Israel is the only country to demand that the world boycott and fight Hamas while at the same time granting de facto recognition to the organization’s rule over the Gaza Strip.
And not only that, it helps Hamas consolidate its position, arranges the transfer of millions of shekels a month for the benefit of Gaza’s residents and allows thousands of Gazans to work in Israel. Had it not done all this, Gaza’s population would have become a burden on Hamas’ leadership that could threaten the stability of its rule.
Nor does the absurdity end there. Israel has imposed a suffocating blockade on more than 2 million Gazans – forbidding students to leave the territory to study and limiting travel by patients to health-care facilities in the West Bank and Israel – on the grounds that Hamas must be deterred and made to cease its terrorism. But the scope of the sanctions is coordinated with Hamas itself (via Egyptian mediators, of course) based on the degree of Hamas’ compliance with Israel’s demands.
After 16 years of closure, this arrangement seems so natural that it’s as if Gaza had been created this way and had always existed like this. And heaven forbid that we do anything to change it.
Yet the blockade hasn’t prevented rocket fire at Israel or spared us military operations with heroic code names. It created the deceptive term “the Gaza envelope,” referring to Israeli communities near the Gaza border; under the cover of this term, entire swaths of Israel have been periodically put under siege and forced to live in fear.
And the blockade hasn’t contributed a thing to the military deterrence built on the foundations of the violent dialogue between the Israel Defense Forces and Hamas. This dialogue has continued nonstop because the flow chart of Israel’s clashes with Islamic Jihad and Hamas is built on a system so well known and predictable that it could be called “consensual.”
It always begins in some place that isn’t under any sort of closure – an incident on the Temple Mount or in Jenin or Nablus; the death of a hunger-striking detainee in an Israeli jail, like Khader Adnan; or a well-publicized arrest like that of Islamic Jihad’s leader in Jenin, Bassem al-Saadi. It continues with rocket fire from Gaza, which sparks Israeli bombing or shelling. After that, Egypt is called to the flag, and sometimes Qatar as well, to calm Islamic Jihad or Hamas until quiet once again reigns over the face of the earth.
The blockade has never had any connection to the start of such incidents. At most, it serves as a whip with which to obtain calm.
The result is that the blockade, which began its life as a means of collective punishment and an unrestrained Israeli response to Hamas’ takeover of Gaza in 2007, hasn’t managed even to serve as a tool of deterrence. Instead, it has become a diplomatic bargaining chip in talks between Israeli and Hamas, as is typical between partners. The fraud is that even without the closure, Israel could achieve similar results, but without the enormous damage it is causing to Gaza’s residents.
Fully opening Gaza’s border crossings with both Israel and Egypt, subjected to strict supervision like the system employed at Israel’s border crossings with Jordan; repairing and rebuilding damaged or destroyed factories; building a port in Gaza or on an artificial island; jointly producing natural gas off Gaza’s coast – all these steps would put a lot of money in Hamas’ pockets, but they would also make the organization more vulnerable, since it would become much more sensitive to the welfare of its productive assets. These assets would also free it of dependence on donor countries like Iran.
Unfortunately, there’s nothing original about this proposal. It was included in understandings reached after the 2014 war with Hamas in Gaza, and before that in understandings reached after a round of fighting in 2012. It was included once again in understandings reached after clashes in 2018. But there’s evidently nothing urgent about it; it will still be around after the next military operation.
Can We Recognize Hamas Already?
25
16
18.05.2023
Israel is the only country to demand that the world boycott and fight Hamas while at the same time granting de facto recognition to the organization’s rule over the Gaza Strip.
And not only that, it helps Hamas consolidate its position, arranges the transfer of millions of shekels a month for the benefit of Gaza’s residents and allows thousands of Gazans to work in Israel. Had it not done all this, Gaza’s population would have become a burden on Hamas’ leadership that could threaten the stability of its rule.
Nor does the absurdity end there. Israel has imposed a suffocating blockade on more than 2 million Gazans – forbidding students to leave the territory to study and limiting travel by patients to health-care facilities in the West Bank and Israel – on the grounds that Hamas must be deterred and made to cease its terrorism. But the scope of the sanctions is coordinated with Hamas itself (via Egyptian mediators, of course) based on the degree of Hamas’ compliance with Israel’s demands.
After 16 years of........
© Haaretz
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