Gazans crossing over wall at Egyptian border (AP)
"It doesn’t matter to them who is ruling – a window has opened, a wall has collapsed and they are free to go."Describe the situation inside Gaza. What is the outside world missing about what is happening there?
The current situation in the Gaza Strip is that Israel has alleviated the closure on the power plant, but according to information that we’re getting, the power plant could begin shutting down on Sunday if it doesn’t get more fuel. The power plant has to ration power and already, today, they have started lowering the capacity of the plant. It went from 65 to 45 megawatts, which means that a quarter of Gaza City’s 600,000 residents are suffering power cuts again. These are rolling blackouts of four hours per area.
But power is not the whole issue. You need fuel for cars – so traffic is rare, except for people going to Rafah to stockpile food, and fuel. If there will be no fuel for cars in the next 3-4 days the traffic will come to a halt. The collapse of the wall changed the situation. Though people may be getting fuel in Egypt, that carries risks. Cars in Gaza are much more modern than those on the Egypt side — so the gas may end up damaging the cars.
Overall, there is concern about what the future can bring.
What was the reaction to the collapse of the wall in Rafah throughout Gaza?
Hamas has invested in its image – in Gaza, in the West Bank and in Israeli-Arab areas of Israel. They have put on a very powerful media battle against Israel – not only for the Muslim world but for the whole international community. They used this media savvy to their advantage in knocking down the wall.
The problem is the lack of understanding of the culture, especially in the Gaza Strip. Gaza has been closed the whole time, which has led to radicalization of people’s thinking and made them more conservative. The sanctions have led to more radicalism in the Strip. Hamas, and other religious movements have used this environment and the pressure to their advantage. Instead of lobbying the people against Hamas, Israel and the United States are moving the people behind Hamas.
There are now approximately 450,000 Palestinians at Rafah and al Arish – which means that there has been an emptying out of Gaza into the northern Sinai. Some people went out of curiosity, some to stockpile food, and some to wander around – there is finally a chance for them to leave the country, without a passport, and to breathe air.
It doesn’t matter to them who is ruling – a window has opened, a wall has collapsed and they are free to go.
These people are not politicians. Hamas has invested in developing sympathy from all of the people here and the Muslim world with this action.
All indications are that Hamas will not let the border close without an agreement with Abbas and Egypt over the reopening of the Rafah Crossing. Any agreement on the crossing will have to have Israeli consent, although Israel is not likely to accept a Hamas presence on the crossing, fearing the Islamist group could use it to bring in weapons and money. If an agreement is reached with Hamas having a say in it, it’s another achievement for Hamas.
Was Hamas involved in the collapse of the wall?
I was in Rafah yesterday in the very early morning. Before I went there, my sources said that members of Hamas, in addition to another group, were responsible for knocking down the wall. Everyone in Gaza knows that, everyone in Rafah knows that and maybe people in Rafah knew and were waiting for it to happen. People who were following the sanctions saw that something was coming. That with all the pressure, there would be an explosion somewhere. Hamas could not destroy the wall on the border with Israel in the north, so they destroyed the wall in the south.
Were the Egyptians aware?
There were some threats and warnings to the Egyptians that something might happen at the wall. So they had sent hundreds of policemen to the Sinai. The problem for them was how to explain to their own people why they would fire on hungry people who have come looking for food, which is why Mubarak had to let them in. The problem is beyond an issue of security. It is a political, moral and security responsibility.
Who is going to help Egypt? Israel – Israel won’t step in because it doesn’t want to take on again the role of occupier. The Americans are not coming. Peacekeepers? No one’s going to come to a war zone. Egypt can’t do it alone.
Abbas? Without coordinating with Hamas he can’t – he doesn’t have power, he doesn’t have authority.
Has there been reaction in Gaza to Israelis’ comments that the Rafah wall’s collapse may be an opportunity to cede responsibility for Gaza to Egypt?
Emotionally, people will say, we want to have relations with Egypt. Rationally, tying the Palestinian economy to the Egyptian economy will further deteriorate the Palestinian economy. How much is being produced in Gaza and how strong is the Egyptian pound?
People want free passage but not Egyptian control or economic reliance.
Israel will never be able to avoid its responsibility for the Gaza Strip because in the view of the international community and under international law it is still responsible.
Yet people do want safe passage. They want to be able to come and go through the Rafah crossing and to have an exchange of commerce with Egypt. Maybe even the ability to transfer their products through Egypt to European markets – but not to fully engage and certainly not to be annexed to Egypt. This is a completely ridiculous idea.
The Egyptians have fully rejected this idea since 1979. They have enough problems – they have the Muslim Brotherhood, the spiritual mother of Hamas, and I don’t think the Egyptians would want to have relations with Hamas that would disturb the Egyptian regime. They have enough trouble without annexing Gaza.
There is also a feeling among people in Gaza that they are not being told the complete story; something doesn’t seem right to them. People are suspicious about Egypt’s calm reaction. They are worried that there may be some kind of plan to completely separate between Gaza and the West Bank.
They worry that some could be considering a resurrection of the old idea of Jordan annexing the West Bank with perhaps an Egyptian umbrella over Gaza Strip. That Israel would be relieved of the moral responsibility to the civilian population.
But the situation with Israel is a tricky one. Israel will still have to work in the Gaza Strip because of the presence of heads of militant organizations. And militant groups will continue to attack Israeli targets in what they say are retaliation to the continued Israeli occupation and military strikes in the West Bank. Israel doesn’t want to supply Gaza with electricity, but it will still have to send in its forces. So, there will continue to be Palestinian-Israeli engagement.
How do these events connect to Annapolis, negotiations between Olmert and Abbas and President Bush’s visit?
Most people think that Annapolis was a complete failure – a silly play in the theater. People were forced to attend as a compliment to Bush and he is paying them back with his visits to the region. But there was nothing on their plates except maybe good food.
The Palestinians and the Israelis are accustomed to the fact that before and after international summits there is a rise in violence – hardliners on both sides trying to undermine things. This sort of scenario is something people have gotten used to. Look at the Israeli media around the visit, did you see anything positive?
So the media has successfully minimized expectations on all sides. With expectations at rock bottom, can leaders surprise easily with some successes?
The only thing that may boost Abu Mazen’s image is if Annapolis yields some results. This will prove that Abu Mazen can bring Palestinians a decent life. There cannot be implementation of a final agreement without Gaza, but an agreement could be reached, and even if it’s not implemented, a framework agreement would be a very good achievement. If Abu Mazen does not run again or is not reelected he will have left his successor something to work with. At the least, he will have scored against Hamas.
Without political progress, support for Fatah will deteriorate even in the West Bank. The Americans and Israelis need to help by showing that Abu Mazen can deliver. Right now he is helpless. He proposed to the Israelis that Fatah take control of the borders, but he never heard back from them. How many checkpoints have been removed from the West Bank? How many caravans have been removed? How many prisoners were released after Annapolis or after Bush’s visit?
This is a big question the Americans need to ask themselves. Do we want to help Abu Mazen or sabotage him?
It’s not enough to say, Abu Mazen isn’t achieving anything politically, but we’ll train some security forces in Jordan. If the Americans give him a political boost, and also help with security, that’s good. But, offering no political progress and only some security progress- Palestinians have heard this before and the result was the collapse of Gaza into the hands of non-American-trained forces. There was too much propaganda in the news and very little going on the ground.
Abu Mazen needs money, yes. But more than money, he needs political achievements. He needs to tell people, yes, Hamas opened the borders, yes, it maintained security in Gaza, but these are not your political aspirations. Your aspiration is to end the occupation. It is me who is going to get you closer to a Palestinian state with a capital in Jerusalem. It is me who will get the settlements evacuated. Look at these achievements. If Abu Mazen were able to get these achievements versus what Hamas has been able to achieve… there is no comparison.
