Two Scenarios
All right. The evacuation of Gaza is now a fact. It’s not over yet, and there are plenty of (figurative) landmines yet to be avoided, but the withdrawal is the new reality. The question is, what's going to happen now?Maybe it'll go something like this. The Palestinians of Gaza, flush with an exhilarating sense of opportunity, discover that they can indulge in a new, unexpectedly sweet luxury: thinking about Israelis as something other than the enemy. They’re proud of their role as the spearhead of Palestinian independence, but are well aware that the example they set will be as carefully observed by their fellow Palestinians in the West Bank as it will by the Israelis. They define success as swift, tangible improvement in the daily life of all Gazans, something they hope will soon be enjoyed by Palestinians throughout the West Bank. They see the withdrawal as a chance to assert their dignity as a nation that wants to construct a viable future—a nation that loves life, in other words, and has had enough of the romance of a future-stealing culture of death.
They are not afraid to exult in this new opportunity. They know that the majority of Israelis want an end to the troubles and are willing to consign their shock and disappointment at the second intifada to history—something they can do only if the withdrawal from Gaza is shown to have been a success. Palestinian Gazans are not afraid that their state will stop in Gaza—they know that that will happen only if they are short-sighted enough to turn the Israeli withdrawal into an obvious mistake. They want to encourage the Israelis to withdraw from other areas, and recognize that the best way to do that is to give them reasons to celebrate this first evacuation.
Palestinian-Israeli joint ventures spring up. Academic cooperation and cultural exchanges flourish. Scholarships for one another’s students are established at Palestinian and Israeli universities. The Gazan elementary and high school curricula are revamped to weed out anti-Israel and anti-Semitic rhetoric. Gazans return to work in Israel, if that is their desire. Israelis are invited to contribute their expertise and assistance in the establishment of Palestinian-owned greenhouses, farms, and industries.
The Palestinian administration, meanwhile, demands strict adherence to the rule of law in Gaza, with consequences to those who disregard it and incentives for those to whom such a notion is simply unknown. Money that comes into Gaza from abroad will be strictly and transparently accounted for, and it will be used, in part, to lure young people who have been trained to believe they have no identity other than as haters of Israel toward more productive, forward-looking ways of life. Extremists who want a piece of that action are welcome, but there is a zero-tolerance policy toward any ex-extremist who disturbs the peace, either by targeting Palestinians or Israelis. Any extremist who refuses to disarm voluntarily will be disarmed forcibly and jailed in a Palestinian-Israeli state-of-the-art prison.
Things take off. The Americans and the Europeans fall all over one another to take credit for the success. Money pours in. David Beckham and a woman who does not appear to be Victoria are spotted at a trendy Gaza City cafe. An international film festival established in Gaza becomes a must-be-seen-there destination for Hollywood glitterati. Palestinian soccer and basketball teams compete regularly with Israeli teams and quickly become contenders on the European circuit. A Gazan cuisine materializes, spawning sleek, IM Pei-esque, high-priced eateries and down-home Umm-wa-Ab chowhouses.
And the Israeli majority, ecstatic with relief, pushes through the next phase of the withdrawal.
* * *
Or this could happen. The Palestinians of Gaza, flush with the satisfaction of having thrown out the Israelis, wonder what even more mortars and suicide belts might accomplish. They discover that they can now openly indulge a long-held fantasy: that they might eventually wipe the Israelis off the face of Palestine, from the Jordan to the Mediterranean. They’re proud of their role as the spearhead of Palestinian independence, and want to show their fellow Palestinians in the West Bank that there’s more where that came from. They define success as more Israeli concessions, satisfyingly wrung out of them through the language of Israeli entrails splattered on café walls – the only language Israelis understand, after all (to which the Gaza withdrawal attests). They see the withdrawal as a chance to assert their dignity as an Arab nation—a nation that rightly reviles its primal enemy and has had enough of this nonsense of a future beside the Jews.
The Palestinians are not afraid to exult in this new opportunity. They know the majority of Israelis are worn down by the endless violence, and they would be fools not to do everything in their power to exploit that weakness. But that exultation will be made manifest in machine-gun rallies and terrorist attacks, not in new electricity systems or better housing. The withdrawal must not on any account be allowed to become a practical success for regular Gazan citizens, since the Palestinian state would therefore stop in Gaza. They can’t go soft, in other words – meekly say thank you to the Jews for the ghetto they’ve so magnanimously permitted the Palestinians to live in in their own country. The goal is to induce the Israelis to withdraw from the rest of it – all the rest of it. The best way to do that is to give them good reasons to run like hell.
All existing Palestinian-Israeli joint ventures are immediately put down. Palestinian academics who cooperate with Israelis are gunned down in the street. Scholarships are established at Palestinian universities for the production of doctoral theses on the glory of suicide-bombing and on Holocaust denial. The Gazan elementary and high school curricula are revamped to incorporate more vitriolic anti-Israel and anti-Semitic rhetoric. Gazans who wish to return to work in Israel are threatened, kidnapped and murdered.
The Palestinian administration, meanwhile, is powerless to combat the extremists, who see no value in cultivating a relationship with people whose declared aim is to de-claw them at the behest of the enemy. Money flowing in from abroad is shunted, per tradition, to a handful of corrupt politicians whose concern for the Gazan man and woman on the street comes a distant second to the desire to put a marble floor in that villa. Said Gazan man and woman will see no material difference in their lives whatsoever now that the Israelis are gone, and the father will be just as unemployed as he was before. Their fifteen-year-old son, disgusted with the foolish idealism of his parents and with the dreary tedium of their lives, will cozy up to the boys hanging around the neighborhood with the great big guns. How bad can they be? Most of them are graduate students.
Things deteriorate. Intra-Palestinian violence skyrockets. Small numbers of Palestinians manage to infiltrate Israel on occasion, usually at a moment when the Israelis are contemplating a further territorial concession, and kill a few dozen civilians, thereby validating the don’t-reward-terror argument of those Israelis who had opposed the Gaza withdrawal and putting any further withdrawal on indefinite hold. The flow of money from abroad, which had picked up dramatically when the Israelis left Gaza, dries up; even the Europeans start to use phrases like “throwing good money after bad”. Palestinian extremists, flush with Iranian ordnance brought in through the Egyptian crossing, expand their horizons by upping the destructive ante: they investigate infiltrating a suicide bomber with a chemical weapon, say, or a biological one. The argument against killing large numbers of Arabs along with Jews is no longer a hindrance – a Gazan imam has declared that any Israeli Arab inadvertently murdered by a Palestinian fighting to reclaim his homeland will be given 36 almond-eyed virgins in paradise.
* * *
Which is it going to be? I don’t think we’ll see either of these extremes, but the needle on my barometer is tilting slightly toward the pessimistic. It’s an exceptionally fragile situation. If things start well, it could pick up momentum, but the muscle-minority in the area won’t be well-served by a smooth transition.
We’ll just have to wait and see.
39 Comments:
You've captured the essence of what we're facing.
I pray for the former; I fear for the latter.
What a sad, beautifully written piece. I can hope that the sight of Israeli troops forcing the withdrawal sets as example of law and order. But I fear that it will be taken as a sign of fear. I do not believe that is is a sign of fear, but offered as a desperate chance for peace. One I fear will be in vain. Thank you for this wonderful article.
I think it a virtual given that the second scenario is the future. You have Hamas already declaring "victory" and even the "moderate" Abu Mazen claiming "Tomorrow Jerusalem, Insh'Allah!". All indications are that they seek further territorial acquisition, not accomodation or improved quality of life.
Suggestions to the contrary are fanciful wishing, IMHO.
Unfortunately, there's a third scenario ... actually, a slightly different version of your second scenario.
Should the Palestinians use the Gaza "victory" as an impetus to continue the attacks on Israel, the Israelis will (rightfully, IMO) consider this Casus Beli and declare war on the Palestinians.
Without the excuse of "Israeli Occupation" the Palestinians will have no support outside of true anti-Semites when the Israelis defeat them militarily.
And when the Israelis (again, rightfully so) take back the "occupied lands" the cycle of victimhood will start all over again. The other Arab nations will complain about the Israelis and there will be more international support for the Palestinians from the usual suspects, i.e. the UN, Europe, etc.
With this support, the Palestinians will go back to targeting Israeli civilians.
Unfortunately, I can easily envision a scenario where history repeats itself.
There's another, happier ending to Bill's third scenario: next time the Israelis clean the terrorists out of Gaza completely and the Iraqis help them istitute a genuine democracy.
Well said. I think you captured the two possibilities that are floating out there. And clearly anyone stupid enough to believe that the first will come to pass deserves the second.
In 1985 nobody imagined that the Cold War would end with a democracy (of sorts) and not a smoking hole in the ground in place of the Soviet Union. Who knows.
Of course if one day we woke up to find every street light in Gaza decorated with a rope and a member of Hamas Door Number One would seem a lot more likely.
My version of a third scenario is a wall surrounding Israel and walling off the Palestinians until a new generation figures out that violence did not accomplish the destruction of the enemy. I have not seen German suicide bombers demanding the Sudetenland or Polish suicide bombers demanding the part of Belarus that was once Poland. My fear is an Iranian nuke. We'll see.
Sad, because I fear the images that are coming. As bad as the images of this week have been, we'll soon be treated to images of Hamas and Islamic Jihad dancing and praising allah while the former homes and synagoges of the Gaza Settlers are desecrated and burned.
I have never understood Israeli thinking on this issue. Any Palestinian state is likely to be a terrorist state, so what is the point in cooperating in your own destruction? The only thing that makes sense is that withdrawal from Gaza will free Israeli hands for the war that is to come. The next step will be that Bin Laden and al-Queda will move into Gaza, with the blessings of any government that it has (Hamas). Let them have Gaza; they don't know what to do with it. Stand back and be prepared to shell it, for that is what will be needed, without having to worry about a couple thousand settlers.
MIke K said...
My version of a third scenario is a wall surrounding Israel and walling off the Palestinians until a new generation figures out that violence did not accomplish the destruction of the enemy.
A corollary to this is that once the world can no longer parse the story as "Israeli Oppressors victiming poor Palestinians", the MSM will lose interest and the Palestinians will be left alone to simmer in their squalor, unable to seriously damage Israel, and turning their rage on each other in internecine warfare.
Great post. You said exactly what was on my mind and eloquently. I believe there is no way for your first scenario to occur, given the history of instilling hatred of Israel in their youth. They know nothing but hate and have no impetus or drive to make such a large shift in their society.
The MSM and the usual suspects will NEVER lose interest in making out Israel to be the oppressor in this story, no matter what it does. To hear them tell it, you'd never know of the offers at Camp David & Taba, that Israel restrained from responding to a number of terror attacks to "break the cycle of violence" (which proved there is no such thing, only Arab aggression), etc.
When the problems in Gaza get worse, it will be the "legacy of occupation," the "continuing occupation" of other "Palestinian lands," and such nonsense.
I feel that for every suicide attack or rocket over the walls, Israel should unilaterally move the demarkation line ten yards over. For every month without one, a foot back. It's a simple enough system of rewards and punishments. Otherwise how are they going to learn?
How about the 'Palestinians' (a word more like 'Europeans' than 'Australians' in terms of delineating someone's national origin) get the rest of their land back when Jews are provided full and complete restitution of their lands and properties stolen when they were forced to abandon them during the post-1948 expulsions from Arab nationalist states?
Quid Pro Quo, Clarice..
And if they try another war, push 'em _all_ out, Gazans into Egypt and West Bankers into Jordan, respectively.
Here is an alternative scenario, extending from your pessimistic scenario: The Palestinians will not turn from terror, so after the pull out and a long period of terror attacks perpetrated by the Palestinians, Israel nukes the Gaza Strip. Everyone around the world is shocked; they hold their breath. Israel announces that the West Bank is now officially part of Israel and that all Palestinians will be forced to leave. Once they're gone, Israel lives in peace.
BTW, this is what an Instalanche looks like. Even attracts comment spam...
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Since I'm not there on the ground, I'd *love* to get your assessment of my take on it, if you don't mind.
Am printing your post to mull over now.
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I think Hamas is a "dead man walking," and doesn't even realize how the ground has just shifted so far out of their favor that it doesn't matter how they react.
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I think there's also the scenario which probably prompted Sharon to go for a pullout in the first place: once there are no very-hard-to-defend settlers in Gaza forcing the Israelis to restrain themselves, they can start answering any Palestinian terror from Gaza with truly appropriate (i.e. horrifyingly violent) means. The wall around the West Bank is hard enough to build while still protecting settlements. Having Gaza clear means one big simple wall to build and makes scorched earth reprisals much easier to carry out.
Read it. It's good. Scenario #1 is a non-starter with the current leadership... scneario #2 I think is the baseline from which things will move.
Said reprisals needn't be "scorched earth." Israel's done a fine job whacking the Hamas leadership already... I can't imagine that would change any time soon, in either Gaza or the West Bank
that would be 72 virgins.
Suppose that your first scenario were to happen, and the Palestinians devotd themselves to the arts of peace.
What would be the attitude of the fervent pro-Palestinian forces in the US and Europe--the professors, the liberal churchmen, etc?
I think they would lose all interest in their Palestinian clients, once they were no longer engaging in acts of "revolutionary" violence.
Money ALREADY poured in.
Suha Arafat has it in Paris.
It seems to me that the Palastinians/Hamas are already predisposed to the latter scenario.There is absolutely no need for them to change the status quo. Their current incarnation get's them land from the Iraelis and treasure from the liberal europeans and americans.
What have the Pali/hamas ever done to give any indication they would change?
once there are no very-hard-to-defend settlers in Gaza forcing the Israelis to restrain themselves, they can start answering any Palestinian terror from Gaza with truly appropriate (i.e. horrifyingly violent) means.
I agree. I think this might even be Sharon's intention -- that the withdrawal is part of a larger plan to allow Israel to 1) expose the "terrorism is a response to Israeli occupation" excuse as the lie it is, and 2) permit unrestrained military response to the Gaza Strip without fear of Israeli settlers getting caught in the crossfire.
I agree with the previous comment. I think Sharon is "circling the wagons."
If this works out then maybe Sharon will be getting a call from the Nobel people.
If it doesn't it is time for the IDF to really step it up a notch. A bombing now would be the worst sort of betrayal.
The Palestinians will have effectively taken the olive branch from Israel and snapped it in half.
Third option. Palestinians flush with victory over chasing out Israelis resume attacks. Attacks are returned whenever reasonable until pals get tired of their homes being destroyed because it was used as a temporary rocket launch base. The fence around Gaza is built without gates or crossing areas, just minefields, snipers, and such.
The fence around the West Bank which has dutifully followed the 1967 borders so far starts to veer, gobbling up most of East Jerusalem for Israel. Gaza settlers are given the opportunity to resettle in East Jerusalem and many Palestinians are expelled. Areas that cause trouble find border crossings closed and the Pal economy continues to crumble in the areas that welcome radicals.
Great post, Gloria. Problem in this situation is that the former would take a near miraculous coming together ... any suicidal 15 year old with a basic knowledge of chemistry (for bomb making) could start the latter
"You must do the thing you think you cannot do."
Eleanor Roosevelt
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Todays inspirational quote:
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I'm afraid of scenario #1. Because you ended it too soon. You end scenario #1 with Israel preparing a further withdrawal, presumably under threat that if it doesn't the terror will resume (otherwise, why withdraw at all?). So there's another withdrawal, and more dispossessed Jews, and the "Palestinian" state grows stronger and more prosperous, and there's another withdrawal, and the cycle continues.
Until there's nowhere left that Israel is prepared to withdraw from, and it becomes clear to the Arabs that the peace process isn't going to get them anything more. Then they attack. With all their forces, on all fronts: "Palestinians", Egyptians, Syrians, and perhaps Jordanians.
This is what the Arabs have been waiting for since the Rabat conference in 1974. This is what Sadat was preparing for when he declared that the Camp David treaty was subordinate to Egypt's treaties with the other Arab countries. When the folly of territorial concessions has played itself out, when Vichy Israel is at its smallest and weakest, the time will come to finish it off, and the Jewish dream will be over.
Gaza is a small, 38 years overdue start. Settlers out of Palestinian land now.
I think the latter scenario will come to past since unfortunately, a terrorist cannot change it's spots.
I fear that scenerio #1 is based on the same self delusion as was denial of the danger of Nazism in the 30's. Both scenerios err in treating this as a local Isreal-Palestne Arab conflict. It is not. The violence is driven externally by the same Islamofasism that wishes to impose its will throughout the world.
I am an outsider looking into your world. I stil couldn't understand why it came to this? I feel for the people who had their homes taken away (my opinion). Thank you for you blog. I will keep reading!
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