Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s plan to assist the Gaza Strip in becoming
an independent entity has encountered wall-to-wall Palestinian opposition. The
dual-headed Palestinian regime in Ramallah (Fatah) and in the Gaza Strip (Hamas)
totally rejects Lieberman’s proposal to recruit the European Union to build
power stations to supply electricity, desalination stations and a sewage
treatment plant. This was to be part of a plan that would totally sever all
connections with Israel, which would forgo its naval supervision over
merchandise entering the port of Gaza and would totally seal the border with the
Gaza Strip.
The arguments against exercising Palestinian independence
resemble each other. Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for the Palestinian
presidency in Ramallah, views Lieberman’s plan as a plot “against the
Palestinian people’s aspirations for unity, liberty and independence” and as one
that “expresses the aspirations of the Israeli extreme right.”
Ahmed
Assaf, spokesman for the Fatah organization that props up the Palestinian
Authority, argued that the Gaza Strip is still under “Israeli occupation” and so
it will remain, because it constitutes a single geographic unit with the West
Bank and east Jerusalem.
Sami Abu Zuheiri, a Hamas spokesman, explained
that “although Gaza was liberated in practice from the military and settlement
presence, it is still from a legal and practical standpoint under occupation”
and the Lieberman initiative is “an attempt to elude the responsibility imposed
on the occupation.”
Abu Zuheiri argued that Israel, “the occupying
country,” must continue to provide for the Gaza Strip’s needs including food,
electricity and fuel.
THE HAMAS position exemplifies one of the major
absurdities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Hamas, which took pride in
liberating the Gaza Strip from the occupation via jihad, is struggling with all
its might to preserve the “Israeli occupation” and obligate Israel to continue
transferring supplies to an entity that avowedly declares that it will liberate
all of Palestine, liquidate the State of Israel and kill and expel its Jewish
inhabitants. Hamas receives support for its position from international human
rights organizations (Amnesty, Human Rights Watch), Palestinians and Israelis.
These, similar to Hamas, vigorously argue that Israel is still “an occupying
force” and therefore it must concern itself with “the security and welfare of
the Gaza residents.”
Unfortunately, the position of the human rights
organizations on which Hamas relies raises substantial questions. If Israel is
still an “occupying force” in the Gaza Strip, as they contend, why do these
organizations not demand that Israel exercise its obligation to assure the
security of the Gaza residents and operate against the Hamas regime that is
gradually applying Islamic law while flagrantly trampling human rights,
suppressing the opposition with an iron hand and by executions? Furthermore, not
a single one of the human rights organizations suggests the necessary conditions
for the conclusion of the “occupation,” but all are demanding that it should be
extended by a full opening of the border. This position constitutes a paradox,
because if Israel was to lift the siege pursuant to the human rights
organizations’ demands (including the naval blockade and control of airspace),
then the occupation is presumed to have concluded, and therefore Israel will no
longer be under the obligation to concern itself with the Gaza population. Even
currently there is no real effective Israeli “siege” and the Gaza Strip is not a
“prison,” as the data of the Hamas government on the transit of goods (imports
of $1 billion per year) and people (scores of thousands, including personnel of
the Hamas military wing) via the border with Egypt will attest.
Egypt as
well is interested in the continuation of the occupation and it once
again warns
Israel that it should not dare rid itself of it. The official
explanation
explicitly clarifies its policy: “Concurrence with the argument that
posits that
the Gaza Strip is considered liberated territory conveys reconciliation
with the
plan that attempts to impose the burden of managing the Strip on the
neighbor
who lives in proximity to it, namely Egypt. One must not agree to this,
because
this will provide Israel with an excellent escape outlet from the strait
of the
occupation and transfer its repercussions to Egypt, and this could
result in the
liquidation of the Palestinian problem.”
GIVEN THIS background, the
question of why everybody is so enamored with the Israeli “occupation”
is
accentuated. Why are the Palestinians still adamant in their opposition
to
receiving total independence, at least at the first stage, on part of
Palestinian territory? A possible key to the answer was provided by
Prof. Anat
Biletzki, formerly the chairwoman of B’Tselem, who warned in a lecture
at MIT in
2007 of the danger that the Palestinian leadership, due to its fatigue,
might
agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state on part of Palestinian
soil
and two-state solution. Biletzki argued that only the solution of a
single state
in the entire territory of Palestine can provide a just and realistic
solution,
and she then proceeded to sharply criticize the preparedness of Prof.
Sari
Nusseibeh to forgo the refugees’ right of return.
This is primarily the
guiding logic behind the position of the Palestinian leadership that has
not
renounced the idea of liberating Palestine in its entirety. Five years
have
elapsed since the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the Hamas
government
continues to preserve the refugee camps despite their crowded conditions
and
immense deprivation, and continues to demand international assistance to
help
them via UNRWA. Housing refugees in the areas of the settlements that
were
vacated in Gaza (or by the PA in the West Bank) will not impair the
right of the
refugees to raise their right of return during negotiations, just as the
rights
of Palestinians defined as refugees living in cities and abroad is not
impaired.
However the goal of both the PA and the Hamas government is
identical, namely, to keep the lava of the refugee problem at full boil,
as this
constitutes the key to the ultimate objective of the historic
Palestinian
odyssey – the liquidation of the State of Israel as a Jewish state. This
is the
real reason behind the Palestinian love affair with the “Israeli
occupation.”
Hamas wants to eat out of Israel’s hand and then proceed to
eat the hand itself and the entire body.
Israel’s opposition to placing
the noose over its neck with its own hands is depicted by Hamas as a
violation
of international law.
The writer is a senior researcher of
the Middle
East and radical Islam at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He is
a
cofounder of the Orient Research Group Ltd. and is a former adviser to
the
Policy Planning Division of the Foreign Ministry. This article was first
published on www.globallawforum.org and is reprinted with permission.