Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza is the first ever acknowledgement of the wrong done to the Palestinian people more than half a century ago when the century-old Zionist dream of founding a Jewish homeland became a reality. There has been continuous media coverage of crying and protesting Israeli settlers. Around 8,000 from the settlements in Gaza have been evicted by Israeli soldiers. The soldiers involved in the eviction were rightly asked to treat the resisting with respect and sensitivity. After all they were losing what they were told 38 years ago would be their permanent homes. Some commentators have also referred to the evicted settlers from Gaza as the “dispossessed.” Yet clearly the Palestinians, on whose already overpopulated and narrow strip of land these settlers were forced, are more “dispossessed” than the settlers who have lived in Gaza for 38 years illegally on Palestinian land.
The settlers moved to Gaza following Israel’s occupation of the strip in 1967.
Meanwhile the sympathetic media coverage of the settlers’ eviction has repeatedly prompted the question “what if?” What if when the Palestinians were forcibly evicted from their ancestral homelands, more than half a century ago, when they were being deprived, destroyed and left debilitated? Was someone out there willing to broadcast their painful plight?
Then the world would have heard, for example, the testimony of the dispossessed Palestinians. According to Moshe Dayan, who was Israeli defense minister during the 1967 war, “Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist, not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushu’a in the place of Tal Al-Shuman. There is not one single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.” (as quoted in Ha’aretz, April 4, 1969)
A more current observation on the state of the Palestinians in Gaza comes from Professor Reinhart from the linguistics and cultural studies at Tel Aviv University and at the University of Utrecht. In her Sept. 11, 2003 interview with Jon Elmer of Znet she said: “What is happening in the Territories is a process of slow and steady genocide. People die from being shot and killed, many die from their wounds — the number of wounded is enormous, it is in the tens of thousands...there is a serious shortage of food, so there is malnutrition of children. The Palestinian society is dying — daily — and there is hardly any awareness of this in Israeli society.”
So then how much of this will alter with the Gaza withdrawal?
Gaza withdrawal is insufficient to create conditions of peace. And Sharon has reaffirmed his intention to hold on to the major West Bank blocs and the controversial plans for new suburbs linking the latter to Jerusalem. However this violates every plan agreed between the Israelis and the Palestinians from Oslo Accord onwards as well the UN resolutions 242 and 338 calling for unconditional though staggered withdrawal from all occupied territories.
Washington too has supported revival of the “road map” which calls for immediate freeze on Israeli settlements. Israel also needs to remove unauthorized outposts on West Bank and cede total control of Gaza to the PA. By failing to take these steps Israel will trigger violence, not peace. Will then the onus of stopping the inevitable cycle of violence be put on the PA as it always has been? Is this real withdrawal, will the Palestinians get control over the sea, air and borders? Or will Gaza remain like a prison controlled by the Israelis?
Sharon said in his Gaza pull out speech: “The Palestinians bear the burden of proof. They must fight terrorist organizations and dismantle their infrastructure and show sincere intentions for peace so they can sit with us at the negotiating table. The world is waiting for the Palestinian response — a hand stretched out to peace or the fire of terror.” Clearly his shifting the entire onus of the progress of peace to the Palestinians is illogical.
Sharon has much to do before the Palestinian can be assured that his days of freedom are approaching. His track record is that of a callous colonizer.
But if Sharon is willing to demonstrate that he intends to undo the wrongs done to Palestinians, peace is possible. By the logic of dialectic the primary cause of chaos is also its best cure. Who better than Ariel Sharon? He must realize the cure for the chaos inflicted on the lives of both the Palestinians and the Israelis is the end to the occupation.
