Posts
Many have been asking who will run Gaza after the current war between Israel and Hamas has ended.
Will it be occupied by Israel, temporarily or otherwise? After all, there was good reason for Israel to totally withdraw from Gaza in 2005 (see the second part of this post below).
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/12/06/israel-gaza-reoccupation-military-post-hamas-war-plans/
Will Hamas remain undefeated as the government of Gaza, possibly after a release of Israelis it is holding hostage, thereby retaining control over a population that it treats as a means to the destruction of Israel, and whom it has brainwashed accordingly?
Will it be the Palestinian Authority, which, in 2006, lost elections in Gaza to Hamas, before it was totally ejected in a bloody coup in 2007 ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gaza_(2007)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/24/gaza-election-hamas-2006-palestine-israel/
Will it be the Egyptians, who annexed Gaza in the 1948 war, after the British relinquished their mandate, and who were repelled by Israel in the 1967 war? Paradoxically, Israel wanted to return Gaza to the Egyptians in exchange for a peace treaty but the latter refused, knowing that a state of war with Israel was preferable to controlling the population of Gaza.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_the_Gaza_Strip_by_the_United_Arab_Republic
Will it be an ‘independent’ entity such as the United Nations, which, for the last few decades, has held the mandate of maintaining the social, educational and financial infrastructure of Gazan society through the UNWRA?
The facts on the ground would not support this as a viable option: 75 years on from its establishment, the Gazan population remains in poverty, UNWRA institutions have colluded with terrorists (Hamas & others) to create a launching pad for the murder of Israelis and the destruction of Israel.
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/01/30/unrwa-exposed/
Will it be the Hamulas – family clans – that currently control various cities in Gaza, and who are trying to impose civil control in the vacuums created by Israel’s ouster of Hamas in northern Gaza? An arrangement wherein these clans coordinate to rule Gaza is considered by some to be an option worth considering. Except for the fact that each of these clans is in competition with the others, and is closely tied to one of the numerous terrorist groups on the Strip. (The second article in the link below was published in 2007, soon after Hamas took control of Gaza.)
https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-790084
Will it be a multinational force including moderate Arab countries, working together, to once and for all solve the outstanding issue of Palestinian statehood, a cause celbre against Israel that Arab countries fostered for so that it’s now biting them in the bum - primarily because they want to cash in on Israel’s success as a global financial and social powerhouse, but they can’t while that pesky Palestine issue won’t go away?
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/middle-east/why-arab-states-must-lead-gaza
Other options are being canvassed.
Permit me to share a short personal anecdote that may provide nuance to the questions above.
About 30 years ago, when I was involved in Jerusalem’s religious singles’ scene, I attended a ‘lonely hearts’ weekend. It was held at a kosher hotel in Neve Dekalim, a sweet little Israeli settlement in Gaza, on the Mediterranean coast. Apart from a quick stop in the town of Rafah during a bus trip to Cairo more than a decade earlier, it was the only time I had been to Gaza. The hotel was comfortable and the sea looked inviting. Most people attending the weekend event were more focused on celebrating the Shabbat and looking each other up and down than exploring the area, so they didn’t leave the hotel compound.
In the course of dinner on Friday night, I struck up a conversation with a nice religious woman visiting from New York, and we decided to wander out to the beach in the moonlight. We flirted as we walked, partly taking in our surroundings, calm in the knowledge that the army was stationed all around to protect us. That short walk was all I got to experience of Neve Dekalim, ultimately a brief flirt of no consequence.
When our group checked out of the hotel and left for home on Saturday night, I was sad that I hadn’t had a chance to see the area a little. Sitting next to me on the bus was our Melave Neshek (military escort), a young fellow my age who had joined our activities but served as a private security detail. Such escorts are common for group activities in Israel. He peered out of the bus window as we drove along, passing a series of unpaved car tracks that turned off the sandy road.
“Do you see those tracks?” the escort asked me.
I did, and I told him so. I expected him to tell me about a great hike he had done in the area.
“Each one of those leads to trouble.” I didn’t quite understand.
“What do you mean? Is the road too difficult to drive on because of the sand?”
He turned and looked straight at me.
“Trouble. Arabs. Our soldiers serving in this area hate going off the main roads. It’s so dangerous!”
His words gave me a context I had not expected, and which found refuge in my mind. I never again had a desire to visit Gaza, and whenever I heard on the news that another soldier had been killed securing the settlements, I began to wrestle with the importance of maintaining a Jewish community in Gaza.
More stories next time…
2 comments:
Very helpful and insightful. Honest about reckoning with Jewish presence in Gaza 🙏
I don’t see a solution. The only solution that can logically work is a relocation of the population to somewhere that they can consider their new home, so that the concept/need/wish of return disappears. Where is this magical somewhere? They never called themselves Gazan arabs so not Gaza. I feel that Egypt might give them a better chance of assimilation so that they start calling themselves Egyptian arabs rather than Palestinian arabs….like the arabs that stayed in Israel became Israeli arabs. Palestinian arabs by definition have not assimilated into their new homeland. My parents were Romanian Jews, who became Israeli Jews and then became Australian Jews. They made a new homeland successfully.
Post a Comment