This Mecca Pilgrimage

Celebration in Gaza over the Mecca Meeting last week, President and PM rejoice over agreeing to a unity government, the world frowns on an end to Palestinian bloodshed.

Khaled Mish'al on the Mecca Accords.

All these smiles complicate efforts for peace.

Uri Avnery writes of the red herring of recognizing Israel.

Here he reflects on the main dilemma, peace or no peace:

If one thinks that peace is more important for Israel than expansion and settlements, one must welcome the change in the position of Hamas - as expressed in the Mecca agreement - and encourage it to continue along this road. The king of Saudi Arabia, who has already convinced the leaders of all Arab countries to recognize Israel in exchange for the establishment of the state of Palestine across the Green Line, should be warmly congratulated.

But if one opposes peace because it would fix the final borders of Israel and allow for no more expansion, one will do everything to convince the Americans and Europeans to continue with the boycott on the Palestinian government and the blockade of the Palestinian people.

Time for a change of hypocracy

Although for the past days few guns have been seen on the streets of Gaza, while I was getting a haircut near the president’s house last night, new barriers were being put up. Later that night president Mahmoud Abbas delayed his planned speech and murmurs started going around that things did not seem right. This morning, the Al-quds paper declared that Hamas had given three conditions to keeping the Mecca agreements, at which point things really didn’t seem right anymore. Throughout the day people seemed to be holding their breath as to what would happen next.

This evening the announcement came that the old Hamas government handed in their resignation and the Prime Minister is given five weeks to form the unity government.

Some thought this moment would not come for a long time, yet few are filled with hope, there is just too much uncertainty. How high will the price for this unity government be? Will outside pressure cease once the new government has been formed? No one has made any promises.

Of the three requirements the Quartet made of the Palestinian government, one of them, keeping to all past Palestinian treaties with Israel, was approved in Mecca. What remains is for the Palestinian government to recognize Israel and to renounce all violence. Once again, neither of these have been carried out by Israel, and no one is asking them to.

When will that ever change?

Read more at Maan News

"Terrorism: War of the Poor. War: terrorism of the rich." - Peter Ustinov

This Haaretz article speaking of the future of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, paints a vivid picture of Israel's egocentric logic.

"The summit, involving Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, is scheduled to take place in Jerusalem on Monday.

Despite the dispute, Rice is insisting on holding the meeting to demonstrate progress in Israeli-Palestinian relations.

According to government sources, however, Olmert is refusing to discuss three major elements of any final-status agreement - Palestinian refugees, the status of Jerusalem and an Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 armistice lines - because he believes that raising any of these issues would doom the talks to failure.

There is no doubt that Abu Mazen [Abbas] will have to make compromises on these issues, given Israel's positions, and it is not clear that he can get them past the Palestinian street," one source said.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni also believes that final-status issues should not be discussed now, lest they cause the talks to fail and spark renewed violence, as was the case after the Camp David summit of July 2000. She believes the talks should focus on establishing a Palestinian state within temporary borders, as proposed in the second stage of the road map peace plan.

Olmert and Livni also insist that any discussions be purely theoretical, with implementation conditioned on fulfillment of the road map's first stage: dismantling Palestinian terror organizations."

See Hamas' response to Olmert's statements here.

Returning to Gaza

Last night I drove back into Gaza. It feels so strange somehow, this world that was filled with war has suddenly turned back to normal. Jamal explained that he witnessed the hardest days of his life during the past weeks in Gaza, “black days” he called them. Mohamed, my neighbor explained to me that after Abu Mazen’s announcement from Mecca that a unity government had been formed, old Hamas and Fatah rivals were greeting each other on the streets as if nothing had ever occurred. Something did.

A university was used to stockpile large amounts of weapons which was then later attacked, the electricity company in Gaza City was burned down, one family near where I live had to leave their home after bullets ripped through a window and tore into their furniture only minutes after their young daughter had been trying to follow the activities on the street below.

In a recent article Jonathan Kuttab explains what might lead to such madness. All this only starts to make sense when one has lived here and seen day in and day out the weight over occupation, the stagnation of a life lacking so many freedoms that I have taken for granted most of my life.

Judge Guzman , who has been visiting Israel these past days is a Chilean judge who tired to prosecute Pinochet until the day he died on February 10th 2004. This is one of the observations he made,

"I identify with the Israelis, but my heart is with the people living under occupation and whose rights are being violated. Israel feels it is the victim of terror, but when you are here, you realize that what the Palestinians are doing is resisting occupation. The Palestinians are the victims, they are being exploited, their homes are being demolished, they are being detained under administrative orders, their property is being damaged, they need permits to move from place to place and their cities are becoming large prisons. There is no doubt they are the victims."

Pinochet was spared prosecution mainly because time and time again he was considered mentally unstable to stand trial. I wonder at times if Israel similarly is able to avoid trial excused by a national trauma the Jewish people have suffered in the past.

The Tea Boy of Gaza

Look through this window into life in Gaza. A beautiful BBC documentary following a boy called Mahmoud through a day selling tea at Gaza's biggest hospital. Mahmoud is seven and the family's main breadwinner. Through the eyes of this boy the film looks at causes for the political friction on the streets of Gaza.

A film by director Olly Lambert.

Sara Roy: A powerful Jewish conscience

On my flight from London To Cairo I was reading Sara Roy's latest book Failing Peace- Gaza and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict.

I can only recommend this read to everyone considering she is one of the most knowledgeable people writing about Gaza today. But since it is rather an expensive book and you may not have time for such leisurely things I will provide some quotes and then include a thoughts from an article she wrote a while back trying to summarize the Gaza situation. One of the main reasons I want to share this is because Sara paints a picture of a society in Gaza that has had the foundation beneath its feet taken apart one brick at a time until there is almost nothing left. This, along with poor leadership is what allows for the violence we see on the streets of Gaza today.


"Justice applied selectively is no longer justice, but discrimination." - Sara Roy

Introducing the book she explains her Jewish heritage, as both of her parents are survivors of the Holocaust. Applying this past to her current living out her Jewishness, she quotes Brian Klug, "we do not honor the dead if, in memorializing them, we dishonor the living."

And then speaking on the theme of DISSENT, Sara goes on, "why is it so difficult, even impossible to accommodate Palestinians into the Jewish understanding of history? Why is there so little perceived need to question our own narrative and the one we have given others, preferring instead to embrace beliefs and sentiments that remain inert? Why is it virtually mandatory among Jewish intellectuals to oppose racism, repression and injustice almost anywhere in the world and almost unacceptable- indeed for some an act of heresy- to oppose it when Israel is the oppressor?" - Sara Roy

"What have we as a people made from suffering and perhaps more importantly what are we to do with our fear?" - Sara Roy


On the DE-DEVELOPMENT of Gaza Today

Overview: In one of many reports and accounts of economic life in the Gaza Strip that I have recently read, I was struck by a description of an old man standing on the beach in Gaza throwing his oranges into the sea. The description leapt out at me because it was this very same scene I myself witnessed some 21 years ago during my very first visit to the territory. It was the summer of 1985 and I was taken on a tour of Gaza by a friend named Alya. As we drove along Gaza's coastal road I saw an elderly Palestinian man standing at the shoreline with some boxes of oranges next to him. I was puzzled by this and asked Alya to stop the car. One by one, the elderly Palestinian took an orange and threw it into the water. His was not an action of playfulness but of pain and regret. His movements were slow and labored as if the weight of each orange was more than he could bear. I asked my friend why he was doing this and she explained that he was prevented from exporting his oranges to Israel and rather than watch them rot in his orchards, the old man chose to cast them into the sea. I have never forgotten this scene and the impact it had on me.

Over two decades later, after peace agreements, economic protocols, road maps and disengagements, Gazans are still casting their oranges into the sea. Yet Gaza is no longer where I found it so long ago but someplace far worse and more dangerous. One year after Israel's 2005 "disengagement" from the Strip, which was hailed by President Bush as a great opportunity for "the Palestinian people to build a modern economy that will lift millions out of poverty [and] create the institutions and habits of liberty,"[i] a "Dubai on the Mediterranean"[ii] according to Thomas Friedman, Gaza is undergoing acute and debilitating economic declines marked by unprecedented levels of poverty, unemployment, loss of trade, and social deterioration especially with regard to the delivery of health and educational services.

Read a full article of Sara's on today's Gaza situation here

PHOTO STORY: Dr Attallah's Farm

Up until November of 2001 Dr Attallah's farm in Northern Gaza supported his meager monthly salary of a few hundred dollars as a surgeon at Gaza's biggest government hospital. He inherited the land from his father and was adding a green house almost every year for a number of year, planting mainly flowers which were then exported all over the world.

On a Friday in November 2001 Dr Atallah received a phone call from one of his assistants that his land, the farm and all six greenhouses were being bulldozed by the Israeli army. He watched the destruction of a land so dear to him from a distance. The day we went to visit the land we had to park the car along this hill, as all roads leading up to the farm had been completely bulldozed in recent months.

Now on foot we walked along what used to be a road past one farm after another that had been leveled by the Israeli army. Everyday people like Dr Attalah are punished on behalf of the security of everyday people living on the other side of the border in Israel. The tall house in the far left corner was where the boundary with an Israeli settlement was. After the withdrawal from the settlements in September 2005 those settlement lands became a 'security zone' which are unaccessible to Palestinians and serve as a security buffer between Israelis and Palestinians. As the dire conditions in Gaza continue to attract Palestinians to turn to violence against their neighboring occupier, Israel will attempt to increase this "security zone" to further imprison and exile the Palestinians as far away from areas of Israeli habitation. This is an expensive and short-sighted approach addressing the facade of conflict, rather than addressing the deep roots of conflict.

A sheep herder walks his flocks past where Dr Attallah's farm once stood. This is the only use still available for this land that was once considered a part of Gaza's fruit basket.


Dr Attalah talks to his old neighbors about farming and export conditions.


Wherever he goes Dr Attalah can't stop being a doctor. Here he is removing the stitches of one of his neighbor's sons. He hopes that one day he will have the resources and the political conditions will allow for him to rebuild his farm to support both himself and his family and provide a few jobs to unemployed Palestinians around him.

The Secret War of Words

On Friday the 29th of December Noam Shalit published a letter to his son in the Palestinian newspaper Al-Quds.

"We in the family, your mother, your father, Hadas and Yoel, hope you feel well and are managing despite the tough conditions, the winter and the difficult situation you have been in for over six months. My Gilad, we miss you very, very much and want to see you with us and hug you tight, and so does the whole family and all your friends from school. We hope it will be very soon."

The letter is addressed to his son Gilad, a soldier in the Israeli army who was captured by gun-wielding Palestinians on June 26th. Two fellow soldiers were killed during the attack on the military base at the borders of Gaza, which serves to seal the borders of Gaza from the outside world.

Thousands of Palestinians, men, women and children are imprisoned in Israeli prisons and the Shalit family’s concerns are paralleled by thousands of unknown Palestinian mothers, fathers and brothers and sisters. The difference is that these Palestinians do not have a voice. This voice that Noam has to speak out on behalf of his son, a voice that is heard, is a luxury unknown to the common woman and man on the streets of Palestine.

"The fact that we don't know how you are, how you feel, how you are making it through the winter, and how the Palestinian organizations holding you are treating you, is very hard for us. They declare that you are a prisoner of war, but unfortunately, they are preventing you from receiving the rights to which you are entitled as a prisoner of war according to international law."

On December 31st the Israeli National News (Arutz Sheva) reported the following,
“Bracing for improved Qassam rockets with a firing range of 20 km the IDF is expanding the danger zone surrounding Gaza by a further 13 km, nearly three times wider than currently. The plan includes the fortification of schools and strategic sites in cities including Ashkelon, Netivot and Ofakim that lie within the new boundaries at the cost of NIS 1.4 billion (US $331.8 million).”

To the world’s eye, no mention is made of the Israeli artillery used freely at the borders of Gaza. The same fathers, mothers and children that do not have the stage on which to raise their voice to place the spotlight on their imprisoned loved ones, do not have the right to set up a security zone to protect them from the adversary firing at them and their homes with U.S.-made tanks and F-16s. In the latest Israeli incursion into Beit Hanoun in Northern Gaza, not one journalist was allowed into the area to witness the truth of the carnage taking place there. Within days humanitarian agencies began the process of making livable again this city of rubble. Two weeks later the remaining ruins and the minaret of a 15th Century mosque were removed and the massacre of 17 members of one family was swept under the carpet of history by way of a proclaimed technical error.

What is taking place is a secret war of words.

War in Mind

The few dim lights from the surrounding houses revealed Abu Ghassan’s conversation partner from behind the shadows. A friend had dropped me off at the A-Sideeq mosque in Jabalya and I had been directed to walk 150 meters up hill where Abu Ghassan would be waiting for me.

From behind the veil of darkness I heard him call out my name; I waited as he exchanged some words with a neighbor. I gathered from the conversation that during the last Israeli incursion both of their land had been bulldozed by the Israeli army. I was much like an observer, standing at the door, after being asked to enter, now watching, with little involvement in the things I saw and heard. Abu Ghassan asked about the trees at the entrance to his land when driving up to the property, the man informed him, these were still standing, most others were not. What mattered most though was the fact that the well, funded by USAID, that provided water for the surrounding region had been filled in, likely by a bulldozer. The generator running it was destroyed. The cost of repairing it would be over $1000; cash was not a prevalent commodity in Gaza these days.

As Abu Ghassan and I walked off into the darkness he explained to me that he had returned from medical treatment in Jordan about ten days prior and was still feeling frail. Past the gate of his house was a balcony, dimly lit and encircled by a small garden enclave. The electricity had cut in the area and Abu Ghassan had a battery run lamp set up to provide some lighting. In the middle of the balcony was a table, lying open on it was a worn book from Beirut that he had borrowed from a friend after trying to locate it in Gaza. The book’s pages were faded to a brownish color. Naguib Mahfouz’s Awlad Haritna is a rare, Arab, public exploration which questions the foundations of Arab and Islamic society. Abu Ghassan and his wife Om Ghassan, who had grown up as a Palestinian refugee in Lebanon loved to read, it was a virtue that Gaza lacked but this household valued highly. Abu Ghassan spoke of the need to re-evaluate Islam, he mentioned the reformers in Egypt and renowned writers like Taha Hussein and Naguib Mahfouz who addressed this very issue. Hamas, in his mind, was a poor representation of the religion he was born into.

Abu Ghassan was a retired army officer. For the last many years of his military career he had worked in the Irtibat, the liaison office between the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli army. Furthermore, he was a long-time member of the communist PFLP, the People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Few people in Gaza were as frustrated with the ongoing internal friction between the various Palestinian parties. The violence that was ongoing around the streets of his home, tearing apart the social tapestry of his community weighed heavy on Abu Ghassan. I could tell by his composure and the questions he asked that he was a broken man. He had an undying will but the odds were against him. Inside Gaza there were too many that fought for the few seats of power; there were so little opportunities for control over dimensions of daily life in Gaza making political authority a rare commodity. From the outside governments warred for their policies to be implemented in this little region called the Holy Land. Gaza and its people were never a priority.

These are the things that make for war in Abu Ghassan’s mind.

no military solutions

"There is no military solution to this conflict."
- Baker & Hamilton


Read more by Baker & Hamilton on the Middle East in their Iraq Study Group Report.


Also view this 90 second interactive map of imperial history in the Middle East