Eyeless in Gaza

Friday, May 20, 2005

Coming after a week in which internal Palestinian politics spawned a day and a half of mortars on Gush Katif, and a growing Israeli impatience with the inability of the Palestinian Authority to at least halt the shooting, if not arrest the irregulars, the incident this morning added to the sense of the fragility of the situation. On the other hand, while Gaza is in a turmoil, with the Hamas now insisting it refuses to recognize a PA court decision canceling the municipal vote in three precincts in Rafah because of voting irregularities, the West Bank remains quite calm, considering.

Indeed, it is so calm that PA police are being allowed to patrol throughout the area. That doesn’t mean Israel has pulled out from the Oslo-designated PA controlled areas and specifically from the remaining three towns of the five it promised to formally handover to the Palestinians. But it does mean there is a modicum of security cooperation – as long as nothing untoward happens and that the death sentence Israel imposed on any armed Palestinian seen anywhere has been lifted.

Ironically, the incident early this morning followed a meeting last night where the prime minister and defense minister decided to go ahead with some more of the confidence building measures (CBM) promised at the Sharm el Sheikh summit, with an emphasis on the release of another 400 prisoners. That’s a drop in the bucket considering how many prisoners Israel is holding (about 8,500, more people than the settlers to be evacuated from Gaza and the four settlements of the northern West Bank).

There’s no doubt that the decision to go ahead with the relatively minor CBMs that the Israeli press refers to as ‘gestures,’ has to do with the upcoming Abbas trip to Washington. Israeli officials are already bracing themselves for an expected shower of praise and affection from George Bush to Abbas and for Bush to make Israel some suggestions it find difficult to refuse, because the request will be coming from Bush. The American envoy, Lt. Gen. William Ward, who has taken a very low profile compared to predecessors like Anthony Zinni, granting no interviews or even photo-ops, is said to be full of praise for the PA’s security reformation underway, something that Bush will be happy to hear and Israel rejects pretty much out of hand.

Anyway, the Israeli spin right now is that by the end of this year, Hamas will be ruling Gaza. Some Israelis think that is in Israel’s interests because it will prove ‘there’s nobody to talk to’; others think it is in Israel’s interests because the Hamas at least is not as corrupt as Fateh, the current ruling party in the PA, and more disciplined, and once in power, will have to turn pragmatic. Most still fantasize that the disengagement will mean Israel won’t have to worry about what happens in Gaza, or the West Bank. They haven’t caught on that as long as Israel controls all the entrances and exits to Gaza, including air and sea, Israel is responsible for everything that takes place there, no matter how much of a model some Palestinians think can be created in the Strip for genuine self-rule.

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