The Israeli guns have fallen silent — at least for now. Eighteen days of unspeakable cruelty are over — again at least temporarily. A survey of the devastation in Gaza is called for. Over 120 Palestinians were killed and fully one-third were civilians. One hundred homes were demolished, resulting in hundreds of homeless people. Fifty workshops and shops were destroyed by tanks and army bulldozers; lamp posts and electricity cables were uprooted; olive and citrus groves were dug up. Whole districts are now without water or electricity.
And then it was time to go. After the wanton destruction, the Israelis called the operation, Days of Penitence, a success. It struck, said the Israelis, a heavy blow against militants. Israelis concede though that the siege will not altogether halt attacks. Indeed, throughout the offensive, Palestinians continued to fire rockets, the ostensible reason Israel gave for going in and Tel Aviv further believes more rockets will be launched. And so it is prepared to return if necessary.
In fact, Israel will never really leave. When the 8,000 Gaza settlers and the troops who Israel protects pull out of Gaza under Ariel Sharon’s unilateral disengagement plan, Israel will still control Gaza’s borders, coastline and airspace. This should answer the question: Why did Ariel Sharon launch an operation of this scale when he wants to leave? The obvious reason is that he will never truly withdraw. It is called a redeployment. In the meantime, Israel has created a new security zone in Gaza by pushing deep into the territory; this is a striking parallel to the security belt it created in southern Lebanon in the early 1980s. This will be good news for the Israelis who oppose Sharon’s disengagement plan. Also fearing that Gaza might trigger further disengagement from the West Bank, they must also be heartened by recent remarks by Dov Weissglas, Sharon’s senior adviser. He said that “Palestinians would have to turn into Finns” before disengagement from the West Bank. Weissglas’ interpretation of a withdrawal from Gaza means in effect, no peace process, no road map, no discussion of refugees, or borders or Jerusalem. Perhaps above all, a Palestinian state has effectively been removed from the agenda — with President Bush and Congress condoning all this, not just before the elections, as might have been expected.
Sharon is consequently dispensing with even the illusion of a peace process in favor of his unilateral decision to disengage from Gaza. Is there nothing, then, that the premier should be worried about? There is the leaked Israeli Foreign Ministry report warning that Israel’s image could fall as low as South Africa’s during its era of apartheid. The report says Israel could end up becoming a pariah state and adds that Israel and the EU could be on a collision course over the wall of separation.
Never mind — Israel will not stop building the wall because the EU disapproves nor will it stop any of its illegal practices simply because the international community shakes its head. If those things counted in Israel, there would have been no rape of Gaza.
