After a weekend of conflict in Gaza, Sharon and Abbas are facing intense scrutiny.
By Ilene R. Prusher and Rafael D. Frankel
JERUSALEM AND GAZA – Just as the Israeli and Palestinian leaders seemed to be inching away from hostilities, a new cycle of violence is a troubling reminder of a reality that has so often tripped-up Middle East peacemaking: Gestures that win accolades abroad often earn arrows at home.
As such, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, are both targets of sharp domestic criticism in the aftermath of Israel's handover of Gaza to the Palestinian Authority (PA).
For Mr. Sharon, the challenge comes in the form of a leadership contest within his right-wing Likud party, which Sharon himself helped found. Sharon faces a formidable takeover attempt from Benjamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister. He's aiming to assemble enough Likud members at a party convention - due to end Monday night - to oust Sharon.
For Mr. Abbas, what many perceive as a failure to impose law and order in Gaza after Israel finished its withdrawal from Gaza is giving fodder to domestic critics.
Members of the Palestinian legislative council raised a no-confidence motion against Abbas, the first of its kind in the Palestinian Authority. The debate on the motion, planned for Monday, was postponed Sunday amid the flare-up in violence over the weekend.
The hostilities spilled over again on Friday after a bomb killed 18 people at rally held in Gaza by the militant group Hamas. The PA, Hamas, and Israel all traded blame over the bombing, which was followed by a series of Hamas rocket attacks - 35 in all - on towns in southern Israel on Saturday, wounding five. Israel responded by attacking the offices of Hamas in Gaza early Sunday with helicopter gunships and arresting more than 200 Palestinians in the West Bank.
"It's Abu Mazen's failure to do anything about Hamas that has put Sharon on the spot and that allows Netanyahu to say, 'I told you so,' " says Yossi Alpher, an Israeli political analyst who is the former head of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University. "But Sharon never articulated to the Israeli public what the point of disengagement was. He never told Israel that this was never intended to improve tactical security, but to improve demographic security."
Leaving Gaza, more specifically, is expected to help Israel keep a Jewish majority over the areas under its sovereignty in the years to come.
Gaza militants
The weekend's events seemed to fast-forward to the scenarios that Israeli opponents of disengagement had predicted. Critics of the pullout plan, Mr. Netanyahu foremost among them, argued that militants would simply use the reclaimed territory as a launching pad for new missile attacks on Israel.
Israel had warned that if such attacks were to occur, there would be harsh retaliation. The threat of a major Israeli military raid had been looming since Thursday night, when the Islamic Jihad organization launched several rockets into the southern Israeli town of Sderot.
"We have to make it clear to the Palestinians that Israel will not let the recent events pass without a response," Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofa said in a statement over the weekend. "The response will be crushing and unequivocal."
The move of hard-line Muslim militants to attack Israel now, after the withdrawal, evinces the degree to which there is disarray among armed groups whose raison detre was to attack Israel. While some say that they would only focus on pushing Israel back to the territorial lines of 1967, when Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip, others view themselves as in a battle for the destruction of the Jewish state.
For a change, both Israeli and Palestinian officials laid blame on militants for the flare-up. "We were all shocked and pained by what happened in Gaza," Abbas said, calling for an end to "armed parades and disruptions in civilian areas at the expense of serious work and of the rule of law."
While most Israeli and PA sources viewed Friday's bombing as Hamas's fault - the Palestinian interior minister called it an internal "accident," indicating that someone was working on building a bomb - Hamas blamed it on Israel.
Moreover, it began to paint the PA as a collaborator with Israel, in an attempt to turn public opinion against Abbas's government.
"The PA Interior Ministry is playing the role of the "Satan's lawyer," says Hamas leader Dr. Mahmoud al-Zahhar, because it had taken on the role of defending Israel and launching media campaigns against the Islamic resistance group, Hamas.
"The PA stance, and that of its spokesmen, indicate that the ministry's task is to wage a media war against Hamas and to market the Israeli stance," says Mr. Zahhar, who charged that the flare-up was orchestrated by Israel as a way to block Hamas from participating in legislative elections scheduled for next January.
Israel has asked for international support for its position that Hamas should be barred from participating in the elections, a point of contention for PA leaders who hope to coax Hamas into the political system. But reining in militant groups, which Sharon says is a prerequisite for any earnest return to Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, will prove a formidable task.
One of the groups that has begun to assert its power at the PA's expense is the Popular Resistance Committee (PRC), a group of militants who come from a variety of different ideological viewpoints and are deeply critical of corruption in the PA.
In an interview in Gaza, the head of the PRC says the group would move its focus to the West Bank, and that one of their strategies would be to kidnap Israeli soldiers. "If Israel returned to the '67 borders, gave up East Jerusalem, and released all its Palestinian prisoners, we would cease fighting," says Jamal Abu Samahadhana, leader of the PRC.
Sharon's political fight
Compared with Abbas, analysts note that Sharon's political career is far more endangered. If Abbas does face the postponed no-confidence motion, he would most likely be forced to change his cabinet. He will not be forced to step down as he was elected by a direct vote.
Sharon, however, could find himself pushed out of his job. His fate as head of the Likud rests with the party's central committee members, who are considered to be significantly more right wing than Likud voters overall.
A poll in the Israeli daily Maariv showed there was a majority of members who wanted to oust Sharon. That is a trend he will have a difficult time reversing, wrote Nahum Barnea in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, especially when it is occurring "under the shadow of Kassam rockets."
• Ayas Sabah in Gaza contributed to this report.
© 2005 The Christian Science Monitor
Monday, September 26, 2005
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Gaza greenhouses damaged by looters
By Rafael D. Frankel
NEVEH DEKALIM, Gaza—On a flattened sand dune a mile up from the Mediterranean Sea, where some of the world’s finest quality vegetables grew until just over two months ago, all that remains are torn plastic sheets, twisted wire, and metal support beams of a once fertile greenhouse.
Left here by Gaza’s departed Jewish residents and gifted to the incoming Palestinians by American philanthropists who shelled out $14 million to save them, at least hundreds of the approximate 4,000 greenhouses were looted by the Palestinians in the first days of their new found freedom.
Despite pleas from Palestinian Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Amed Queri, it is clear hundreds, if not thousands of Palestinians here had other priorities and severe damage was done.
Though Palestinian troops are now posted around most of the large greenhouse fields which abut former Jewish towns, much of the expensive equipment was already lifted from the sites.
Water pumps, irrigation lines, and electricity boxes were taken, said Zaki Karim, 51, who worked at greenhouses in the Gadid settlement before the Israelis withdrew from Gaza last month. “All over Gush Katif the greenhouses have been damaged and a lot was stolen from them,” he said, adding that the Palestinian Authority was paying Palestinians who worked in the Greenhouses before to clean up the messes and repair the damage done to sites across the former settlement block.
Many of the former workers were despondent over the damage done to the greenhouses, Karim said. “It’s a big problem for us, it was our work for a long time and it was supposed to help even more people now, but it’s a mess.”
Pvt. Mohamed Cidawi, a Palestinian soldiers who is now assigned guard duty at the greenhouses of the former Katif settlement, said many plastic and canvas coverings and metal support beams for the houses were also stolen or damaged in the looting. Walking through the rows of greenhouses, some damaged and some not, he encountered a boy with a sledge hammer priming to break into an electricity box. “Go away,” he shouted, “if I see you here another time I’ll kick your ass.”
At the greenhouse sites, a few Palestinian police officers claimed that much of the stolen booty was recovered and that it would shortly be returned. When initially asked to view it they agreed before backtracking and saying the goods were off limits to reporters.
For their part, Palestinian Officials have either not bothered to survey how many of the greenhouses were damaged or they are unwilling to say, insisting the damage they did to the homes was minimal and that most of it was inflicted by the departing Israelis.
According to Interior Ministry Spokesman Tawfiq Abu Qusa, around 30 percent of the crop houses which grew mostly tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers were damaged or destroyed by Israel. However according to the World Bank, which facilitated the transfer, Israel left intact 90 percent of the sites.
Pressed on this, Qusa maintained “the Palestinians damaged so little you can’t even count it.”
But at mid-afternoon on a cloudless Monday, Samir Al-Najar, 29, directed a crew of eight workers as they methodically dismantled a half-acre greenhouse in plain sight of all who drove by. From Al-Mawassi, a Palestinian town neighboring this former Jewish settlement, Al-Najar said the land was his family’s from before Israel occupied it in 1967 and that it was his right to do with it as he pleased.
“I want to reorganize the land so we’re clearing it out for now,” he said as two workers struggled together to carry away a stack of tall metal support beams. Asked whether he would sell the materials he was confiscating, he shook his head. “We’ll probably rebuild with them, but I want the greenhouses to be our own, not Jewish ones.”
Standing next to Al-Najar, a boy of 16 smiled with a semi-automatic rifle slung over his shoulder. Looking at the gun, Al-Najar said it was for protection from looters. “There were a lot of people who stole from the greenhouses,” he said. “The Palestinian Authority was here all the time, but they were overwhelmed” by the amount of people and could not stop them.
©2005 Rafael D. Frankel and The New York Daily News
NEVEH DEKALIM, Gaza—On a flattened sand dune a mile up from the Mediterranean Sea, where some of the world’s finest quality vegetables grew until just over two months ago, all that remains are torn plastic sheets, twisted wire, and metal support beams of a once fertile greenhouse.
Left here by Gaza’s departed Jewish residents and gifted to the incoming Palestinians by American philanthropists who shelled out $14 million to save them, at least hundreds of the approximate 4,000 greenhouses were looted by the Palestinians in the first days of their new found freedom.
Despite pleas from Palestinian Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Amed Queri, it is clear hundreds, if not thousands of Palestinians here had other priorities and severe damage was done.
Though Palestinian troops are now posted around most of the large greenhouse fields which abut former Jewish towns, much of the expensive equipment was already lifted from the sites.
Water pumps, irrigation lines, and electricity boxes were taken, said Zaki Karim, 51, who worked at greenhouses in the Gadid settlement before the Israelis withdrew from Gaza last month. “All over Gush Katif the greenhouses have been damaged and a lot was stolen from them,” he said, adding that the Palestinian Authority was paying Palestinians who worked in the Greenhouses before to clean up the messes and repair the damage done to sites across the former settlement block.
Many of the former workers were despondent over the damage done to the greenhouses, Karim said. “It’s a big problem for us, it was our work for a long time and it was supposed to help even more people now, but it’s a mess.”
Pvt. Mohamed Cidawi, a Palestinian soldiers who is now assigned guard duty at the greenhouses of the former Katif settlement, said many plastic and canvas coverings and metal support beams for the houses were also stolen or damaged in the looting. Walking through the rows of greenhouses, some damaged and some not, he encountered a boy with a sledge hammer priming to break into an electricity box. “Go away,” he shouted, “if I see you here another time I’ll kick your ass.”
At the greenhouse sites, a few Palestinian police officers claimed that much of the stolen booty was recovered and that it would shortly be returned. When initially asked to view it they agreed before backtracking and saying the goods were off limits to reporters.
For their part, Palestinian Officials have either not bothered to survey how many of the greenhouses were damaged or they are unwilling to say, insisting the damage they did to the homes was minimal and that most of it was inflicted by the departing Israelis.
According to Interior Ministry Spokesman Tawfiq Abu Qusa, around 30 percent of the crop houses which grew mostly tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers were damaged or destroyed by Israel. However according to the World Bank, which facilitated the transfer, Israel left intact 90 percent of the sites.
Pressed on this, Qusa maintained “the Palestinians damaged so little you can’t even count it.”
But at mid-afternoon on a cloudless Monday, Samir Al-Najar, 29, directed a crew of eight workers as they methodically dismantled a half-acre greenhouse in plain sight of all who drove by. From Al-Mawassi, a Palestinian town neighboring this former Jewish settlement, Al-Najar said the land was his family’s from before Israel occupied it in 1967 and that it was his right to do with it as he pleased.
“I want to reorganize the land so we’re clearing it out for now,” he said as two workers struggled together to carry away a stack of tall metal support beams. Asked whether he would sell the materials he was confiscating, he shook his head. “We’ll probably rebuild with them, but I want the greenhouses to be our own, not Jewish ones.”
Standing next to Al-Najar, a boy of 16 smiled with a semi-automatic rifle slung over his shoulder. Looking at the gun, Al-Najar said it was for protection from looters. “There were a lot of people who stole from the greenhouses,” he said. “The Palestinian Authority was here all the time, but they were overwhelmed” by the amount of people and could not stop them.
©2005 Rafael D. Frankel and The New York Daily News
Monday, September 19, 2005
Former Gush Katif residents battle stagnation and depression
By Rafael D. Frankel
MAFKI’IM—One week ago, Ya’akov Abrigil picked up a saw for the first time in his life and started building a wooden picket fence. Among the raw lots of Mafki’im, where 25 prefabricated homes stand out against the pervasive dirt, occasional replanted palm trees and out of place green manicured lawns, the fence is a lone, stubborn symbol of a man who refuses to give in to what he sees all around him.
“I need to do something,” Abrigil, 47, a former resident of Peat Sadeh in Gush Katif said, throwing both his palms in the air. “People here have nothing to do with themselves. All day long they sit. I’m afraid of the day when I sit,” said the father of four who admitted that was all he did during his initial days here.
Sitting is a way of life in this small settlement just a few kilometers north of Gaza which took in 18 families from Peat Sadeh and seven from Rafiah Yam after the disengagement. The sedentary days of its residents are a far cry from the years of farming they knew until now, and their perpetual lack of motion lays in sharp contrast to the tractors, steam rollers, and construction crews who are busy laying roads and landscaping the new neighborhood of their adopted town.
Without jobs, and still in a state of shock over the loss of their homes and land, many here are beset with stagnation—a state of being they have never known and can see no way out of.
“Some of my friends get in their cars and drive in circles,” Abrigil said. Others “don’t even have the will to get out of bed in the morning.”
For the most part, the former Gush Katif residents spend their days lounging on plastic lawn furniture in front of their temporary homes. They sip coffee, smoke cigarettes and then repeat each of those ordinary acts on another plastic chair in front of a different prefabricated house where they find minimal solace in the companionship of friends in the same state of mind.
Rami and Ruti Ya’akov, Amos Burdeh, and Tzion Yitzchak, all of whom lived in Gush Katif for at least 18 years, were doing just that on Sunday as they helped a Thai worker they knew find a flight back to Bangkok. They joked that at least he had a home to go back to.
“Everyone here are farmers and there is nowhere for us to farm,” Rami Ya’akov, 40, said. Though the government is in the process of finding them new land, Ya’akov said no one in Mafki’im is expecting to plant crops until next summer.
While the parents here struggle to find what to do with their lives until then, their children are confronting challenges of their own. Adjusting to new schools has not been easy, Burdeh, 50, said of his three children, who are 7, 10, and 14 years old and were divided into three different schools around Nitzanim, Yad Mordechai and S’derot.
His oldest girl has fallen into a depression and does not want to meet her new classmates. “She’s sitting at home all day,” he said. “I can’t even make her smile.”
Up the road, the mood is mixed among the 273 families who have flooded into the expeditiously developed New Nitzanim, where mounds of soil, coils of fiber optic cable, and flats of roof tiles wrapped in plastic lay on the side of the road into town.
“Everyone is dealing with the situation individually,” said Chen From, a volunteer from Even Yehuda. The 23-year-old is running after school activities for children “who have nothing else to do,” adding that high unemployment has also rendered many of the adults listless.
Though a precious few are happier in Nitzanim because of the improved security situation, most still feel slighted by the government. “I hope Sharon pays the prices for this,” said one resident who would not give his name because he was “tired of talking to journalists.”
While affirming the right of that attitude, Tziporah Sharabi, who came from Gadid with her family, said it is also counterproductive. “It was terrible what happened, but slowly, slowly we are moving on,” she said. “It’s not good for the soul to only talk about the bad and see only the half-empty glass.”
Sharabi spoke from her new and temporary 90-square-meter prefabricated home, located at the end of a block of identical dwellings reserved for former Gadid residents. At the entrance to their cul-de-sac, the “Welcome to Gadid” sign which once stood at the gate to the former settlement continues to greet all who enter.
“Since we came together as a community it’s probably not as hard,” the mother of five said. “The friendship continues even if the place does not.”
Unlike many of her friends, Sharabi wants to work in the nursery here to regain her former job. “There are a lot of people who are still mad at the state who don’t want to go back to work. For me, I can’t stay home.”
For her husband, Yichiam, it is a different story. Already passed 50 years old, he feels to old to start over with more greenhouses. On Sunday, the slender man with dark skin and a disarming smile, who a month ago traipsed around his land in Gush Katif with a light step and a contented air about him, was “keeping himself busy buying a refrigerator,” his wife said dryly.
Back at Mafki’im, Ya’akov Abrigil was feeling antsy following a twenty-minute break from building his fence. After plugging a drill bit into its socket, he grabbed five nails and put them in his mouth, holding them with his pursed lips as he checked to make sure the fence rail was on straight before drilling it in for good.
Catching a glimpse of his new town, he paused for a minute and surveyed the scene. At four adjacent homes, his neighbors sat languidly on their porches. “Everyone wants to be optimistic that things will be good here,” he said, taking the nails out of his mouth to speak. “We are trying to be strong because we know there is no chance to go back, but really, people here are in a sorry state.”
©2005 Rafael D. Frankel and The Jerusalem Post
By Rafael D. Frankel
MAFKI’IM—One week ago, Ya’akov Abrigil picked up a saw for the first time in his life and started building a wooden picket fence. Among the raw lots of Mafki’im, where 25 prefabricated homes stand out against the pervasive dirt, occasional replanted palm trees and out of place green manicured lawns, the fence is a lone, stubborn symbol of a man who refuses to give in to what he sees all around him.
“I need to do something,” Abrigil, 47, a former resident of Peat Sadeh in Gush Katif said, throwing both his palms in the air. “People here have nothing to do with themselves. All day long they sit. I’m afraid of the day when I sit,” said the father of four who admitted that was all he did during his initial days here.
Sitting is a way of life in this small settlement just a few kilometers north of Gaza which took in 18 families from Peat Sadeh and seven from Rafiah Yam after the disengagement. The sedentary days of its residents are a far cry from the years of farming they knew until now, and their perpetual lack of motion lays in sharp contrast to the tractors, steam rollers, and construction crews who are busy laying roads and landscaping the new neighborhood of their adopted town.
Without jobs, and still in a state of shock over the loss of their homes and land, many here are beset with stagnation—a state of being they have never known and can see no way out of.
“Some of my friends get in their cars and drive in circles,” Abrigil said. Others “don’t even have the will to get out of bed in the morning.”
For the most part, the former Gush Katif residents spend their days lounging on plastic lawn furniture in front of their temporary homes. They sip coffee, smoke cigarettes and then repeat each of those ordinary acts on another plastic chair in front of a different prefabricated house where they find minimal solace in the companionship of friends in the same state of mind.
Rami and Ruti Ya’akov, Amos Burdeh, and Tzion Yitzchak, all of whom lived in Gush Katif for at least 18 years, were doing just that on Sunday as they helped a Thai worker they knew find a flight back to Bangkok. They joked that at least he had a home to go back to.
“Everyone here are farmers and there is nowhere for us to farm,” Rami Ya’akov, 40, said. Though the government is in the process of finding them new land, Ya’akov said no one in Mafki’im is expecting to plant crops until next summer.
While the parents here struggle to find what to do with their lives until then, their children are confronting challenges of their own. Adjusting to new schools has not been easy, Burdeh, 50, said of his three children, who are 7, 10, and 14 years old and were divided into three different schools around Nitzanim, Yad Mordechai and S’derot.
His oldest girl has fallen into a depression and does not want to meet her new classmates. “She’s sitting at home all day,” he said. “I can’t even make her smile.”
Up the road, the mood is mixed among the 273 families who have flooded into the expeditiously developed New Nitzanim, where mounds of soil, coils of fiber optic cable, and flats of roof tiles wrapped in plastic lay on the side of the road into town.
“Everyone is dealing with the situation individually,” said Chen From, a volunteer from Even Yehuda. The 23-year-old is running after school activities for children “who have nothing else to do,” adding that high unemployment has also rendered many of the adults listless.
Though a precious few are happier in Nitzanim because of the improved security situation, most still feel slighted by the government. “I hope Sharon pays the prices for this,” said one resident who would not give his name because he was “tired of talking to journalists.”
While affirming the right of that attitude, Tziporah Sharabi, who came from Gadid with her family, said it is also counterproductive. “It was terrible what happened, but slowly, slowly we are moving on,” she said. “It’s not good for the soul to only talk about the bad and see only the half-empty glass.”
Sharabi spoke from her new and temporary 90-square-meter prefabricated home, located at the end of a block of identical dwellings reserved for former Gadid residents. At the entrance to their cul-de-sac, the “Welcome to Gadid” sign which once stood at the gate to the former settlement continues to greet all who enter.
“Since we came together as a community it’s probably not as hard,” the mother of five said. “The friendship continues even if the place does not.”
Unlike many of her friends, Sharabi wants to work in the nursery here to regain her former job. “There are a lot of people who are still mad at the state who don’t want to go back to work. For me, I can’t stay home.”
For her husband, Yichiam, it is a different story. Already passed 50 years old, he feels to old to start over with more greenhouses. On Sunday, the slender man with dark skin and a disarming smile, who a month ago traipsed around his land in Gush Katif with a light step and a contented air about him, was “keeping himself busy buying a refrigerator,” his wife said dryly.
Back at Mafki’im, Ya’akov Abrigil was feeling antsy following a twenty-minute break from building his fence. After plugging a drill bit into its socket, he grabbed five nails and put them in his mouth, holding them with his pursed lips as he checked to make sure the fence rail was on straight before drilling it in for good.
Catching a glimpse of his new town, he paused for a minute and surveyed the scene. At four adjacent homes, his neighbors sat languidly on their porches. “Everyone wants to be optimistic that things will be good here,” he said, taking the nails out of his mouth to speak. “We are trying to be strong because we know there is no chance to go back, but really, people here are in a sorry state.”
©2005 Rafael D. Frankel and The Jerusalem Post
Monday, September 12, 2005
Gaza and the path forward
By Rafael D. Frankel
OPINION
At sunrise this morning, I stood with a couple dozen journalists and a couple hundred soldiers and watched the last column of Israeli tanks rumble down the Gush Katif highway through the Kissufim checkpoint out of Gaza. Immediately following their departure, two army bulldozers erected a roadblock of huge cement pillars and dirt on the road. As they lifted the blocks and earth, dozens of Palestinians from the neighboring village spilled onto the road they had not walked on for at least five years, waving the flags of the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad. They kept their distance though, and after 15 minutes the bulldozers also cleared out followed by the armored personnel carrier of Brig. Gen. Aviv Kohavi who was, until that moment, the IDF commander in Gaza. He walked out of his jeep and replied to the salute of two second lieutenants who then swung the newly erected fence shut and at 7:02 a.m. on September 12, 2005, turned the key on 38 years of Israeli presence in the Gaza strip.
"The gate that is closing after us is also a gate that is opening," Kohavi had said at a ceremony the day before in Gush Katif marking the end of Israel's military presence in Gaza. As the setting sun hovered over the Mediterranean Sea, casting a glow over the white sand dunes, he continued: "We hope it will be a gate of peace and quiet. A gate of hope and good will."
By the time he himself left Gaza, I was utterly exhausted. Not only by the fact that I had only slept one hour that night, but by the last month of work covering Israel's disengagement from Gaza and part of the northern West Bank. Still, I could hardly believe the history I was witnessing. "Privileged" wouldn't be exactly the right word to describe what I felt to be a part of it all, but something along those lines. And my amazement with the event was clearly evident to the editor at the night desk in Chicago who I was on the phone with when the gate was locked. "Wow," she said. "Yeah, incredible," I replied.
Though the last month was physically draining, it was also very much an exercise in mental agility and emotional toughness. I really was not prepared for how much I would be effected by the sight of people being carried from their homes, sometimes kicking and screaming and nearly always in a fit of tears. A lot of it probably had to do with the week that I spent in Gaza before the army got there, interviewing and just spending quality time with the "settlers" who lived there. I must say my preconceptions about who and what these people were were utterly shattered in the 12 days I spent down there. Despite what I had read and seen in the media, and been told by others, the good majority were not crazy idealogs with whom there was no possibility of relating to. Rather, they were incredibly warm, well spoken, resilient and caring people who built communities out of sand dunes that were the envy of all of Israel for how close knit, safe, and friendly they were. And they did it in the midst of a constant barrage of mortars, quassam rockets, shootings, and bombings.
And yet, despite all this, to withdraw from Gaza was the right thing for Israel.
As great as the Gush Katif people were, they had "a serious blind spot," as Joel Greenberg, the Chicago Tribune bureau chief told me. Indeed they did. Their lives of comfort were lived at the expense of more than a million Palestinians, many of whom lived in their back yards in immense poverty. Their villas and suburban lives were also subsidized by the tax dollars and sacrifice of Israelis throughout the country who's money and bodies went to protecting the Gaza Jews for more than two decades, much to the resentment of many here. In short, this was an ill-conceived enterprise to start with, and it only got worse over the years, as the 8,500 Jews took over 1/3 of Gaza's land and 40% of its water resources at the same time as the government continued pouring money into Gaza better spent elsewhere.
I am under no illusions that withdrawing from Gaza will bring peace to Israel--nor do I think are any Israelis. On may way back to Jerusalem this morning, a mortar had already fallen on the town of Sderot (well inside Israel) and over night, Palestinians had set fire to at least four of the synagogues Israel left standing in the demolished towns. Even if it was expected, such actions show how far we truly are from peace. If there was ever any doubt, I hope that by now people from around the world realize that on balance, there is no moral equivalency anymore between the actions of a state trying to defend itself and a groups of terrorists buoyed by a complicit society which has chose an path of nihilism and destruction over reconciliation and peace.
So why withdraw then? There are two reasons. First, not all Palestinians are bad people (since I've been here I've met some great ones), and the collective punishment they have lived under and the conditions they are forced to raise their families in because of it are appalling. Admittedly though, and you can judge me for this if you so choose, my sympathies do not abound even for them. They are part of a society that refuses to deal with the cancer of terrorism which has taken it over, and until they do, they are mostly part of the problem.
The more important reason to withdraw is the concept itself of Disengagement, which, though not under that particular name, I've been urging ever since the collapse of the Camp David peace talks in 2000. At that time, it became clear that there was no partner for peace on the other side. And despite the hopes of new leadership since Arafat's death, Abu Mazen appears either unwilling or unable (probably both) to confront the demons of Palestinian society. It's a shame, because he is selling his own people short and in the end it will cost him his job or his life.
Working off that premise, Israel must act unilaterally to put itself in the best situation possible, which it is now doing by erecting, for the first time since 1967, real, defensible borders. In tandem with the separation barrier (also my idea from 2000, which I will continue to remind everyone always:) ) that means withdrawing from land that has large majorities of Palestinians in its population. We have just seen that happen with Gaza, and there is every reason to believe it should, and will happen to settlements in the West Bank that fall on the Palestinian side of the fence Israel is nearing completion of. This disengagement, though sad, and the wall, though an ugly eye sore and a reminder of how ruined the dream of peaceful coexistence is, is the only pragmatic option Israel has at its disposal. We need a wall. We need separation. We need a divorce.
As it stands, Ariel Sharon's route for the separation barrier (in some places it’s a fence and in others a large concrete wall) will incorporate into Israel around 10% of the West Bank. Though I would personally like to see that number more around 2-3%, with that amount of land being given reciprocally to the Palestinians from Israeli territory, it is pretty clear that only Sharon could have pulled off the disengagement from Gaza, so let's give him credit.
Sharon and his cabinet now have to decide what kind of autonomy to give the Palestinians in Gaza. Who should control the sea, the air, and the border crossings? Israel would do well to relinquish all of it. It will have to happen at some point anyways. Better to do it now than let more blood be spilled over it. Give them Gaza, give them safe passage from there to the West Bank via a sunken train track or military escort. Let them control their border with Egypt. Because of advanced technology, it will soon be possible to scan anyone coming into Israel without having any physical contact with them. So fine, let some people come in for work through the hi-tech scanners. But in general, we should wash our hands of them as much as possible. Let them figure out their own affairs, take care of themselves, get help from other Arab countries or Europe if they can, and leave them be. Alone. Without us in any part of their lives. Whether that is good for them or not, I'm not sure, but more importantly, it's best for Israel.
This won't solve everything. The terrorism will continue. But it will be manageable. It will not involve suicide bombers in our midst killing dozens in cafes and busses. And what will be left, Israel is for sure strong enough to deal with--both militarily, and within society.
Because of the mind field that is Israeli politics, we now will likely see a general election within the next six months. Since he alienated much of his traditional extreme right-wing base, Sharon may have to form a new party to run again for prime minister. Make no mistake about it, he is by far the best hope to continue the unilateral disengagement strategy since he is the only person both capable of taking on the settler movement and also viewed as strong enough by most Israelis to not weaken Israel's security position. Let us hope that one way or another, he is given the chance by the voters to do that and that he can live long enough to see it through to fruition.
One day, probably 20 or 30 years from now, there will hopefully come a time when the Palestinians have cleaned themselves up and are really ready to talk peace. Until then, Israel and the Jewish people must hunker down, close ranks, consolidate land and resources, and wait for the dream of peace in our land to come. We've waited 2,000 years, we can wait a few more decades.
©2005 Rafael D. Frankel. Not for reprinting or redistribution without the author's express written consent.
OPINION
At sunrise this morning, I stood with a couple dozen journalists and a couple hundred soldiers and watched the last column of Israeli tanks rumble down the Gush Katif highway through the Kissufim checkpoint out of Gaza. Immediately following their departure, two army bulldozers erected a roadblock of huge cement pillars and dirt on the road. As they lifted the blocks and earth, dozens of Palestinians from the neighboring village spilled onto the road they had not walked on for at least five years, waving the flags of the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad. They kept their distance though, and after 15 minutes the bulldozers also cleared out followed by the armored personnel carrier of Brig. Gen. Aviv Kohavi who was, until that moment, the IDF commander in Gaza. He walked out of his jeep and replied to the salute of two second lieutenants who then swung the newly erected fence shut and at 7:02 a.m. on September 12, 2005, turned the key on 38 years of Israeli presence in the Gaza strip.
"The gate that is closing after us is also a gate that is opening," Kohavi had said at a ceremony the day before in Gush Katif marking the end of Israel's military presence in Gaza. As the setting sun hovered over the Mediterranean Sea, casting a glow over the white sand dunes, he continued: "We hope it will be a gate of peace and quiet. A gate of hope and good will."
By the time he himself left Gaza, I was utterly exhausted. Not only by the fact that I had only slept one hour that night, but by the last month of work covering Israel's disengagement from Gaza and part of the northern West Bank. Still, I could hardly believe the history I was witnessing. "Privileged" wouldn't be exactly the right word to describe what I felt to be a part of it all, but something along those lines. And my amazement with the event was clearly evident to the editor at the night desk in Chicago who I was on the phone with when the gate was locked. "Wow," she said. "Yeah, incredible," I replied.
Though the last month was physically draining, it was also very much an exercise in mental agility and emotional toughness. I really was not prepared for how much I would be effected by the sight of people being carried from their homes, sometimes kicking and screaming and nearly always in a fit of tears. A lot of it probably had to do with the week that I spent in Gaza before the army got there, interviewing and just spending quality time with the "settlers" who lived there. I must say my preconceptions about who and what these people were were utterly shattered in the 12 days I spent down there. Despite what I had read and seen in the media, and been told by others, the good majority were not crazy idealogs with whom there was no possibility of relating to. Rather, they were incredibly warm, well spoken, resilient and caring people who built communities out of sand dunes that were the envy of all of Israel for how close knit, safe, and friendly they were. And they did it in the midst of a constant barrage of mortars, quassam rockets, shootings, and bombings.
And yet, despite all this, to withdraw from Gaza was the right thing for Israel.
As great as the Gush Katif people were, they had "a serious blind spot," as Joel Greenberg, the Chicago Tribune bureau chief told me. Indeed they did. Their lives of comfort were lived at the expense of more than a million Palestinians, many of whom lived in their back yards in immense poverty. Their villas and suburban lives were also subsidized by the tax dollars and sacrifice of Israelis throughout the country who's money and bodies went to protecting the Gaza Jews for more than two decades, much to the resentment of many here. In short, this was an ill-conceived enterprise to start with, and it only got worse over the years, as the 8,500 Jews took over 1/3 of Gaza's land and 40% of its water resources at the same time as the government continued pouring money into Gaza better spent elsewhere.
I am under no illusions that withdrawing from Gaza will bring peace to Israel--nor do I think are any Israelis. On may way back to Jerusalem this morning, a mortar had already fallen on the town of Sderot (well inside Israel) and over night, Palestinians had set fire to at least four of the synagogues Israel left standing in the demolished towns. Even if it was expected, such actions show how far we truly are from peace. If there was ever any doubt, I hope that by now people from around the world realize that on balance, there is no moral equivalency anymore between the actions of a state trying to defend itself and a groups of terrorists buoyed by a complicit society which has chose an path of nihilism and destruction over reconciliation and peace.
So why withdraw then? There are two reasons. First, not all Palestinians are bad people (since I've been here I've met some great ones), and the collective punishment they have lived under and the conditions they are forced to raise their families in because of it are appalling. Admittedly though, and you can judge me for this if you so choose, my sympathies do not abound even for them. They are part of a society that refuses to deal with the cancer of terrorism which has taken it over, and until they do, they are mostly part of the problem.
The more important reason to withdraw is the concept itself of Disengagement, which, though not under that particular name, I've been urging ever since the collapse of the Camp David peace talks in 2000. At that time, it became clear that there was no partner for peace on the other side. And despite the hopes of new leadership since Arafat's death, Abu Mazen appears either unwilling or unable (probably both) to confront the demons of Palestinian society. It's a shame, because he is selling his own people short and in the end it will cost him his job or his life.
Working off that premise, Israel must act unilaterally to put itself in the best situation possible, which it is now doing by erecting, for the first time since 1967, real, defensible borders. In tandem with the separation barrier (also my idea from 2000, which I will continue to remind everyone always:) ) that means withdrawing from land that has large majorities of Palestinians in its population. We have just seen that happen with Gaza, and there is every reason to believe it should, and will happen to settlements in the West Bank that fall on the Palestinian side of the fence Israel is nearing completion of. This disengagement, though sad, and the wall, though an ugly eye sore and a reminder of how ruined the dream of peaceful coexistence is, is the only pragmatic option Israel has at its disposal. We need a wall. We need separation. We need a divorce.
As it stands, Ariel Sharon's route for the separation barrier (in some places it’s a fence and in others a large concrete wall) will incorporate into Israel around 10% of the West Bank. Though I would personally like to see that number more around 2-3%, with that amount of land being given reciprocally to the Palestinians from Israeli territory, it is pretty clear that only Sharon could have pulled off the disengagement from Gaza, so let's give him credit.
Sharon and his cabinet now have to decide what kind of autonomy to give the Palestinians in Gaza. Who should control the sea, the air, and the border crossings? Israel would do well to relinquish all of it. It will have to happen at some point anyways. Better to do it now than let more blood be spilled over it. Give them Gaza, give them safe passage from there to the West Bank via a sunken train track or military escort. Let them control their border with Egypt. Because of advanced technology, it will soon be possible to scan anyone coming into Israel without having any physical contact with them. So fine, let some people come in for work through the hi-tech scanners. But in general, we should wash our hands of them as much as possible. Let them figure out their own affairs, take care of themselves, get help from other Arab countries or Europe if they can, and leave them be. Alone. Without us in any part of their lives. Whether that is good for them or not, I'm not sure, but more importantly, it's best for Israel.
This won't solve everything. The terrorism will continue. But it will be manageable. It will not involve suicide bombers in our midst killing dozens in cafes and busses. And what will be left, Israel is for sure strong enough to deal with--both militarily, and within society.
Because of the mind field that is Israeli politics, we now will likely see a general election within the next six months. Since he alienated much of his traditional extreme right-wing base, Sharon may have to form a new party to run again for prime minister. Make no mistake about it, he is by far the best hope to continue the unilateral disengagement strategy since he is the only person both capable of taking on the settler movement and also viewed as strong enough by most Israelis to not weaken Israel's security position. Let us hope that one way or another, he is given the chance by the voters to do that and that he can live long enough to see it through to fruition.
One day, probably 20 or 30 years from now, there will hopefully come a time when the Palestinians have cleaned themselves up and are really ready to talk peace. Until then, Israel and the Jewish people must hunker down, close ranks, consolidate land and resources, and wait for the dream of peace in our land to come. We've waited 2,000 years, we can wait a few more decades.
©2005 Rafael D. Frankel. Not for reprinting or redistribution without the author's express written consent.
Friday, September 02, 2005
Rubble all that remains of Gaza homes
By Rafael D. Frankel
NEVEH DEKALIM, Gaza—Bulldozers are no strangers to Gaza, but even during the last intifada they did not scar the earth like this.
Despite all that was predicted by the settler movement, religious Zionists, and anti-disengagement activists from around the country; despite the prayers and the predictions of miracles, the fact is that by the beginning of Shabbat today, the bulldozers, brought here by “The Bulldozer,” will have finished the job they came here to do: destroy all the Jewish homes the modern Gaza Strip has ever seen.
In what was the largest of the Jewish settlements in Gaza, the job here was already done. Black tar still coated the streets, red bricks still tiled the sidewalks, and power lines ran up and down the white sand dunes as they have for more than two decades.
Though devoid of life, the municipal buildings, sports gym, and all the structures which housed businesses remained intact. And from the Gush Katif highway, the dozens of greenhouses and the Star of David shaped yeshiva provided the familiar view for anyone accustomed to traveling here.
Yet where homes once stood for more than 500 families, only mound after mound of crumbled concrete, twisted metal, and busted stucco remained. Once manicured lawns were overrun with the rubble, and pits two meters deep and three across lay testament to uprooted palm trees crated off for replanting in new soil.
“It’s like a movie, a bad dream,” said Rashbi Cohen, 39, a bus driver from Beit HaGedi who was in Neveh Dekalim Thursday. With an uncle who lived here and a job in which he often drove groups from Gush Katif on trips around Israel, Cohen was familiar with the tranquil suburban town this once was. “You can’t imagine something like this, what we did here.”
What little traffic remained—mostly trucks moving heavy machinery and army and police vehicles augmented by the occasional car of a resident who received special permission to visit—dodged random debris strewn across the roads. Palm fronds mixed with a refrigerator here, a set of chairs and a table there.
In the parking lot and town square, which hundreds of youths made their hang-out during the town’s last days, dozens of unused, still flattened boxes were scattered across the concrete along with two mattresses.
On the barbed wire fence still ringing the settlement, orange ribbon was tied around metal wire to read: “Gush Katif forever.”
All the while, perched above the methodical destruction, tattered “Chof Aza” and Israeli flags fluttered from still-standing lampposts.
Such was not the case at the site of the Gush Katif cemetery. Where just over two weeks ago thousands gathered for a final visit that doubled as a tearful Tisha B’Av service, the sand dunes were well on their way to regaining their former domain.
With the last of the 48 graves removed Thursday, only stone from the cemetery’s concrete foundation and the occasional plastic water pipe protruded from the sand which was marked by fresh bulldozer treads.
It took five days to remove all the graves, Brigadier General Orna Barbibai said, as she stood with a unit of soldiers who just completed the job. Each coffin was escorted by a former Gush Katif rabbi on its way to its revised final resting place.
“Wherever the families asked us to move them, that’s what we did.” Barbibai said, adding that 15 people will be reburied on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.
Though various settler and religious groups are petitioning the high court to spare the Gaza synagogues, not even a memorial plaque is planned for the site of the cemetery. But whether by chance or purpose, a compact disc stuck up from a dune in front of the former site. “Memory” was engraved on its gold surface.
Meanwhile, from the Gush Katif highway, the dilapidated shacks and grey apartment buildings of Khan Yunis stood as they always have. Though testaments to Jewish life in Gaza will remain—the greenhouses, the roads, perhaps the synagogues—38 years later, the Arabs are once again alone with this land.
©2005 Rafael D. Frankel and The Jerusalem Post