What we think : Middle East

Palestine

Only the end of the Israeli occupation can halt the unfolding tragedy in Gaza

Roland Rance

The tragedy unfolding in the streets and refugee camps of Gaza represents the death throes of the Oslo “peace process”.

Faced with an intractable population engaged in mass struggle, in 1993 Israel attempted to maintain its control over Gaza and the other Palestinian territories which it had occupied in 1967, by employing the exile leadership of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation as its sub-contractor in repression.

However, Israel’s continued refusal to honour even the unequal agreements which it made with its putative partner, the accelerated implantation of Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories, the construction of the Apartheid Wall, the restrictions on movement, and the ever-increasing dispossession and immiseration of the Palestinian people all contributed to a situation where the Palestine Authority was denied the possibility of any legitimacy or ability to govern.

This was compounded by the blatant corruption and arbitrary rule of the PA leadership As Israeli Prime Minister Rabin had insisted at the time of Oslo, the PA governed “without the rule of law and the civil rights groups”.

In 2001, Palestinian society again exploded in a massive uprising, which focussed far more on armed resistance than on the mass civil resistance which had characterised the first Intifada of 1987-93. Massive Israeli repression further radicalised the Palestinians, who increasingly rejected the Arafat leadership as corrupt, arbitrary, and impotent in the face of Israeli brutality.

The growth of Hamas, which is seen as a more honest and less compromising alternative, reflects the discrediting of Fatah more than it does a deepening Islamisation of Palestinian society. As elsewhere in the Muslim world, the turn to Islamist parties precedes, rather than follows, growing religious sentiment.

Although Hamas did not stand in the presidential election following Arafat’s death, which was convincingly won by Mahmoud Abbas, they achieved victory in the subsequent elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council (though the scale of their victory was massively distorted by the electoral system), and this led to the iniquitous Western boycott of the elected Palestinian government, further aggravating the poverty and isolation of the Palestinians.

This is the background to the current fighting in Gaza. Whatever the mistakes of Hamas or Fatah, we must recognise that they are operating in a situation not of their choosing, of a continuing military occupation, massive poverty, and a traumatised population. Without addressing these issues, it will be impossible to resolve this internal conflict.

Palestinian psychotherapist Dr Eyad el-Sarraj, a specialist in childhood trauma and a respected human rights activist in Gaza, summed up the crisis succinctly in a recent report issued by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights:

“The systematized repression and torture that the Palestinian people was subjected to under the Israeli occupation, the poor performance of the PNA as embodied in the absence of law and justice and maladministration all led the youth to seek and cling to a new identity which is different from that of their helpless parents and which holds that naked force is the only means to avenge themselves over the suppression they have long been subjected to.

The formation of those political, partisan and religious identities and the view that ultimate force is the model of heroism are the major cause of the status quo of Palestinian armed conflict which finds its fuel in many causes such as division, hatred, and vindictiveness of a generation that rebels against the declining family system and the chaotic PNA”.

One danger now is the call for external military intervention in Gaza. This would only make a bad situation worse; any external force would act in alliance with Israel and Fatah to repress the already desperate people of Gaza. There are already reports of al-Qaida cells operating in Gaza (allegedly sponsored by Fatah as a counter to Hamas), and any outside intervention would also increase this.

Despite all the claims that Israel has ended the occupation of Gaza, it remains under strict Israeli control. Gaza remains a prison. Only the immediate, complete and unconditional end to Israel’s occupation can create the circumstances in which Palestinians can even begin to determine their future. If Israel, backed by the British and other western governments, continues its relentless occupation and repression, then what we have seen in recent weeks is but a foretaste of what is to come. And, once again, the primary victims will be the Palestinian people.

Roland Rance has been a socialist activist in Israeli, Palestinian and British politics for many years.

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