UPDATE: The Israeli offensive against Hamas may be reestablishing the deterrent in the Arab world.
Al Jazeera’s reportage yesterday avoided interviewing ordinary Gazans. Arab sources in Gaza confided that the public anger is not directed at Israel any more than it is at Hamas. Al Jazeera, doing a superb job as PR agents for Iran’s proxies, likely wanted to avoid risking those types of reactions from the battlefield.
The present Gaza situation seems to be one more chapter in an insoluble problem. There are, however, some other options that are beginning to be considered. Daniel Pipes has some potential solutions that we know won’t work:
1. Israeli control. Neither side wishes to continue the situation that began in 1967, when the Israel Defense Forces took control of a population that is religiously, culturally, economically, and politically different and hostile.
2. A Palestinian state. The 1993 Oslo Accords began this process but a toxic brew of anarchy, ideological extremism, antisemitism, jihadism, and warlordism led to complete Palestinian failure.
3. A binational state: Given the two populations’ mutual antipathy, the prospect of a combined Israel-Palestine (what Muammar al-Qaddafi calls “Israstine”) is as absurd as it seems.
What is left ? What was the situation before 1967 ?
Shared Jordanian-Egyptian rule: Amman rules the West Bank and Cairo runs Gaza.
Jordan ruled the West Bank and Egypt ruled Gaza.
Not everyone agrees that it is a good idea, but that was five years ago.
In 2007, there was new interest in the idea.
Call it retro geopolitics, or history repeating itself, but the idea of the Palestinian territories – at least the West Bank – rejoining the Hashemite Kingdom to form some kind of confederation seems to be gaining traction on both sides of the Jordan River.
The concept has been raised quietly before but was deemed taboo, in part because Palestinian leaders feared it could squelch their larger aspirations for an independent state.
But given the deteriorating security in the Palestinian territories amid an ongoing power struggle between Fatah and Hamas, some Palestinians are again looking east to Jordan – a country whose majority population is of Palestinian descent. Jordan’s King Abdullah II – concerned about a full collapse of the Palestinian Authority as well as unilateral Israeli moves in the West Bank – is increasingly involved in bringing opinion-shapers and would-be peacemakers together to reconsider the idea.
The last time Jordan and the Palestinians tried to live together, it ended in Black September, when Jordan expelled the PLO from its territory.
In February 1969, Arafat (who remained the leader of Al Fatah) became head of the PLO. By early 1970, at least seven guerrilla organizations were identified in Jordan. One of the most important organizations was the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) led by George Habash. Although the PLO sought to integrate these various groups and announced from time to time that this process had occurred, they were never effectively united (see The Palestinians and the Palestine Liberation Organization , ch. 4).
At first by conviction and then by political necessity, Hussein sought accommodation with the fedayeen and provided training sites and assistance. In Jordan’s internal politics, however, the main issue between 1967 and 1971 was the struggle between the government and the guerrilla organizations for political control of the country. Based in the refugee camps, the fedayeen virtually developed a state within a state, easily obtaining funds and arms from both the Arab states and Eastern Europe and openly flouting Jordanian law.
The result was a short war that expelled the PLO. The “Black September” terrorist group took its name from this event. What has changed ? Arafat is no longer alive and the Palestinians have had 37 years to learn how well they are ruled by terrorist gangs.
Is Jordan interested in another attempt to rule the West Bank ? There is evidence that they are.
Hamas’s landslide victory in the recent Palestinian parliamentary elections is the latest sign of the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) failure. The collapse of the West Bank into civil chaos and jihadist control would pose a security dilemma not only for Israel but also for Jordan. It is a scenario that increasingly occupies the Jordanian government’s strategic thinking.
Jordan’s interest in the West Bank is long-standing. The Jordanian army occupied the West Bank and Jerusalem in 1948 but was ousted by the Israeli Defense Forces in the 1967 Six-Day war. King Hussein continued to claim sovereignty until July 31, 1988, when, in the midst of the first Palestinian intifada, he renounced Jordan’s official administrative and legal roles in the territory. His motives were not entirely altruistic or sparked by commitment to Palestinian nationalism; rather, he feared the spread of Palestinian unrest to the East Bank.
The king could not, however, renounce all Jordanian interests in the territory because the economic, social, and familial links were too strong. Hussein also remained committed to Jordan’s traditional custodial role for the Haram al-Sharif mosque in Jerusalem even as Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) worked to undermine Jordanian control there. Despite Jordan’s unilateral disengagement from the West Bank, the kingdom continued to issue two-year Jordanian passports to West Bankers, down from the standard five-year passports they had previously received.
Israel may be ready to negotiate with Jordan to take over the West Bank and rule the Palestinians. It would require some decision about West Bank settlements but the solution would be preferable to the status quo and there is little prospect that the “two state solution” is viable 15 years after Oslo. Even the Palestinians seem ready to see Jordan take over.
“Everything has been ruined for us — we’ve been fighting for 60 years and nothing is left,” Mr. Khalil said, speaking of the Palestinian cause. Just weeks earlier, he might have been speaking enthusiastically to his friends here, in their usual hangout, about resistance, of fighting for his rights as a Palestinian and of one day returning to a Palestinian state.
Last Wednesday, however, he spoke of what he saw as a less satisfying goal for the Palestinians here and one that raises concerns for many other Jordanians: Palestinian union with Jordan.
“It would be better if Jordan ran things in Palestine, if King Abdullah could take control of the West Bank,” Mr. Khalil said, as his friends nodded. “The issue would be over if Jordan just took control.”
What about Gaza ? Mubarak says they do not want Gaza (who would?), but not all Egyptians agree.
The state-owned media rarely mention Egypt’s role in restricting the flow of people and goods in and out of Gaza. Instead they highlight the aid Egypt sends to Gaza and its occasional decisions to open the border for humanitarian cases.
But Egyptians interested in regional affairs have easy access through the internet, satellite television and the independent local press to information about the suffering in Gaza and their government’s role there.
So why does Egypt continue to restrict access to Gaza?
THE BURDEN OF GAZA — Cairo believes that if it left the Egypt-Gaza border wide open Israel would wash its hands of responsibility for ensuring the Gazans receive enough to keep them alive — food, water, medical supplies, electricity and other essentials. Egyptian diplomats say that Israel would seal the border with Gaza on its side, diverting all trade and traffic through Egypt.
The burden would be a drain on Egyptian resources and the authorities might find it hard to prevent an influx of Gaza Palestinians seeking work and housing.
What about the history ?
Gaza is arguably more a part of Egypt than of “Palestine.” During most of the Islamic period, it was either controlled by Cairo or part of Egypt administratively. Gazan colloquial Arabic is identical to what Egyptians living in Sinai speak. Economically, Gaza has most connections to Egypt. Hamas itself derives from the Muslim Brethren, an Egyptian organization. Is it time to think of Gazans as Egyptians?
Egypt worries that Israel may push the Gaza problem onto their shoulders with a unilateral action. The “blockade” that stimulates the complaints in the world news media should force Egypt to assume more and more of the burden of Gaza. Instead, Egyptian border guards shoot first when Palestinians try to cross, a development that gets very little attention. This has been going on for years, and is not a consequence of the Israeli attack on Gaza the past week. The Egyptians do not want Gaza. Still, there might be a way to work this out and it would be a better solution than the present course.
UPDATE: The Fatah people are not supporting Hamas.
“I’m happy to see them eradicated,” he said, blaming Hamas for the carnage and destruction now taking place in Gaza.
Mahmoud as-Shatat, 23, a former student leader for Fatah, agrees. “Hamas consider us infidels,” he said. “They brutalized us, their own people. I have no sympathy for them.
Hmmm
Tags: Arafat, Black September, Egypt, gaza, hamas, Israel, Jordan, PLO, west bank
The burden would be a drain on Egyptian resources
Gaza appears to be a welfare state in search of a sugar daddy.
A nasty welfare state that will attack anyone who tries to help.
I love John Derbyshire’s piece on ” Why I don’t care about the Palestinians.”
I’m also impressed with how thoroughly the Israelis have penetrated Hamas, even to the point of interrupting Hamas TV with messages to the people about how their leaders are hiding and not defending them.
So much has been written about the Arab-Israel conflicts. It is almost universally accepted that this small piece of the Land on the meeting point of the two continents of Asia and Africa is the greatest flash-point in the world- the most violent, volatile and dangerous one. While at the basic level, it is a dispute between Israel and Palestinians, on a broader level it can be extended and linked to the so-called “Clash of the Civilizations” as enunciated by Huntington.
The current ongoing violence is only one more example in this long and uninterrupted series of violence, death and destruction. While it is very difficult for any definite and final stating of facts in any matter related with the Palestine-Israel conflicts because of the distortion of facts, figures and the accompanied truth in the process, what is generally accepted is that this time it was Israel which attacked the Gaza strip which has been given to the Palestinian population as a result of the Oslo agreements. It is also being believed that the Israeli army and Air force have made many brutal and damaging attacks on the Palestinian civilian population in this region in which many innocent people including even hapless women and children have lost their lives or have been severely injured. Israel, on the other hand, blames the Palestinians, particularly the Hamas for propagating incessant violence and openly proclaims that whatever Israel is doing is only in its self-defence.
As far as the world reaction is concerned, there is a extreme polarization between the two groups. There is no doubt that both Israel and Palestine have their own traditional friends and foes. Then there are others who are seen shifting their positions as per the context and circumstances. USA is the staunchest Israeli ally and the Arab world is generally pro-Palestine. As far as their condemning or protecting either of these two sides is concerned, it generally depends on the siding with two parties.
If one talks to a Palestinian, one will come to believe that there is no one worse than an Israeli in this world. He will present himself as the epitome of all the virtues and pious intentions and will call Israelis with all sorts of names. To them, the entire burden of the conflict will shift on Israel for having committed all sorts of atrocities on Palestine and its people, including taking away their land and displacing them from their beloved homeland. If, at all, Palestine is resorting to any violence, it is only as a last resort- simply to save itself. An Israeli’s opinion will be exactly the same. For him, a Palestinian will be a cheater, a thief, a mercenary, a hateful creature, a most unscrupulous person, a thug, a rogue and a spiteful chap. Again, he will present himself as a gentle, sublime, decent, ethical, aesthetic, simple and law-abiding person who has been condemned, persecuted, prosecuted and harmed for centuries.
So, which of these two groups is true- the Israeli or the Palestinians? To me it seems that the truth, like so many such cases, lies somewhere in between. In fact a general overview of the situation would let people understand that the real guilt lies in the extraneous situations and the circumstances and not with these two affected parties. While this does not mean that both these parties are holier-than-thou or have nothing to do with the hateful violence but it can be easily said that much more than their fault, it is the fault of the third parties, the external ones which has today resulted in such an anomalous and difficult situation having crept in where there is one baby with two fathers. The only practical and feasible solution is a two-nation solution, as and when it gets mutually accepted and practically implemented. It might be in the form of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip for Palestinians and the rest to Israel or in any other suitable form.
But why the conflict? The conflict arises from competing Jewish and Arab national aspirations for the same region which one of them calls and believes to be Palestine (a the land they had been living for the last thousand years or so) and the other as Israel (the mythical promised homeland of the world-wide Jews). And the real culprit are the powerful and self-seeking European Nations, Britain being in lead, who left behind so many artificial and non-ending disputes all over the places they ruled and where they created so many irregular, unwarranted and illogical barriers and boundaries that suited them. In this particular case, the British played simultaneously with these two Nationalities making conflicting promises to both in the forms of the Hussein-McMahon correspondence and the Balfour Declaration of 1917 which supported the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. It was only because of this two-mouthed British policy that tensions between Arab and Jewish groups in the region erupted into physical violence resulting in so many riots. And when the British thought that the heat being generated out of this was too much for it to handle, it left the place one fine morning leaving the place to simmer and burn with intermittent volcanic eruptions since then.
In 1947, the U.N. did approve the partition of the land but the Arabs of that time underestimated Israelis resulting in the ill-fated Arab-Israel war of 1948.
Without going into any further history, I would end this Article by saying that the Arab-Israel conflict is an extremely sad, ill fated and misfortunate saga of blood and gory. Thousands of innocent people on both the sides have died, giving rise to so many heroes and villains on both sides of border.
But who is the real enemy- once it was Britain and today, it is both of them who are still behaving like the illegitimate fratricidal children of Britain. And what is the way out? The only way out is peaceful, mutual coexistence, without going into the detailed analysis of who did what and who is responsible for what putrid acts. Because getting down to that is like opening a Pandora’s box where there would be no ending to accusations and counter-accusations. So, peace would reign in this region, as and when it finally does, only when they both realize that they don’t have the capacity to exterminate the other and will go on to exist in each-other’s neighbourhood. So why not say enough is enough and accept the other side, even with complete distaste.
Dr Nutan Thakur,
Editor,
Nutan Satta Pravah,
Lucknow