Hamas' act of breaching the wall that separated Gaza from Egypt was an event whose importance must not be underestimated. Its significance is amply demonstrated by the reverberations that are still being felt and the shifts in the political discourse that are not only ongoing, but multiplying.
Leading Palestinian pollster, Khalil Shikaki has consistently reported, almost from the time Hamas was elected in January 2006, on the gradual decline the group's popularity has faced. As he explains in this interview, the decline was slow and steady with the exception of last June, when Hamas took control of Gaza. That month saw a precipitous drop in Hamas' popularity. Yet, even before the wall breach last month, Shikaki observed that the decline had stopped.
Shikaki attributes that change to Israel's siege on the Strip, and the attacks within Gaza by the IDF which were escalating even then. While Shikaki does not have new polling data since the Rafah wall was breached, his reading of the pulse of the Palestinian populace is that Hamas' popularity is back at least to the level it was at before the takeover. While he believes the breach of the wall was a significant factor in this rise, he attributes it primarily to Israel's siege, attacks and power cuts.
Hamas may have decided to resume attacks on Israeli civilians, but they have still reaped substantial gains from breaching the wall. They have now put Israel, Egypt and Fatah on the defensive. They have established their control in Gaza and made it impossible to avoid dealing with them, although Israel and Fatah (as well as the United States) are clinging to that course. But with Hamas' rejuvenated popularity, they are now in a position where a major Israeli attack could well be the death blow to the Palestinian Authority and further boost Hamas.
Fatah is saying that it has undertaken "major democratic reforms," which would address the major reason they lost the 2006 elections in the first place. But it remains to be seen if the Palestinian people deem these reforms sufficient and whether the failure to win any substantive concessions from Israel has not eroded their credibility beyond repair.
Israel is now contemplating the large-scale invasion of Gaza that had been off the table for a while. Meanwhile, it has begun instituting minor cuts in electricity to Gaza, smaller than those it had initially imposed before Hamas breached the wall. These power cuts have brought a great deal of criticism, as they are collective punishment, and that criticism has even come from countries that are generally supportive of Israel. But, as this UN OCHA report details, the current cuts are small and have limited impact.
What is important to realize is that it is not the current power cuts, but rather the longer term siege and Israeli attacks that are causing the massive power shortages in Gaza. In 2006, after Palestinian groups captured an Israeli soldier (who is still being held by Hamas), Israel launched a major offensive in Gaza which nearly destroyed the Strip's only power plant. Although new transformers were installed, the plant's maximum output is now less than 60% of its former capacity. This meant that Gaza, already dependent upon Israel for some 40% of its electricity needs was now getting some 60% of it from Israel.
Moreover, the plant itself is dependent upon Israeli shipments of fuel to keep it running. This was the issue that was at the fore at the beginning of the year. Since Gaza has already used up the reserve fuel for the plant (reserves that would have lasted by themselves for about 9 days), this gives Israel control over virtually all of Gaza's power supply. While Israel talks about ways to completely sever its relationship with Gaza, this is precisely the sort of root that 41 years of occupation has put down that makes it impossible to simply decide to separate. It will take years for Gaza to either build up its own capacity or construct a new feeder system with Egypt to begin to replace the electricity it gets from Israel.
In all of this, the current electricity cuts are merely one more log on an already large fire, one that is threatening to burn Gaza to the ground.
These are not the only effects of the stubborn refusal of Israel to find a solution that involves neither collective punishment nor military action. And that seems unlikely to change, given the sort of narrow view that Defense Minister Ehud Barak brings to the problem. The occupation also institutionalized a sort of "captive economy" in the West Bank and Gaza and the siege policy and the generally cold business atmosphere that has been created by the greatly heightened conflict in recent years has cut deeply into Israeli exports to the Palestinian Territories. So, in this sense, Israel is hurting itself in order to inflict much greater harm on the Palestinians. It should also be added that the ongoing siege is having an impact that is not being seen beyond the travails of Sderot and the increasingly grim outlook among most Israelis. Israel's economy is also taking some serious hits because of their foolhardy tactics.
And all the while, the rockets continue to hit Sderot and other Negev towns, meaning the Israeli government is also refusing to acknowledge that the policy of confrontation has failed to gain any security for its own citizens. As a Hamas spokesman expresses in Ha'aretz the policy has only strengthened the group's resolve toward a path of violence, particularly since Israel won't even respond to Hamas' floating of cease-fire possibilities. For its part, Hamas seems intent on escalating matters despite the effects on the population of Gaza.
If Israel does make good on its threat to invade Gaza again and possibly target the Hamas political leadership they will be doing so in the hope that the Palestinian Authority can finally assume control of the Strip. Yet even if they succeed in toppling Hamas (something not at all certain by any means) they will also have severely undermined the credibility of Mahmoud Abbas and enraged the Palestinian populace even further. One wonders how many times it will have to be proven to Israel that these tactics do not work before it finally takes the lesson to heart.
US Presidential Election
As reported on the JVP blog Muzzlewatch several weeks ago, a particularly vicious e-mail campaign was launched against Barack Obama targeting a Jewish audience. The campaign was so ugly that leaders of the large, institutionalized Jewish community united in denouncing the campaign, and even did so without any qualification regarding Obama. This is reflective of the significant Jewish support Obama actually does have.
Obama, like all the other candidates, has been staunch in his support of Israel, and has backed off some comments he made before he was a presidential candidate which indicated some empathy with the Palestinians. This is par for the course, although the so-called "pro-Israel" lobby has been working on Obama even harder than they usually do with presidential candidates.
But the "Israel Lobby" specter is likely to be raised again after the head of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, Malcolm Hoenlein, expressed some "concerns" about Obama's talk of change. Hoenlein later claimed he was mis-quoted and taken out of context and that he was not referring to Obama but to all of the candidates. In any event, though, this episode is furthering the questions about Obama and the Jewish community, as well as adding fuel to the "Jewish Lobby" fire.
In one of the more bizarre flickers of that fire, marginalized Democratic candidate Dennis Kucinich of Ohio was rumored to have been approached by representatives of AIPAC joined by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (regularly identified as an "AIPAC stooge") and pressed to drop his impeachment campaign targeting President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Why exactly Pelosi would desire this was never made clear (and what stake AIPAC would have in trying to push a point that isn't going to go anywhere, especially in Bush's last year in office is equally unclear), but Kucinich quickly rushed to dispel the rumor.
Meanwhile, the presumptive Republican winner, John McCain, is working closely with former Democrat and now Independent Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman. While this means little regarding the Jewish vote as well as Jewish campaign financing (both of which are overwhelmingly Democratic at this stage), it does seem to be helping McCain among so-called "Christian Zionists," many of whom are more inclined to his more radically conservative opponents in the Republican race. But with that race only being a matter of declaring McCain the winner, Lieberman, who still retains a good deal of credibility with some of the more conservative elements among Jewish Democrats and is seen as very valuable for Israel, may be a significant factor in the November election should there be continuing unease among Jewish Democratic donors with Obama. If Hillary Clinton, however, emerges as the Democratic candidate, it is unlikely anything will bring Jewish Democratic support over to McCain.
Finally, we should note the death of Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA). Lantos was about to retire from Congress in any case, so his death doesn't change things much going forward. But Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor ever to serve in Congress, was particularly emblematic of the paradox presented by US Middle East policy. Lantos was known as a staunch defender of human rights in general, but when it came to the Israel-Palestine issue, he was one of the House's leading hawks. He was, in recent years, often to be found working with Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinan, who, though relatively moderate for a Republican on domestic issues, is a leading hawk on foreign policy, including, but not limited to, the question of Israel.
Inside Israel
The Registrar of Non-Profit organizations in Israel has stripped the activist organization Peace Now of its non-profit status in Israel. The decision was based on a technicality involving Peace Now's parent organization. Peace Now had always operated in the fashion it is now being told is illegitimate, and it has done so for thirty years. It cannot be doubted that this action was motivated by politics, not legalities.
In another political use of the law, five Palestinian residents of the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan were arrested after having petitioned the Israeli High Court of Justice to stop an excavation project under their homes which threatened to damage them. Palestinian demonstrators had earlier put a temporary stop to the excavation with a protest, but the project continued. When two of the Silwan residents went to file their complaint, they were arrested. Three more were arrested in raids later on.
Demonstrating the ambivalence of Israeli attitudes toward Palestinians in a most extreme way, Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit announced that Israel planned to build a new city particularly for the Arab citizens of Israel in the Galilee. This announcement came just two days after Sheetrit had called for leveling Gaza neighborhoods in response to ongoing rocket fire. The announcement also coincided with the Deputy State Prosecutor affirming the decision in late January of the Attorney General not to prosecute any Israeli policemen for the killing of thirteen Arab citizens in 2000 during protests against Israeli reprisals at the beginning of the second intifada (a demonstration which took place, it should be noted, before any major Palestinian bombing attacks on Israelis).
Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu called for the Shas party to bolt the Olmert government, a move which would, if Shas acted upon it, eliminate the Kadima party's thin majority coalition and force new elections. Shas has already indicated they do not plan to leave the government, although they have been insisting that they would bolt if Jerusalem was discussed with the Palestinians, as some reports, often from right-wing sources, indicate is happening.
This is Netanyahu's boldest statement to date, and it is indicative of the increasing strength of the far-right, as represented by Likud, in Israel. With its relatively moderate elements having bolted for Kadima when Ariel Sharon formed that party, Likud is even further on the right than it was before, but polls have been indicating for some time that Likud would easily get the most votes in new elections. The problem is that Likud might not be able to pull together a coalition, which would likely need to be drawn almost entirely from the right. For the same reason, Ehud Barak and the Labor Party are also staying in the government; while they don't promise to get nearly as many seats as Likud, Labor is more likely to be able to cobble together a coalition, but it would be an exceedingly weak one. Thus, Olmert and Kadima go on.
In the West Bank and East Jerusalem
Although Israel recently suspended some construction projects in Jerusalem, causing something of an internal political row, plans are still in place for more construction in the East Jerusalem settlements of Har Homa and Pisgat Ze'ev. Naturally, the Palestinian Authority objects to these plans, as they create more "facts on the ground" which influence the outcome of any potential negotiations over Jerusalem. It is well to remember that a solution with no Palestinian control over some part of Jerusalem is no solution at all.
For reasons as yet unknown, Israel arrested Mahmoud Abbas' Advisor for Jerusalem Affairs, Hatim Abdul-Qadir on Tuesday. Abdul-Qadir is a long-time Fatah leader, one who is noted for his stances against corruption and human rights abuses in the Palestinian Authority, and is generally regarded as a leading moderate.
Finally, we close with two unusual stories of dialogue between settlers and Palestinians. In one episode, a leading citizen of Hebron met with the local army commander and the mayor of Kiryat Arba to try to work out arrangements to ease travel restrictions in the region. The meeting, however, ended with no clear results.
In the second episode, Rabbi Menachem Froman of the settlement of Tekoa met with Palestinian journalist Khaled Amayreh to draft a recommendation for a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas. Froman has reached out in dialogue projects for years, often working with religious leaders among Palestinians, including Hamas representatives in the past. Amayreh is a well-known journalist who is a frequent contributor to such major Arab media sources as al-Jazeera and al-Ahram and is known to support a one-state solution and, though a secularist, to have good relations and contacts at the highest levels of Hamas. The two men presented their draft to both Hamas and Israeli leaders. Amayreh says that Hamas accepted the proposal, while Froman confirms that Israel has thus far ignored it.
Source: Jewish Voice for Peace weekly news roundup.
Sorry for the length, I just thought there was some interesting stuff here, including some issues related to the US presidential race. What caught my eye especially was the interview with Kalil Shikaki. I have met him a couple of times and he is a really interesting guy. He opened the first polling center in the Occupied Territories, and his center has a wealth of interesting polling data from there and from Israel that few people in the US seem to see. I encourage everybody to give it a look. Lots of interesting info on Palestinian opinion. Here is the link:http://www.pcpsr.org/index.html
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