Leaving Gaza – A Calculated Move
By Brita Rose
23 August, 2005
Countercurrents.orgAs the world gazes upon Gaza and the historic unilateral so-called 'disengagement' of Israeli forces and 8,000 Jewish settlers from that small strip of land on the Mediterranean Sea, emotions are running high on both sides. After 38 years of occupation, since Israel seized the land during the 1967 war, many have dreamed of this day. Palestinians anticipate a better life and a step towards statehood. Israelis long for an end to the violence that has besieged them since the first Intifada broke out. But celebrations and hopes notwithstanding, this move in reality is more like a smokescreen to divert our eyes from a more systemic problem – the continued occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Far from being part of a peace plan, or a move towards an independent Palestinian state, this is a last resort on the part of Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, to politically maneuver in order to secure the real issue at stake – the larger West Bank with its holy shrines and numerous settlers; According to the Washington-based Foundation for Middle East Peace some 200,000 settlers now reside in the West Bank and 180,000 in East Jerusalem. Sharon himself admitted that he had no faith in the Palestinians' desire for peace. This is not about peace, but rather the demographic survival of Israel.The world is under no illusion that Gaza is of any intrinsic value to the Israelis – a desert with limited natural resources, a Palestinian population growing exponentially, and home to Israel's loudest trouble makers - Hamas and the Islamic Jihad. What Israelis are giving up (and indirectly Americans too) is tax dollars – each settler is reportedly slated to receive up to half a million dollars in compensation. What the Israeli Likud party is counting on, albeit temporarily, is the political advantage of assuaging the international community that it is willing to sacrifice land for peace. Images of Israeli soldiers forcibly removing settlers from their homes will only serve to bolster the illusion, in the U.S. in particular, that Israel means business.
Meanwhile, Sharon, knows all too well that the Palestinian Authority (PA), under Mahmoud Abbas, cannot control its radical fringe any more than Arafat before him could given the continued 'facts on the ground' in the West Bank; Neither is he likely to be able to any time soon. We have to give Sharon – ironically the father of the illegal settlement policy - credit for his determination in seeing this come to pass against the will of his own cabinet. But while the occupation of the West Bank continues unrestrained, the recipe for an escalation of attacks on Israel from Gaza remains the same; with that there will be renewed justification, on the part of Israel for reoccupying the strip, or worse for using excessive force in the vain of Jenin. We could be right back to square one.
The publicizing of this so-called 'peace initiative' is all too ironic. It is now illegal for Jews to enter Gaza? It was illegal before. We empathize with the settlers who are now forced from their homes, but what of the 23,000 plus Gazans who have lost their homes in recent years? Where were the cameras when their houses were destroyed? Who was there to witness the systematic destruction of Jenin – where according to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), Human Rights Watch documented 52 people killed by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), including 22 civilians, many of whom "were killed willfully or unlawfully"? Or Jabalya - whereby according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), excessive and disproportionate use of force resulted in 60 Palestinian deaths and at least 280 injuries. The number of Palestinian children alone killed during the Intifada is well over 500, and according to the Palestine Monitor no less than 1,321,000 Palestinian children alone have encountered deprivation and disease because of the occupation.
While reporters descend upon Gaza this week interviewing countless Jewish settlers and soldiers, for whom we can deeply sympathize, Palestinian workers who face massive job losses, go unnoticed. Where is their compensation? Thousands of Palestinians, who worked either across the boarder in Israel, or were employed by the settlers themselves, will now be without work. How will these individuals (already surviving on minimum wage) feed their families? Who is reporting Israel's international human rights violations in the popular media? Detentions, imprisonments and executions without trial, the torture of prisoners and the routine humiliation of checkpoints and closures throughout the territories, as recorded by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, never received such media attention. Neither have the non-violent protests against these practices including the on-going construction of the 'Apartheid Wall', whereby farmers have been beaten by boarder police for their passive resistance to the illegal razing of their land.
In spite of the desperate conditions left by four decades of illegal occupation, we can hope that Gaza's 1.3 million inhabitants will make some strides towards economic prosperity now that they are free from full military presence and, hopefully, will receive aid from Israel, the U.S. and Arab neighbors. But there lies the rub. Without the support of other nations, particularly Israel and the U.S., Abbas is unlikely to be able to pull this off. As things stand today there was little by way of preparation on Israel's part to aid the P.A. in bolstering its security and ensuring that people and goods will be able to move freely across the boarder. With all the hype of disengagement, in fact Israel will retain control of all borders including the Gaza/Egypt border and will continue to regulate the flow of goods. The IDF will merely redeploy troops outside the Gaza Strip, which will remain surrounded with barbed wire, watchtowers and Israeli armed guards. In effect, Gazans will still remain prisoners in their own land. If President Bush wants to realize a viable Palestinian state, he will need to bring fast aid the P.A. and hold Israel accountable for its future policies and actions.
For Palestinians still under occupation in the West Bank as well as for those still living in restricted Gaza, this withdrawal is viewed with obvious skepticism; As long as the issue at the heart of the Intifada remains unresolved – the occupation - so will the resistance. The WB is the biblical heartland of the Jews and home to over 2 million Palestinians. Many of these residents, like Gaza's, either fled or were forced from 'Greater Israel' as refugees in 1967 and remain in crowded refugee camps; Others have a long history of farming the land – families who can trace their ancestors back several generations.
Check points and closures make moving about the region almost unbearable – residents are kept waiting for hours, sometimes days, while trying to go about their daily life, meanwhile goods spoil or the ailing suffer needlessly. And the demolition of Palestinian homes around Jerusalem continues unabated – 50 homes this year alone -whereby families are sometimes forced from their houses without warning before the buildings are bulldozed before their eyes.
The average annual income of a Palestinian family in the WB is still only $1,700, and the unemployment rate is as high as 60%. The Palestinian infrastructure is still recovering from the damages – around $350 million worth - caused by the Israeli army; A quarter of Palestinian households still have no piped water, no electricity, no adequate sewage, no telephones and scarce clean water. Meanwhile, Israeli settlers within viewing distance bask in their swimming pools. We hear little of these realities from the media whose focus is still on the more sensational suicide bombings in Israel. But how will disengagement come to them if Israel turns a deaf ear on these conditions in addition to continuing the relentless construction of the illegal 'Wall'? This wall, which is snaking its way over the green line expanding the Israeli boarder to include settlements, is cutting off many Palestinians from their villages, homes, vineyards, schools, hospitals or places or work, not to mention their places of worship in East Jerusalem. It is a strategy to keep as many Palestinians outside the boarder as they can; More than 6,500 Palestinians have lost residency rights as Israel strives to alienate as many Palestinian Christians and Muslims as possible.
The media also overlooks Israel's ambitious plans to illegally build more settlements in key locations around East Jerusalem at an increasingly rapid pace - some 3,500 - while the removal of settlements in Gaza is being lauded. To many Palestinians, for whom self dignity, autonomy and empowerment have so long eluded them, such inconsistencies will be glaring even in the light of Gaza's glory day. They will see through the hypocrisy and continue the resistance until their vision of ending occupation and of realizing a state in the West Bank and Gaza are given political dimensions that resonate with their hopes and dreams.
Brita Rose is a student of International Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center and a freelance writer
