convicted Palestinian terrorists and those awaiting trial. There is simply no equivalency whatsoever between the captivity of baby Kfir Bibas, an Israeli who turned a year old in Hamas captivity, and the imprisonment of some Hamas terrorist guilty of murder.
While Hamas murdered many hostages in captivity, it is ridiculous to suggest the same of prisoners in Israel. While some convicted terrorists might have died of old age, Israel goes out of its way to keep them alive. Yahiyah Sinwar, the monster who planned the Oct. 7 massacre, was himself an Israeli captive, freed with more than 1,000 other terrorists in exchange for IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, who had been captured by Hamas. Sinwar could have died of natural causes, Israeli doctors at an Israeli medical center.
Conflating people like Sinwar with a baby like Kfir Bibas, as the Worcester resolution does, is morally indefensible. Sinwar was in prison for murdering four Palestinians. What did the baby do, aside from being born an Israeli Jew?
Unilateral ceasefire imposed on an ally
Enforcement of US laws, including the Leahy Law of 1997, the Conventional Arms Transfer Policy , and the Arms Export Control Act, which would halt US weapon sales and transfers to Israel that make us accomplices to the present mass slaughter of innocents
Given that the “multi-faith” coalition believes Israeli babies held in Hamas’s tunnels are equivalent to convicted terrorists, as noted above, and given the number of their supporters accusing Israel of “genocide” at the riot that shut down the city council, it is safe to assume that “prevent[ing] the mass slaughter of innocents” refers to the entirety of Israel’s war effort. Consequently, they appear to be in favor of cutting off all military aid to Israel, a call that has gained too much traction.
Cutting off aid to Israel would merely harm Israeli defense while assisting Hamas and its allies. Ending aid would do nothing to cut off the military assistance that Iran provides to Hamas, as well as to Hezbollah, and the Houthis, all of whom Israel is at war with. These are all groups the U.S. has classified as terrorist organizations. Hezbollah killed 200 American Marines, and the Houthis are disrupting 10 percent of global trade.
The Houthis slogan’ is “Death to Israel, Death to America.” Iran refers to the U.S. as “the great Satan.” All of them are tied to the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is also allied with and supporting Russia in its war on Ukraine.
Why would the ceasefire organizers want to offer such assistance to these people?
Cutting aid would diminish the standing of the United States in the eyes of important allies. For example, Saudi Arabia (KSA) is watching very closely how the U.S. and Israel handle the current conflict. If the war goes well, if Israel appears strong, and if the U.S. seems to stand by its allies, the Saudis will likely fully normalize relations with Israel and strengthen ties with the U.S.
Strengthening ties with the Saudis, as well as other regional players, helps to prevent Iran, and, through them, China and Russia, from dominating a strategically important area of the world. (If even the tinpot Houthi semi-regime can disrupt 10 percent of all global trade, what could China and Russia do unchecked in such a region?)
If the U.S. does not strengthen these alliances, and neither Israel nor the U.S. confronts the theocrats in Iran, Tehran will develop a nuclear bomb fairly soon. That would cause chaos. Riyadh would immediately begin developing its own nuclear weapons, kicking off a regional nuclear arms race.
A good ceasefire shouldn’t lead to the empowerment of terrorists or a nuclear arms race. A good ceasefire resolution shouldn’t equate innocent children with convicted terrorists. Instead, a responsible ceasefire resolution would contain provisions ensuring the safety of all civilians, security for the State of Israel, and would not assist Iran and its allies.
The document the “Multi-Faith Coalition” puts forward, though pleasantly termed a ceasefire resolution, actually calls for empowering terrorists and conflates innocent civilians, including children and babies, with convicted terrorists. The only argument for the Worcester city council to discuss a document such as this would have been to provide the official imprimatur of rejection. Sadly, that would have been a violation of council rule 11.
