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During the last few
days there has been a lot of attention focused on the Gaza pullout in the mass
media, but this "Unilateral Gaza Disengagement Plan", e.g. the relocation of
come 8000 Jewish settlers and a few hundred from four West Bank settlements with
the help of as many 50,000 Israeli forces, has to be put into perspective.
The question that
needs to be ask is how free will Gaza and the 1.4 million Palestinians there be
after the pullout? So far, Israel has refused a Palestinian request to reopen
Gaza's International Airport, and Israel has refused to put the Rafah crossing
between Palestine and Egypt under Palestinian and Egyptian rule by insisting
that they, Israel, maintain control of all the borders, including the
territorial waters off the Gaza coast and supremacy in the airspace above
Palestinians territory. Thus, the 'Gaza disengagement Plan' does not mean an end
to Israeli military occupation of Gaza, as the UN Human Rights Rapporteur for
Palestinian Territories, John Dugard, stated in a report released in March 2005.
For ordinary Palestinians to move freely within Gaza is nothing that they have
to be grateful for.
In
actual act, the Gaza pullout is a diversion created to draw the international
attention away from Israel's continued policy to change the 'facts on the
ground', especially concerning the status of East-Jerusalem, and the West Bank.
While the world's attention is focused on the 'Gaza Disengagement', Israel is
continuing its theft of Palestinian land, house demolitions, and the
construction of the 'Apartheid Wall', which ultimately aims at ethnically
cleansing East Jerusalem and the West Bank. While 2,000 housing units in illegal
settlements in the West Bank, mostly in and around Jerusalem.
A genuine effort at
peace in Palestine first needs to address such issues as this quite annexation
of Jerusalem, the land-grab by construction of the Apartheid Wall, the continued
expansion of settlements in the West Bank, daily closures and prohibition to
free movement by military checkpoints, and finally, the continued policy of
targeted killings. Only then is it possible for both parties to sit as partners
at the negotiation table to start the process of achieving justice and lasting
peace in Palestine. |
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