Sharon's "universal disengagement from Gaza".

There are several reasons why Catholics should continue to reflect on and analyze the developments in the Israeli-Palestinian area. Among them are, first, the (spectacular) phenomenon of the in-gathering of the Jews into a new state after two thousand years of dispersal throughout other nations. This is not just a political/historical phenomenon but--for Christians--a development which raises theological questions (which will not be discussed in this article).

Also, by way of background, a second more secular reason is that the creation of the new state has been accompanied by a seemingly enduring conflict with the Arab nations surrounding it, and with open antagonism from the Muslim world beyond Arabia. This, therefore, involves the rest of the world.

A third reason is that, since the great military victory of Israel over its Arab neighbours in 1967, the "Palestinian problem" has intensified. While today Israel rules three million Palestinians outside its own borders in the so-called occupied territories of the West Bank and the Gaza strip, it simultaneously builds Jewish towns and cities (called settlements) in these same areas. Connected to one another and to Israel by roads-for-Jews-only, this network carves up the West Bank into separate enclosures for Palestinians who, in turn, are cut off from one another. This looks more and more like a preparation for a future expulsion of the Palestinians.

As the conflict between Arab and Jew continues, Israel has grown to a population of 6.7 million, mostly immigrants, lately especially from Russia and Argentina. This figure includes one million Palestinian native Arabs. These are discriminated against both in law and in practice, and a recent, June 2004, poll indicates that two-thirds of Jewish Israelis would like them to leave the country. Their existence adds another, possibly explosive, element to an already boiling cauldron.

Related aspects: Road Map

There are some other related developments. The "Road Map to Peace" was designed in the fall of 2001 by the United Nations, the European Union, and the Russian and American governments, and signed by the Israelis and Palestinians. It aimed at creating a two-nation peace settlement by the end of 2005 (Israel, and a new Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza). This plan became sidetracked by the American pre-occupation with fighting international terrorism, following the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. It was given a deathblow, in my opinion, when on April 16, 2004, President Bush reversed decades of post-war American foreign policy by accepting Sharon's concept of "Greater Israel," i.e., the formal incorporation of the Jewish towns on the West Bank into Israel itself. Also rejected was the Palestinian "right to return" (see Editorial "Bush endorses Greater Israel," C.I., June 2004, p.3).

Another event which increases tension is Israel's decision to build a wall (called a security "fence" or barrier by those wishing to avoid a comparison with the Berlin Wall). It is laid out on the Palestinian side of the 1967 border line between Israel and the "Palestinian" areas (see Editorial "Israel's Wall," C.I., February 2004, p. 3). As the Israelis see it, the wall is to protect them from Palestinian (Muslim) suicide bombers. During the three and a half years of the Intifadah (uprising), begun in September 2000, suicide bombers have killed some 450 Israelis, and many more have been wounded. From the Palestinian point of view, the wall isolates them into a prison-like existence even more than before and steals more of their land.

What is Sharon's "Unilateral Disengagement"?

The plan for Unilateral Disengagement from Gaza (from here on called "U.D.") envisages the removal of 7500 Jewish settlers in Gaza to be finished by the end of 2005. They are to be resettled on the West Bank. Any violence from Gaza thereafter will be punished by the cutting off of telephones, water, and electricity (April 29). Israel will complete the encirclement of Gaza with a wall. It will maintain a patrol road along the border of Egypt, as well as three settlements in the north of the strip to act as a barrier against attacks on Israel proper. It will continue to control all land, sea and air entrances.

After the completion of the wall around the West Bank, Israel will expel all Palestinians living "illegally" in Israel--tens of thousands of them, according to Sharon. And Israel will also maintain the "right to self-defence," i.e., to "hunt terrorists" in both Gaza and the West Bank (Sharon, April 2).

As the title "Unilateral" indicates, there is no question of Israeli dialogue with the Palestinians or, for that matter, with anyone else. Under this plan there is no place for Palestinian sovereignty of any kind other than the administration of a series of semi-destroyed, rundown slums.

Recent events

One way to sketch the immediate background to Sharon's plan and its planned execution is to enumerate the acts of violence on both sides reported in the press. The horrible details will not be recounted here.

Period I: February 22 to March 21, 2004

February 22. A Palestinian suicide bomber kills 8 people on a crowded Israeli bus and wounds 39. According to some, this was the 250tn bombing since the beginning of the Intifadah, although others speak of 110 bombings.

February 24 sees coordinated protests against the wall throughout the West Bank and Gaza strip, occasionally rebuffed by Israeli tear gas. The "fence" is now before the International Court in The Hague. Israel denies the Court's jurisdiction.

February 26. Israel seizes over $8 million from Arab banks in Ramallah, in an operation lasting 13 hours (42 Palestinians injured, 5 critically).

February 28. The mayor of Nablus resigns, blaming Arafat for letting the city descend into lawlessness.

March 2. A prominent Arafat adviser is gunned down in a hail of bullets in Gaza City. An Israeli court orders a temporary halt to a section of the barrier which will encircle thousands of Palestinians living near Jerusalem.

March 4. Israeli helicopters kill 3 Hamas "militants" in Gaza. Rescuers are impeded by Israeli gunfire for 30 minutes, until the car is burned out.

March 5. Soldiers kill a 14-year-old boy in Rafah, where bulldozers tear down houses during a day-long raid.

March 6. Israeli bulldozers conclude the ripping up of 250 acres of Palestinian-owned olive groves near Budrus, West Bank, to make way for the wall.

March 7. An Israeli raid on Gaza refugee camps leaves 14 Palestinians dead, including 3 boys aged 10, 12, and 13, and as many as 80 injured. Two Palestinian Authority policemen are killed when PA police intercept a suicide attempt on an Israeli position, killing 4 Hamas militants. On March 10 another Israeli raid, this one on the West Bank, leaves 5 Palestinian "militants" dead, plus a teenager elsewhere. By this time Sharon's U.D. plan is well-known. Incitement to hatred on Palestinian TV and in newspapers continues.

On March 14, two seventeen-year-old Palestinian suicide bombers manage to reach the sea-port of Ashdod, 40 kilometres north of the Gaza strip, killing themselves and in Israelis, and wounding 18. Sharon claims this as further justification for his unilateral action.

Israel imposes closure over the West Bank and Gaza for the time being, barring 19,000 Gaza workers from jobs in Israel. Retaliatory strikes begin. Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin is assassinated (March 22). Sharon declares the assassination of military leaders a "natural right" of Israel, while foreign ministers elsewhere call the "extra-judicial" killings counter-productive. Israelis use tanks in the invasion of the refugee camps. During the ten days ending March 21, 69 Palestinians are killed and "hundreds" wounded (Palestinian spokesman Saeb Erekat, March 22). Abdel Rizi Rantantisi succeeds Sheik Yassin, vows vengeance, rejects compromise with "Israeli terror," and is himself assassinated one month later (April 17). Casualties: February 22 to March 21: Killed: 19 Israelis; 104 Palestinians Wounded: 77 Israelis; at least 350 Palestinians

Israel and Gaza

Israel's Ariel Sharon predicted "a new and better reality" when he and President Bush publicly affirmed the incorporation of Jewish cities and towns on the West Bank as part of Israel on April 14 in Washington. While President Bush still spoke of a future Palestinian state, Sharon and his supporters have different plans. As pointed out by several commentators, Sharon's strategic objective has always been to prevent the creation of a Palesrinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. He sees such a state as a mortal danger to Israel (see, e.g., Shira Herzog, Globe and Mail, March 2). Sharon's view reflects an Israeli consensus.

If Palestinians were given a state on the West Bank today, the most territory they would acquire is somewhere near 40 per cent of the original 1967 West Bank. The rest has already been taken by Israel, including, of course, the territory annexed for a greatly expanded East Jerusalem. Every month that passes reduces the land available, often by "illegal" outposts perhaps not approved by Cabinet but sponsored by one or other Israeli ministry ("Israeli funds used for illegal settlements," Globe and Mail, May 6, 2004).

The Israeli promise of a "new and better reality" pertains to Israel, not to the West Bank or Gaza. One has only to examine the recent events in Gaza to see what is meant.

Period II: May 12-25

After beating back opposition to his proposed evacuation of Jewish settlers in the Knesset, Israel's parliament, Ariel Sharon orders a series of raids with tanks, bulldozers, and missiles into the Gaza town of Rafah along the Egyptian border, to end the smuggling of weapons through underground tunnels.

On the first day of the invasion, May 12, a roadside bomb rips apart an Israeli armoured personel carrier, killing 6 soldiers; a second explosion the next day kills another 5 soldiers. Later on two more are killed. Israelis retaliate that same day by killing 5 Palestinians, wounding 123, 14 critically, and bulldozing buildings and homes. By next day, May 13, the army has killed at least 17 more Palestinians, and wounded another 100. The army then begins to bulldoze all houses along the border road in Rafah, while retreating from Gaza City. In two days 400 metres of homes along the two-lane road are blown up.

On May 15, and days following, the Israelis return for the systematic razing of more buildings and homes of the refugee camp along the border road. More Palestinians are killed, though sources begin to lose track of how many. One report states that 10 more are killed on May 15.

On May 17 bulldozing begins in earnest. Power is knocked out in Gaza City by missiles. Missiles kill at least 5 Palestinians in Rafah. The Israelis are now talking about digging a deep moat to stop all further smuggling. They discover two new tunnels (88 had been destroyed over the previous three years).

Despite widespread international criticism, Israel demolishes many homes with bulldozers, tanks, and air attacks. On Friday, May 14, 88 houses are destroyed, leaving 1100 people homeless. American Secretary of State Colin Powell complains, but Sharon pays no attention.

The border road is 10 kilometres long and originally was 20 metres wide. The army now talks about widening it to 250 metres. Israel's Supreme Court approves the first batches of demolitions by rejecting a petition against it, setting the stage for an even larger assault. This begins during the night and morning of May 17 and 18. That day at least 20 Palestinians are killed and at least 42 are wounded. Eight of the 20 killed are under 18 years of age. On May 19, 10 Palestinians are killed in Rafah, including 4 children and teens aged 9 to 14, and 50 are wounded, 36 of them critically, most of them youngsters. On May 20, at least 10 more "terrorists" are killed and over 23 wounded, 5 critically. During the following days another 7 Palestinians are shot dead and others wounded.

By the time the Israeli army pulls out on May 25, another one hundred homes have been destroyed, leaving a total of 2000 people homeless.

U.N. sources state that since the beginning of the uprising in September 2000, over 2000 homes have been demolished, leaving more than 13,000 (some say 15,000) residents of the 90,000 people in the Rafah refugee camp homeless. They are refugees in their own "camp." Israeli army sources declare that another 700 structures must be demolished to get to their required width of 250 metres, but Sharon postpones this for the time being, perhaps until the world's attention is focused elsewhere.

The final count of casualties for the armoured incursion into Gaza's Rafah camp (from May 11 to 25): Killed: 13 Israelis; 79 Palestinians Wounded: 0 Israelis; 430 Palestinians (at least 55 critically)

No report is published in the West about how many of the critically wounded Palestinians subsequently die.

While there is a worldwide outcry on May 20, the Americans who, as far as Sharon is concerned, are the only ones who count, protest without much conviction. Security advisor Condoleeza Rice instead rebukes the Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia for not "reforming the Palestinian security forces" (which the Israelis destroyed earlier). The United Nations Security Council passes a resolution condemning the loss of life but the Americans abstain, not daring to use their veto however, as they have done over the last two years against any resolution critical of Israel.

The grand total of destruction for the two brief periods under investigation is as follows:

Killed: 32 Israelis; 183 Palestinians

Wounded: 77 Israelis; 880 Palestinians

Tunnels found: 3

Houses destroyed: 188 (Israeli report), 300 (Palestinian report)

Homeless: 2000 or more Palestinians

Please note that many wounded are crippled for life, especially among the Palestinians, whose hospitals often lack proper facilities.

Sources

The above figures have been pieced together from daily or weekly reports from four Toronto newspapers: the Sun, National Post, Globe and Mail, and Toronto Star; from TV reports; and from the weekly Canadian Jewish News. The daily newspapers differ in coverage. The Toronto Star provides the most detailed reports on Palestinian casualties; the Sun sometimes provides short briefs when others are silent; the Globe has extensive coverage but fewer news reports; the Post emphasizes, and justifies, the Israelis. The Canadian Jewish News brings little news on Palestinian casualties but devotes a great deal of space to Israeli politics, internal disagreements, and larger overviews.

Three final notes:

Most settlers in Gaza remain opposed to Sharon's plan; some are so angry that they seem prepared to offer violent resistance.

Current plans call for the destruction of the Jewish settlements when the Jewish settlers depart, therefore leaving nothing for the Palestinians ("Israel to destroy homes when settlers leave Gaza," Globe and Mail, June 10; Canadian Jewish News, July 1, 2004, p.31).

The United Nations provides whatever humanitarian aid is given. Large numbers of Gaza Palestinians live on less than one dollar a day. The following description by French journalist Laetitia Bucaille sums up life in Gaza:

   Economically backward, essentially agricultural Gaza,
   with its population of 80,O00, had to absorb a tidal wave
   of 180,000 refugees in 1948. In 2004 half the population
   (of 1.3 million) still lives in filthy refugee camps....
   The electrified barrier is highly effective. It has made it
   virtually impossible to escape from Gaza, and the result is
   a sense of imprisonment and suffocation. There are 3,766
   people to every square kilometre in the territory. The towns,
   camps, and houses are hideously overpopulated.... The people
   speak of Gaza as a "rabbit hutch" or a "life-size jail."
   (Growing up Palestinian: Israeli Occupation and
   the Intifada Generation (Princeton University
   Press, p. 158); quoted in Globe and Mail, June
   26. 2004, D4).

Observation: If Sharon's Unilateral Disengagement is a step forward on the road to a peace settlement and reconciliation, one wonders what a step backwards would mean.

Father Alphonse de Valk, c.s.b., is a priest of the Congregation of St. Basil and editor of this magazine.