Friday At the Beach in Gaza

In Gaza the beach is more packed than ever

Everyone's at the beach

Hamas is still permitting a little dancing

Hamas members play volleyball

Hamas is still allowing cigarettes to be sold, but the closure does not make for much choice

Going Home

Working from Home in Gaza

Today I visited Abu Hassan and his family, my friends in Jabalya refugee camp. Abu and Om Hassan have eight children of which two are employed. Randa, their oldest is a school teacher while Hassan, the eldest son, works for the Palestinian “navy” (they don’t have any ships or other seaworthy vehicles, but they are responsible for Gaza’s seashore).

Since Hamas’ election victory early last year Hassan has not received a full month’s salary, going many months without pay. Today, for the first time in 17 months he did received a full month’s wages, and this while remaining home, actually being ordered by his commanders now in the West Bank to stay home. Government employed policemen also are staying home obeying similar orders. Hamas has replaced these with, for the most part quite capable Hamas traffic controllers. These Hamas men, who are now doing the work, are not being paid, while the original government employees (mainly Fatah supporters) remain home, yet are paid.

My friend Ra’ed was at my place earlier this morning and was outraged at this imbalanced and unjust situation. Reacting with reservation I tried to calm him justifying the situation as being such as the forces that be desire them to be. Later, I was shocked at my complacency. I do believe there is truth in my reasoning, yet should we none the less not be appalled at injustice?
Hassan is one of the many Fatah men who participated in a US-funded training camp, along with 40 of Dahlan’s men in Egypt two months ago. 250 of them returned during the first round of fighting in May. His hatred for Hamas runs deep, of the 500 men who trained in Egypt with him, four were killed last month. Many more were shot in the legs. He spoke of the likelihood of one of his colleagues wheeling himself into a mosque (in the Gaza Strip these are almost entirely run by Hamas) and blowing himself up among men who are fellow Palestinians, yet, political foes.

How terribly deep this division has seeped into the psyche of so many Palestinians.

ALAN JOHNSTON IS FREE

After 114 days of Alan's captivity, this is wonderful news from Gaza.

Last night I was visiting my friend Abu Joudat and his family, who live right next to the Doughmosh clan, some of their members were the ones holding Alan. I got to Abu Joudat’s house after 10pm and the street was full of checkpoints, and masked gunmen in some areas. These scenes are not new in Gaza and yet in the past three weeks there has been very little of this. There was much talk that Hamas had taken the spokesman of the Islamic Army hostage along with other clan members while the Islamic Army had taken some Hamas members and negotiations were under way.

Abu Joudat predicted to me he expected this to be the night Alan would be freed. At 6:30am he called and confirmed his prediction. Alan was amazingly calm in a press conference. After a nice homos breakfast with all the Hamas leadership he is now off to Jerusalem.

Here, a timeline of his time in captivity.

Alan's freeing is incredible proof of Hamas’ ability to ascertain law and order, Fatah and no one else was ever able to do the same. Sadly I doubt this will change international leaders relations with Hamas, who are calling for both negotiations with Fatah’s new emergency government as well as with Israel. Neither is replying. I am pleased that Hamas have made Gaza a much safer place to live in again. Radio stations in Gaza aired many callers who were relieved and overjoyed at Alan’s release. Today Gaza loses a true friend, who lived in Gaza for three years as the only international journalist to be stationed here full-time, telling of the plight of the Palestinians.

The fact that beaches have been packed over the past weeks is proof of Hamas’ ability to bring security. For many in Gaza the beach is really the only distraction, the only escape from the unemployment and poverty. While conflict continued between Fatah and Hamas in the past many months, beaches remained rather empty, few people had the nerve to seek such enjoyment under those circumstances. By 8pm most nights the streets were almost completely empty.

Now all that has changed. Yesterday, a regular workday, the beaches were full. Even by 9pm in the Northern Gaza Strip, just kilometers from Israel’s border and the very site where an entire family was murdered when Israeli tanks shelled a beach one year ago families were still out enjoying the summer and the new found safety in the Gaza Strip.

Let us hope that this summer will bring some quiet for the people of Gaza.

Israel assassinates Fatah militants in Gaza

Among the Palestinians assassinated in the Gaza Strip today, not one is a member of Hamas, nor even all of them Islamic Jihad. Haaretz reported this,

"Abu Thaer, a spokesman for the armed wing of Fatah, said the head of the group's militant wing in the central Gaza region, 50-year-old Salah Quffa, had been killed in the attack.

His son, Iyad, was also killed, the spokesman said.

The third casualty, 40-year-old Samir Abu-Muslim, was apparently a civilian bystander."

These are members of the Ayman Jouda group, a part of Fatah's military wing who have long acted independently of the Palestinian president and his security commanders. In recent infighting between Hamas and a number of Fatah security forces they stayed far from the fighting. The existence of such entities dispel notions of a mere "civil war" between Hamas and Fatah. Groups such as Ayman Jouda point to the increasing fragmentation of Fatah, largely along the lines of pro- and anti-US complicity.

Abbas appearing to distance himself from the US?

Abu Mazen choses France as the location to make declarations calling on an International Peacekeeping force to police Gaza. Making these statements in Paris, must be Abu Mazen's weak attempt at distancing himself from a hard U.S. and Israeli line that the Palestinian president has been taking lately. Furthermore, it is rather peculiar that Abu Mazen promises returning law and order to all of Palestinian Territories when at least in Gaza Palestinain are now finally experiencing law and order now that Fatah leaders have packed up and left and many Fatah forces are staying at home these days. This reminds me of the sort of things I would be required to analyze in Logic 101. Hamas's use of force, which Abu Mazen refers to continuously does not demonstrate Hamas' innate violent nature.

At the end of the press conference Abu Mazen does make an honest comment that Palestinians need hope, not just security. In Gaza at least Hamas has provided some sembalnce of security, but hope truly is lacking for many people here. Yet sadly, hope is also not found in Abu Manzen's consistant appearances with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert or his empty rhetoric of a "peace process" and a "bi-national solution."

It looks as if Egypt and Saudi Arabia are re-considering their harsh stance towards Hamas. If not Hamas in the Gaza Strip, could other groups like Alqaeda have a presence on Egypt's border soon? Hamas may soon look soft compared to other ideologies that could soon gain popularity in Gaza. Egypt has decided to move its embassy back to Gaza while Abu Mazen will continue issuing passports from Gaza after all.

Israel vs. Hizballah Summer 2007?

Haaretz reports Saturday June 30, 12:30am,

"Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon expressed "deep concern" Friday that Lebanon's continuing internal political instability will hinder its implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, the ceasefire agreement that ended the Second Lebanon War, which calls for the disarmament of all militant groups in the region near the country's border with Israel."

Fatah Divide

Hani Al-Hassan is a longtime Fatah member. He is former Minister of Interior, was a close advisor to president Yaser Arafat and senior advisor to Abu Mazen. In an interview on Aljazeera on Wednesday Al-Hassan voiced criticism of some Fatah members and their actions relating to the Hamas' military takeover in Gaza. Consequently, Abu Mazen dismissed Al-Hassan from his position. This comes after the president sacked seven of his highest officers in Gaza over the past two weeks.

This from the Jerusalem Post,

Hassan described the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip as a serve blow to US security coordinator Maj.-Gen. Keith Dayton, who has been working toward strengthening Abbas's security forces ahead of a possible confrontation with Hamas.

In an interview with Al-Jazeera, Hassan said the fighting in the Gaza Strip was between Hamas and group of "collaborators" with the US and Israel, and not between Hamas and Fatah.

His remarks were clearly directed against Dahlan and a number of senior Fatah leaders.

In another interview, Hassan named Dahlan as the "main culprit" behind the crisis. He said Dahlan used his strong influence and Abbas's "blind confidence" to foil any reconciliation bid between Fatah and Hamas after the Islamic movement came to power in January 2006.

Many of Al-Hassan’s claims parallel those of Hamas who in the past weeks have disclosed hundreds of secret Fatah documents confiscated from Fatah security headquarters in Gaza City.

Why is this split taking place within Fatah's ranks?

This quote from Alistair Crooke's sheds some light, by taking us back to Palestinian elections of last year.

The election outcome, however, was not primarily a judgment on Fatah’s corruption, even if this was a significant factor. I recall a leader in a refugee camp in Lebanon saying: ‘You will see . . . what this victory for Hamas represents is the final rupture of the Palestinians’ faith in the international community. We no longer believe that the Americans or the Europeans ultimately can be counted on to do the right thing by us. We know that we must rely only on ourselves now.’ Hamas had recognised for some time that the Palestinian constituency that voted Fatah a monopoly of power and of armed force in 1993, following the Oslo Accords, no longer existed. Hardly any Palestinians now believe that Palestinian ‘good behaviour’ – as promised to Israel by Fatah – will induce the US to ignore its domestic Israel lobby and exert pressure on Israel to withdraw from the lands occupied in 1967. ‘Hamas had predicted all along that Israel would not fulfil its bargain,’ Tamimi writes, ‘and that it was using peacemaking in order to expropriate more land.

The Failing of Gaza

The democratically elected Hamas government was doomed to failure when the world refused to recognize the last election outcome. Furthermore, as the former government dominated by Fatah was not willing to hand over authority over government institutions and security forces, Hamas was forced to carry out what was practically a coup d’etat in order to take its place as sole governing body of the Palestinians and thus be able to tackle the ever increasing lawlessness there.

Now, the new mini state of Gaza will fail, because the world will not allow it to succeed.

Aristotle considered chaos to be a very likely outcome of the competing interests given voice in democracy. In Gaza, Palestinian differences have been exploited to bring about Aristotle’s predicted internal division. On a national level US leadership is determined through a democratic process. Yet, in its foreign policy US leadership resembles an oligarchy, a wolf in sheep’s clothing that hypocritically insists on an increased spread of democracy while forcing its personal agenda on world leaders. Abu Mazen is its latest victim forced to promote “democracy”, yet consent to the demands of the US-aligned oligarchy. The giving in to this duplicitous policy will, much like the Native American experience, lead to the demise of the Palestinian cause.

The Failing of Gaza

Transportation is one of the few sectors of Gaza’s economy that is relatively constant. No matter how dire the financial situation, collective taxis are always shuttling people along the main roads of the Gaza Strip. This past week saw an exception to even this rule, reflecting the severe desperation of Gazans. There are a few reasons for this.

Many people are afraid of what the future may bring. Militarily, Hamas has shown its domination over Fatah by ousting the latter in 48 hours. Yet, politically, Hamas has dug itself into a hole, with seemingly little foresight for a political agenda of realpolitik. Because of Fatah’s unwillingness to hand over power and Hamas’ weak position on the world’s political stage, it is the people who will suffer. The US and Israel are now, more urgently than ever trying to bring about the weakening of Hamas, for their deeper goal of conquer and divide. Yet neither has learned that starving a people does not break their determination, it only reinforces it. Fatah has lost a vast amount of legitimacy in the eyes of its people, while Hamas is being internationally weakened; as a result the Palestinians are more divided than ever. The oligarchy and its partners continue to use whatever means necessary, be it force or a vernacular of promoting the people’s rights, to attain their personal interests.

In Gaza government employees, despite being largely unpaid, still attended their work until Hamas took over the Gaza Strip last week. President Mahmoud Abbas’s new US-backed emergency government has called for all government employees, including the police force not to report for work while promising to finally pay them a full month’s salary. Economic borders with Israel are largely sealed slowing trade down to a trickle. Many Gazans are staying home because of the uncertainty of their future. These are difficult days and yet many rather save their money for the even harder times ahead.

On the Egyptian side of the Rafah border thousands of Palestinians are once again living in tents in refugee camps like in 1948. Wednesday morning Egypt declared it would not open the border, thus effectively closing Gaza’s only gateway to the world. The emergency government canceled Palestinian passports last week calling for their reissuing in the West Bank. Gazans are left without access to the rest of the world, without internationally recognized travel documents, with only the bare minimum of food to survive on and are largely unemployed in a depleted economy. The Western backed emergency government is complicit in the creation of this sealing off of Gaza and the further severing of Gaza from the West Bank.

How long can Gaza survive while its civil servants are ordered to stay home by its Fatah leadership whom they are loyal to, yet which has deserted them? How long can Gaza go on with school teachers, ministry employees and policemen remaining in their homes? These should answer to their elected government and yet the oligarchy has illegitimized it and instated a puppet government, while international leaders follow suit.

One taxi driver told me security is more important than bread because what does one do with all the money in the world if you don’t have security to keep you alive to enjoy it. Another driver told me a man can’t get married and say to his wife, “good morning, habibti, my love,” and then disappear for the rest of the day without providing for her and their home. Palestinians cannot survive without bread.

Israeli Promises

After the Hamas military takeover in Gaza, Olmert’s government promised to ease roadblocks and security restrictions in the West Bank. This statement was put on hold after the Israeli army raised objections. Further promises have been made that Palestinian taxes, illegally withheld by Israel over the past year and a half are to be returned to the new emergency government. The details of when and how much and if at all, still lie in Israel’s hands. Olmert was reported saying Tuesday,

"We aren't deluding ourselves… there are concerns that Abu Mazen will be tempted to do what he did with the Mecca agreement, and enter into a new unity government alongside Hamas." Israeli Minister Eli Yishai said, “funds should be transferred to the PA in stages, in order to determine whether it has any practical effect in terms of strengthening Abbas.”

Israel seems hardly concerned with the legality of its actions or even its dialogue partner Abu Mazen’s needs.

Twisting Reality

On Tuesday Egyptian President Husni Mubarak explained, "Fatah has also committed mistakes, but it is clear that Hamas started the whole thing and confused the world."

Mubarak rightfully points out the “confusion” that reigns after recent events in Gaza. Yet, the sources of this deliberate “confusion” are the world oligarchy’s leaders and its partners.

Mubarak went on to say, “Hamas had made a dangerous mistake in allowing chaos to prevail.”

On Tuesday US secretary of state envoy to the Middle East David Welch said,

“We are supporting the legitimate security forces and enhancing them in order to establish a Palestinian entity which will be able to provide security and stability for Palestinian citizens, and we will be committed to this in the future.”

In his leaked report retired UN special envoy to the Middle East Alvaro De Soto contradicts such statements saying, “the Americans clearly encouraged a confrontation between Fatah and Hamas and worked to isolate and damage Hamas and build up Fatah with recognition and weaponry.”

Since Hamas has taken rightful control in Gaza, the people have witnessed a complete turn-around in its security situation. No civilians are seen walking the streets carrying arms, no more gunfire is heard as was becoming the norm while Fatah security forces dominated, reports of theft and crime are almost unheard of and drug lords are being round up and criminals brought to justice. Mubarak’s claim of chaos prevailing under Hamas doesn’t hold water and the US’s effort of training illegitimate security forces brought anything but peace and security.

The Way Out

In addition to the rhetoric President Mubarak also had something insightful to say Tuesday,

“Unify the Palestinian ranks through dialogue… a common Palestinian position” is “an immediate requirement that can bear no delay.”

Indeed these two factions so torn apart must sit together once more and find a way forward. Hamas is calling for dialogue already. Fatah needs to prioritize their own people’s choices and silence Western voices that are tempting them with legitimacy in the world’s eyes if they concede to the oligarchy’s demands.

After Hamas’ election victory early last year, Fatah was not able to come to terms with its election loss. 16 months later, Fatah is still in denial of the ultimate outcome, Hamas’ seizing of power in the Gaza Strip. For Fatah, the Palestinian national agenda seems to be buried beneath a pride and the prioritizing of certain individuals of their personal interests tied closely to those of the oligarchy. This could well lead to the movement’s downfall while taking the Palestinian national agenda years to recover.

Gilad Shalit for 1.5 million Palestinians, deal?

Today marks one year since Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier was captured at the Gaza-Israel border from a tank in his military outpost. Since that day he may have been held captive in a house, a room, a cellar, a cave, ultimately he is in a prison, his own personal cage somewhere. Palestinians also are held in a cage.

Sunday an Israeli Minister had the gall to propose the exchange of the life of one Israeli for the lives of 1.5 million Palestinians.

The world is not interested in a true prisoner exchange. Here is just one further example of life within the cage of Gaza.

Who am I?

When the situation becomes too unstable in Gaza I have the option of leaving here, I can leave and never come back. I can run from this world of discomfort, of poverty and lack of security. But these are not the things I pine for, comfort, riches, security. I will continue to speak out against injustice and be the voice of the voiceless because I long to live for the other, rather than for my-self. It takes a re-shaping of the habits of my mind and heart to reach even partially this way of being. That is why I am here.

Today fear fills the hearts of Gaza’s people, with the recent string of events Gaza’s future is as uncertain as ever. There is a fear that they may one day return from their perpetual search for charity and donation empty handed (80% of Gazans are receiving international food aid); a fear of waking to another day of hopelessness (70% of Gazans are either unemployed or largely unpaid government employees); a fear that the economic disaster they are experiencing today may overcome their lives (60% of the population live under the poverty level of $2 per day); a fear is that this economic crisis will divide the entire population in inter-factional feuding and result in a lawless chaos as factions and political parties vie for the little power that does exist in Gaza.

All this could be prevented, but it takes a perspective of the conflict that includes a memory that goes back further than just a couple years, one must go back to the start. Prior to 1948 and the creation of the state of Israel the Gaza Strip did not exist. On that fateful day nearly 60 years ago a majority of the ancestors of Palestinians living/imprisoned in the Gaza Strip today, walked the dusty paths to this plot of land. On that day their future was determined to be confined in this space, which only then was renamed, the Gaza Strip, a prison with borders to keep in an unwanted people. 200,000 refugees were added to the 70,000 living in Gaza City and its surrounding cities at the time. Life began in UN tents and over the course of these 60 years those rows of tents have become overcrowded and inhumane refugee camps, where families listen to their neighbors’ conversations and private interactions, where sickness spreads with ease, where children play in sewage that runs down narrow streets.

I have come to find that the injustice of this world exists to maintain the status quo of the way of life, the ease of life of the upper class, to keep comfortable those already living in comfort, to keep wealthy those living with wealth, to keep secure those living in security.

The root of what is considered a social or political sickness is a matter of interpretation. My perspective as either oppressor or oppressed, whether I am aware of it or not, will determine and limit how I see the world around me, unless I am shaken awake to the reality of the other. As they say, “One person’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter.”

The great women and men of history are those that have been able to step out of their perch of comfort and identify with the one that is colonized, the one who is deprived of human rights, the one that is abused, the one who is forgotten by the mighty of the world. From a place of comfort it is easy to consider the oppressed a victim of her own lack of perseverance, his inactivity or her idleness. From the eyes of the individualist where one is always considered able to “make one’s self”, the fault lies with the victim. It takes an awaking, a metamorphosis to be able to place oneself in the shoes of the other, and there staring at death, to gain new eyes that condemn one’s own inactivity and idleness in the face of the oppression that one’s very existence executes on the oppressed. Some of the worst evils we commit are the ones we are unaware of.

My heart burns for these, the oppressed.

Recently I have been challenged and consoled by a prayer of St Francis’ of Assisi. Francis was a man who chose to leave behind the splendor of a bourgeois life to serve and live among the poor, no doubt he was familiar with the suffering of the exploited. These words are powerful in a world that is more prone to raping, economically, politically, sexually, than to giving, in a world more prone to hungering for power and money no matter what the means, than to serving the one that is anything but powerful, the voiceless.

“Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love,
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is sadness, joy;
Where there is darkness, light;

Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;
Not so much to be understood, as to understand;
Not so much to be loved, as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.”

Who is the powerless, the voiceless, the oppressed in your world?