Publication
Omar Shaban Ismail · Orient XXI · 2018
Orient XXI article on internal Palestinian divisions threatening national strategy, reconciliation, and the future of the Palestinian cause.
A collapse in Gaza would reverberate across the entire Palestinian question, and possibly in Israel as well. Omar Shaban, director of the Palestinian NGO Pal-Think for Strategic Studies and a political scientist based in Gaza, is sounding the alarm: the Israeli blockade, the aftermath of successive wars, and the reduction in UNRWA’s budget represent an immediate danger, but so do the divisions within the Palestinian movement.
Omar Shaban is a Palestinian political scientist based in Gaza, and the director of Pal-Think for Strategic Studies, an independent Palestinian NGO unaffiliated with any political party and receiving no public subsidies. Founded in March 2007 in Gaza by a group of researchers, its aim is to strengthen dialogue among political actors and to encourage rational and methodical research in order to meet the challenges facing Palestine. It produced the first document on Palestinian reconciliation (entitled Roadmap for Palestinian Reconciliation)1.
Nada Yafi. — How would you describe the economic situation in Gaza today?
Omar Shaban. — It is one of general exhaustion, accompanied by warning signs of an imminent collapse. I find it difficult to characterize the situation, so greatly have the hardships piled up since the blockade imposed by Israel in June 2007 following Hamas’s takeover, and a year of deadly struggles between Palestinian movements. It can never be repeated enough: Gaza is the largest open-air prison in the world. A coastal strip of 360 km2 groaning under a population of two million inhabitants, 75% of whom live in 8 immense refugee camps. Despite its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, Israel continues to control all movement of goods and people from and to Gaza, at the land border as well as in maritime and airspace. The two main crossing points, Erez (Beit Hanoun), controlled by Israel, and Rafah, controlled by Egypt and most often closed, do not allow any real easing of pressure. Three Israeli wars in the span of a few years have left behind a field of ruins: December 2008, July 2012, and then the latest in August 2014, which caused devastation. No fewer than 40,000 homes and public buildings were completely destroyed, and more than 100,000 partially so. Most have not been rehabilitated, for lack of resources, not to mention the general climate of instability, which makes donor countries hesitant. It was planned that the national unity government formed in June 2014 would undertake this effort. But at least half of these buildings have remained as they were.
N.Y. — Do international organizations not intervene?
O.S. — A distinction must be made between organizations. Those that come from the United States, for example, boycott any local body of a political nature that has ties to political or military forces such as Hamas or Islamic Jihad. This boycott greatly complicates beneficiaries’ access to aid. Only relief organizations financed by Arab or Islamic funds (Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey) can help them without discrimination.
N.Y. — And the UN agencies? How has the drastic reduction in the American contribution to UNRWA translated on the ground?
O.S. — It is a disaster for Gaza. The proportion of inhabitants living below the poverty line has reached 70%, and unemployment rates more than 53%, according to the latest figures provided by the World Bank (October 2018). This has only accelerated the transformation of Palestinian society, once productive, into a society dependent on aid. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), for example, had education and health programs that offered fixed-term contracts to young people for a few months here and there. They have been reduced or halted for lack of budget. The agency is even ending up dismissing permanent staff on the spot, Palestinians whose families find themselves without resources from one day to the next.
N.Y. — It is said that young people, and women above all, are being driven by despair to take part in the demonstrations called the “Marches of Return,” at the border, where they face the live ammunition of Israeli soldiers. Is this akin to suicide?
O.S. — I would not say that. But there is every reason for despair. The deterioration of daily life plays an essential role in these demonstrations. Gaza wants to make its voice heard throughout the world. These “Marches of Return” have achieved a number of their objectives and failed in other respects. That is hardly surprising in the circumstances we know. For me, one of the strategic objectives thus achieved was to prove that the Palestinian struggle is still present, alive, impervious to defeatism and to the humiliating rout of Arab countries in general. At the same time, these marches have raised questions about their truly peaceful character, their authenticity. They have caused the death of 217 martyrs and left 22,897 wounded, some of whom will remain crippled for life.
N.Y. — What about the attempts at reconciliation between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas?
O.S. — In reality, these attempts have never ceased, even if to date they have borne little fruit. There were eight agreements in the past, following meetings sponsored by Arab countries, but without any effect on the ground. On 23 April 2014, an agreement in the Shati camp in Gaza led, in June of the same year, to the formation of a national unity government, but this government did not exercise power in Gaza, and the two parties each blamed the other for the failure. Efforts — especially Egyptian ones — continued with the idea of putting an end to this division. Since the end of October, an Egyptian security delegation has been shuttling between Gaza and the West Bank to revive the Cairo Agreement of 4 May 2011, amended on 12 October 2017.
N.Y. — What became of this national unity government? What is the reality of power on the ground?
O.S. — Effective power in Gaza is entirely in the hands of Hamas. The entire executive apparatus, with 24,000 civil servants, has been maintained and financed by Hamas since June 2007, as have the security services, the police, and the judiciary, namely 17,000 civil servants. When the national unity government was formed in 2014, four Hamas ministers were part of it. They are still formally in office; they travel between Ramallah2 and Gaza, where they reside. But they do not exercise their responsibilities there. They have neither offices nor ministerial cabinets there.
N.Y. — What about the cohesion of Hamas itself? Are internal struggles between different currents observable? Could Islamic Jihad be a competitor?
O.S. — There are certainly various currents within Hamas, as in any political formation, indeed any social community. Some thus speak of “internal Hamas,” others of “political Hamas” as opposed to “military Hamas.” In reality, no one knows how decisions are made within Hamas. All that is known is that once made, they are implemented by everyone. As for Islamic Jihad, I do not think it can constitute a competitor; this movement does not believe in elections and does not contest power with Hamas. Another difference: Islamic Jihad is closer to Iran than to the Arab countries, although its members are Sunni. But it agrees with Hamas on the political line of resistance to Israel.
N.Y. — There is a Hamas proposal for a “long-term truce with Israel”3. In the absence, however, of reconciliation with the PA, some Palestinians see in it the risk of entrenching the division between the West Bank and Gaza. Do they think that this would go in the direction of the American solution that would seek to detach Gaza from the rest of Palestine, through Donald Trump’s famous “deal of the century” proposal?
O.S. — Indeed, many Palestinians fear that a long-term truce between Hamas and Israel, in the absence of any agreement with the Authority in Ramallah, would reinforce the current division between Fatah and Hamas. All the more so because there is no territorial contiguity between the West Bank and Gaza. And because the distance is now real between the two societies as well, each having its own fabric, its specificities, its way of life, its culture — all divergences that were not as evident in the time of Yasser Arafat. Today each territory seems to have its own concerns and priorities. But it is not acceptable, on the pretext that national reconciliation has not yet been achieved, to let the Gaza Strip sink into this hell, which worsens every day. Gaza cannot be held hostage to “reconciliation” while war is at its doorstep. This is precisely what the Egyptian delegation is working on: obtaining the easing of the blockade on Gaza, establishing a truce with Israel, but at the same time working toward reconciliation between the Hamas government and the PA. Achieving both objectives at the same time will preserve Gaza’s belonging to the Palestinian system as a whole.
N.Y. — What do you say to those who doubt Egypt’s role and even accuse it of wanting to profit from the “deal of the century” for the development of Sinai at the expense of Gaza?
O.S. — I can refute this theory. I know from a reliable source that the Egyptian position is one of total rejection of Palestinian division. The disastrous situation in Gaza has negative repercussions for security in Sinai. Egypt will not consider a solution for Gaza through an extension into Sinai. Egypt has been entrusted by the Arab League with a mission of good offices between the Palestinian movements. It is genuinely seeking to alleviate the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip.
N.Y. — Does Egypt also reject the American “deal of the century”?
O.S. — We have heard a great deal about this American proposal, without knowing what it really contains. The content has not been made public. All that is known is that from the outset it included the announcement of Jerusalem as the unified capital of Israel. But also the drying up of UNRWA’s resources and its dismantling. Which the Arab countries have rejected. But does that change anything on the ground? The Arab position is too weak. Pressure is being exerted on the Palestinians to accept the American vision. The Arab position will not hold in the face of Trump’s policies in the Middle East.
N.Y. — What prospects are there for Gaza today, and for the Palestinian movement as a whole?
O.S. — The persistence of the division within the Palestinian movement represents a very grave danger. Social, economic, and political transformations have taken place. And whether deliberate or not, they have in turn deepened the division between Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem. They have also created actors who now have an interest in maintaining this separation. Regaining unity is becoming more difficult. It is a peril for the Palestinian question as a whole. The divergences now affect what was once considered fundamental and sacred. But then, what is to be done? Overcome the division at all costs, make the overall national interest prevail, and not place bets on the regional, Arab, or international conjuncture.
The people of Gaza are placing all their hopes in the reconciliation process to emerge from this crisis with its repeated twists and turns. Their survival is at stake, as is that of the social, cultural, and political system as a whole. The other option would be fratricidal wars and military escalation with Israel. Palestinian officials, whether in official positions or in civil society, no less than actors in the international community, can no longer be content with patchwork fixes. Strong, immediate, and comprehensive intervention is now required. It should aim both at reconciliation and at lifting the blockade on Gaza. Gaza should be declared a disaster zone and assisted as such.
1Pal-Think has also developed a plan to resolve the crisis of the governmental apparatus between Hamas and the PA, presented numerous proposals on the electricity shortage, reconstruction, and municipal elections. It works in the field in particular with young people and women, and is active in numerous Euro-Mediterranean partnerships.
2Seat of the cabinet, where a weekly meeting is held. Gaza ministers sometimes participate in the meetings remotely, via Skype.
3Made on October 4 by Yahya Sinwar, Hamas leader in Gaza.
Topic: National Reconciliation — Text © Orient XXI — archived here with attribution to the source. — Original source