Palestinian reconciliation – Is it a time of promise or a leadup to another letdown?
There was much anticipation in Israel this October week with the envoys from the PA (Palestinian Authority) meeting their Hamas counterparts in Gaza with the goal of reuniting Gaza and the West Bank under the ‘legitimate’ – last election was over a decade ago – PA.
A united leadership may be good – good for the Gazans and good for Israelis.
Good for the Gazans who welcome jobs, housing, electricity, collected sewage, properly managed hospitals and law and order – all the services that Hamas failed to deliver because it ‘invested’ in war rather that peace, and good for the Israelis, because one leadership means one address to negotiate peace – the ultimate vision.
This is as far as the theory goes.
The Palestinian envoys from the West Bank must have felt a little apprehensive stepping into the ‘lion’s den’ from which they were so ingloriously dispatched one decade ago. They were removed from office in 2007 not by way of “elections” but violence – but must be remembered – not exclusive to one side only.
In just one brutal week that lasted from the 10 – 15 June 2007, Hamas seized total control of Gaza from Fatah. Both Palestinian factions acted with unrestrained savagery dropping prisoners with their arms and legs bound, from windows twenty stories high, or executing them gangland-style in front of their families.
The contemporaneous words of Time Magazine correspondent Tim McGirk on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 are chilling:
“Since the new clashes erupted on Sunday, gangs have tossed their enemies alive off 15-story buildings, shot down one another’s children, and burst into hospitals to finish off wounded foes lying helplessly in bed. The revenge motive alone could now be enough to sustain the civil war.”
Horrified observers all over the world were asking:
How come the peace-loving scriptures from the Koran failed to restrain the co-religionists from inflicting such unspeakable savagery on each other?
And another correction: That 2007 “civil war” in the Gaza Strip was not over the issue of peace with Israel but over the time immemorial casus belli – power and the division of spoils.
To the observing Israelis, the collective sigh and sobering thought was:
“If this is what Muslims do to themselves, what would they do to us if they ever were victorious?”
This is why, ingrained in the Israeli mindset is the understandable fear:
“Arabs can afford to lose many wars, Israel cannot afford to lose one.”
This sad fundamental fact is at the core of a strong Israel Defence Force.
Lethal Legacy
The crying consequence of that week of inter-Palestinian bloodletting in 2007, revealed to the world a cult of death that spreads beyond the streets of Gaza or Jerusalem or Tel Aviv or even the avenues and boulevards of Europe and America. The reason Europe is inundated with Muslim refugees is because we see that more than anything – Muslims fear Muslims. Irrespective of the names of the various ‘killing machines’ whether its terrorist organisations like ISIS and Al-Qaeda or ‘states’ like Syria and Libya, it is mostly Muslims slaughtering Muslims.
While TV news networks cover in infinitesimal detail when blood is spilt on the streets of Europe or the USA, the top ten countries facing terrorism are:
Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Syria, India, Yemen, Somalia, Libya and Thailand.
No European or USA country comes close to making the list, so where lies the most danger and from whom?
Don’t look to the media for answers, look to the statistics.
For Israelis, the greatest fear ‘on its streets’ have been the raining down of rockets from Gaza, so it is with more than passing interest that they are watching at what unfolds of the reconciliation efforts with the PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah visiting Gaza to begin reasserting PA control.
There have been attempts at reconciliation before.
All such efforts came to naught. What is different this time is that President Mahmoud Abbas has been squeezing Hamas by reducing the power supply to the Gaza Strip and slashing the salaries of some employees. He has made life there miserable; intentionally causing a “humanitarian crises” in the words of the UN and the Quartet, to stir the local Gazan populace against Hamas and so bring it to its knees. It appears to have worked.
Even without Abbas’ pressure, Hamas has shown itself to have been an abject failure – Not only has it not delivered on the battleground, it could not even deliver basic services like providing electricity, collecting garbage, and securing personal safety for its people from crime.
Truth be told, Hamas was battling with the basics!
Abbas Sticks To His Guns
The Hamdallah visit to Gaza, if successful, will amount to a Hamas surrender.
Abbas has made it quite clear that there will be no “Lebanon model” of outsourcing civilian government while commanding a separate army and creating a state-within-a-state. The Palestinian president will not allow Hamas to emulate Hezbollah and made it quite clear in an interview with the Egyptian news station CBC, that the path to reconciliation is long and hinges on one key point — disarming Hamas.
With Hamas having vowed it will never part with its arsenal, the stage is now set how the diplomatic drama will play out as Abbas’s slogan remains as it always has:
“One state, one government, one gun.”
If all works out, Abbas will have the opportunity to deliver the hope that Hamas was either incapable to deliver or never intended. Not only is Israel watching, so too is the world!
Gauze from Gaza
Think of Gaza and the first thing that comes to mind is war and suffering. It has been so for millennia but not always so!
We are all familiar with gauze sponges as those disposable medical supplies used every day in hospitals and medical offices around the world to absorb blood and other fluids as well as clean wounds.
What is hardly known is that the English word ‘gauge’ is derived from ‘Gaza’, which had been in ancient times a center of weaving. Even the Persian word qazz meaning “raw silk” is believed to be derived from the place name – Gaza.
If to this day, ‘the name’ of Gaza is associated daily with the healing of people in hospitals and clinics around the world, is it not time for the citizens of Gaza themselves to personally know healing?
All eyes watch as matters now unfold to see in which direction Gaza moves – the path to more senseless bloodshed or the meaning imbedded in its name to stop bleeding.
It has a ‘bloody’ choice – What will Gaza choose?
