(I had the opportunity to visit Israel in 2000, just before the beginning of the second intifada. It was a wonderful and enlightening experience, and it has left the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict weighing heavily on my mind. The roots of the conflict are deep and complex, and there’s plenty of blame to spread around for the lack of a just and peaceful resolution. In light of recent events, I’ve asked a friend who has studied the region and its history extensively to give his perspective on the current situation. –Kathy)
Today (6/19), President Bush is meeting with Israeli President Ehud Olmert to discuss the next steps in dealing with a situation that has changed drastically over the past week. Following warnings from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that a civil war was imminent, armed militia from Hamas overthrew the security forces in the Gaza Strip in a matter of days. Now Hamas, a radical Islamic group, controls the Gaza Strip, while Fatah, a non-sectarian party, is nominally in charge in the West Bank.
The contradictions and Byzantine entanglements of political parties in both Israel and Palestine are innumerable. Fatah, which was the predominant party in the Palestinian Authority from its founding in 1994 to January of 2006, had become hopelessly corrupt. Many of its officials had tucked away millions of dollars in Swiss bank accounts; millions that were supposed to be used for food, for schools, and for basic infrastructure. The average Palestinian was filled with disgust over this abuse.
Hamas, on the other hand, is an enigma. Although it is a terrorist group that has sent waves of suicide bombers into Israel, Hamas is free of the corruption that plagued Fatah. According to Israeli scholar Reuven Paz, approximately 90% of its work is in social, welfare, cultural, and educational activities. Hamas funds schools, orphanages, healthcare clinics, soup kitchens, and sports leagues.
Israel and the United States are saying that they will do all that they can to bolster Abbas in the West Bank and isolate Hamas in Gaza. (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/872633.html) Egypt and Jordan also pledge their support to Abbas. Abbas has cut all ties with Hamas and declared an emergency government in the West Bank. Hamas held its first cabinet meeting today and called for renewed talks with Fatah. The West Bank is rife with recriminations as to who is at fault for the loss of Gaza, a fight in which the Fatah forces were completely outmatched.
The question that looms at this time is: Now what?
Will Hamas be overwhelmed by the task of governing a large, open-air prison, or will they continue to deliver the social services on which the people of Gaza have come to depend? (An unemployment rate of as much as 75% makes one pretty dependant). Will Abbas’ Palestinian Authority prove to be a capable administrator in the West Bank, or will they succumb to the difficulties of governing isolated bantustans created by the Israeli wall?
The United States and the European Union have agreed to release aid that had been promised to the Palestinian people but withheld since Hamas came to power in the 2006 elections. (We believe in democracy, but if you don’t vote the way we want you to vote, we will make sure your children starve to death.) Israel has agreed to release tax money collected and owed to the Palestinian Authority but held for the same time span. It is hoped that these funds will bolster Abbas’ support in the West Bank. Abbas is not a strong leader, but as one of the two leaders in the region – the other being King Abdullah of Jordan – who eschews the use of violence, he deserves the support of anyone who does not thirst for blood.
Will the dream – and the American promise – of a Palestinian nation die in the aftermath of last week’s events? Will two Palestinian homelands be the result? What should America do?
First and foremost, the U.S. must, for the first time since 2000, be committed to a just peace. Over and over again in the last six years, peace talks have been cancelled in response to an act of violence. This means that the entire peace process is held hostage to the most violent elements in both Israeli and Palestinian societies. Therefore any idiot with a gun has more power than the United States of America. This is an immoral lunacy and must stop immediately.
Second, the wall must come down. If Israel needs a wall to feel safe, let them build it in their territory and not use it to steal thousands of acres of Palestinians’ land. This wall is no different from the one that was in Berlin or the one that surrounded the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II. No one with a shred of morality can support the wall as it currently stands.
We stand at a tiny pinnacle. This is a time of great risk and of great opportunity. The people of Israel and the people of Palestine have suffered to an astounding degree. They need relief. They need to be able to send their children to school without worrying that a madman – or a scared 18 year old soldier – will end their lives. They need to be able to move freely to get to work in order to feed their families. Both Israelis and Palestinians have been failed repeatedly by their leaders. This may be a time where that may change. May God allow it to be so.
While I am not the scholar on the region Sam is, I have had the sense of observing something like apartheid (or worse) for some time. I had to look up the “bantustan” analogy. Sad.
Great post, Sam. May God allow it to be so indeed.
don’t forget in all of this that Hamas is the duly elected government selected democratically by the Palestinian people. The fact that Israel and the US don’t like that has been taken advantage of, big time, by Hamas opponents, who are actually the ones staging the coup here. The American media is colluding with the Israeli hardliners, as usual.
Well, one day after you posted this, and the U.S. has not risen to the challenge.
The U.S. has decided to unfreeze assets and give money to the Fatah, money that will go toward buying weapons for further fighting inside Gaza and in the West Bank (and eventually to attacks on Israel, which will probably respond with a reconquest of Gaza).
The wall won’t come down, because it is something nearly all Israelis agree with, thinking for some reason that a physical barrier will keep rockets from being sent over it. (It was built to keep out suicide bombers – but rockets are the obvious response. And rocket technology is available.)
And the worst of it is that Israel controls the water resources and can literally dry up resistance. And they have no moral qualms about doing so.
Avrum Burg, former speaker of the Israeli parliament (the Knesset) and former head of the Jewish Agency, has said in a recent interview that he finds that Zionist values are in direct conflict with Jewish values, and recommended that anyone in Israel who can get a second passport should do so. Here’s the interview. Those who cannot get out will face a horrible war.
I wish I could find anything optimistic to say about it, but I cannot. The only possible solution would be sharing resources – political power, water, electricity, and historical truths. That is just. not. happening. – because the side with more power is afraid to let that happen, and the side with less power has come to disbelieve any agreement made (because they have all been violated, some with incredible egregiousness.)
“The only possible solution would be sharing resources – political power, water, electricity, and historical truths. That is just. not. happening. – because the side with more power is afraid to let that happen, and the side with less power has come to disbelieve any agreement made (because they have all been violated, some with incredible egregiousness.)”
Yep. And it’s heartbreaking.