Reports that Al-Qaeda operatives had set up shop in Gaza show how far Israel and the United States have gone in milking the Sept. 11 attacks to maximum benefit. Ariel Sharon stated on Thursday that members of Al-Qaeda network were at work in the Gaza Strip; the next day Israeli troops swept into the Bureij refugee camp in Gaza, killing 10 people in a Eid Al-Fitr massacre which included two UN workers.
The facts surrounding the story remain murky. Some reports say that Palestinian security forces had arrested a group of Palestinians for collaborating with Israel and posing as Al-Qaeda operatives. Obviously, Sharon dreamed up the idea in order to justify attacks in Palestinian areas. And the United States was right behind as the abettor. As Israel was raiding Bureij, the American media reported that Al-Qaeda has set up a branch to help Palestinian militant groups fight Israel.
The claim about the presence of Al-Qaeda in Gaza does not hold water because Gaza is virtually sealed off by Israeli troops. Israel has taken pride in its claim that no suicide attacks on civilians inside Israel have originated from the area. It is heavily barricaded and many of its inhabitants have been trapped inside for more than two years.
It is thus with a great deal of skepticism that the Palestinians will study Sharon’s comments last week about the US road map to peace, specifically his assurances that the army would not become a permanent presence in Palestinian cities it currently occupies. Sharon said occupation was a temporary response to what he called “security demands and does not represent a political change of status. Israel will not return to rule in territories from which it has previously withdrawn. But in many areas, Israeli forces have reinvaded after previously withdrawing.
As for the creation of a Palestinian state, Sharon offered tentative backing and a host of conditions: the removal of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat; strict limits on Palestinian security forces; that it be completely demilitarized and that Israel control both airspace over the new state and access to and from its territory; and insistence that all attacks on Israelis have to end before any concessions would be made. Perhaps for all the above reasons, Sharon called the plan “logical, realistic and feasible.”
He repeated his ideas of a state being set up on 40 percent of the West Bank and 70 percent of the Gaza Strip, though previous agreements put the West Bank figure at more than 90 percent. Most worrisome is Sharon’s refusal to stick to the plan’s timetable. Although the plan calls for a provisional Palestinian state by next year and a final agreement by 2005, Sharon claimed it would have no set schedule, relying instead on evidence of Palestinian concessions.
And the Bureij raid raises the question why proven calm should be limited only to Palestinians. Daniel Kurtzer, the US ambassador to Israel, said the road map was an “evolving document” that would “continue to be shaped by the views and attitudes of the parties themselves.” He could have added that Sharon would add so many of his own views that the plan would eventually be named after him.
