Judicious decisions, Thursday, September 15, 2005

The court decision came 18 months after the International Court in The Hague ruled the fence was illegal (wherever it goes up over the Green Line, the boundary between Israel and its neighbors on the eve of the 1967 Six Day War) and reiterated previous High Court rulings instructing the government to take every precaution to avoid damage to the Palestinians.

The Israeli court decision in effect approved construction over the Green Line, decrying what it described as ‘mistakes’ made by the court at The Hague, and complaining that the international court did not take into account Israeli security needs. But the unanimous nine-justice opinion placed the emphasis on the need to preserve Palestinian civil rights as the fence goes up, and between the lines the court decision seems to be saying that the best place for the barrier is as close as possible to the Green Line.

In Gaza, Egyptian and Palestinian police were still trying to stem the human tide of Gazans, particularly from the two cities of Rafah, which has been a formally divided city since the Israeli withdrawal from Sinai in the early 1980s.

Since the Oslo accords, in the early 1990s, passing through the Gaza-Israeli-Egyptian border at Rafah has been one of the most difficult trips to make, particularly for Palestinians, with Egypt not wanting them in, Israel not eager to let in any, and the Palestinian Authority, corrupt and weak, without the moral or political strength to stand up to the two powers around it and make a credible demand freedom of movement for Palestinians.

Tension is rising between the PA and Hamas, which is planning a major celebration of the Gaza evacuation (they refer to it as the Gaza eviction) tomorrow. PA President Mahmoud Abbas has promised to disarm the Hamas and other armed groups, but by now, his promises sound very hollow, with most Israeli observers saying that at most he’ll ask the armed groups to keep their weapons out of sight. It’s hardly a breakthrough toward implementation of the ‘one government, one law, one gun’ policy.

While there were reports this morning of PA cops firing into the air to try to restore order, Israel and the U.S. are hoping that the Egyptians can do something to bring law and order to the Philadelphi Corridor area, where arms as well as cheap cigarettes are flowing freely into Gaza. Meanwhile, impoverished Gazans continue scavenging – in the Israeli press it’s being called looting – in the rubble left behind by the Israeli bulldozers. With aluminum at 2 agora (half a U.S. cent) a kilo, on the open market in Gaza, there’s much work for the Gazans, half of whom live off international charity on less than $2 a day. The price of a Kalashnikov AK-47 is said to have tumbled in Gaza from $2,000 before the ‘Fall of the Rafah Wall’ to half that price.

In New York, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was basking in the limelight of being the star of this session of the UN General Assembly. Everyone wants to meet the man who seemed to prove that a leopard can change his spots, transformed from the ‘Butcher of Beirut’ to the ‘Evacuator of Gaza.’

But he probably wishes the popularity he is now experiencing in New York could be somehow beamed over to Israel later this month when he has to face his Likud’s central committee, where the latest Israel Radio poll released this morning shows he is in a dead heat with his challenger, Binyamin Netanyahu over the issue of advancing the party’s elections for a new leadership. Netanyahu, a former premier and former finance minister, coined a new political phrase this week, ‘territories for red carpets’ – it almost rhymes in Hebrew – meaning Sharon gave up Gaza in exchange for his warm welcome in New York. Sharon responded – in private so far – by saying that the only thing Netanyahu knows how to do is coin slogans.

Sharon is planning to deliver his speech to the UN General Assembly in Hebrew and at Israel prime time for as large a TV audience as possible. The spin coming out of his office over the last few days, including his own Newsweek/Washington Post interview, is that with the disengagement over, Israel will make no concessions in Jerusalem, and none that harm its security in the West Bank; there will be no more unilateral withdrawals, though the end goal is to preserve the major settlement blocs, which will eventually mean giving up isolated settlements.

Mostly, however, Sharon will focus on how the Gaza evacuation frees Israel of any responsibility for what happens in Gaza – and how what happens there now is a test for the Palestinian Authority to assert its control. If it succeeds, Sharon will say, Israel will be ready to engage in a political process with the Palestinians. If it fails, it will only prove what Sharon has long believed – that the Palestinians are simply incapable of self-rule. But instead of Israel being in charge in Gaza, he’ll be able to point to the Egyptians as being responsible for what happens. Let them talk to their Arab brethren in Egypt, he’ll tell anyone in New York who echoes the Palestinian claim that Israel is maintaining Gaza as a prison.

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