Posted By Mahmoud
Labadi
The last tragic events in Gaza and the
prompt reaction of President Mahmoud
Abbas to dissolve the Haniyeh
government and the formation of the
emergency Government headed by Dr.
Salam Fayyad was a courageous act.
However, it led to the creation of two
separate Palestinian entities: A
Hamas-stan entity in the Gaza Strip
headed by the dismissed Prime Minister
Ismael Haniyeh and a Fatah-stan in the
Westbank led by President Mahmoud
Abbas and his designated Prime
Minister Dr. Salam Fayyad. This new
development is unique in the history
of the Palestinian people and their
struggle for freedom and independence.
The Palestinians were on the verge
of a civil strife and Palestinian
blood was spilled at the hands of
Palestinians on and around the
security services centers in the Gaza
Strip. Angry mobs in Gaza, Hamas
loyalists damaged historic monuments,
robbed and vandalized the resident of
the historic leader Yasser Arafat,
devastated the presidential compound
of Mahmoud Abbas and other buildings
belonging to Fatah. The takeover was
described by Fatah as a coup d’etat.
In the West Bank, Al Aqsa Brigades
and Fatah security services revenged
by wrecking some Hamas institutions in
Nablus and Jenin, or by detaining some
Hamas leading figures who were
released at the request of President
Abbas.
The whole event was described by some
Palestinian analysts as the “Second
Nakba”.
Since the January elections of 2006
and Hamas’ electoral success, Israel
as well as some Palestinian elements
refused to recognize the results of
the ballot boxes. The Palestinian
Authority was isolated on Arab and
international levels. Hamas officials
were restricted to move between the
West bank and Gaza to attend PLC
sessions in Ramallah. Hamas ministers
from Gaza were denied access to the
West Bank to perform their duties.
Israel imposed a series of economic
and financial sanctions ostensibly
against the Hamas led govt. But the
fact is that those sanctions were
undertaken as collective punishment
measures against the whole Palestinian
people. During the last 16 months
Israel withheld collected Palestinian
taxes, thus depriving the Palestinian
people from an essential source of
living. The Palestinian Authority was
incapable of paying salaries for its
civil servants. Moreover, Palestinian
workers were cut off their jobs inside
Israel. Palestinian private sector was
totally paralyzed due to numerous
checkpoints. Palestinian agriculture
was on the ground and rate of
unemployment exceeded the 40% in the
West Bank and even more in Gaza. The
poverty rate in Gaza exceeded 60% of
the population and 50% in the West
Bank.
On the other hand, Hamas failed to
understand the basic elements of
democracy and its implications. It
failed to respond to the basic aspects
of International Law and honor
previous agreements signed between
Israel and the PLO under the auspices
of the international community.
Overwhelmed by its electoral victory
it failed to find or develop a
suitable and acceptable political
discourse to address the international
community as well as the Israeli
public opinion. Their rhetoric about
Islamic society was vague and
repulsive, and even the proposed
protracted “Hudna”, a long-termed
truce with Israel was ambiguous and
unacceptable for Palestine Liberation
Organization (PLO) claiming for an
independent Palestinian state within
the 1967 occupied territories, and a
none-starter for the Israelis who are
not yet ready to pay the price of
peace, whether to Hamas, Fatah or to
the PLO.
However, Hamas’ insistence to launch
armed resistance against Israel’s
occupation even after being
democratically elected by a clear
majority contradicted with the logic
of state building and institution
building. To accept running a country
under military occupation means to opt
for a political solution with the
enemy. While adopting a guerilla
warfare strategy against the Israeli
occupation means opting for a military
solution. But to adopt both options
necessitates a totally different
objective situation on the ground and
a totally different balance of power
on local as well as on international
level. In order to be successful, the
strategy of guerilla warfare requires
a vast geographic area and foremost a
strong military force with
uninterrupted military supplies from a
neighboring country or two, similar to
what was existent in Vietnam. The
Vietnamese guerillas had China and the
Soviet Union in their back.
On the other hand, Israel, which
refuses since 40 years to withdraw
from the West Bank and the Gaza strip
for biblical, strategic, or security
reasons has managed to keep its
military occupation with the overt and
covert approval of the U.S. and other
“Western democracies”. During this
period the Palestinian territories
were filled with Israeli settlements,
military outposts and lately an
expansionist wall, baptized as
“Security Fence” in order to make
it acceptable for the Western public
opinion. In reality the ugly Wall was
built in order to annex more
Palestinian territories and to
forestall a political settlement
leading to a two-state solution.
Palestinian patriots were killed,
detained in hot pursuit or deported.
Houses were demolished or bombed,
their properties were confiscated.
Water aquifers were taken over by
Israeli Authorities. A process which
has been stepped up since the return
of the PLO and the creation of the
Palestinian Authority in 1994.
The Holy City of Jerusalem, which is
supposed to be the capital of the
future Palestinian state, was
strangled by Israeli Jewish
settlements with more than quarter of
a million settlers and the
expansionist wall reminiscent of the
Berlin Wall. Despite those repressive
measures the Israeli discourse
continues to fool the international
public opinion by repeating their good
intentions about peacemaking and peace
building with the Palestinians.
However, the facts on the ground show
the opposite.
Moreover, Israel controls the land,
the sea and the airspace of the
Palestinian Authority. It controls
their movement inside and outside the
Palestinian territories. It controls
the Gaza Strip with barbwire and two
gates, one in the North which opens to
Israel and one in the South which
opens to Egypt. The West Bank is
surrounded by the Wall and is filled
with Jewish settlements and by-pass
roads, some of them are restricted to
Palestinians. The West Bank has only
one opening over the Jordan valley,
the Allenby Bridge, leading to the
Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and is
totally under Israeli control.
Conflict Management
Since the fall of the West Bank and
Gaza in 1967 the Israelis managed
their conflict with the Palestinians
by using iron gloves and carrots. They
used oppression on the one hand and
gave Palestinian workers some work
using them as cheap labor on the
other.
On the other hand, the Palestinian
Territories have become totally
dependent on the Israeli economy.
Israel supplies the Palestinians with
water, electricity, oil products as
well as with 75% of the food supplies.
The West Bank and the Gaza Strip are
the biggest consumer market for
Israeli products after the Israeli
market itself. A lucrative consumption
market of almost 4 million
Palestinians which Israel is not going
to abandon so quickly.
The conflict management team of the
Israelis has succeeded in using the
old imperialist maxim of “devide et
impera” to split the Palestinian
camp between the two main political
formations, Hamas and Fatah. Due to
the immense economic pressure, the
stagnation of the political process,
the carelessness of the international
community and the inability of the
Palestinians to challenge the Israeli
military superiority the Palestinians
have discharged by exploding against
themselves. The tragic events in Gaza
are but an expression of the hyper
tension between the two main
Palestinian political factions. There
is no doubt that the Palestinian bad
performance on different levels has
offered a fertile ground for the
Israeli conflict managers to use their
maneuvering skills and implement the
“divide and rule” policy in a
skillful way.
Definitely, nobody should expect from
the Israeli government to manage the
conflict with the Palestinians in a
constructive way. To be constructive
necessitates a change in spirit and a
change in the state of mind of the
Israeli leaders. Scapegoating the
Palestinians as an excuse to evade
real political settlements cannot work
forever. Every body remembers the
story of “non-partner” or
“irrelevant” about the late
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, and
the “weak” who “cannot
deliver”about the current President
Mahmoud Abbas or the
Hamas“Terrorists”. All such
evasive arguments used by the Israelis
are but to eschew the requisites of
peace, namely, the Israeli withdrawal
from the occupied territories and the
creation of a Palestinian state in the
framework of a two-state solution.
Unfortunately, the latest developments
which led to the separation of Gaza
from the West Bank and the continuous
altercation not to negotiate a
reasonable reconciliation between the
two warring Palestinian factions might
lead to two separate Palestinian
entities, and consequently to a
three-state solution, or to an overall
disaster. Accordingly, the conflict
managers in Israel can be proud of
their “constructive” performance.
* A Palestinian writer based in
Ramallah. He was PLO spokesman during
the Lebanon period until 1983 and was
the Director General of the
Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC)
until 2005. He is author of three
books on Media, a Novel in Arabic and
other publications.
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