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Gaza: Go Your Own Way

(New York Times) Martin Indyk - Gaza today is ruled not by the Palestinian Authority but by competing warlords, armed gangs, security chiefs, and terrorist organizations. There is no independent judiciary or rule of law. Educational and social institutions have collapsed. Unemployment is as high as 50%. Three months after Israel's withdrawal, there are few signs of renewed economic activity. If elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council are held in January as scheduled, Hamas is widely expected to take half the seats in Gaza, putting it in a position to dominate politics there. If Hamas comes to rule over a failed, terrorist state in Gaza, Israelis will simply close the border crossings and rely on the border fence and military deterrence to protect themselves. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Jim Wolfensohn, the Middle East envoy for the quartet, remain focused on turning the Gaza disengagement into a springboard for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. But their admirable efforts are hobbled by the weakness of the PA and the lack of interest from Israelis looking out for their security first. Fostering negotiations will grow only more challenging when January elections bring Hamas into the Palestinian political mainstream with its terrorist abilities intact. Some Gazans suggest that the time has come to create their own independent state in the part of Palestine that has now been liberated. American interests might be better served by mustering international support for the establishment of a Palestinian state in Gaza first. Egypt is already quietly adopting the role of custodian in Gaza, putting Egyptian colonels in control of Palestinian border brigades. Wolfensohn could focus his considerable energies on helping Gazans reorient their trade through Egyptian ports, across a border that is no longer controlled by Israel. Only when Egyptians and Jordanians put their own separate interests first was peace forged between those countries and Israel. Perhaps the time has come for Gazans to do the same. The writer is the director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.
2005-12-02 00:00:00
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