- An Englishman leaves without bidding farewell, a Jew
says his farewells but does not leave, says a Jewish joke. This is the
case with Israeli withdrawals from Bethlehem, Ramallah and now the grand
slam, Gaza disengagement. A fortnight ago, Israeli army left Tul Karem
amid fanfares. Newspapers described it a "trust-building measure"
the Palestinians have to work hard to justify. A few days later, Israeli
tanks rolled back into Tul Karem; they killed a few policemen in cold blood,
carried away a wagonload of captives and were ready for the next well-publicised
withdrawal. We went through this motion so many times, that one should
be a great enthusiast to care about Gaza show provided by courtesy of Ariel
Sharon.
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- Gaza disengagement is nothing. This is a non-event, though
presented as a great news. This one is not the first, and surely not the
last. In Palestinian history, Gaza withdrawals are a dime a dozen. I remember
even Gaza withdrawal of 1956, but people with shorter memory probably remember
the ballyhoo around Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 1993, in accordance
with Oslo Accords. There were so many arguments, whether there should be
'Gaza first to go', or 'Gaza and Jericho first to go". After plenty
of acrimony, the Palestinians "got" Gaza and Jericho. Eventually
it turned out that Israel granted some prisoner autonomy to what became
Gaza Concentration Camp and Jericho Open Prison, on a par with the five-star
VIP prison of Ramallah.
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- Disengagement is sham, but the wall is real. The Israeli
News agency announced that "*The IDF is to build another security
fence around the Gaza Strip. In the end, the system will comprise of three
fences, state-of-the-art electronic and optical sensors as well as remote
control machine guns. The system should be completed in less than a year
for a total cost of $220 million", *naturally, paid by the US taxpayer.
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- If for some reason, the prisoners will become restive,
Israel has enough planes to bomb them into submission without moving a
single soldier. The disengagement is good for Israel of Sharon, as it allows
him to cut expenses, to cut down unpopular reserve duty and to make servicing
of the Gaza Concentration Camp so much easier. This is no secret: Israeli
officials expressed this view on numerous occasions.
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- Our friend Uri Avnery called upon the Palestinian resistance
"not to play into the hands of Sharon" and refrain from all military
activity until the withdrawal is completed. The sad reality is that the
Palestinians have no options. If they keep quiet, they will be immured
beyond the high walls of Gaza. If they misbehave, they will be bombed,
strafed and immured beyond the high walls of Gaza. There is no carrot,
just a stick.
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- Our friend Ilan Pappe warned us of a possibility of large-scale
killings in Gaza Strip when the pull-out is completed. He called upon us
'to keep our eyes on Gaza'. But I doubt there will be something that dramatic.
There are too many people in Gaza to kill them off; there is no place to
expel them to, either. No reason to rush: the imprisoned population will
be there for future punitive actions whenever they will be required.
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- The pull-out is just part of the game; it is always followed
by a push-in, as in rape. Gaza will remain a jail, without even an air
or sea link to freedom. But it is a mistake to concentrate on access only:
for ordinary Gazans air link will not feed their families. Gaza can't stand
on its own feet - no city, neither Tel Aviv nor London can. Gazans will
have but a little chance to make living by working the fields that belonged
to their families, for Israeli farmers prefer cheaper and undemanding Thais.
Gaza will become the preferred place of exile of Palestinian activists
from the West Bank and Jerusalem, a big jail, nay, a place of entombment.
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- Recently I went to the Biblical village of Bethany in
vicinity of Jerusalem where the deep rock-cut tomb of Lazarus forever reminds
of faith's ability to bring back to life even the stinking dead soul of
man from under thick shell of stone and masonry. It is a powerful and relevant
symbol for there are forces that bring spiritual death to souls, immuring
them in pursuit of material goods and casting off sunlight of God. But
the broad well-paved highway to Bethany was abruptly cut off by a huge
monstrosity of a wall; 25 feet tall concrete slabs blocked the way and
dimmed sunlight. A paint-sprayed sign read: Welcome to the Ghetto of Bethany.
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- Beyond the wall, blue-eyed and suntanned Palestinian
children in their best Sunday clothes stared in disbelief on the Israeli
workers' team that relentlessly erected the slabs entombing them in their
village. They reminded me of a Gothic story[1] mhtml:mid://00000587/#_ftn1
by Edgar Allan Poe, about a vindictive Spaniard who immured his chained
live victim in a cellar of his castle after enticing him to come down and
try his amontillado wine. He laid a brick upon a brick, poured mortar with
gusto, vigorously walled up the entrance of the niche, while disbelief
in the eyes of the victim was turning into horror of recognition. His lips
wisped 'Amontillado!' as the last brick immured him for his slow and dreadful
death in darkness of the cellar. Poe knew we fear entombment more than
we fear death.
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- We can't stop Israel from entombing a million of Gazans.
But we may and should stop Israel from earning feathers on his hat by this
dastardly act. Thanks for nothing, General Sharon. You do the evil deed
of Zimri, and demand the reward of righteous Phineas, as Bible-minded folk
says. We should attend to people who let him sell redeployment as a great
sacrifice - meople in the media. Instead of watching with shudder one million
live human beings being immured, the vast world-wide Jewish media machine,
from Sulzberger's New York Times to Rothschild's Liberacion, concentrates
on "the settlers' plight". This is another sham. Last month Israelis
destroyed the village of Tana and expelled its population, practically
unreported; but tears of each settler are avidly documented and served
to the viewers all over world.
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- Nobody pushes these settlers away but their own government.
They may stay as equals in Gaza. Probably they would be able even to keep
much of their illegally obtained assets. The PNA may do well stating that
publicly. The hullabaloo is done to enforce the idea that Jews may not
live with goyim together. Alas, this idea is supported by Jewish pro-peace
activists: Michael Warshawski stated that "the priority of the anti-occupation
forces should be to denounce and to fight against the settlement policy,
... to impose on Israel an immediate and total freeze on settlements activities,
including the wall and the bypass roads, and to establish, under the hospices
of the UN, an International Settlements Freeze Watch, mandated to implement
this freeze."
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- Warshawsky's call amounts to support of Sharon's concept
of separation from the left. He is against the wall being built away from
the Green Line; so the Gaza Wall should suit him perfectly. But it is too
little, too late to ask for a freeze that never comes, for the walls being
build along old armistice lines. 'Anti-occupation' became the shibboleth
of Zionism-lite. There is just one possible solution: instead of removing
settlers and building more walls, to integrate Gaza and the West Bank in
Israel, warts and all.
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