Israeli-Hamas Truce : Bold Steps for Gaza
Following article is from
iPeace where I am an active member.
Rene Wadlow
The truce between the Israeli government and the Hamas-led authorities
of the Gaza strip began on Thursday morning 19 June 2008. The truce was
mediated by Egypt and, if strong follow-up measures are taken quickly,
holds the possibility for new relationships. As a UN spokesperson said
“It is important that both sides honor the ceasefire, in order for it
to be the first constructive step towards a wider and more extensive
peace process between the sides.” There are many in Israel, in Gaza,
and in the Fatah-led West Bank who believe that the truce will be short
lived and will not change the deep divisions among Palestinians and
between Palestinians and Israelis. The truce is fragile in an area
where only a few sparks are needed to start a blaze. On 24 June, there
were three rockets fired from Gaza on the Israeli border town of Sderot
causing no injuries but constituting a breach in the five-day truce.
Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack saying it was an
answer to the Israeli military raid in the West Bank city of Nablus in
which two Islamic Jihad members were killed.
The truce agreement is meant to apply only to Gaza and not to the
Fatah-led West Bank. However, events in the West Bank will inevitably
color the nature and durability of the truce. Some non-Hamas groups
active in Gaza, such as the Islamic Jihad and the Al Aksa Martyrs
Brigades have said that they will retaliate from Gaza when there are
attacks against them in the West Bank.
There are those who think that the truce is only a cover for other
motivations. Some believe that Hamas will use the quiet to increase its
military strength. Others believe that the failure of the truce would
give legitimacy to Israel for a major military move into Gaza Thus, it
is important to try to structure the truce with some bold steps to
restore the economy, to offer possibilities for a better life in Gaza,
and to break the cycle of violence and counter-violence.
Despite the fragile nature of the truce, after a year-long economic
embargo, frequent Israeli air strikes and incursions, and a steady rain
from Gaza of rocket fire on near-by Israeli cities, the truce opens
some doors for creative action.
Measures to re-establish and develop the economy of Gaza are important
as the embargo has crippled and in some cases destroyed manufacturing
and agriculture, much of which was destined for the Israeli market or
must pass through Israel for Europe or elsewhere. The Gaza Strip is 25
miles long and 6 miles wide with some one and a half million people who
depend on imports for most basic goods and on export for livelihood.
The Israeli blockade has led to a very difficult economic and social
situation in Gaza with high unemployment, poor health facilities, a
lack of food and other basic supplies.
There is also a need to break the psychological barriers which can be
overcome by cooperative economic measures. The 2005 Israeli withdrawal
from Gaza was done without signs of good will or reconciliation. The
houses of Israeli settlers were destroyed so that they could not be
used, and there was no common economic planning. Gaza, even before the
withdrawal of Israeli settlers had real economic difficulties with a
young population looking for jobs, and a scarcity of natural resources
such as water and arable land. For socio-economic growth, there needs
to be economic planning and efforts that would bring together creative
energy, knowledge and money from Gaza, Israel, the West Bank and Egypt.
A possible model is the trans-state efforts of the Tennessee Valley
Authority (TVA) of the US New Deal. The TVA was a path-making measure
to overcome the deep economic depression of the 1930s in the USA. In
May 1933, the Roosevelt administration and the Congress created the
TVA. In his message to Congress, Roosevelt suggested that the Authority
should be a “corporation clothed with the power of Government but
possessed of the flexibility and initiative of a private enterprise. It
should be charged with the broadest duty of planning for the proper
use, conservation and development of the natural resources of the
Tennessee River drainage basin and its adjoining territory for the
general social and economic welfare of the Nation…This in a true sense
is a return to the spirit and vision of the pioneer. If we are
successful here, we can march on, step by step, in the development of
other great natural territorial units.”
The central idea back of the TVA was that it should do many things, all
connected with each other by the concrete realities of a damaged river
full of damaged people. To do all these well, it had to be a public
corporation: public, because it served the public interest and a
corporation rather than a government department, so that it could
initiate the flexible responsible management of a well-run private
corporation. As Stringfellow Barr wrote in Citizens of the World “The
great triumph of the TVA was not the building of the great dams. Great
dams had been built before. Its greatest triumph was that it not only
taught the Valley people but insisted on learning from them too. It
placed its vast technical knowledge in the pot with the human wisdom,
the local experience, the courage, and the hopes of the Valley people,
and sought solutions which neither the Valley folk nor the TVA
technicians could ever have found alone. It respected persons.”
The Gaza strip is not one of the great natural territorial units of the
world, and respect for persons has been in short supply. However, only
a New Deal is likely to break the cycle of violence and
counter-violence. A Gaza Development Authority, an independent
socio-economic corporation devoted to multi-sector and trans-national
planning and administration would be an important start in a new deal
of the cards. Such a Gaza Development Authority would obviously have
Hamas members but also persons chosen for their expertise as well as
persons from community organizations.
The Israeli-Hamas truce must be accompanied by strong socio-economic
structures which can hold during periods of inevitable future tensions.
It is important to have public expressions of support for the truce as
the start of a New Deal, as an important step away from permanent
confrontation, and as a prelude to socio-economic reform. A Gaza
Development Authority can be a framework for these strong follow up
measures to the truce.
Rene Wadlow, Representative to the United Nations, Geneva, Association
of World Citizens and editor of the on-line journal of world politics
and culture,
www.transnational-perspectives.org
GEORGIOS