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The pull-out is just
part of the game; it is always followed by a push-in, as in a
rape scene.
Much ado about Gaza
Israel Shamir
An
Englishman leaves without bidding farewell, a Jew says his
farewells but does not leave, says a Jewish joke. This is the
case with Israeli withdrawals from Bethlehem, Ramallah and now
the grand slam, Gaza disengagement. A fortnight ago, Israeli
army left Tul Karem amid fanfares. Newspapers described it a
“trust-building measure” the Palestinians have to work hard to
justify. A few days later, Israeli tanks rolled back into Tul
Karem; they killed a few policemen in cold blood, carried away a
wagonload of captives and were ready for the next
well-publicised withdrawal. We went through this motion so many
times, that one should be a great enthusiast to care about Gaza
show provided by courtesy of Ariel Sharon.
Gaza
disengagement is nothing. This is a non-event, though presented
as a great news. This one is not the first, and surely not the
last. In Palestinian history, Gaza withdrawals are a dime a
dozen. I remember even Gaza withdrawal of 1956, but people with
shorter memory probably remember the ballyhoo around Israeli
withdrawal from Gaza in 1993, in accordance with Oslo Accords.
There were so many arguments, whether there should be ‘Gaza
first to go’, or ‘Gaza and Jericho first to go”. After plenty of
acrimony, the Palestinians “got” Gaza and Jericho. Eventually it
turned out that Israel granted some prisoner autonomy to what
became Gaza Concentration Camp and Jericho Open Prison, on a par
with the five-star VIP prison of Ramallah.
Disengagement is sham, but the wall is real. The Israeli News
agency announced that “The IDF is to build another security
fence around the Gaza Strip. In the end, the system will
comprise of three fences, state-of-the-art electronic and
optical sensors as well as remote control machine guns. The
system should be completed in less than a year for a total cost
of $220 million”, naturally, paid by the US taxpayer.
If for some
reason, the prisoners will become restive, Israel has enough
planes to bomb them into submission without moving a single
soldier. The disengagement is good for Israel of Sharon, as it
allows him to cut expenses, to cut down unpopular reserve duty
and to make servicing of the Gaza Concentration Camp so much
easier. This is no secret: Israeli officials expressed this view
on numerous occasions.
Our friend
Uri Avnery called upon the Palestinian resistance “not to play
into the hands of Sharon” and refrain from all military activity
until the withdrawal is completed. The sad reality is that the
Palestinians have no options. If they keep quiet, they will be
immured beyond the high walls of Gaza. If they misbehave, they
will be bombed, strafed and immured beyond the high walls of
Gaza. There is no carrot, just a stick.
Our friend
Ilan Pappe warned us of a possibility of large-scale killings in
Gaza Strip when the pull-out is completed. He called upon us ‘to
keep our eyes on Gaza’. But I doubt there will be something that
dramatic. There are too many people in Gaza to kill them off;
there is no place to expel them to, either. No reason to rush:
the imprisoned population will be there for future punitive
actions whenever they will be required.
The
pull-out is just part of the game; it is always followed by a
push-in, as in rape. Gaza will remain a jail, without even an
air or sea link to freedom. But it is a mistake to concentrate
on access only: for ordinary Gazans air link will not feed their
families. Gaza can’t stand on its own feet – no city, neither
Tel Aviv nor London can. Gazans will have but a little chance to
make living by working the fields that belonged to their
families, for Israeli farmers prefer cheaper and undemanding
Thais. Gaza will become the preferred place of exile of
Palestinian activists from the West Bank and Jerusalem, a big
jail, nay, a place of entombment.
Recently I
went to the Biblical village of Bethany in vicinity of Jerusalem
where the deep rock-cut tomb of Lazarus forever reminds of
faith’s ability to bring back to life even the stinking dead
soul of man from under thick shell of stone and masonry. It is a
powerful and relevant symbol for there are forces that bring
spiritual death to souls, immuring them in pursuit of material
goods and casting off sunlight of God. But the broad well-paved
highway to Bethany was abruptly cut off by a huge monstrosity of
a wall; 25 feet tall concrete slabs blocked the way and dimmed
sunlight. A paint-sprayed sign read: Welcome to the Ghetto of
Bethany.
Beyond the
wall, blue-eyed and suntanned Palestinian children in their best
Sunday clothes stared in disbelief on the Israeli workers’ team
that relentlessly erected the slabs entombing them in their
village. They reminded me of a Gothic story[1][1]
by Allan Edgar Poe, about a vindictive Spaniard who immured his
chained live victim in a cellar of his castle after enticing him
to come down and try his amontillado wine. He laid a brick upon
a brick, poured mortar with gusto, vigorously walled up the
entrance of the niche, while disbelief in the eyes of the victim
was turning into horror of recognition. His lips wisped
‘Amontillado!’ as the last brick immured him for his slow and
dreadful death in darkness of the cellar. Poe knew we fear
entombment more than we fear death.
We can’t
stop Israel from entombing a million of Gazans. But we may and
should stop Israel from earning feathers on his hat by this
dastardly act. Thanks for nothing, General Sharon. You do the
evil deed of Zimri, and demand the reward of righteous Phineas,
as Bible-minded folk says. We should attend to people who let
him sell redeployment as a great sacrifice - people in the
media. Instead of watching with shudder one million live human
beings being immured, the vast world-wide Jewish media machine,
from Sulzberger’s New York Times to Rothschild’s Liberacion,
concentrates on “the settlers’ plight”. This is another sham.
Last month, Israelis destroyed the village of Tana and expelled
its population, practically unreported; but tears of each
settler are avidly documented and served to the viewers all over
world.
Nobody
pushes these settlers away but their own government. They may
stay as equals in Gaza. Probably they would be able even to keep
much of their illegally obtained assets. The PNA may do well
stating that publicly. The hullabaloo is done to enforce the
idea that Jews may not live with goyim together. Alas, this idea
is supported by Jewish pro-peace activists: Michael Warshawski
stated that
“the priority of the anti-occupation forces
should be to denounce and to fight against the settlement
policy, … to impose on Israel an immediate and total freeze on
settlements activities, including the wall and the bypass roads,
and to establish, under the hospices of the UN, an International
Settlements Freeze Watch, mandated to implement this freeze.”
Warshawsky’s call amounts to support of Sharon’s concept of
separation from the left. He is against the wall being built
away from the Green Line; so the Gaza Wall should suit him
perfectly. But it is too little, too late to ask for a freeze
that never comes, for the walls being build along old armistice
lines. ‘Anti-occupation’ became the shibboleth of Zionism-lite.
There is just one possible solution: instead of removing
settlers and building more walls, to integrate Gaza and the West
Bank in Israel, warts and all.
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