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Stripped of Gaza, What Then?

(Ha'aretz) Amir Oren - In the scenarios of the General Staff and the Southern Command, even if all the settlers should disappear from Gaza by some wave of a magic wand, the fighting will continue. The calming of the sectors of the settlements and their access roads will not eliminate the determination of the Palestinians to take action against Israel, but will only channel it into the remaining sectors - or into new ones. The unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon did not put an end to Hizballah attacks; it only relocated them from the north to the territories. Without settlers and soldiers in the Gaza Strip, the friction with the Palestinians will be reduced, which is a good thing, but the base for hostile actions will grow, and in the eyes of the IDF and the Shin Bet that is a very bad thing indeed. Gaza could turn into a Palestinian Cape Kennedy, becoming a launching pad for mortar shells and Qassam rockets. The big Achilles heel of an evacuation of Gaza is Rafah. Israel is appalled by the thought of a Palestinian border with Egypt and with Jordan. This week in Cairo, Shin Bet chief Avi Dichter sought signs of Egyptian willingness to accept joint responsibility with the Palestinians for a border between them, but chances for that are slim. After the conquest of Gaza in 1967, the Egyptian threat was perceived to be greater than the Palestinian one. Hence the establishment, near the place where the Gaza Strip meets Egypt, of Gush Katif, the bloc of Israeli settlements; hence also the IDF's responsibility for guarding the line of contact between Egypt and Palestine, which on the maps is called the "Philadelphia" axis. Senior PA officials such as Jibril Rajoub are trying to reassure Israel that PA units will take control of Gaza. However, Mohammed Dahlan, the Prince of Gaza, did not carry through his promise to seize control there in the brief summer of the Abu Mazen government.
2004-02-27 00:00:00
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