MIFTAH
Thursday, 28 March. 2024
 
Your Key to Palestine
The Palestinian Initiatives for The Promotoion of Global Dialogue and Democracy
 
 
 

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.

 
 
Read More...
 
 
By the Same Author
 
Footer
Contact us
Rimawi Bldg, 3rd floor
14 Emil Touma Street,
Al Massayef, Ramallah
Postalcode P6058131

Mailing address:
P.O.Box 69647
Jerusalem
 
 
Palestine
972-2-298 9490/1
972-2-298 9492
info@miftah.org

 
All Rights Reserved © Copyright,MIFTAH 2023
Subscribe to MIFTAH's mailing list
* indicates required