How Israel Helped to Spawn Hamas
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How Israel Helped to Spawn Hamas
By ANDREW HIGGINS
Moshav Tekuma, Israel
Surveying the wreckage of a neighbor's bungalow hit by a Palestinian rocket, retired Israeli official Avner Cohen traces the missile's trajectory back to an "enormous, stupid mistake" made 30 years ago.
"Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel's creation," says Mr. Cohen, a Tunisian-born Jew who worked in Gaza for more than two decades. Responsible for religious affairs in the region until 1994, Mr. Cohen watched the Islamist movement take shape, muscle aside secular Palestinian rivals and then morph into what is today Hamas, a militant group that is sworn to Israel's destruction.
Instead of trying to curb Gaza's Islamists from the outset, says Mr. Cohen, Israel for years tolerated and, in some cases, encouraged them as a counterweight to the secular nationalists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its dominant faction, Yasser Arafat's Fatah. Israel cooperated with a crippled, half-blind cleric named Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, even as he was laying the foundations for what would become Hamas. Sheikh Yassin continues to inspire militants today; during the recent war in Gaza, Hamas fighters confronted Israeli troops with "Yassins," primitive rocket-propelled grenades named in honor of the cleric.
Abid Katib/Getty ImagesSheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder of Hamas.
Last Saturday, after 22 days of war, Israel announced a halt to the offensive. The assault was aimed at stopping Hamas rockets from falling on Israel. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert hailed a "determined and successful military operation." More than 1,200 Palestinians had died. Thirteen Israelis were also killed.
Hamas responded the next day by lobbing five rockets towards the Israeli town of Sderot, a few miles down the road from Moshav Tekuma, the farming village where Mr. Cohen lives. Hamas then announced its own cease-fire.
Since then, Hamas leaders have emerged from hiding and reasserted their control over Gaza. Egyptian-mediated talks aimed at a more durable truce are expected to start this weekend. President Barack Obama said this week that lasting calm "requires more than a long cease-fire" and depends on Israel and a future Palestinian state "living side by side in peace and security."
A look at Israel's decades-long dealings with Palestinian radicals -- including some little-known attempts to cooperate with the Islamists -- reveals a catalog of unintended and often perilous consequences. Time and again, Israel's efforts to find a pliant Palestinian partner that is both credible with Palestinians and willing to eschew violence, have backfired. Would-be partners have turned into foes or lost the support of their people.
Israel's experience echoes that of the U.S., which, during the Cold War, looked to Islamists as a useful ally against communism. Anti-Soviet forces backed by America after Moscow's 1979 invasion of Afghanistan later mutated into al Qaeda.
![[Hamas supporters in Gaza City after the cease-fire.]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/PT-AK751_HAMAS__D_20090123151839.jpg)
APA /Landov
Hamas supporters in Gaza City after the cease-fire.
At stake is the future of what used to be the British Mandate of Palestine, the biblical lands now comprising Israel and the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza. Since 1948, when the state of Israel was established, Israelis and Palestinians have each asserted claims over the same territory.
The Palestinian cause was for decades led by the PLO, which Israel regarded as a terrorist outfit and sought to crush until the 1990s, when the PLO dropped its vow to destroy the Jewish state. The PLO's Palestinian rival, Hamas, led by Islamist militants, refused to recognize Israel and vowed to continue "resistance." Hamas now controls Gaza, a crowded, impoverished sliver of land on the Mediterranean from which Israel pulled out troops and settlers in 2005.
When Israel first encountered Islamists in Gaza in the 1970s and '80s, they seemed focused on studying the Quran, not on confrontation with Israel. The Israeli government officially recognized a precursor to Hamas called Mujama Al-Islamiya, registering the group as a charity. It allowed Mujama members to set up an Islamic university and build mosques, clubs and schools. Crucially, Israel often stood aside when the Islamists and their secular left-wing Palestinian rivals battled, sometimes violently, for influence in both Gaza and the West Bank.
"When I look back at the chain of events I think we made a mistake," says David Hacham, who worked in Gaza in the late 1980s and early '90s as an Arab-affairs expert in the Israeli military. "But at the time nobody thought about the possible results."
Israeli officials who served in Gaza disagree on how much their own actions may have contributed to the rise of Hamas. They blame the group's recent ascent on outsiders, primarily Iran. This view is shared by the Israeli government. "Hamas in Gaza was built by Iran as a foundation for power, and is backed through funding, through training and through the provision of advanced weapons," Mr. Olmert said last Saturday. Hamas has denied receiving military assistance from Iran.
Arieh Spitzen, the former head of the Israeli military's Department of Palestinian Affairs, says that even if Israel had tried to stop the Islamists sooner, he doubts it could have done much to curb political Islam, a movement that was spreading across the Muslim world. He says attempts to stop it are akin to trying to change the internal rhythms of nature: "It is like saying: 'I will kill all the mosquitoes.' But then you get even worse insects that will kill you...You break the balance. You kill Hamas you might get al Qaeda."
When it became clear in the early 1990s that Gaza's Islamists had mutated from a religious group into a fighting force aimed at Israel -- particularly after they turned to suicide bombings in 1994 -- Israel cracked down with ferocious force. But each military assault only increased Hamas's appeal to ordinary Palestinians. The group ultimately trounced secular rivals, notably Fatah, in a 2006 election supported by Israel's main ally, the U.S.
Now, one big fear in Israel and elsewhere is that while Hamas has been hammered hard, the war might have boosted the group's popular appeal. Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas administration in Gaza, came out of hiding last Sunday to declare that "God has granted us a great victory."
Most damaged from the war, say many Palestinians, is Fatah, now Israel's principal negotiating partner. "Everyone is praising the resistance and thinks that Fatah is not part of it," says Baker Abu-Baker, a longtime Fatah supporter and author of a book on Hamas.
A Lack of Devotion
Hamas traces its roots back to the Muslim Brotherhood, a group set up in Egypt in 1928. The Brotherhood believed that the woes of the Arab world spring from a lack of Islamic devotion. Its slogan: "Islam is the solution. The Quran is our constitution." Its philosophy today underpins modern, and often militantly intolerant, political Islam from Algeria to Indonesia.
After the 1948 establishment of Israel, the Brotherhood recruited a few followers in Palestinian refugee camps in Gaza and elsewhere, but secular activists came to dominate the Palestinian nationalist movement.
At the time, Gaza was ruled by Egypt. The country's then-president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, was a secular nationalist who brutally repressed the Brotherhood. In 1967, Nasser suffered a crushing defeat when Israel triumphed in the six-day war. Israel took control of Gaza and also the West Bank.
"We were all stunned," says Palestinian writer and Hamas supporter Azzam Tamimi. He was at school at the time in Kuwait and says he became close to a classmate named Khaled Mashaal, now Hamas's Damascus-based political chief. "The Arab defeat provided the Brotherhood with a big opportunity," says Mr. Tamimi.
In Gaza, Israel hunted down members of Fatah and other secular PLO factions, but it dropped harsh restrictions imposed on Islamic activists by the territory's previous Egyptian rulers. Fatah, set up in 1964, was the backbone of the PLO, which was responsible for hijackings, bombings and other violence against Israel. Arab states in 1974 declared the PLO the "sole legitimate representative" of the Palestinian people world-wide.
Heidi Levine/Sipa Press for The Wall Street JournalA poster of the late Sheikh Yassin hangs near a building destroyed by the Israeli assault on Gaza.
The Muslim Brotherhood, led in Gaza by Sheikh Yassin, was free to spread its message openly. In addition to launching various charity projects, Sheikh Yassin collected money to reprint the writings of Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian member of the Brotherhood who, before his execution by President Nasser, advocated global jihad. He is now seen as one of the founding ideologues of militant political Islam.
Mr. Cohen, who worked at the time for the Israeli government's religious affairs department in Gaza, says he began to hear disturbing reports in the mid-1970s about Sheikh Yassin from traditional Islamic clerics. He says they warned that the sheikh had no formal Islamic training and was ultimately more interested in politics than faith. "They said, 'Keep away from Yassin. He is a big danger,'" recalls Mr. Cohen.
Instead, Israel's military-led administration in Gaza looked favorably on the paraplegic cleric, who set up a wide network of schools, clinics, a library and kindergartens. Sheikh Yassin formed the Islamist group Mujama al-Islamiya, which was officially recognized by Israel as a charity and then, in 1979, as an association. Israel also endorsed the establishment of the Islamic University of Gaza, which it now regards as a hotbed of militancy. The university was one of the first targets hit by Israeli warplanes in the recent war.
Brig. General Yosef Kastel, Gaza's Israeli governor at the time, is too ill to comment, says his wife. But Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev, who took over as governor in Gaza in late 1979, says he had no illusions about Sheikh Yassin's long-term intentions or the perils of political Islam. As Israel's former military attache in Iran, he'd watched Islamic fervor topple the Shah. However, in Gaza, says Mr. Segev, "our main enemy was Fatah," and the cleric "was still 100% peaceful" towards Israel. Former officials say Israel was also at the time wary of being viewed as an enemy of Islam.
Mr. Segev says he had regular contact with Sheikh Yassin, in part to keep an eye on him. He visited his mosque and met the cleric around a dozen times. It was illegal at the time for Israelis to meet anyone from the PLO. Mr. Segev later arranged for the cleric to be taken to Israel for hospital treatment. "We had no problems with him," he says.
In fact, the cleric and Israel had a shared enemy: secular Palestinian activists. After a failed attempt in Gaza to oust secularists from leadership of the Palestinian Red Crescent, the Muslim version of the Red Cross, Mujama staged a violent demonstration, storming the Red Crescent building. Islamists also attacked shops selling liquor and cinemas. The Israeli military mostly stood on the sidelines.
Mr. Segev says the army didn't want to get involved in Palestinian quarrels but did send soldiers to prevent Islamists from burning down the house of the Red Crescent's secular chief, a socialist who supported the PLO.
'An Alternative to the PLO'
Clashes between Islamists and secular nationalists spread to the West Bank and escalated during the early 1980s, convulsing college campuses, particularly Birzeit University, a center of political activism.
As the fighting between rival student factions at Birzeit grew more violent, Brig. Gen. Shalom Harari, then a military intelligence officer in Gaza, says he received a call from Israeli soldiers manning a checkpoint on the road out of Gaza. They had stopped a bus carrying Islamic activists who wanted to join the battle against Fatah at Birzeit. "I said: 'If they want to burn each other let them go,'" recalls Mr. Harari.
A leader of Birzeit's Islamist faction at the time was Mahmoud Musleh, now a pro-Hamas member of a Palestinian legislature elected in 2006. He recalls how usually aggressive Israeli security forces stood back and let conflagration develop. He denies any collusion between his own camp and the Israelis, but says "they hoped we would become an alternative to the PLO."
A year later, in 1984, the Israeli military received a tip-off from Fatah supporters that Sheikh Yassin's Gaza Islamists were collecting arms, according to Israeli officials in Gaza at the time. Israeli troops raided a mosque and found a cache of weapons. Sheikh Yassin was jailed. He told Israeli interrogators the weapons were for use against rival Palestinians, not Israel, according to Mr. Hacham, the military affairs expert who says he spoke frequently with jailed Islamists. The cleric was released after a year and continued to expand Mujama's reach across Gaza.
Around the time of Sheikh Yassin's arrest, Mr. Cohen, the religious affairs official, sent a report to senior Israeli military and civilian officials in Gaza. Describing the cleric as a "diabolical" figure, he warned that Israel's policy towards the Islamists was allowing Mujama to develop into a dangerous force.
"I believe that by continuing to turn away our eyes, our lenient approach to Mujama will in the future harm us. I therefore suggest focusing our efforts on finding ways to break up this monster before this reality jumps in our face," Mr. Cohen wrote.
Mr. Harari, the military intelligence officer, says this and other warnings were ignored. But, he says, the reason for this was neglect, not a desire to fortify the Islamists: "Israel never financed Hamas. Israel never armed Hamas."
Roni Shaked, a former officer of Shin Bet, Israel's internal security service, and author of a book on Hamas, says Sheikh Yassin and his followers had a long-term perspective whose dangers were not understood at the time. "They worked slowly, slowly, step by step according to the Muslim Brotherhood plan."
Declaring Jihad
In 1987, several Palestinians were killed in a traffic accident involving an Israeli driver, triggering a wave of protests that became known as the first Intifada, Mr. Yassin and six other Mujama Islamists launched Hamas, or the Islamic Resistance Movement. Hamas's charter, released a year later, is studded with anti-Semitism and declares "jihad its path and death for the cause of Allah its most sublime belief."
Israeli officials, still focused on Fatah and initially unaware of the Hamas charter, continued to maintain contacts with the Gaza Islamists. Mr. Hacham, the military Arab affairs expert, remembers taking one of Hamas's founders, Mahmoud Zahar, to meet Israel's then defense minister, Yitzhak Rabin, as part of regular consultations between Israeli officials and Palestinians not linked to the PLO. Mr. Zahar, the only Hamas founder known to be alive today, is now the group's senior political leader in Gaza.
In 1989, Hamas carried out its first attack on Israel, abducting and killing two soldiers. Israel arrested Sheikh Yassin and sentenced him to life. It later rounded up more than 400 suspected Hamas activists, including Mr. Zahar, and deported them to southern Lebanon. There, they hooked up with Hezbollah, the Iran-backed A-Team of anti-Israeli militancy.
Many of the deportees later returned to Gaza. Hamas built up its arsenal and escalated its attacks, while all along maintaining the social network that underpinned its support in Gaza.
Meanwhile, its enemy, the PLO, dropped its commitment to Israel's destruction and started negotiating a two-state settlement. Hamas accused it of treachery. This accusation found increasing resonance as Israel kept developing settlements on occupied Palestinian land, particularly the West Bank. Though the West Bank had passed to the nominal control of a new Palestinian Authority, it was still dotted with Israeli military checkpoints and a growing number of Israeli settlers.
Unable to uproot a now entrenched Islamist network that had suddenly replaced the PLO as its main foe, Israel tried to decapitate it. It started targeting Hamas leaders. This, too, made no dent in Hamas's support, and sometimes even helped the group. In 1997, for example, Israel's Mossad spy agency tried to poison Hamas's exiled political leader Mr. Mashaal, who was then living in Jordan.
The agents got caught and, to get them out of a Jordanian jail, Israel agreed to release Sheikh Yassin. The cleric set off on a tour of the Islamic world to raise support and money. He returned to Gaza to a hero's welcome.
Efraim Halevy, a veteran Mossad officer who negotiated the deal that released Sheikh Yassin, says the cleric's freedom was hard to swallow, but Israel had no choice. After the fiasco in Jordan, Mr. Halevy was named director of Mossad, a position he held until 2002. Two years later, Sheikh Yassin was killed by an Israeli air strike.
Mr. Halevy has in recent years urged Israel to negotiate with Hamas. He says that "Hamas can be crushed," but he believes that "the price of crushing Hamas is a price that Israel would prefer not to pay." When Israel's authoritarian secular neighbor, Syria, launched a campaign to wipe out Muslim Brotherhood militants in the early 1980s it killed more than 20,000 people, many of them civilians.
In its recent war in Gaza, Israel didn't set the destruction of Hamas as its goal. It limited its stated objectives to halting the Islamists' rocket fire and battering their overall military capacity. At the start of the Israeli operation in December, Defense Minister Ehud Barak told parliament that the goal was "to deal Hamas a severe blow, a blow that will cause it to stop its hostile actions from Gaza at Israeli citizens and soldiers."
Walking back to his house from the rubble of his neighbor's home, Mr. Cohen, the former religious affairs official in Gaza, curses Hamas and also what he sees as missteps that allowed Islamists to put down deep roots in Gaza.
He recalls a 1970s meeting with a traditional Islamic cleric who wanted Israel to stop cooperating with the Muslim Brotherhood followers of Sheikh Yassin: "He told me: 'You are going to have big regrets in 20 or 30 years.' He was right."
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2008-2009 Israel-Gaza Conflict: In Israel's Defence
by Donaldson Tan. 9 Feb 2009. Source
The Middle East has always been a hot bed for conflicts. The recent eruption of violence in Gaza Strip has earned Israel condemnation from the international community on the disproportionality of its action. Yet it is interesting to note despite the ritual condemnation, no Arab states has actually put forward any important actions to undermine Israel's occupation in Gaza after the Israel-Hamas truce had expired. As usual, international media is quick to highlight bloodshed, the most attention-grabbing result, while downplaying the role of Hamas in the Israel-Gaza Conflict.
Israel-Gaza Conflict
According to the BBC, the Israel-Gaza Conflict started on 27 December 2008 when Israel launched Operation Cast Lead into the Gaza Strip . While media coverage has been biased in only focusing on the disproportionality of Israel’s military action in the Gaza Strip, it is important to note that things were already brewing in the background. Since 2006, Hamas has fired at least 1,700 rockets into Israel despite Israel’s easing of the blockade on the Gaza Strip. Hamas continued to smuggle ammunitions, firearms and rockets despite its assurance to Israel on its commitment to peace. Worse still, Hamas accused Israel of violating the ceasefire first when Israeli agents raided a weapons smuggling tunnel in Gaza, despite that weapons smuggling de-facto breaks the ceasefire agreement. When the 6-month truce between Israel and Hamas expired on 18 December 2008, Hamas refused to extend the truce and renewed rocket attacks against Israel on 19 December 2008.
In March 2008, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed to press on with the deadly military operations against militants who have been launching increasingly powerful rockets into Israel. The Israeli action is merely a response to the renewed terrorism originating from the Gaza Strip. Security for Israeli is the primary priority for the current Israeli government. Action speaks louder than words and this is demonstrated by Israel’s unilateral ceasefire on 17 January 2009 and partial withdrawal of the Israeli Defence Force. Israel’s fight is targeted against Hamas and not the People of Gaza. Having destroyed Hamas’ military camps and 60% of Hamas’ tunnels between Egypt and Gaza, there is no need to continue military action in Gaza. By 21 January 2009, Israel has fully withdrawn its troops from Gaza. This is not the first time that Israel withdrew its troops unilaterally. In 2005, Israel made a unilateral decision to withdraw its military and settlers from the Gaza Strip.
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum criticised Israel for taking a unilateral approach rather than entering into a deal with Egyptian mediators: “It is an attempt to pre-empt the Egyptian efforts and any other efforts that seek to achieve a withdrawal of the occupying forces, an end to the siege and a ceasefire.” Moreover, the international community and the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) support the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, which is repeatedly emphasised in UNSC Resolutions S/RES/1860(2009) and S/RES/1850(2009). While a somewhat quiet night presided Gaza on the first night of the unilateral ceasefire, Israelis woke up to yet again another morning of Hamas rocket attacks. Surely rocket attacks is not the way to invite your opponent to participate in peace talks hosted by a less-than-neutral neighbour Egypt, one of the Arab League’s only 2 members that actually recognise Israel. In fact, fighting has now resumed. Recent news indicated that the Israeli Air Force conducted air strikes in response to a new wave of rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip.
The way out of the Israel-Gaza Conflict cannot be a one-off temporary solution until the next eruption of fighting. President Obama of the United States said in an Al Arabiya Interview that continued fighting “is not going to result in prosperity and security” for Israelis and Palestinians, and commended the Arab Peace Initiative for being a courageous act. The Arab Peace Initiative, proposed by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, represents a new holistic approach to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. While security implications on their bordering countries cannot be separated from the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, there is notable regional desire for political stability. Most importantly, the Arab Peace Initiative marks a stark departure from the 1967 “Three No’s” that was the centre of Israeli-Arab relations: no peace deals, no diplomatic recognitions, no negotiations. However, a 2008 Angus Reid Global Monitor poll found that 67% of Palestinians and 39% of Israelis support the Arab Peace Initiative .
The Rise of Hamas
Hamas combines Palestinian nationalism with Islamic fundamentalism. Its founding charter commits the group to the destruction of Israel, the replacement of the Palestinian Authority with an Islamist state on the West Bank and Gaza, and to raising "the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine." Its leaders have called suicide attacks the "F-16" of the Palestinian people. Hamas leader Abd al-Aziz Rantisi in April 2004 that "peace talks do us no good and we do not believe we can live with the enemy." In fact, Hamas rejects the Arab Peace Initiative.Hamas started out as the Palestinian chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood – the biggest political opposition organisation in Egypt and the Middle East. It was founded in December 1987 and came to prominence during the First Intifada, a popular Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule that took place between 1987 and 1993. While the Muslim Brotherhood has denounced violence since 1988, Hamas became well known for carrying out suicide bomb attacks in Israeli and Palestinian territories. Hamas’ first suicide bomb attack took place in April 1993. Hamas leader even hailed the suicide bombers the “F-16s” of Palestine. The United States, European Union, Japan and Israel recognise Hamas as a terrorist organisation.
Prior to winning the 2006 Palestinian Authority General Legislative Elections, Hamas already devotes much of its estimated US$70-million annual budget to an extensive social services network. Hamas funds schools, orphanages, mosques, healthcare clinics, soup kitchens and sports leagues. "Approximately 90 percent of its work is in social, welfare, cultural, and educational activities," writes the Israeli scholar Reuven Paz. This is in contrast to the Palestinian Authority, which often fails to provide such services. While some Palestinians perceive Hamas as a honest organisation, there are some Palestinians who disagree with its terrorist policies. In comparison to the corrupt Fatah that represents the Palestinian Authority, Hamas is the lesser evil to the Gaza electorate. Hamas is not a better choice over peace and prosperity for the whole of Palestine.
The 2006 Palestinian Authority General Legislative Elections established Hamas as the municipal government of Gaza Strip while Fatah remains as the unity government of the Palestinian Authority. Many political punters had hoped that Hamas would move away from violence to achieve its political aims, yet its military wing, the so-called Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigade, continued to operate. Rivalry between Hamas and the ruling party Fatah escalated to a military coup that took place in June 2007 . Hamas seized complete control of the Gaza’s municipal government, ousted Fatah’s representative on Gaza’s municipal parliament and drove out the Palestinian Authority’s security forces, forcing President Mahmond Abbas of the Palestinian Authority to declare a state of emergency. Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ali Babacan even urged Hamas to decide “whether it wants to be a political movement or an armed group” . Hamas is only one step short of declaring Gaza Strip independent.
Prospects of Peace
One remarkable thing to note about Israel’s Operation Cast Lead was that no Arab state moved quickly to take aggressive steps on Palestinians’ behalf. Apart from ritual condemnation, weeks into the offensive, no Arab state had done anything significant. Why is it so? The Arab states do not view the creation of a Palestinian state as being in their interests. They have never acknowledged Palestinian rights beyond the destruction of Israel. In theory, they have backed the Palestinian cause, but in practice they have ranged from indifferent to hostile toward it. Iran is the only major power that is now attempting to act on behalf of the Palestinians. Being a non-Arab state, Iranian involvement is regarded by the Arab regimes as one more reason to distrust the Palestinians. The question of an independent Palestinian state would not be settled even if Israel were destroyed.
All the countries bordering Palestine have serious territorial claims on Palestinian lands, not to mention a profound distrust of Palestinian intentions. For example, Syria view Palestine as an integral part of Syria, much as they saw Lebanon and Jordan. They saw the Sykes-Picot agreement as a violation of Syrian territorial integrity, and opposed the existence of an independent Jewish state for the same reason they opposed Lebanese or Jordanian independence. Historically, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and Palestine today were part of the same province under Greater Syria. In fact, the Syrians have always been uncomfortable with the concept of Palestinian statehood and actually invaded Lebanon in the 1970s to destroy the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and Fatah .
The Hashemite Monarchy of Jordan has a far more critical view of Palestinians than the Syrians. After the partition of the British-administered Palestine in 1948, Jordan took control of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. But there were deep tensions with the Palestinians, and the Hashemite Monarchy saw Israel as a guarantor of Jordanian security against the Palestinians. They never intended an independent Palestinian state. Jordan could have granted Palestine independence between 1948 and 1967. In September 1970, Jordan fought a bloody war against the Palestinians, forcing the PLO out of Jordan and into Lebanon. Half of Jordanians have Palestinian ethnicity. Jordan remain very fearful that the last vestige of the Hashemite Monarchy could collapse under the weight of Palestinians in the kingdom and in the West Bank, paving the way for a Palestinian takeover of Jordan.
Gaza and the West Bank are very different places. The West Bank has a population density of a little over 600 people per square mile, many living in discrete urban areas distributed through rural areas. The West Bank has a much higher degree of self-sufficiency, even in its current situation. Under the best of circumstances, the West Bank will not be entirely dependent on external economic relations. In the worst of circumstances, the West Bank will not be entirely dependent on outside aid.
On the other hand, Gaza is about 25 miles long and no more than 7.5 miles at its greatest width, with a total area of about 146 square miles. Gaza has a population density of about 11,060 per square mile, roughly that of a city. And like a city, Gaza’s primary economic activity should be commerce or manufacturing, but neither is possible given the active hostility of Israel and Egypt. 95% of Gaza’s economy had collapsed due to Israel’s blockade. Gaza is a compact city incapable of supporting itself in its current circumstances and overwhelmingly dependent on outside aid. Under the best of circumstances, Gaza will be entirely dependent on external economic relations. In the worst of circumstances, it will be entirely dependent on outside aid. Were Gaza physically part of the West Bank, it would be the latter’s largest city, making Palestine a more complex nation-state.
If a Palestinian state were created, it is not clear that the dynamics of Gaza, the city-state, and the West Bank, more of a nation-state, would be compatible. Under the best of circumstances, Gaza could not survive at its current size without a rapid economic evolution that would generate revenue from trade, banking and other activities common in successful Mediterranean cities. But these cities have either much smaller populations or much larger areas supported by surrounding territory. It is not clear how Gaza could get from where it is to where it would need to be to attain viability.
Gaza has the military advantage of being dense and urbanised. It can be defended. But it is an economic catastrophe, and given its demographics, the only way out of its condition is to export workers to Israel. To a lesser extent, the same is true for the West Bank. Palestine has been exporting workers for generations. Any peace agreement with Israel would increase the exportation of labour locally, with Palestinian labour moving into the Israeli market. Therefore, the paradox is that while the current situation allows a degree of autonomy amid social, economic and military catastrophe, a settlement would dramatically undermine Palestinian autonomy by creating Palestinian dependence on Israel.
One of the immediate consequences of Palestinian independence would be a massive outflow of Palestinians from Gaza to the West Bank. The economic conditions of the West Bank are better, but the massive domestic migration would buckle the West Bank’s economy. Tensions currently visible between the West Bank under Fatah and Gaza under Hamas would exacerbate. The West Bank could not absorb the population flow from Gaza, but Palestinians in Gaza could not remain in Gaza except in virtually total dependence on foreign aid. The only conceivable solution to the economic issue would be for Palestinians to seek work en masse in more dynamic economies. This would mean either emigration or entering the work force in Egypt, Jordan, Syria or Israel. Egypt has its own serious economic troubles, and Syria and Jordan are both too small to solve this problem. The only economy that could employ surplus Palestinian labour is Israel’s.
Security concerns apart, while the Israeli economy might be able to metabolise this labour, it would turn an independent Palestinian state into an Israeli economic dependency. The ability of the Israelis to control labour flows has always been one means for controlling Palestinian behaviour. To move even more deeply into this relationship would mean an effective annulment of Palestinian independence. The degree to which Palestine would depend on Israeli labour markets would turn Palestine into an extension of the Israeli economy. And the driver of this will not be the West Bank, which might be able to create a viable economy over time, but Gaza, which cannot. Accepting a Palestinian state along lines even approximating the 1948 partition, regardless of the status of Jerusalem, would not result in an independent Palestinian state in anything but name.
Conclusion
The problems of an independent Palestinian state will not be settled with or without the destruction of Israel. Neither would any two-state solution for the Middle East situation rectify complex geopolitical issues in the region. The two-state solution is merely a political rhetoric among the Arab League and the international community. Palestinians would not be better off too if the Palestine breaks down into 2 independent regions. The Middle East situation is made further more complex as the emergence of Hamas as a key player represents renewed Palestinian nationalism and militancy in the region. Hamas, no doubt, is a threat to political stability and power balance in the Middle East.
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This is so true!
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Originally posted by Short Ninja:
This is so true!
So, singapore electricity and oil tariff got go down or Not?? Me paying high bills and Gst now, no time for hamas and what ever war the Jewies created. When our economy is up, then we talk about it, in the meantime, no more outside mingling, the PM and all Ministers will stop irrelevant travelling and are call for retrain in external problems and massive internal problems are yet to be solve. -
Originally posted by angel7030:
So, singapore electricity and oil tariff got go down or Not?? Me paying high bills and Gst now, no time for hamas and what ever war the Jewies created. When our economy is up, then we talk about it, in the meantime, no more outside mingling, the PM and all Ministers will stop irrelevant travelling and are call for retrain in external problems and massive internal problems are yet to be solve.
So eat mee siam with no hamas??? -
So eat mee siam with no hamas?? LOL mee siam mai hams
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Originally posted by Short Ninja:
So eat mee siam with no hamas???
got mee siam to eat very happy liao, inorder to save cost, they should eat maggie mee, and drink 3 in 1 coffee. Stop all lavish dinners, wines and dances.those who eats mee siam in the public will get hammered
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Originally posted by Only-Way-4-Destiny!:
So eat mee siam with no hamas?? LOL mee siam mai hams
got mee siam mai ham tan -
Good reading on the first two articles, thanks. Most people say the Israel/Palestinian conflict is a complex one. What complex? It is man-made. If world leaders especially the only superpower, are sincere, the conflict can be solved. Get the ball rolling with UN playing a pivotal role. Un must be reformed first so that it can be a leading world organisation with teeth. I hope the new Sec.Gen can do something and not be a failure, like all previous Sec.Gen.
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BJK:
I understand that expectations of the UN have increased over the years due to its affiliated agencies such as UNIDO, UNDP, and the FAO doing extensive work in humanitarian affairs and economic development. However, it is important to remain clear that the primary function of the UN is to act as an inter-governmental forum for discussing and undertaking multilateral approaches in conflict resolution and problem solving. The UN is neither a sovereign entity (e.g. country) or an extra-sovereign entity (e.g. European Union whereby each Member State pooled its sovereignity). It cannot have any teeth. It should not have any teeth. The UN is not the world government.
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But UN was formed in 1945 and it has done good job in other fields except maintaining peace. Look at the decades-old Israel/Palestinian conflicts. Do world leaders want it to continue to eternity? It seems they want. It is time to reform UN and world leaders have to work hard. No point of giving statement and request for restraints to both sides whenever conflict flared up. Meanwhile, wait until ceasefire is achieved in the Security Council and then give another statement requesting both sides to honour it. By then, massive destruction of property and loss of lives.
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There are other current conflicts in the world that took more lives which require more urgent attention - War in Dafur, Somali Civil War and Congo Conflict.
UN have neither the time nor resources for sympathy on the Second Intifada.
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war is war.
![[SB123274679298211283]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-CZ922_WHAMAS_D_20090123171458.jpg)
![[History of Conflict Between Israel and Hamas]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-CZ951_confli_NS_20090123221236.jpg)