Get ready for pro-Palestine street parties celebrating Israel-Hamas peace deal

It's not yet Friday but I have that same unmistakable feeling in my stomach that often comes with the end of the working week. It's a belief that tonight will be characterised by joy, wild abandon and frivolity. I expect to see the streets of London bursting with happy faces. Where there once were protests perhaps there'll be parties, celebrating the first phase of the Gaza peace deal.

Not really. But why not? After all, we've been told repeatedly and emphatically that the genocidal maniacs of Israel want to wipe Gazans from the map, forcing them out of their own home forever either by death or displacement. Surely any step toward the avoidance of such a catastrophe should be celebrated.

It might not be exactly the result they want - clearly Israel has the upper hand - but surely the most important thing is that the killing stops?

Surely we can expect scenes in England comparable to those in Israel, where citizens have been seen dancing in the streets, only bigger - as big as the pro-Palestine protests to which we've become wearily accustomed.

The reason I don't actually expect any of this to happen is that peace will never be enough to calm the minds of the most vocal anti-Israel elements among the protesters.

This has never been simply about Israel's invasion of Gaza in response to October 7's massacres. For some, it's never been about a genuinely held belief that this time Israel has gone too far.

It's important to understand this: there are those who believe that Israel is an inherently genocidal state, even when its soldiers aren't firing bullets.

Such people have been saying that a genocide has been underway for years. It wasn't even enough when Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005, left it to its own devices then saw its population elect Hamas, who promptly murdered their political opposition and cancelled the rights of Gazans to have a say in their own destiny.

For these elements - who it should be said are not all of the protesters - this war is evidence of what they thought all along.

They're not assessing the war in isolation, but with a mental backdrop comprised of genocide and apartheid allegations stretching back decades.

They've made Israel synonymous with genocide and you could be forgiven for thinking that nothing will change their minds.

It doesn't matter that this allegation runs up against the fact that Israel could easily wipe Gazans from the map and yet has not, or the question of why the Israelis, with all their military might, are so terrible at carrying out a simple genocide.

There's a catch-all response that deals with this: Israel can't be seen to be carrying out a genocide, so has to do it slowly.

If this image of sneaky Jews is just a little bit uncomfortable then rest assured: they're perfectly happy to also accuse Israel of outright, obvious genocide, seemingly oblivious to the fact that this contradicts the slow genocide narrative.

Round and round the argument goes, as unfalsifiable as its fellow conspiracy theories, taking on the characteristics of obsession.

For such people, the cessation of hostilities between the IDF and Hamas, no matter how many lives it spares, is not a cause for celebration.

That's why I don't expect to see them out tonight, celebrating an important step toward what I hope will be a lasting peace in the Middle East.

The holding of protests castigating Israel after October 7 and before its invasion of Gaza told me that these demonstrations were never just about peace. They were never just pro-Palestinian. There has always been an ugly, anti-Israel tone to the marches.

The world's only Jewish state has been maligned as uniquely evil, intent on genocide and no evidence that it wants peace with Gaza will change this perspective among harder elements.

Because they've had plenty of evidence before and it's either been ignored or drowned out by relentless propaganda from the modern-day equivalent of fascists who stimulate the West's better angels of compassion to recruit our citizens to their cause.

To oppose action Israel takes is not necessarily anti-Semitic. It's foolish when pro-Israelis cry anti-Semitism at all criticism.

But if you're of a mind to noisily accuse Israel of genocide on protests no matter the evidence then you are, at the very least, giving cover to an anti-Semitism that just so happens to believe the Jews run the most evil state on the planet.

You may even be an anti-Semite yourself, but not realise it, just like the bigot who claims he's not racist despite an unhealthy obsession with those of a different skin colour that stains his personality no matter the evidence with which he's presented to contradict his prejudices.

Maybe you're capable of saying, as a protester in Manchester was hours after an Islamist attacked a local synagogue, "I don't give a f*** about the Jewish community right now".

I really hope that I'm wrong to expect that the same numbers who've been protesting won't turn out in celebration this evening.

I would like nothing better than to be mistaken in this fear. But when you use your voice to demand that we "globalise the intifada", I don't think you can blame me for thinking that this has never been about wanting peace.