Soccer Dad

A year later it's still israel's fault

In Unilateral action by Israel spawns violence in Gaza( also here and here George Bisharat asks

Why did withdrawal of 8,500 Jewish settlers from Gaza lead to more conflict? Can Israel withdraw from Arab territories without inviting attack?

The short answers are because Israel abandoned territory to terrorist organizations dedicated to its destruction. When Israel was no longer in a position to interrupt arms shipment, Fatah and Hamas took that as a license to accumulate weapons through the now unguarded crossings and no.

Given the title of the op-ed, Bisharat has other answers.

First he argues that the Gaza disengagement led to more Jews living in parts of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. How that causes violence in Gaza is uncertain. Then he engages in falsehood.

Moreover, while Israel decolonized Gaza, its military occupation continues. Israel still controls the entry and exit of people and goods into the region, patrols its coast and airspace, oversees its water, fuel, electric utilities, and sewage, and enters it with military forces at will. Under international law, "effective control" determines whether a territory is occupied.

Israel does not control exit and entry as Israel surrendered control of the Rafah checkpoint to ineffective international monitors who let weapons and terroriists pass through unchecked.

Effective control is not Israel's.

Since the January Palestinian elections, hailed as the fairest in the Arab world, Israel has strived to undermine the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, withholding $50 million to $60 million monthly in tax revenues owed to the authority. The U.S. and European Union have followed, halting aid to the Palestinians until the Hamas government renounces violence, recognizes Israel and pledges to honor prior agreements of the Palestinian Authority. Hamas has not yet bowed but has repeatedly signaled willingness to negotiate.

A few years ago the people of Austria elected a government that included Joerg Haider - a man known to hold repugnant views and to express them - in free and fair elections. The West then boycotted the Austria. Just because elections are free doesn't mean there aren't consequences.

Haider's views were well known, but he was not known to have organized terrors attacks killing hundreds of people as Hamas did. Hamas is an unrepentant terrorist organization that is rightly being boycotted. Hamas's "willingness to negotiate" shows nothing other than that it is practical. It doesn't show that it has changed. (Perhaps if it returned Gilad Shalit, arrested known terrorists and collected illegal weapons the international community could consider negotiating a change in approach.)

(Mr. Bisharat's concern for the Hamas government is touching given that he is a professed Christian and that Hamas has a plan to charge a discriminatory tax called al-jeziya to Christians who wish to have the privilege of living in Islamic lands.)

Of course Hamas should not just halt violence -- it had suspended military operations for 17 months, until June -- it should also renounce it. But shouldn't the same standard apply to both parties? Shouldn't recognition and respect for prior agreements be reciprocally required of Israel, which denies Palestinian national rights and regularly violates the Oslo accords?

Actually Hamas claimed to have observed a ceasefire but a) it still allowed Qassam rockets to be fired into Israel and b) even as it claimed it was maintaining a ceasefire it was restocking its supplies. Israel made prior agreements with Fatah that had officially renounced violence. (In practice it hadn't, but that's a different matter.) Oslo and subsequent agreements assumed that Fatah had abandoned terror.

Hamas doesn't even maintain a pretense of abandoning terror. None of the benefits of previous agreements should accrue to a Hamas government. Abandon terror first. It's that simple.

Palestinian civil servants have gone without salaries since January. Gazans have suffered serious deterioration in nutrition and health. The special U.N. rapporteur on conditions in the occupied Palestinian territories warned in June of an impending humanitarian crisis, saying, "In effect, the Palestinian people have been subjected to economic sanctions -- the first time that an occupied people have been so treated."

Again, the Arabs living in Gaza are not occupied. But the "impending humanitarian crisis" is largely manufactured by the Palestinian Authority's own doing.

Before the election of the Hamas government, the Palestinians received more foreign aid per capita than anyone. This largesse has not led to a softening of positions regarding Israel and allowed the Palestinians to avoid having to choose good government.

Still despite the cutoff of foreign aid. The recent re-marriage of Suha Arafat was attended by reports that she is receiving $22 million a year from the PA and that the PA itself has reserves of $4 billion - accumulated first through the lucrative years of terror and later from foreign aid.

If the PA's cash reserves were being used toward helping the people it claims to represent there would be no impending humanitarian crisis. Of course, just as when Arafat was alive, the money has been used for the benefit of the PA's elites, not the common people.

Mr Bisharat, a law professor, should be aware that though definitions are important, they have limitations. He may call Gaza "occupied" but that doesn't make it so. And he may ignore that Hamas fits the legal definition of a terrorist organization, but that doesn't make Hamas innocent.

Technorati tags: Israel, Gaza, Hamas.