Douglas Davis says that Ariel Sharon’s wisest decision was his last one — to pull out of the anarchic terrorist hothouse of Gaza
As the dominating presence of Ariel Sharon recedes from the public stage, his lasting legacy is likely to be not his military exploits but his final major political act: unilateral withdrawal from Gaza. Israel had tried engagement, and when that did not work it opted for disengagement. If the Oslo accords promised a marriage between Palestinians and Israelis, Sharon’s unilateral withdrawal signalled a divorce. Reconciliation could be generations away.
There were high hopes in Europe that Sharon’s evacuation would rekindle the peace process; that the Palestinian Authority would seize the end of the occupation to assert itself as a coherent, credible administration. That was not to be. The kidnapping of Kate Burton and her parents in Gaza late last month was a nasty reality check. So, too, were the less publicised events which followed their release.
When the Palestinian Authority initially refused to free the kidnapper — himself a member of the mainstream Fatah security forces — other Fatah members went on the rampage. They commandeered two bulldozers, punched through the concrete barrier on the Gaza–Egypt border and opened fire. Two Egyptian border guards were killed and 30 wounded. The Palestinian Authority hastily freed the kidnapper, who, with his colleagues, is back on the beat. On Monday, amid a continuing deterioration in security, the Foreign Office advised British citizens to leave Gaza unless they had round-the-clock ‘professional close-security arrangements’. On the same day Egypt warned the Palestinians it would withdraw its support unless the slide into anarchy was stopped.
With the occupation over and their land Judenrein, Gazans should be feeling comfortable and secure. But with 60,000 security forces toting AK-47s, many are terrified. For while the security services are paid by the Palestinian Authority, the gunmen are largely out of control, representing the interests of powerful, sometimes competing, families and clans. The seeds of anarchy were sown by Yasser Arafat when he returned to Gaza following the 1993 Oslo accords. Although he solemnly recognised Israel and renounced terrorism, he clearly had no intention of disarming the terrorists. For the next decade, they would serve as his strategic reserve.
If Arafat was unwilling to confront them, his feeble successor, Mahmood Abbas, is unable. The two major offenders, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, have elevated jihad (holy war) and shehada (martyrdom) to the highest form of political expression. The only topic for debate is how quickly Israel can be liquidated. Given its huge success in last month’s municipal elections, it is conceivable that Hamas might actually win the Palestinian general election on 25 January.
What will that mean? Article 15 of the Hamas covenant offers a clue: ‘In the face of the Jews’ usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of jihad be raised.... It is necessary to instil in the minds of the Muslim generations that the Palestinian problem is a religious problem, and should be dealt with on this basis.’ Last month, 18 years after the covenant was published, a progress report appeared on the Hamas website: ‘We succeeded, with Allah’s grace, to raise an ideological generation that loves death like our enemies love life. We will not abandon the way of jihad and shehada as long as one inch of our holy land is in the hands of the Jews.’
It is the sort of talk that limits the scope for conventional political discourse. How does a modern, technological state get its head around this irrational, mystical supernaturalism? How does a functioning democracy respond to a non-negotiable demand for its own destruction? Israel has attempted a raft of counter-terror measures, all controversial, with varying degrees of success. These have included detention without trial, house demolitions, curfews, roadblocks, the separation barrier and, ultimately, the targeted killing of terrorist leaders. Israel’s military strategists acknowledge that successful counter-terrorism is a finely calibrated business. While the overarching objective is to deter and disrupt the terrorist infrastructures, the subtext is to minimise ‘collateral damage’.
The military men know that fire-power alone will not win the argument. A simple cost-benefit analysis shows that inflaming Palestinian anger more than absolutely necessary defeats the longer-term goal of winning hearts and minds among rational political elements which Israelis hope will ultimately prevail. General Moshe Ya’alon, a former chief of staff, says that successful counter-terrorism must satisfy moral imperatives as well as strategic objectives. He offers two ‘guiding principles’ for prosecuting the war on terror. Firstly, he says, the best defence is a good offence; secondly, never surrender to terror.
Gaza has become a terrorist hothouse for the same reasons that Hamas is winning unprecedented popular support: political ineptitude and rampant corruption within the Palestinian Authority, which have combined to produce lawlessness and impoverish ordinary Palestinians. It should not have been so. When Arafat returned to Gaza in 1993, per capita income for Palestinians was running at about $3,000, dwarfing that of their neighbours in Egypt, Jordan and Syria. The figure now stands at $934, with foreign aid making up well over half of that amount.
The collapse of the economy coincided with Israel’s decision to shut the door to Palestinians entering Israel in an attempt to stop the suicide-bombers killing its citizens. The immediate cost for the Palestinians was 100,000 jobs, now taken by Asian and African guest workers. With unemployment estimated to be running at up to 80 per cent, there were growls of anger when the Palestinian Authority recently rewarded each of its 24 ministers with an Audi A6 (at $76,000 each) while ordinary MPs were handed the keys to the A4 model (a snip at $45,000). Billions of dollars have gone missing and hundreds of millions more are said to be ‘invested’ abroad. Arafat himself, according to Western intelligence estimates, controlled assets worth $10 billion. When the Palestinian minister of justice, Nahed al-Rayes, resigned last November, he cited ‘mushrooming corruption’ within the Palestinian Authority and accused the security forces of creating gangs ‘to loot public and private funds’.
Apart from a sprinkling of Hollywood-style villas and limos for the political and military elites, there is tragically little to show for the billions of aid dollars that have been poured into Gaza over the past decade. But the villas and the limos are not the only evocation of Hollywood. For Dr Jamal Majaideh, a prominent political scientist, living in Gaza is like ‘sitting in a Hollywood studio and watching an action film about gangs, murder and abductions’. Terrorism is the major growth industry in Gaza. Both al-Qa’eda and Hezbollah are moving into the market, while the Iranians are said to be delivering missiles that can reach targets in Israel far deeper than the 15-mile range of the Palestinians’ home-made Kassem rockets. But Israel has the means at its disposal to make ilfe quickly and dramatically worse for the Palestinians. Gaza, for example, depends on Israel for its water, its electricity and for the flow of goods into and out of its territory.
Palestine should be well on its way to becoming Singapore. Instead, it is becoming Somalia. The omens for the much-heralded Palestinian state are not good. And the terror war appears to be on the verge of entering a new, more dangerous, phase. Israelis have cause to be grateful that Sharon dragged them out when he did.
Douglas Davis is a member of the Middle East Writers Group.