The
Gaza Cage
By Uri Avnery
18 June, 2007
Countercurrents.org
What
happens when one and a half million human beings are imprisoned in a
tiny, arid territory, cut off from their compatriots and from any contact
with the outside world, starved by an economic blockade and unable to
feed their families?
Some months ago, I described
this situation as a sociological experiment set up by Israel, the United
States and the European Union. The population of the Gaza Strip as guinea
pigs.
This week, the experiment
showed results. They proved that human beings react exactly like other
animals: when too many of them are crowded into a small area in miserable
conditions, they become aggressive, and even murderous. The organizers
of the experiment in Jerusalem, Washington, Berlin, Oslo, Ottawa and
other capitals could rub their hands in satisfaction. The subjects of
the experiment reacted as foreseen. Many of them even died in the interests
of science.
But the experiment is not
yet over. The scientists want to know what happens if the blockade is
tightened still further.
* * *
WHAT HAS caused the present
explosion in the Gaza Strip?
The timing of Hamas' decision
to take over the Strip by force was not accidental. Hamas had many good
reasons to avoid it. The organization is unable to feed the population.
It has no interest in provoking the Egyptian regime, which is busy fighting
the Muslim Brotherhood, the mother--organization of Hamas. Also, the
organization has no interest in providing Israel with a pretext for
tightening the blockade.
But the Hamas leaders decided
that they had no alternative but to destroy the armed organizations
that are tied to Fatah and take their orders from President Mahmoud
Abbas. The US has ordered Israel to supply these organizations with
large quantities of weapons, in order to enable them to fight Hamas.
The Israeli army chiefs did not like the idea, fearing that the arms
might end up in the hands of Hamas (as is actually happening now). But
our government obeyed American orders, as usual.
The American aim is clear. President Bush has chosen a local leader
for every Muslim country, who will rule it under American protection
and follow American orders. In Iraq, in Lebanon, in Afghanistan, and
also in Palestine.
Hamas believes that the man
marked for this job in Gaza is Mohammed Dahlan. For years it has looked
as if he was being groomed for this position. The American and Israeli
media have been singing his praises, describing him as a strong, determined
leader, "moderate" (i.e. obedient to American orders) and
"pragmatic" (i.e. obedient to Israeli orders). And the more
the Americans and Israelis lauded Dahlan, the more they undermined his
standing among the Palestinians. Especially as Dahlan was away in Cairo,
as if waiting for his men to receive the promised arms.
In the eyes of Hamas, the
attack on the Fatah strongholds in the Gaza Strip is a preventive war.
The organizations of Abbas and Dahlan melted like snow in the Palestinian
sun. Hamas has easily taken over the whole Gaza Strip.
How could the American and
Israeli generals miscalculate so badly? They are able to think only
in strictly military terms: so--and--so many soldiers, so--and--so many
machine guns. But in interior struggles in particular, quantitative
calculations are secondary. The morale of the fighters and public sentiment
are far more important. The members of the Fatah organizations do not
know what they are fighting for. The Gaza population supports Hamas,
because they believe that it is fighting the Israeli occupier. Their
opponents look like collaborators of the occupation. The American statements
about their intention of arming them with Israeli weapons have finally
condemned them.
That is not a matter of Islamic
fundamentalism. In this respect all nations are the same: they hate
collaborators of a foreign occupier, whether they are Norwegian (Quisling),
French (Petain) or Palestinian.
* * *
IN WASHINGTON and Jerusalem,
politicians are bemoaning the "weakness of Mahmoud Abbas".
They see now that the only
person who could prevent anarchy in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank
was Yasser Arafat. He had a natural authority. The masses adored him.
Even his adversaries, like Hamas, respected him. He created several
security apparatuses that competed with each other, in order to prevent
any single apparatus from carrying out a coup--d'etat. Arafat was able
to negotiate, sign a peace agreement and get his people to accept it.
But Arafat was pilloried
by Israel as a monster, imprisoned in the Mukata'ah and, in the end,
murdered. The Palestinian public elected Mahmoud Abbas as his successor,
hoping that he would get from the Americans and the Israelis what they
had refused to give to Arafat.
If the leaders in Washington and Jerusalem had indeed been interested
in peace, they would have hastened to sign a peace agreement with Abbas,
who had declared that he was ready to accept the same far--reaching
compromise as Arafat. The Americans and the Israelis heaped on him all
conceivable praise and rebuffed him on every concrete issue.
They did not allow Abbas
even the slightest and most miserable achievement. Ariel Sharon plucked
his feathers and then sneered at him as "a featherless chicken".
After the Palestinian public had patiently waited in vain for Bush to
move, it voted for Hamas, in the desperate hope of achieving by violence
what Abbas has been unable to achieve by diplomacy.
The Israeli leaders, both
military and political, were overjoyed. They were interested in undermining
Abbas, because he enjoyed Bush's confidence and because his stated position
made it harder to justify their refusal to enter substantive negotiations.
They did everything to demolish Fatah. To ensure this, they arrested
Marwan Barghouti, the only person capable of keeping Fatah together.
The victory of Hamas suited
their aims completely. With Hamas one does not have to talk, to offer
withdrawal from the occupied territories and the dismantling of settlements.
Hamas is that contemporary monster, a "terrorist" organization,
and with terrorists there is nothing to discuss.SO WHY were people in
Jerusalem not satisfied this week? And why did they decide "not
to interfere"?
True, the media and the politicians, who have helped for years to incite
the Palestinian organizations against each other, showed their satisfaction
and boasted "we told you so". Look how the Arabs kill each
other. Ehud Barak was right, when he said years ago that our country
is "a villa in the jungle".
But behind the scenes, voices
of embarrassment, even anxiety, could be heard.
The turning of the Gaza Strip
into Hamastan has created a situation for which our leaders were not
ready. What to do now? To cut off Gaza altogether and let the people
there starve to death? To establish contacts with Hamas? To occupy Gaza
again, now that it has become one big tank trap? To ask the UN to station
international troops there -- and if so, how many countries would be
crazy enough to risk their soldiers in this hell?
Our government has worked
for years to destroy Fatah, in order to avoid the need to negotiate
an agreement that would inevitably lead to the withdrawal from the occupied
territories and the settlements there. Now, when it seems that this
aim has been achieved, they have no idea what to do about the Hamas
victory.
They comfort themselves with
the thought that it cannot happen in the West Bank. There, Fatah reigns.
There Hamas has no foothold. There our army has already arrested most
of Hamas' political leaders. There Abbas is still in power.
Thus speak the generals,
with the generals' logic. But in the West Bank, too, Hamas did win a
majority in the last elections. There, too, it is only a matter of time
before the population loses its patience. They see the expansion of
the settlements, the Wall, the incursions of our army, the targeted
assassinations, the nightly arrests. They will explode.
Successive Israeli governments
have destroyed Fatah systematically, cut off the feet of Abbas and prepared
the way for Hamas. They can't pretend to be surprised.
* * *
WHAT TO DO? To go on boycotting
Abbas or to provide him with arms, to enable him to fight for us against
Hamas? To go on depriving him of any political achievement or to throw
him some crumbs at long last? And anyway, isn't it too late?
(And on the Syrian front:
to go on paying lip service to peace while sabotaging all the efforts
of Bashar Assad to start negotiations? To negotiate secretly, despite
American objections? Or continue doing nothing at all?)
At present, there is no policy, and no government which could determine
a policy.
So who will save us? Ehud
Barak?
Barak's victory in this week's
Labor Party leadership run--off has turned him almost automatically
into the next Minister of Defense. His strong personality and his experience
as Chief of Staff and Prime Minister assure him of a dominant position
in the restructured government. Olmert will deal with the area in which
he is an unmatched master -- party machinations. But Barak will have
a decisive influence on policy.
In the government of the
two Ehuds, Ehud Barak will decide on matters of war and peace.
Until now, practically all
his actions have had negative results. He came very close to an agreement
with Assad the father and escaped at the last moment. He withdrew the
Israeli army from South Lebanon, but without speaking with Hizbullah,
which took over. He compelled Arafat to come to Camp David, insulted
him there and declared that we have no partner for peace. This dealt
a death blow to the chances of peace, a blow which still paralyzes the
Israeli public. He has boasted that his real intention was to "unmask"
Arafat. He was more of a failed Napoleon than an Israeli de Gaulle.
Will the Ethiopian change
his skin, the leopard his spots? Hard to believe.
* * *
IN THE dramas of William
Shakespeare, there is frequently a comic interlude at tense moments.
And not only there.
Shimon Peres, the person
who in 55 years of political activity had never won an election, did
the impossible this week: he got elected President of Israel.
Many years ago, I entitled
an article about him "Mr. Sisyphus", because again and again
he had almost reached the threshold of success, and success had evaded
him. Now he might feel like thumbing his nose at the gods after reaching
the summit, but -- alas -- without the boulder. The office of the president
is devoid of content and jurisdiction. A hollow politician in a hollow
position.
Now everybody expects a flurry
of activity at the president's palace. There will certainly be peace
conferences, meetings of personalities, high--sounding declarations
and illustrious plans. In short -- much ado about nothing.
The practical result is that
Olmert's position has been strengthened. He has succeeded in installing
Peres in the President's office and Barak in the Ministry of Defense.
In the short term, Olmert's position is assured.
And in the meantime, the
experiment in Gaza continues, Hamas is taking over and the trio -- Ehud
1, Ehud 2 and Shimon Peres are shedding crocodile tears.
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