It’s a wrap, a doddle, an Israeli ceasefire just in time for Barack
Obama to have a squeaky-clean inauguration with all the world looking
at the streets of Washington rather than the rubble of Gaza. Condi and
Ms Livni thought their new arms-monitoring agreement – reached without
a single Arab being involved – would work. Ban Ki-moon welcomed the
unilateral truce. The great and the good gathered for a Sharm el-Sheikh
summit. Only Hamas itself was not consulted. Which led, of course, to a
few wrinkles in the plan. First, before declaring its own ceasefire,
Hamas fired off more rockets at Israel, proving that Israel’s primary
war aim – to stop the missiles – had failed. Then Cairo shrugged off
the deal because no one was going to set up electronic surveillance
equipment on Egyptian soil. And not one European leader travelling to
the region suggested the survivors might be helped if Israel, the EU
and the US ended the food and fuel siege of Gaza.

After killing hundreds of women and children, Israel was the
good guy again, by declaring a unilateral ceasefire that Hamas was
certain to break. But Obama will be smiling on Tuesday. Was not this
the reason, after all, why Israel suddenly wanted a truce?

Egypt’s objections may be theatre – the US spent £18m last year
training Egyptian security men to stop arms smuggling into Gaza and
since the US bails out Egypt’s economy, ignores the corruption of its
regime and goes on backing Hosni Mubarak, there’s sure to be a
“compromise” very soon.

And Hamas has had its claws cut. Israel’s informers in Gaza
handed over the locations of its homes and hideouts and the government
of Gaza must be wondering if they can ever close down the spy rings.
Hamas thought its militia was the Hizbollah – a serious error – and
that the world would eventually come to its aid. The world (although
not its pompous leaders) felt enormous pity for the Palestinians, but
not for the cynical men of Hamas who staged a coup in Gaza in 2007
which killed 151 Palestinians. As usual, the European statesmen
appeared hopelessly out of touch with what their own electorates
thought.

And history was quite forgotten. The Hamas rockets were the
result of the food and fuel siege; Israel broke Hamas’s own truce on 4
and 17 November. Forgotten is the fact Hamas won the 2006 elections,
although Israel has killed a clutch of the victors.

And there’ll be little time for the peacemakers of Sharm
el-Sheikh to reflect on the three UN schools targeted by the Israelis
and the slaughter of the civilians inside. Poor old Ban Ki-moon. He
tried to make his voice heard just before the ceasefire, saying
Israel’s troops had acted “outrageously” and should be “punished” for
the third school killing. Some hope. At a Beirut press conference, he
admitted he had failed to get a call through to Israel’s Foreign
Minister to complain.

It was pathetic. When I asked Mr Ban if he would consider a UN
war crimes tribunal in Gaza, he said this would not be for him to
“determine”. But only a few journalists bothered to listen to him and
his officials were quickly folding up the UN flag on the table. About
time too. Bring back the League of Nations. All is forgiven.

What no one noticed yesterday – not the Arabs nor the Israelis
nor the portentous men from Europe – was that the Sharm el-Sheikh
meeting last night was opening on the 90th anniversary – to the day –
of the opening of the 1919 Paris peace conference which created the
modern Middle East. One of its main topics was “the borders of
Palestine”. There followed the Versailles Treaty. And we know what
happened then. The rest really is history. Bring on the ghosts.