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Go Home Gaza Safer Under Occupation

THE SPINE JUNE 6, 2007

Gaza Safer Under Occupation

BY TNR STAFF

The Palestinians are desperate. That's old news. Yes, of course, the
occupation makes them desperate. But, hey, the occupation of Gaza was
liquidated almost two years ago. Not a single Israeli soldier is in Gaza,
except for the one captured last summer from over the Israeli
border. According to an article by the very savvy Isabel Kershner in
todays Times, even Mahmoud Abbas has averred that "the brink of civil
war ... internal battles were as dangerous to the their welfare as Israeli
occupation has been, if not more so."

The anniversary of the Six Day War was marked in Gaza by "fighting between
the rival Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah." This fighting, warned
Abbas, "is equal to the danger of occupation, or even more."

Much more interesting is the fact that "a few Palestinian columnists have
broken a political taboo by referring to the Israeli occupation as perhaps
preferable to the current chaos."

For example, Majed Azzam wrote in the Hamas-affiliated weekly Al Risala in Gaza that Palestinians "should have the courage to acknowledge the truth," that the only thing that "prevents the chaos and turmoil in Gaza from spreading to the West Bank is the presence of the Israeli occupation."

Another Palestinian writer, Bassem al-Nabris, a poet from Khan Yunis, in the Gaza Strip, wrote in the Arabic electronic newspaper Elaph that if there was a referendum in the Gaza Strip on the question of whether people would like the Israeli occupation to return, "half the population would vote 'yes.' But in practice," he continued, "I believe that the number of those in favor is at least 70 percent, if not more."

Perhaps the critics in the West who complain all the time about Israel should listen to those whom they purport to represent. These Palestinian journalists actually know of what they speak.

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26 comments

But neither of them are good options.

- boneill

June 6, 2007 at 5:55pm

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What is your point, Marty? That Israel should re-occupy? Invade? That the Occupation was a good thing? Or is this just another "nyeah-nyeah" at the Palestinians? Don't answer that. We all know.

- boneill

June 6, 2007 at 5:57pm

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Reoccupy Gaza? In your friggin' dreams Mohammed. You made your bed, you sleep in it; lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas, etc.

- Fierce

June 6, 2007 at 5:57pm

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For all the people who claim to worry about the Palestinians, offer them a visa to move to any European country and sponsor them, give them a chance of a decent and happy life. I also include the US and Canada as well. There is only a little more than a million people there, split that among 30 or so Western countries and it is only about 40,000 per country. But it will never happen, because no one really cares about them except as a political point.

- blackton

June 6, 2007 at 6:05pm

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They want it theirs, it should be theirs. I hope Israel never goes back there. I also hope it puts a bullet between the eyes of every Kassam rocket launcher, so as to speed his way to the promised 72 hot virgins.

- sleepyavl

June 6, 2007 at 6:56pm

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I agree. Israel should stay out of Gaza except only when they have to speed up the rendezvous of the terror rocket launchers and their waiting 72 virgins. Israel should also stay out of the West Bank, but you and I know that will never happen, no?

- scrubbyoak

June 6, 2007 at 8:54pm

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"Majed Azzam wrote in the Hamas-affiliated weekly Al Risala..." Is Al Risala affiliated with the military or the political wing of Hamas?

- frippo

June 6, 2007 at 8:56pm

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And the Indians were better off with the Brits running things.

- Fairfax

June 6, 2007 at 9:55pm

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Israel will go out of the West Bank when the Pals will agree to keep the refugees in the future independent Palestine. Until then it won't happen. I would favor and vote for a separation plan that gave the Pals the West Bank and half of Jerusalem and a state. It's not that original, I know, most Israelis agree with what I say, which is what Israel's government said at Camp David 2000. I would certainly vote against Pal refugees inside Israel proper. Why have a new Palestine state if you want to put the refugees in the neighboring state of Israel? It doesn't make sense. It only makes sense if the Pals want 1.5 states for them and 0.5 for the Jews. I would agree to 1 : 1, but never ever to 1.5 : 0.5. Meanwhile, I hope the IDF helps the Kassam launchers meet with Sheikh Yassin and the 72 virgins (could be the title of a movie), in whichever orders the Kassam boys prefer.

- sleepyavl

June 6, 2007 at 11:58pm

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Mr. Peretz, What do you think of David Remnick's explanation of the creation of Israel and the Sixth Day war in the May 28 issue of the new yorker. It didn't make Israel look that good. I wonder what complaints or agreements you would have with it.

- ck11w

June 7, 2007 at 3:57am

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Ah, the delusions of the sanctimonious, especially in response to Peretz, who speaks uncomfortable truths.

The realization that the Palestinians were better off under the Isrealis acknowledges that when not making life hell-on-earth for others, the Palestinians make life hell-on-earth for themselves. If Israel can contain them, then there will be one of only two outcomes: either the Palestinians will kill themselves off, or they will learn how to behave like human beings. Either way, Israel wins.

- jm_rice

June 7, 2007 at 10:22am

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Who was being delusional or sanctimonious? Were people arguing with Marty? Or just wondering what his point was? Because he really didn't draw one. But don't fall back into this knee-jerk "you guys can't handle the truth" attitude for really no reason.

- boneill

June 7, 2007 at 11:50am

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This is the same false choice faced by those who live in former Communist nations (except life was not better) and former African colonial nations. There is always a third option if people are brave enough to embrace it. Certainly, life may have been safer under Israel (or, to use the reverse side of the coin, for Iraqis under Saddam), but that posits a false either-or scenario. The Palestinians may believe correctly that life was better during the occupation of Gaza, but that does not preclude the possibility that life could be better than both occupation and chaos if they could just put an end to the chaos.

- phargle

June 7, 2007 at 12:07pm

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that Gaza should once again be occupied by Israel. What I was pointing out -and my critics, some of them malevolently inclined, refuse to see- that even Gazans have a certain nostalgia for Israeli rule. That's also their problem, not Israel's. All of this points to the inability of the Palestinians to cohere around the idea of peoplehood. Can you imagine the French, Gaullists struggling against the Communists, having nostalgia for Vichy? The French know what la patrie is. The Arabs of Palestine haven't the foggiest idea.

- peretz

June 7, 2007 at 12:39pm

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Thanks for the clarification. Still I say, give the Palestinians a break. You expect them to have achieved the political culture of today's Germany in the measly time in which the Israelis have vacated part of their land? (And while the Israelis have vacated it, don't they still control the air space and ingress and egress via land? Whose currency do Gazans use?) Now believe me when I say that I hate Israel/Apartheid South Africa comparisons as much as the next admirer of the Jewish state, but even in spite of your clarification, isn't your argument similar to those made by people who gainsaid the abolition of apartheid because the blacks would make a total mess of the infrastructure and economy in its wake? If you were so inclined, you could point to South Africa today and say, "See?"

- jpagano

June 7, 2007 at 1:25pm

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I shouldn't have written "your argument". I should have said: "Making this observation in the manner in which you make it, for the reasons you seem to..."

- jpagano

June 7, 2007 at 1:29pm

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Very well said. I agree that the Palestinians have no coherent idea of a state (and how could they, frankly?), and that it is more than likely they are going to tear themselves apart. I am also out of ideas. My problem with Peretz here is the near-glee with which he reports this. Sir, you supported the war in Iraq- which I did, too- and it seems equally clear that the Iraqis aren't able to cohere around an idea of a peoplehood, as you put it. I don't see post after post talking about that. I don't see how one people's tragedy is an excuse for gloating, and another's isn't. Both have valid reasons for thier dissolution (not excuses, to be sure, but reasons). The Palestinians were betrayed by their fellow Arabs, and were occupied for 40 years. A state cannot form around that (and it was a terrible thing to have been led by the cartoonishly venal Arafat). This is a tragedy, and it is bad for Israel (a country for which I care deeply). Your readers would be better served by more perspective on this.

- boneill

June 7, 2007 at 1:39pm

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Right back at you. "Cartoonishly venal" is a precise description of Arafat.

- jpagano

June 7, 2007 at 2:01pm

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In the late 1920s and through the 1930s, the early days of Palestinian nationalism, there was internecine warfare between the Islamist Mufti Haj Amin el-Husseini and secular Palestinian nationalists (who seemed to be more open to reaching an accommodation with the Zionists). The Mufti liquidated his opponents in short order and laid the foundation that is the Palestinian legacy to this very day. No surprises here.

- nhrds

June 7, 2007 at 2:04pm

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I share some of bone-ill and pagan's sentiments, but there's a very practical problem raised by the Palestinian gangster-state, one that no amount of good intentions will ever address. How can anyone negotiate with gangsters? Even if they were willing to make good on promises made at the bargaining table, what reason is there to expect that they catually can enforce their commitments when their authority isn't unitary, strong or even coherent? Whatever the historical reasons, we are still stuck with the old Arafat dilemma: to the extent the Palestinian "leadership" negotiates in good faith with Israel, it loses legitimacy in P. eyes; to the extent it gains legitimacy, it sheds any urgency about negotiating in good faith.

- teplukhin

June 7, 2007 at 2:16pm

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I literally have no ideas for a solution. I mean, we all have ideas, but they run hard into the face of reality. There is no real government in Palestine, nobody worth talking to. I am sure there are reasonable moderates, probably scores, but it such a jumbled and chaotic arena, the worst rise to the top.

- boneill

June 7, 2007 at 2:25pm

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The Western idea of nationalism, (where a specific people differentiated from other peoples by ethnic, religious, historical and linguistic factors, or some combination thereof, controls a piece of land which becomes their state), is foreign to Arab/Islamic culture and history. Islam has always tried to unite the Muslims under an Islamic caliphate. So even though this was never fully realized, it has always been held up as the ideal for which to strive. The various Arab countries that exist today, except for Egypt, perhaps, are artifical constructs imposed on the Arabs by Western imperialism. That is why Iraq cannot remain united without someone like Saddam to impose order. It should never have been created. It's all the fault of Gertrude Ball and Winston Churchill. In this welter of phony nationalisms, there is no more artifical and cynical construct than the "Palestinian nation". Such a nation has never existed. The "Palestinians" are nothing but a mishmash of competing gangs. Yes, one shouldn't be happy at the misfortunes of others. But the Palestinians' problems are almost entirely self-inflicted. I have no tears for them. On the practical side, so long as the Palestinians are killing each other, they have fewer resources to devote to murdering Jews. This is entirely a good thing. It would be nice if the Palestinians came to their senses and accepted some sort of compromise as suggested by posters upthread. Until that happens no peace is possible, and so the best thing for Israel to do now is to step back and leave the Palestinians to their own devices.

- Fierce

June 7, 2007 at 2:39pm

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"I literally have no ideas for a solution" You are in a good company of various governments (including ours) and ME experts -- all over the place with no ideas. Norway and Japan want direct economic aid to Hamas, Condi Rice on the behalf of the US either pushes the dead "road map" or goes out of sight completely, Dennis Ross on these pages suggested strengthening Fatah, Tom Friedman recently began advocating direct negotiations with Hamas. Unlike you, they are paid to avoid admitting not having a clue.

- sabaka

June 7, 2007 at 3:17pm

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devoting a little, no, a lot, more bandwidth on Asian security trade and economic matters? Given that it's an Asian Century and all...

- teplukhin

June 7, 2007 at 4:26pm

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I am tired of the paternalistic view that the Palestians cannot for a legitimate state because of the prior occupation, etc. I am sure those same people will hate this comparison, but after 2,000 years of occupation and having just had one third of the world's Jewish poulation wiped out, the Jews took back their land and created a modern functioning state. Now for what the right won't like. The fact is, in order to do so, the government had to take on the militaristic extremists who were trying to outfit their own distinct army/militia (Begin, et. al.). The govermnent did so, sank the Altelena, and there has been a unified democratic goverment since. Indeed, those same militaristic extremists modified, worked within the democratic framework, and actuall rose to power after 29 years in opposition. Nice lesson for the Palestinians (as well as Lebanon).

- mtaltman

June 7, 2007 at 5:12pm

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appetite for bloodshed, theirs, ours, journalists, everything that moves. That said, Israel did not do itself or the Palestinians a service by withdrawing its armed forces at the same time that it withdrew its settlements. There were lots of arms in Gaza by then and there was absolutely zero reason to believe that the PA could establish its authority there without some time and support from Israel, the occupying power for close to 40 years and the only source of security in Gaza at the time it withdrew. The Yishuv already had a reasonably effective government by the time the British withdrew from Mandatory Palestine. If it had not, the battle between the Haganah and the Irgun and Stern factions might have been a lot bloodier. It is also ironic that many Middle East pundits have insisted that there has to be a civil war amongst the Palestinians before order can emerge, but when the civil war starts to bubble, they point to this as evidence of the incapacities of the Palestinians.

- roidubouloi

June 8, 2007 at 2:24pm

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