THE CUCKOO'S NEST©    

GAZA, THE PALESTINIAN MADNESS AND FORTY YEARS OF MILITARY OCCUPATION

The territories, in a political vacuum and in anarchy without a way out

Where, a mass of desperate people quarrel for power 

Mahmud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority is correct when saying: what is happening in Gaza is “madness”.

A civil war that instead of the clash of economic interests sweeping, as usually happens in civil wars, different social strata has led a handful of ragged “miserables” into chaos. 

Both, those siding with Fatah and those with Hamas, have been unemployed many years now, holding on to life through the UN’s humanitarian aid, with mountains of garbage piled up and the threat of disease right outside their homes. A large percentage lives without water or electricity. And despite this, this handful of desperate people are fighting for power over an extremely poor strip of land; In this anus mundi that the Gaza Strip is today. Palestinians are indeed incurable.

Instead of emerging in front of Israel and the international community as serious interlocutors to negotiate a peace, they instead supply pretexts and excuses to that part of Israeli society that wants no negotiations, compromises, agreements maintaining always that in the Palestinian side “there is no one with which one can negotiate.”

Therefore, it is they, the commanders and followers of Fatah and Hamas, that are responsible for the clashes in the streets, the victims, and the chaos that engulfs the Gaza Strip.

It is they who are responsible for what seems to be the real and most dramatic effect of the clash: the destruction of the Palestinian Authority, mired in political chaos and in a cul-de-sac of anarchy, in the territory occupied by Israel for the last forty years.

In the end is it radical Islam brought to Palestine by Hamas to blame for everything, and therefore also for the breakdown of Palestinian society (that was once the most secular Arab society) that came about from the invasion of religious fanaticism?

No, only to a degree.

There are other responsibilities that led to the creation of the interwoven socio-political problem from which we can see the beginning of a civil war emerging. 

This is the point where we have to highlight this interweaving, the image of how they reached the point where the competition, the internalized anger, the Palestinian “madness” exploded. 

To mention how we arrived at the creation of this “interweaving” from which the clashes in the Gaza Strip began step-by-step, episode-by-episode would be lengthy.
It is therefore necessary to limit ourselves to mentioning the main waypoints, the most significant events, beginning with the take over. What did four decades of military occupation by Israel cause in the minds and souls of Palestinians? 

Forty years of land appropriations, deviations of waters to the swimming pools of Jewish settlers, olive groves belonging to Palestinian farmers cut to the root during raids by extremist Jewish settlers, destructive retaliations, endless hours at Army blockades. 

Was justice ever served for the capriciousness of the settlers, for the causeless army violence at checkpoints, for women in labor forced to give birth in the street under the blazing sun, for the three or more hours that students need to spend at check points to reach school or university, just a few kilometres from home?

Was justice ever sought from the international community for the “selective” crimes perpetrated by the Israeli Army and Air Force for years; real and actual executions without a trace of inquiries, or a trial?

Yes, this is a Palestinian “madness”. We only have to look at the incident a few days ago with the two women, one of which was pregnant, that attempted to enter Israel wearing explosives in order to blow themselves up. This is an interesting sign of how much the logic of the Palestinian people has fallen.

However, it’s necessary to take a look at this “interweaving” to see if it caused some of this madness.

We have a duty to wonder what other people would have tolerated the forty years the Palestinians went through without losing their minds.

It’s true that it was they through the suicide attacks that drew the tragic and barbarous course in the war against Israel. But even here this “interweaving” is whispering something that we must keep in our memory.

The suicide bombers of Hamas first appeared in 2001, thirty four years, that is, after the beginning of military occupation. There were no suicide bombers before then.

As concerns Hamas, anyone knowing the events in occupied Palestine, will know well the role played by the Israelis in the establishment of islamists in the Gaza Strip and Transjordan.

It is known how in the mid 1980s Israelis, especially Ariel Sharon, saw them as useful antagonists of Arafat’s PLO, how they helped them to develop their activities in order to achieve two results: one certain, the weakening of the PLO, and one auspicious, the internal clash of the two groups.

We thus arrived at the point where Israelis argue saying there are no reliable interlocutors on the Palestinian side.

With whom should we negotiate, they argue? With the armed gangs of Hamas, with those of Islamic Jihad, or with the remaining forces still friendly with Mahmud Abbas? At this point they reiterate that it is impossible to speak of peace with them.

However, this “interweaving” is useful in seeing how Israel “burned” those that could have been reliable interlocutors.

First Arafat, exposed, ridiculed by the isolation forced upon him by Sharon, for a year and a half in his headquarters at Ramallah, while Hamas was convincing Palestinians that the only way out of occupation were bombing attempts, intransigence, and fanaticism against the “Zionist entity.”

Next Mahmud Abbas, also “burned” by Sharon, at the moment when the Israelis left the Gaza Strip through a unilateral withdrawal in which Abbas played no role, without even some symbolic handover of the Strip to Palestinian authorities. 

Perhaps this was the most interesting act that Hamas later exploited winning the Palestinian elections in 2006.

Finally it would be good if we did not forget the cutting off of the humanitarian and financial aid to the Palestinian Authority by the US and the EU, immediately after the creation of the first Hamas government and which consequently still stands today when there is a Hamas-Fatah government of national unity.

Maybe, they thought it correct to stop funding aid that was destined for an organization like Hamas, which never disowned terrorism and which will never recognize Israel as a state. Today, however, it may be necessary to talk of this cut off as a mistake.

Poverty increased in the Gaza strip and desperation erased the last signs of logic, and this surely was the straw that broke the camel’s back, setting off the internal clash.

So there, the “interweaving” cannot be forgotten. When this becomes a criticism against successive Israeli governments it is necessary to remember that Israel is the only state of which many still doubt both its legitimacy and its borders. 

This, maybe, often brings us to the position even the most serious mistakes of Israeli policy.

On the other hand, how can we ignore the role played by these mistakes in what we are seeing: the birth of this “Palestinian madness”? 

by Tassos Mavris