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With the unilateral Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip
approaching, there are increasing concerns about the fate of the 1.3
million inhabitants of the territory after the withdrawal. Up to now
there has been no clear information given out to Palestinians regarding
the actual process of disengagement, and no guidance as to what life in
Gaza
will be like afterward. Will there be freedom of movement? Will there be
safe passage to the West Bank?
What will happen to the lands that were occupied by the settlers?
Israel
still refuses to give the Palestinians vital details related to the
disengagement plan, despite the 10 meetings held between the two sides
over the past few months.
Palestinians will look for a tangible improvement in their living
conditions - unrestricted freedom of movement, an end to violence, the
restoration of law and order, an improvement in the economic situation
and the renewed possibility of realizing their aspirations to establish
a state based on the 1967 borders. There are many questions with no
clear answers, but more worryingly, there are doubts on both sides as to
whether the Palestinian Authority (PA) can take charge of Gaza.
Although the present Palestinian leadership views violent confrontation
as an obstacle to realizing its political aims, its nonimplementation of
security reforms is liable to lead to ongoing instability. More
problematic, however, is the current cease-fire, which in the absence of
viable PA dominance is based solely on the will of the Islamist
organizations - Hamas and Islamic Jihad. If the PA's current reluctance
to reform continues, its ability to enforce law and order at the
Palestinian street level may diminish and clashes might take place among
between armed groups. Moreover, the worry is that the PA will not
succeed in building a well-functioning authority, especially as
elections have now been postponed until well after the disengagement,
and that chaos will prevail in Gaza.
It
is generally believed that PA President Mahmoud Abbas will be unable to
carry out necessary reforms and rebuild the security services without
the support of the European Union and the
United States.
Without urgent and massive financial aid from the international
community, it will be impossible to improve the Palestinians' economic
conditions to the extent and at the pace needed to prevent a
re-emergence of frustration.
Around 45,000 Palestinians presently work in Israel, 30,000 of them
illegally. The disengagement plan will sharply cut this number - and
also the amount of work that factories in the Palestinian territories
perform for Israeli companies. All this might deal another serious blow
to the PA after years of failure to reduce economic dependency on
Israel. This is due to the Palestinian leadership's lack of an economic
strategy focused on developing sources of employment. The Palestinian
economy, especially its labor market that has remained dependent on
Israel, is liable to suffer another severe blow because of the Israeli
disengagement.
Although a certain number of work permits will be issued over the next
few years to Gazans, this will soon change. On July 6, Amiram Gil wrote
in the Israeli daily Haaretz that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan is
for Israel to stop using workers from the
Occupied
Territories by 2008. This will lead to increased unemployment in
Palestinian areas and to a rise in crime, which in turn will have a
grave impact on the quality of life of Palestinians. Increased
unemployment will also lead to conflicts between the rich and the poor,
thus further dividing Palestinian society.
The PA's economic leadership has mainly devoted its efforts to
organizing monopolies controlling, among other things, gasoline, flour,
sugar, cigarettes, cement and steel. These monopolies made money for the
PA and those affiliated with it. In addition, the PA's economic
leadership devoted great efforts to please donor states with projects
that were not always properly planned. The PA preferred projects
creating symbols of sovereignty and prestige, such as the airport, a
power plant and a port in
Gaza,
as opposed to creating labor opportunities through long-term projects to
increase trade and employment.
The result is that the Palestinian labor market has remained largely
dependent on the Israeli economy, which will have implications for the
situation in Gaza after disengagement, especially if Palestinians are
denied access to jobs in Israel. There has been no PA social plan to
increase employment and there has been no plan to reduce poverty and
ease economic hardship - both likely after disengagement.
The PA also must decide what to do with the land that will return to
Palestinian control. The Israeli government has said it would demolish
settlers' homes after disengagement. However, the PA must control
possible looting and deal with squatters claiming they have a right to
evacuated land. Although the PA insists the post-disengagement process
will be transparent regarding the redistribution of land, there are
concerns land will be distributed to reward loyalty to the PA. The
transparency of the redistribution process will be crucial to the image
of the PA in the eyes of Palestinians and the international community.
If
the image of corruption is not curbed, support for Hamas and other
extremist parties will rise, even among the more secular Palestinians,
since they have a cleaner image.
Most important, however, will be the threat of increased internal
violence in various parts of Gaza due to the weakness of the PA and its
institutions. In order to avoid this, the PA must not hesitate to track
down the perpetrators of violent actions and bring them to justice. The
militias cannot be tolerated and cannot be given a free hand on the
streets of
Gaza
if law and order is to prevail. This will be essential in proving the
legitimacy and the capability of the PA to the international community,
and thus work to put pressure on the Israeli government to carry out
further disengagements in the West Bank.
Internal violence will also prevent Gazans from living normal lives
after the disengagement. If social problems such as unemployment and
housing are not dealt with urgently, crime and violence will increase,
forcing Gazans to live in a continued state of fear. It is imperative
that the soft approach to gun crime and terrorization of neighborhoods
by armed gangs ends and that criminals be put behind bars, not
incorporated into the security forces and the police as is currently
being done. |
