There may be only 20 days left before Zionist settlers and soldiers leave Gaza, but don’t mark that in your calendar as a time of rejoicing by Palestinians in that sad strip of land.
After US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice finished shuttling between Palestinian and Israeli officials last Saturday, attempting to coordinate Israel’s planned withdrawal in mid-August, no significant progress was made on outstanding issues to be resolved so that Gaza does not, after the evacuation, remain, as it is known universally, the largest prison in the world.
It now appears that it will indeed remain just that — its border crossings, along with its tiny seaport and equally tiny international airport, sealed by occupation forces, making a mockery of the notion of “evacuation,” or that this narrow coastal strip of land, home to 1.4 million destitute souls, will ever thrive. Gaza’s suffering this time, without settlers and soldiers, will be different in kind but the same in degree, with its residents continuing to be engulfed by an epidemic of despair and uncontrollable rage at their inability to be masters of their own destiny in their own homeland.
This whole disengagement shebang is a sham.
According to news reports, Israel shunned any meaningful negotiations or coordination with the Palestinians, “leaving them largely in the dark about key details of the departure,” said the Washington Post. Rice did meet with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, but aides traveling with her said that only two nebulous issues “were ripe for resolution,” the fate of the settler homes and their greenhouses — namely how to dispose of the rubble of these homes, which are slated for demolition, and how to transfer the greenhouses, which are not, to the Palestinians. The plan is that donor money intended for Palestinian reconstruction will be tapped to buy those greenhouses. They call that adding insult to injury.
The other issues, considered “substantial” in these reductionist times, such as freedom of movement for Palestinians in Gaza, a link between the territory and the West Bank, and roadblocks that impede the movement of people and goods, have been effectively left to Israel’s unilateral whims.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has rejected detailed plans to construct a rail and road link between Gaza and the West Bank, but “approved” a pilot project to “allow” pre-screened drivers to move their trucks between the Palestinian areas.
Who are these leaders of this latter-day garrison state to reduce the Palestinian cause, for decades a cause sacrosanct to the Arab world and central to its repertoire of consciousness, to an issue having to do with greenhouses, checkpoints and removal of rubble and garbage left behind by settlers?
Abbas, speaking to reporters, complained bitterly about how Israel was not only stinting but also dismissive in sharing with his government details about the Gaza withdrawal. Presumably, Palestinians were expected to obediently do what they are told, and to meekly accept what they are given. “We need information on how the disengagement will take place,” he said. “When and where it will begin, what is the fate of the border crossings, what is the fate of the Palestinian airport? We are not getting any answers.”
Not from the Israelis, and not from the Americans either.
When on Saturday a journalist asked Rice about these unresolved issues, she said, resorting to diplomatic double-speak: “Palestinians need questions answered from the Israelis, and the Israelis need questions from the Palestinians. This is not a one-way street. We’re talking to both parties, and that is why I’m here.”
Condi, will you tell us, and use plain English, please, what the heck that means?
Truth be told, the overwhelming majority of Palestinians see this whole disengagement thing as a rigged game. The reason their leaders had agreed initially to enter “negotiations,” if negotiations they are, is because the Palestinian president, while on his recent visit to the White House, was urged to plan the withdrawal from Gaza jointly with Israel.
Now these leaders realize that what negotiations they had participated in with their Zionist counterparts were all show, meaningless and futile.
While visiting the Palestinian town of Ramallah last Saturday, Rice told reporters that she was in the region, just a month after her last visit, to “help bring the weight of the United States” to the discussions.
That’s a mighty lightweight, this big power called the United States, if it cannot resolve issues beyond what to do with tomatoes in greenhouses and rubble left behind by departing settlers.
