Dear Editor,

A humanitarian pause is very different from a ceasefire. It’s not a matter of words. They have vastly different effects and objectives.

The pause allows civilians to evacuate one location while ferocious bombing and devastation continues in another area. So it enables the Israelis to keep on with their war on Gazans. They can stick to their avowed intention to leave a “city of tents”, that is, eliminate the Palestinians in Gaza or remove them entirely.

The ceasefire, on the other hand, halts the brutal assault on Gazan people, the bombing of hospitals, places of worship, water supply, and other infrastructure. It stops the siege of Gaza, the choking off of water, fuel, electricity, medicines, and food. It opens a space for dialogue, for the world to begin to work out the desire now being expressed all over the world to resolve a 100-year problem and end the 56-year occupation of Palestinian land by another people. The ceasefire opens a path to peace.

The pattern of support for the two alternatives makes the difference and situation very clear. It is the US, UK, and Europeans who are urging a humanitarian pause, even as they supply the bombs and diplomatic support for the stubborn Israeli position — determination to wage war on Gaza.

Much of the rest of the world, including non-Zionists Jews who have protested by the thousands in New York, are pressing for a ceasefire because they want the establishment of a Palestinian State where, with the international crime of Zionist apartheid ended, Jews and Arabs can live together in peace.

Horace Levy

halpeace.levy78@gmail.com