Sharon Has Won
By Benjamin Granby
21 August, 2005
Counterpunch
Ramallah.
All eyes are on
Gaza. What the late Labor Minister Yisrael Galili in 1971 termed a great
experiment in "Zionist socialism" is coming to an end with
the evacuation of some 8000 Israeli settlers and their supporters from
the occupied Gaza Strip. News channels, Arabian based ones, are transfixed
in what seems to be a tumultuous struggle between Israel's fundamentalist
right-wing and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's apparent pragmatic plan.
Others instead argue that the real struggle is only going to emerge
later when it remains to be seen if the Palestinian Authority (PA) can
maintain control over its newly liberated areas in the most desolate
and desperate corner of the Palestinian Territories. The reality, however,
is that Sharon has already won, regardless of the outcome.
When Ariel Sharon
announced his "Disengagement Plan" in early 2004 he stunned
not only Israeli society but also the world community as well. The "Father
of the Settlements" who had so shied away from peace negotiations
during the first four years of the Intifada was now making a bold unilateral
move. The term for "disengagement" in Hebrew, Hitnatkut, also
can mean "cutting off," and with his plan to dismantle the
settlements in the Gaza Strip and redeploy the Israeli army to its borders,
Sharon is in fact cutting off the Palestinians from the peace process.
As Jerusalem based reporters Jerrold Kessel and Pierre Klochendler put
it, Sharon's method relies on "managing the conflict with the Palestinians
much more than it is about actually resolving the conflict."
The critical foundation
lurking within Sharon's plan, which remains obscured by the recent internecine
clashes between the Yesha Council and the Israeli police, is that he
has discharged himself of any concerns about Gaza's fate: regardless
if the PA experiment succeeds or fails in Gaza, Sharon has won. Domestically,
Sharon has at least forestalled Israel's demographic dilemma by cutting
off 1.3 million Palestinians from the rest of Israel and he has appeased
the Left, who often put the blame on Israel's growing poverty on expenses
for the settlement project. Internationally, Sharon is being hailed
as taking a critical move towards for peace, and, as the Israeli U.N.
Ambassador Dan Gillerman predicts, Israel "bashing" in the
UN will come to an end. As for the Palestinians, former MK Amnon Rubinstein,
a supporter of the plan, has admitted that Gaza will "cease to
be Israel's responsibility in the eyes of the world. This would be a
huge advantage, an existential advantage" Essentially, either Palestinians
will be preoccupied with developing Gaza as settlements in the West
Bank become permanent, or Gaza will falter and Sharon will be hailed
as having proven that Palestinians are incapable of self-rule.
It is true that
in his speech to the Israeli people on the evacuations in Gaza on August
17, Ariel Sharon made stark references to the horrible conditions Palestinians
there live with, something almost unheard of coming from the man who
personally oversaw much of the demolition of the region in campaigns
during1955 and 1956. But it is important to recall that Sharon is a
master of deception when he has a unilateral policy in mind. As Defense
Minister under Menachim Begin in 1982, Ariel Sharon systematically lied
to his own boss and fellow Cabinet Members about the aims of the Israeli
invasion of Lebanon. Repeatedly Begin's Cabinet found itself post facto
approving actions already taken by Sharon, such as the penetration of
Beirut, if for no other reason than to catch up with facts on the ground.
On the Palestinian
side, much has been made of the potential political clashes between
Hamas (who has already claimed credit for the Israeli pullback) and
the PA. There are two simple scenarios for the short-term future of
Gaza, one of chaos or one of orderly development. But even if the latter
scenario emerges, Ariel Sharon will still have the upper hand, for many
Palestinians see the "disengagement plan" as a move to not
only placate the United States and European Union, but allows for a
reassertion, if not expansion, of the Israel's settlement plan in the
West Bank. Indeed, even as settlers are being moved from Gaza, new "neighborhoods"
in occupied East Jerusalem are springing up, while much of the West
Bank is imprisoned in what Palestinians call the Wall of Racial Division.
As Ghazi Hamed, editor of Gaza's al-Resala, explains, "We will
be worrying about mounds of garbage and trying to get investment, while
[Sharon] carries on building a wall around Jerusalem."
The PLO, which has
developed into the backbone of the PA, has had great difficulty in making
the transformation from a revolutionary movement into building a civil
society. Often seen as archaic and hopelessly corrupt under Arafat (Thomas
Friedman often opines that the second Intifada was as much a revolt
against the Palestinian old guard as it was against Israel), Hamas and
Islamic Jihad have gained immense amounts of popularity. While the PLO's
Fatah paints slogans around the West Bank proclaiming that they have
been "fighting the struggle for 40 years," the Islamic parties
are expected to do very well in next January's Parliamentary elections.
This is especially so in Gaza, which has seen a skyrocketing rise in
unemployment and poverty during the last five years.
While Israel is
retreating from Gaza with a 'hands-free, care-free' attitude, the United
States has placed its bets on economic development to solve Gaza's political
ills, and has made former World Bank director James Wolfenshoen its
head envoy. But while Israel has withdrawn its forces from within Gaza,
they still remain in total control without; giving lie to the illusion
that the occupation in Gaza has ended, Israel remains in control of
Gaza's economic future and Sharon doesn't seem to care.
Gaza's Economic
Future
Sharon's unilateral
policy on Gaza has remained conspicuously vague in delineating what
powers and autonomy it will return to the Palestinian Authority. Only
with pressure from the Quartet and the World Bank have the Israelis
hinted at what areas they are willing to ease restrictions on. Of greatest
concern to the economic health of Gaza is external access to goods,
namely the reorganization of land borders, the re-opening of Gaza's
air and seaports and the future of the Israeli-Palestinian customs union.
The economic situation
of the Gaza Strip is bleak. Even before the recent Intifada and ruinous
Israeli invasions and demolitions, Gaza's post-Oslo economic outlook
was only moderately positive. The limited autonomy given to Gaza through
the Oslo Accords placed it in an economic orbit wholly dependent on
Israel. In addition to having to purchase all necessary resources non-competitively
from the occupying power, Israeli goods were given preferential treatment,
primarily at the expense of Palestinian goods from the West Bank. Essentially,
Israel has established what one scholar has described as lasting "predatory
colonial economic relations" with the Palestinian Territories,
which were only solidified in the Oslo Accords and remain in effect
today.
Gaza's vitality
was almost completely squelched during the four and a half years of
the Al-Aqsa Intifada, where poverty and unemployment soared while the
Israeli army claimed the lives of thousands and engaged untold physical
destruction. In urban environments where already almost half of the
population are refugees, a further 25,000 homes were either totally
or partially destroyed by Israeli operations. Furthermore, Israel's
repeated internal and external closures devastated the economy, pushing
poverty past 65% and unemployment to over 35% (unofficially as high
as 70%). Finally, The World Bank asserted that while the ceasefire and
end to closures are clearly beneficial to Gaza's recovery, the outlook
for some 16% of Palestinians living at mere subsistence levels is not
likely to change.
In order for Palestine to (re)build its economy, it needs to attract
foreign direct investment. This has been exacerbated by Israel's announcement
that it intends by 2008 to end its long-time policy of allowing Palestinian
workers into Israel. Confidence is critical to long-term investment
strategies and Sharon's plan clearly does not do enough to bring back
the full confidence and hope that Gaza attracted in 1995. The Palestinian
Authority estimates that since the start of the Intifada, private-sector
investment fell by over two-thirds. Outside assistance will prove critical
in addition to what the G8 recently pledged for the Palestinian Territories.
Yet there are still fundamental steps Israel could take to help bring
in the private investments that are critical for Gaza's long-term success.
Israel's border
policies are key, not just to investor confidence, but to the very sustenance
of the Palestinian Territories. Currently, Israel has agreed to revamp
the Erez and Karni crossings into Israel, promising new high-tech security
checks that should expedite cargo transit (paid for by USAID). This
is a first step, but not enough to win the full confidence of those
who may wish to do business in Gaza. The World Bank has urged Israel
to duplicate these facilities so that should a security incident warrant
the closure of one crossing, goods can still quickly make their way
though. In addition, anyone operating in these situations would expect
proper arbitration and dispute resolution mechanisms if, say, produce
spoiled because of delays. Israel so far has not agreed to establish
these with the Palestinian Authority.
Furthermore, the
'back-to-back' system of transportation that Israel has forced the Palestinians
to operate with only exacerbate costs and time. While the disengagement
in Gaza will eliminate the need to transfer goods between vehicles at
checkpoints internally, this duplicitous system will remain at the borders:
vehicles from Gaza cannot enter Israel or the West Bank and vice versa.
Without a further opening of Gaza's borders, few investors would find
it sensible to do business in Gaza. As Akiva Eldar summarized in a recent
editorial, "a Palestinian worker who is detained three hours at
the barricade cannot compete with a Thai worker who lives in his boss'
storage room."
In addition to a loosening of controls over Gaza's borders, it is also
imperative that Israel consents to the re-opening of Gaza's air and
seaports. The reopening of Gaza's airport, which was heavily damaged
by the IDF in the recent conflict, has not progressed, and Israel has
hinted that it will only allow helicopter traffic in the near future,
impairing the potential for business contacts from neighboring countries
to have easy access.
A final major point
of contention is Israel's announced intention of abrogating the "quasi"customs
agreement with the Palestinians in the Gaza strip. The Palestinian Authority
has rejected this, noting that it would not only be damaging to economic
prospects in the immediate future, but would also further alienate the
Gaza Strip from the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The present arrangement
gives Palestinian goods an edge in Israeli markets while generating
critical tax revenue for the PA. The World Bank has warned that while
the current customs agreement should not remain in place for long, it
is essential to Gaza in the short term for getting its agricultural
and industrial economy back on its feet and ending the union at this
point would greatly increase transaction costs for Gaza-West Bank commerce.
Dr. Aharon Kleiman
of Tel Aviv University further stressed that an abrogation of the quasi-customs
union with has the potential to turn a future Palestinian nation into
a bifurcated state. The creation of two entities with separate economic
arrangements could fracture Palestinian unity. This would be a severe
blow to Palestinian nationalism and further push Gaza into Egypt's economic
orbit while the West Bank would likely orient itself more towards Jordan.
Finally, there is
a need for a rapid and direct link between Gaza and the West Bank. With
Sharon's unilateral move for disengagement, this subject has naturally
not been fleshed out in negotiations. Potential options that take Israel's
security concerns into consideration involve either a raised or sunken
highway or a rail link connecting the two territories. Such a move would
intertwine the two territories economically and allowing price convergence
and boost internal markets. Finally, the link is clearly essential for
a unified Palestinian national identity.
At the Sharm El-Sheikh
summit between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, PM Sharon declared,
"together we can ensure our people's lives of freedom and stability,
prosperity and peace." While his rhetoric might be in the right
place, it is unfortunate that Israel's current steps towards peace remain
unilateral directives with only minimal cooperation with the Palestinians.
Former MK Avraham Burg, a founding member of Peace Now and whose father
served in the Begin Cabinet with the current Prime Minister, has termed
the whole escapade a "vast fraud". The redeployment plan is
a thinly veiled attempt for Sharon to solidify Israeli control over
the West Bank, maintain an obfuscated occupation of the Gaza Strip and
to splinter what should be a united and free Palestinian nation. No
matter what, Sharon has taken the initiative and for the old warrior
it means he has won this round.
Benjamin Granby
works for the Palestine Monitor in Ramallah, West Bank, is a former
human rights worker in Gaza City and is author of the forthcoming, Welcome
to the Bethlehem Star Hotel from Garrett County Press. He can be reached
at: [email protected]