First time poster here - after years of lurking on the SDMB, I finally mustered the guts to write. Go easy on me.
I haven’t seen much talk about it, but the Gaza pullout is coming soon.
After years of lurking, I’ve noted that many (perhaps the majority?) SDMB posters have expressed pro-Palestinian sympathies, or at least place more blame on the Israelis (or Sharon/Likud/settlers etc.) than on the Palestinians (or Arafat/Hamas/suicide bombers etc.) for the problems between the two peoples. I do recognize that last sentence is a simplified observation of the SDMB “body politic” and that most people here have a much more nuanced outlook on the situation, but I think as simplifications go, it has a modicum of validity.
Anyway, I was curious to ask: If Sharon’s pullout of Gaza actually goes through and Israeli citizens evacuate most of the Gaza Strip, leaving the territory in some form of Palestinian authority (whether it’s Hamas or the PA or someone else):
What (if anything) would you expect of the Palestinians, now that Israel has made a significant and painful decision to pull out of Gaza, risking a revolt among those being forced to evacuate? For instance, would you expect (demand?) that the PA rein in Hamas, even if it risks a Palestinian civil war? Would you expect (demand?) that PA-run media stop broadcasting anti-Semetic and/or anti-Zionist sermons? Would you expect (demand?) Palestinian popular opinion to shift away from regarding terrorists as “martyrs”? Something else? Or nothing at all?
What (if anything) is the international community’s responsibility to the Palestinians? Gaza is one of the most densely populated and poorest places in the world, and IMHO needs some kind of economic stimulus to combat the corrosive anti-social effects of chronic unemployment. And, now that the wall is going up, Palestinians probably won’t have nearly as much access to the Israeli labor market. Besides the obvious negative effect of living under occupation, corruption on the part of the Palestinian ruling classes has always been a problem. Furthermore, divisions between Christian and Muslim, rich and poor, secular and religious, extremist and accommodationist have always plagued Palestinian society and hampered its abiity to forge a lasting social contract. To add on, the aid provided by the international community seems to have done little to actually help the Palestinian people, mainly because of said corruption (IMHO). So, how should we help the Palestinian people turn things around without contributing to the problem?
If Hamas, or another like-minded hardline organization, becomes the de facto sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people after the pullout, would your current sympathies shift? Why or why not?
My sympathies are for Israel.
The fact that the government is pulling out Israeli settlers always struck me as being a big deal. It may not be what Palestinian Authority wants, but it’s something, and the fact that the government is doing this against the will of their own people speaks volumes to me.
Even if Sevastopol is right, and the Gaza strip isn’t much, if I were a leader in the PA, my attitude would still be, it’s not much, but it’s a start, and since they did this small token for us, lets do something for them. This will help build trust and foster better relations, and help us achieve our goals more quickly.
Of course, the PA, and all the militant groups around that area, have never been know for being that peaceful and logical. I don’t hold out too much hope from an organization that has Palestinian schools use maps that don’t acknowledge Israel’s existence. No, instead of taking this good will effort from Israel and trying to expand upon it, they’ll probably take Sevastopol’s apathetic attitude of, so what? It’s only Gaza. And the bombings will continue.
I wasn’t aware of an overall pro-Palestinian attitude on the SDMB, but I can see how those with strident pro-Palestinian attitudes might be more likely to express them.
I wouldn’t describe myself as pro-Palestinian as much as I would describe myself as pro-equality, equality being a commodity in short supply in Israel. Israel’s pulling itself out of Gaza leaves Gaza in a kind of limbo. Israel won’t let them have sovereignty of any kind, so what are they left with? Nothing, in short. Gazans will continue to remains citizens of nothing – stateless, in a word, and powerless. Blame the Palestinians all you want, but they’re not the ones making the decisions here – Israel is, and their decisions are imposed, ultimately, at the point of a gun.
This whole thing smells of " be careful what you wish for". I am not a history expert but I think I remember hearing something about wwII and the ghettos-Polish-etc. Where ethnic groups were living together all to be easy targets when the time was right. I can see how having them all where Sharon knows he can find them could suit his agenda. Israel is still going to retaliate against anything the Palestinian do, and I can see Sharon instigating conflict to use it as an easy excuse to go into the area and demolish it/ kill large numbers of people. I am not condoning Palestinian violence, I just am skeptical about Israeli constraint during the transition.
I am still pretty ignorant of Israeli/Palestinian politics, but I’m trying to educate myself. FTR, I don’t support either side; I basically think they’re both wrong.
Israel (well, Sharon and his supporters, anyway) is going beyond making a “good-will gesture” – they are agreeing to and acting on a Palestinian demand, despite the stenuous objections of many other Israelis and the difficulties inherent in removing settlers (security, helping settlers find new places to live, the cost of compensating them, etc.) and the fact that there is no active agreement giving them anything in exchange for the withdrawal. I wish I could demand that the Palestinians (esp. Hamas and other anti-Israeli extremists) acknowledge the Israeli effort and move towards a more moderate, realistic position. This would include acknowledging that Israel exists and there is no getting rid of it. At this point, it doesn’t matter whether or not Israel should exist; it does, and the Palestinians will have to deal with it.
Unfortunately, what I’m hearing on NPR is that Hamas is claiming credit for the withdrawal, that the suicide bombings and other violent acts orchestrated by Hamas are responsible for Israeli capitulation.* So chances of the above happening are looking slim to none. I just hope that the majority of Palestinians reject Hamas’ view of the pullout.
*I’m sure that Hamas sees the pullout as a capitulation, regardless of whether it’s meant as such; I’m not necessarily saying that it is a capitulation; please don’t yell at me.
Well, essentially it is capitulation. Do you think that Israel would be pulling out the settlers if the Palestinians had just meekly submitted to having Israel encroach on their land? Israel, at least the current government, has recognized that the settlements are going to have to go if there is going to be peace in the area and the current situation is not acceptably sustainable.
The PA has no ability to rein in Hamas in the West Bank, much less in Gaza. Israel has stripped the PA of its weapons and equipment. Hamas has lots of small arms caches.
They should have done that long ago anyway.
This is absolutely, positively key. The international community needs to chip in and build infrastructure in Gaza - otherwise, the entire thing is going to fail.
I don’t think this is the case at all. I think Sharon made a hard-headed assessment of the situation, and realized that the outlay per settler was simply prohibitive. They’d rather plow their money and efforts into the West Bank. In this sense, continuous Palestinian resistance in Gaza was decisive; it raised the cost of occupation beyond what the Israelis were willing to sustain. That’s why Hamas and others are claiming victory. And you have to figure Sharon wouldn’t have handed them a victory unless he felt he absolutely had to.
That said, the situation for Gaza going forward is bleak. It’s still a virtual prison camp, with Israel able to choke it off at any moment. And as far as I can tell, Israel has no plan to make things right for them – either by letting them assume sovereignty, or by granting them rights as citizens of Israel.
I’d make it real easy to understand: here you go, guys, we gave you what you wanted. Now, the first time we can trace an attack on Israel we’re taking off the kid gloves and kicking you in the teeth.
The Palestinians got the carrot. Hopefully they’re smart enough to avoid getting the stick.
This is exactly it. Israel was hamstrung by the political situation, and was in a stalemate politically. So now it has gained the upper hand by being the first to break the deadlock and give up a concession on faith. You can bet that the deal Sharon made to get his government to go along with this includes severe retribution for any terrorist activity in Gaza in the future. After all, Israel was occupying Gaza precisely to prevent the enemy from using it as a military staging point. If terrorists flood into Gaza and start operating, Israel is going to go bananas.
What do I expect? More bombs and more whining. What’d I like to see is another matter. Giving up terrorism as a tool is the 1st step, but I don’t think it’s going to happen.
The Palestinians have just been handed an opportunity to show that they are responsible actors. If they can rise to the occasion, reign in extremists, and start working towards building a society instead of focusing on Israel, then Israel will eventually take another step. Israel would love nothing more than to have a democratic, peaceful Palestine next door.
But if instead, Hamas and Hezbollah and other groups start moving in, Abbas is rendered either powerless or replaced, and the people continue inciting against Israel, then Israel is going to have no choice but to reoccupy and root out the terrorists. That will be a big military operation.
This is exactly the problem – the Palestinians are being told, “Be good, according to our definition which we won’t provide to you, and eventually, you’ll be rewarded, in some unspecified way, on our timetable.” Why on earth should the Palestinians believe any of this? The Israelis would love for the Palestinians to “be good,” and then give them nothing. Whatever happened to the good old American notion that rights are an inherent and inalienable part of personhood, and not something rewarded to your ethnic group for “being good”?
People have got hold of the wrong end of the stick when they think that the Palestinians need to react to the pullout by proving something. The onus is on the Israelis to prove something – they’re the ones with the power, right?
I think you might be mistaken about what is currently going on.
Hamas HAS moved in (Like it ever needed to “move in”, they were always there).
Abbas IS close to powerless against extremists like Hamas (half of the blame goes to the fact that Palestinians are generally hard-line when it comes to Israel, half of this has to do with the PA’s routine corruption, and the other half owns to the fact that the PA is kept physically castrated by Israel itself).
The people still DO incite hatred against Israel (not like we can blame them on this front, there is no rule that you have to love your occupiers).
Israel has NEVER stopped militarily occupying Gaza (They are just pulling out their civilians, and with this gesture openly accepted the very real fact that Gaza can never be part of Israel proper).
I don’t know if this is a step in any peaceful direction, but I do know that this really is an important day for both Israelis and Palestinians.
IIRC, some very generous offers have been made to the Palestinians over the course of the last 60 years or so, but no sign of any response to the carrots yet. My guess is, the militant Palestinians will just think of Gaza as a forward position from which they can shell the West Bank, just as they once thought of the West Bank as a forward position from which they could shell Israel proper. You can see how that has worked out for the Palestinians as a whole.
