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M.J. Rosenberg is Director of Policy Analysis for , a long time Capitol Hill staffer and former editor of AIPAC's Near East Report.
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By M.J. Rosenberg
September 18, 2005
The Israeli withdrawal from Gaza was an opportunity to show the world that it has nothing to fear from a Palestinian state and that once the occupation ends and Palestinians run their own lives, the era of lawlessness will be over.
That hasn't happened although, to be sure, the Palestinians have neither a state nor even full control over Gaza -- not when Israel continues to control Gaza's airspace and territorial waters. Nevertheless, read what The Washington Post had to say about post-withdrawal developments.
"Only days after the final withdrawal of Israeli forces, the Gaza Strip is on the verge of anarchy. Despite promises to impose law and order, the Palestinian Authority has allowed mobs of looters and armed extremists to rampage through former Jewish settlements... Many of the valuable greenhouses that, with the generous help of international donors, were saved for use by the Palestinians have been stripped of equipment as police stood by and watched."
If that wasn't enough, last week Moussa Arafat, cousin of the late Yassir and former security aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, was shot to death in Gaza after a half hour gun fight.
Here is how Moussa Arafat's son, Manhal, described the killing of his father (which was followed by his own kidnapping).
"The gun battle lasted about half-an-hour before the gunmen managed to take over the house. Even when they managed to catch me and drag me down to the street, there was no sign of security elements. No one was there to stop them and as late as an hour and a half later, there was still no security personnel on the scene," he said.
The murder of Moussa Arafat was no big surprise. Known for his corruption and the enemies he had among the various militants, he was a likely candidate for assassination. But an ambush is one thing; a half hour gun battle in the street is another. It sounds like something out of The Godfather -- one of those mob hits that occur when the cops look the other way.
The Arafat hit was, of course, huge news in the Israeli media. Rampaging mobs and Wild West shootouts in Gaza don't exactly build confidence in Tel Aviv (or Washington). But they do strengthen the argument that disarming the militants is essential if Israelis and Palestinians are ever to make progress toward peace. Obviously, Abbas's preferred tactic of negotiating with the militants -- rather than confronting them -- is just not cutting it.
And there is also the question of why must Palestinians repeatedly fall into the traps set for them by Israeli hardliners.
Take the whole issue of those synagogues in Gaza. Right from the start, the Israeli government agreed that they would be removed. With no Jews living in Gaza, there would be no need for synagogues. Besides, once the Torah is removed from a building, it is not a synagogue at all, but rather a building that once housed one.
Former synagogues aren't holy places. In the United States, many former synagogues are now churches while others are used for various and random purposes.
And what about mosques in Israel? According to Thursday's Haaretz, "Of 140 mosques abandoned in Israel in 1948, 100 have been completely destroyed and 40 are either in an advanced state of deterioration or serve as stores, warehouses or garages."
So why did a clamor arise among the Israeli right demanding that the army not destroy the synagogues and that they be protected by the Palestinians? The answer is simple. Focusing attention on the synagogues, and then prohibiting the Israeli army from demolishing then, would make the Palestinians look bad when they leveled the buildings.
Few, if any, really cared about the fate of the buildings themselves. (Although some settlers indicated that they wanted to use the synagogue buildings as bases when they infiltrated back into Gaza in the future).
But, for most, the name of the game was embarrassing the Palestinians. It's called "gotcha".
It's the game where one chooses an issue -- not because it matters -- but because it can be used to score points against the other side.
The unfortunate thing is that the Palestinian Authority doesn't seem to understand this game. If they did, they might actually have guarded the buildings to thwart the Israeli hardliners who were using the synagogue issue to stick it to them.
Of course, it would have been no easy task to keep Palestinian mobs away from, what are for them, symbols of the occupation.
Israel's evacuation of Gaza is a good thing and the Israeli government deserves credit for getting out. But withdrawing after 38 years was hardly going to be met by gratitude and tenderness on the part of the occupied. All they know is that for four decades the Jewish settlements in Gaza -- and the army presence that came with them -- made their lives a nightmare.
It shouldn't surprise anyone that some Gazans are going a little crazy now that the roadblocks, the army, and the settlers are gone.
But that does not mean that the Palestinian Authority should permit the lawlessness to continue. It needs to crack down hard, and it needs to do it fast.
This is a reality Mahmoud Abbas surely understands. The good news is that his chief-of-staff, Rafik al-Husseini, now says that Abbas is ready to act. "The groups within Fatah will be required to disarm and join the security services, or we will have to treat them as if they have violated the law. There is no longer an Israeli presence in Gaza, so bearing arms in the streets and the existence of militias are not justified." He said that Hamas "no longer needs its weapons either."
But words are not enough, not when Abbas and Prime Minister Sharon are facing serious challenges from two groups who are desperate to see Israel's withdrawal from Gaza fail.
The first is the Israeli extreme right. These are the people who remain committed to the idea of "Greater Israel" and to the view that Palestinians are not entitled to self-determination. The more violence in Gaza, the happier they are.
The other group consists of the militant Palestinians themselves. They know that an out-of-control Gaza will end any chance of negotiations with Israel. They want Abbas to fail and, along with him, his pledge to seek Palestinian statehood not by violence but through negotiations.
These two groups have a great deal in common, starting with the burning contempt each has for the other side.
But that contempt has never stopped them from working toward the same goals. The extremists reinforce each other the way moderates are rarely able to.
Mahmoud Abbas surely understands this. And it is one of the prime reasons he needs to put the militants in their place.
Passivity now is a gift to his worst enemies.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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