The True Concerns of the People in the Gaza Strip

The title is cited from one of the comments on my blog, only the quotation marks are my own. I always feel a bit uncomfortable when someone tries to define the “true concerns” of other people. This seems to me a paternalistic approach. Unfortunately the commentator does not specify which “extensive experience” qualifies him.

This is his list. The numbering is mine, all the rest is a citation:

“1. Freedom of movement
2. An operating sea port
3. Access to jobs (e.g. in Israel),
4. Renewal of industrial activities in the Gaza strip,
5. Internal security (police forces) and less mafia, unpredictability, and corruption
6. External security (end of air strikes)
7. A government taking care of all the population
8. A state of their own
9. Sovereignty over their own borders
10. A solution to the refugee problem
11. Self Respect

Based on my extensive experience I think that this list is more or less correct. People in Gaza do not care about Iran. From their point of view and partially also in reality the occupation prevents them from reaching the above listed goals. Therefore the aggression is directed against the occupier. Corruption, mafia-like structures and the chaos in security thrive because of the given situation and are not immanent to the people of Gaza”

I agree with the commentator that the people in Gaza do not care about Iran. What they like is Iran’s aggressive rhetoric towards Israel. In the past they have cheered the strongman of Iraq for the same reason when he was the archenemy of Iran at the same time. It certainly does not hurt their popularity that Hussein then and Iran now transfer money. However, we can be sure that this is not the reason for the attraction. After all the USA and Europe pay much more and are still not loved.

I also agree that the majority in the Gaza strip blames Israel and the “occupation” for any malaise. Even the commentator does not believe that this blame is always based on fact. I think it is mostly misplaced. Palestinian polls, however, confirm again and again that this is the perception of the Gaza population.

I will tackle the different issues in my own order:

7. Hamas was democratically elected. Personally I would not describe these elections as completely free. It is a nuisance when some parties do campaign with weapons while others cannot. On the whole the results seem to reflect electorate’s will and succumbed Fatah respected them probably because of that. Hamas got significantly more support in Gaza than in the Westbank, taking a bite from the small parties’ share not from Fatah’s. On this issue I have written in November: It is about time to stop the paternalistic pretence that the Palestinians meant something quite different when they voted for Hamas.

My reasoning is that the people in Gaza have the government a majority has voted for. I do not think that the population would have looked kindly on Israeli interference (as when the elections in Algeria were annulled because FIS won).

1. Since Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in summer 2005 there is no more curtailing of the internal freedom of movement by Israel (short of acute fighting which, of course, constrain circulation – I will come back to this). Check points are erected by different fractions or clans themselves in the Gaza strip, again I fail to see how Israel could interfere to the satisfaction of the Gazans.

The holds true for issue 5. Many, most of them left leaning Israeli analysts interpreted the elections results foremost as a vote against corruption and less so as a vote against corruption although pal. polls did hardly support this view.

If and which efforts were taken to improve internal security in the Gaza strip I cannot say. However, when we look at the facts in the field two years later there seems to be no improvement regarding internal security while the missiles on Israel have increased both in quantity and quality.

9. The PA government had control over its borders up to the military coup in summer 2007. You have to realize that every border has two sides. Switzerland enjoys full control over its border, however, this does not mean that Germany has no say over whom or what to accept into Germany and the other way round. Israel naturally reserves the right to control its side of the borders. Rafah is the only border crossing where Egypt and not Israel controls the other side. When Israel withdrew from Gaza, the US (mainly Rice) insisted that Israel relinquish control over the border between Gaza and Egypt. As compensation an EU observer team was introduced. Since summer 2007 these observers are de facto no longer functioning, but Israel has not retaken control over Rafah. I have written more than once on this in my blog.

2. Israel indeed continues to control the territorial sea at the Gaza coast claiming security reasons. I do not think that we can waive these concerns since it is already proved how porous the borders are with regard to terrorists, weapons, and cash.

4. Industrial activities in the Gaza strip are indeed handicapped by Israeli actions, especially industry involved in the manufacturing of weapons/rockets. In view of the continuing missile this industry seems to be able to deal with the constraints quite well. Hamas prefers the manufacturing of rockets over other industrial goods. As a nation at war they are entitled to define their priorities in this way.

6. Obviously the Hamas regime defines itself as a nation at war in words and deeds. As long as this is the case military action by the enemy is to be expected. The demand: we shoot as many rockets as we like but you may not act against us in any way is ridiculous.

With the same background, demand no. 3. is obsolete. No nation at war can expect that her nationals may hold jobs without constraints in enemy territory. During WWII the US and UK have detained nationals of hostile nations in camps, even when these people immigrated to America or England respectively long before the hostilities started. This is something Israel does not do.

So far only issues 8. “State”, 10. “Refugees” and 11. “Self-respect” remains open.

11. In my view 11. is central. As observed already several time, Palestinians belong to an honor/shame culture.

“The Arab world is suffering a crisis of humiliation. Their armies are routed not only by Americans, but also by tiny, Jewish Israel; and as Arthur Koestler once remarked, the Arab world has not, in the last 500 years or so, produced much besides rugs, dirty postcards, elaborations on the belly-dance esthetic (and, of course, some innovative terrorist practices). They have no science to speak of, no art, hardly any industry save oil, very little literature, and portentous music which consists largely of lugubrious songs celebrating the slaughter of Jews.

Now that the Arabs have acquired national consciousness, and they compare their societies to other nations, these deficiencies become painfully evident, particularly to the upper-class Arab kids who attend foreign universities. There they learn about the accomplishments of Christians, Jews, (Freud, Einstein, for starters) and women. And yet, with the exception of Edward Said, there is scarcely a contemporary Arab name in the bunch. No wonder, then, that major recruitment to al-Qaeda’s ranks takes place among Arab university students. And no wonder that suicide bombing becomes their tactic of choice: it is a last-ditch, desperate way of asserting at least one scrap of superiority—a spiritual superiority—over the materialistic, life-hugging, and ergo shameful West.”

Cited from Saving Arabs From Themselves

The perceived humiliation especially at the hands of Israel seems so traumatic that it is essential to destroy Israel in order to regain self-respect or at the least not to give up the struggle against Israel’s existence. As we know this equals rather exactly the Hamas Charter and the actual Hamas strategies. The PLO Charter also includes this program, however during the Oslo years at least the exclusivity of the armed struggle was refuted.

As Bernard Lewis spells out: It is quite obvious that the issue in this conflict is not the lack of a Palestinian state but the lacking acceptance of the Jewish state. This answers issue 8.

10. – refugees – are the means to eliminate Israel as the Jewish state. So far no Palestinian leader has been willing or capable of foregoing the demand refugees and their descendants should enjoy the right to “return” to Israel proper.

The commentator asked me a final question:

The question remains: What would be an efficient, long-term strategy by Israel under these circumstances?

My response is this quotation:

Because success is central to Islam’s promise, and the restoration of the Jewish commonwealth in its historic territory along with its ancient capital seems to validate Jewish scripture rather than the Koran, Israel offers an existential challenge to the Muslim world. Muslims will never accept the permanent presence of Israel unless compelled. But the bad news in this case is the good news, for if the Muslim world were to accept Israel’s existence, the collective humiliation would be so profound as to force the concept of humility into Muslim political life. The best thing Western governments could do to foster democracy in the Muslim world, in fact, is to move their embassies to Jerusalem.

Tags: Barcha, Conflcit, east, Gaza, middle, post, Ruch

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