Okay, yesterday I was complaining here that the US MSM hasn’t paid much attention to the 1.38 Palestinians of Gaza– or to their 6-million-plus compatriots in other places– amidst all the coverage of the “fate” of the handsomely compensated 8,500 Israeli settlers now being required to leave the Gaza Strip.
Today, Greg Myre of the NYT has a fairly well-done piece on the aspirations of the Gaza Palestinians. It is a good job, and very welcome. However, in general the amount of coverage that NYT has given over, say, the past two months to 8,500 people who’ve been enjoying a heavily subsidized lifestyle to live in colonies illegally established on land under military occupation versus that given to the territory’s 1.39 million indigenous residents has still been very disproportional.
Myre’s piece notes that,
- Mr. Abbas’s Fatah movement, which dominates the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas, the militant Islamic group that has carried out many of the deadliest attacks against Israel, are both claiming credit for the Israeli withdrawal, and they may hold rival events.
Obviously, the way that that plays out over the days ahead will be very interesting. Yesterday or the day before Hamas did come to some agreement with Abu Mazen on allowing the Israeli withdrawal to happen in as orderly a fashion as possible. I think we can surmise that this is in the joint interest of Hamas, Abu Mazen, and Ariel Sharon…
But evidently, Hamas wants to claim the Israeli withdrawal has been forced by the militant actions it has sustained against the Israelis for many years, while Abu Mazen will want to claim it is a fruit only of his diplomacy.
Expect some truly massive Palestinian street rallies in the cities and towns of Gaza– and quite likely, also of the West Bank– as the Israelis withdraw from Gaza. They will probably dwarf the gathering of some 100,000 Israeli settler activists that was held in Tel Aviv recently.
By the way, regarding the nature of media coverage, the BBC website has an interesting “diary” by a Gaza-based, 47-year-old PA employee called Hakeem Abu Samra who says, among other things,
- My father and cousin have owned about 60 dunums of land [about 15 acres] close to the border between Gaza and Israel since 1936, when the whole area was still under British Mandate.
We have not been on that land since 1970, when we got a military order forbidding us from entering the area.
This land was sliced into three by streets connecting the four settlements built there, including Dugit, the one nearest to us.
It was very upsetting for our family – especially as our grandfather had died on that land, shot by Israeli soldiers on patrol in 1956, two years before I was born.
I cannot describe what it is like to see your land, to be near to it, but to be forbidden from entering it. You cannot put it into words.
Seeing settlers on our land, planting their crops, making money, it is like someone has stolen something from you.
These people hurt me and my family, they built their house on my family’s land and kept it for nearly 40 years.
My father and cousin have since died, but my brothers and my cousin’s brothers are looking forward to seeing the settlers leave and getting the land back.
Once we get the land back, we will look for compensation from the International Court of Justice.
But most importantly, once we get rid of the occupation in Gaza we hope to live just like human beings, as in any other country.
We want to be safe and free, to be left alone to take care of ourselves.
We can live as good neighbours, so Israel should stop bothering our lives.
The BBC also has a “diary” by a soon-to-depart Jewish settler, that it launched one day before Abu Samra’s. (Why?) This guy, Pesach Aceman, displays all the self-referential provincialism of pampered colonists similarly subjected to decolonization in other parts of the world over the past half century. Interesting in that regard, perhaps…
An example:
- We hear that the Palestinians are preparing thousands of flags to fly from the abandoned Jewish houses, synagogues and shops. How disgusting and how painful this will be. What will it do to the kids and young teenagers to see this on the TV news?
No hint there that the category “kids and young teenagers” would actually, in the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, nowaadays include more young Palestinians than young Israelis– and that just about every young Palestinian seeing Palestinian flags flying over previous Israeli settlements is going to be completely delighted at the sight. No, for Pesach Aceman and his pampered ilk, the category “kids and young teenagers” would necessarily only apply to Israelis, with the Palestinians remaining, for him, apparently quite invisible.
Oy vey.
The NYT, by the way, today has an interactive map feature that’s interesting to look at. You can click on various points and get seatellite images of what’s underneath. In this way you can get an idea of how many thousands of dunums of land within the settlements’ perimeters have been turned into greenhouses.
(I note, though, that the NYT interactive feature has zero clicking points above Palestinian population centers… Are they too insignificant to care about, I wonder?)
Re the greenhouses, Haaretz is reporting that the economic envoy to the Palestinian-Israeli talks, Jim Wolfensohn, has pulled together a deal that will reward the plantation owners of the “Gush Katif” settlement bloc with $14 million, as the “purchase price” for 75 percent of their greenhouses.
It can often really hurt the feelings of earlier victims when their victimizers get handsome payoffs simply for agreeing to stop their acts of victimization. In this case, the PA objected most strenuously to the idea that US aid funds earmarked for the Palestinians should be used to help buy out (= “reward”) the Israeli settler plantation owners.
So now, Wolfensohn has found $14 million of “private money” to fund the purchase. The greenhouses in question will be transferred to “a PA company.”
I’m not sure how necessarily desirable or how stable over the longer term this arrangement is. Many private Palestinian landowners have title to lands that were used by the settlements. Their claims need to be discussed. Also, why should we assume that PA ownership and the pursuit of a set of economic projects that met the colonists’ economic needs though not necessarily those of the Palestinians, are what is required?
Well, this is how it’ll work out for now. Those Gush Katif plantation owners will make out like bandits. They’ll pocket both the Israeli government compensation for their houses (in which they have already lived a heavily subsidized life for many years now), and now the international money being paid for their (also previously subsidized) greenhouses. The PA will get its hands on an economic project of some present viability. Jim Wolfensohn will look like a talented philanthropist.
But I imagine the real issues over the socioeconomic development of Palestinian Gaza, and the question of who gets to exercize political control over it, all still lie ahead.
But evidently, Hamas wants to claim the Israeli withdrawal has been forced by the militant actions it has sustained against the Israelis for many years, while Abu Mazen will want to claim it is a fruit only of his diplomacy.
I think Abbas has the long-term advantage here, given that his picture will soon be on every construction project and jobs program in Gaza.
In this case, the PA objected most strenuously to the idea that US aid funds earmarked for the Palestinians should be used to help buy out (= “reward”) the Israeli settler plantation owners.
It’s hardly as simple as that. The land on which the greenhouses stand may be stolen, but the greenhouses themselves aren’t; they represent a real investment of money and effort by the settlers who built them. There were some subsidies for building the greenhouses, but these were nowhere near total and their subsequent operation and improvement wasn’t subsidized. As such, it seems reasonable to compensate the settlers for handing them over intact; in fact, that seems quite a bit more reasonable than compensating the settlers for the homes themselves.
Also, why should we assume that PA ownership and the pursuit of a set of economic projects that met the colonists’ economic needs though not necessarily those of the Palestinians, are what is required?
Well, the greenhouses have been a very profitable enterprise for the settlers, and the PA seems to think they can continue to be so under Palestinian ownership. Both the PA and Wolfensohn, who has some knowledge of development economics, have placed a priority on obtaining the greenhouses, and I would give some weight to their judgment about Palestinian economic needs.
The private land claims will definitely need to be settled. Maybe the landowners can be given shares in the greenhouses, become part of a co-op or receive title to the land with the right to collect ground rent.
BTW, according to Ha’aretz (sourced to Al-Ahram), Israel may hand over the Rafah crossing to joint Egyptian-Palestinian control. I’m not sure how accurate the report is – there have been a lot of conflicting stories about the future of the Gaza-Egypt border – but if true this would be a good sign.
“it seems reasonable to compensate the settlers for handing them over intact”
Then the Israeli government, that induced them to move there in the first place, should compensate them. It stinks to high heaven to use money donated to the Palestinians for this purpose.
I second Shirin’s comment. Most of the settlers knew full well that the world viewed their tenancy in Gaza as illegal when they moved there. Let the Israel and its private supporters reimburse them if they feel that reimbursement is warranted.
If this deal is anything like the one under discussion before, the donor money will come on top of Israeli government compensation. But in any event, it seems to me that the issue of who pays for the greenhouses is less important than getting them into Palestinian hands. If the PA had lost a major economic opportunity due to objections over the source of the funds, that would have been more unfortunate than any use of donor money.
Comments crossed in the mail.
Let the Israel and its private supporters reimburse them if they feel that reimbursement is warranted.
That’s precisely what the Wolfensohn-brokered deal is doing – most of the donor money is coming from private American sources. The sources aren’t named, but I’d assume that most if not all of them are “private supporters” of Israel.
Sharon has demanded $2.2 billion in US aid in exchange for Gaza. It looks as though the US is going to pay it. $14 million from private donors is a tiny pittance in comparison to what US taxpayers are going to pay for someone else’s illegal settlements.
From what media coverage I’ve seen of settlers, Helena, I have to say that I have not seen any sympathetic bias to them. I can’t think of any article or TV item that portrays them in a positive light, as well they shouldn’t be.
I have a question on an obscure point. The April 14, 2004 letter from George Bush to Ariel Sharon approving Sharon’s Gaza disengagement plan contains the following sentence:
“We also understand that, in this context, Israel believes it is important to bring new opportunities to the Negev and the Galilee.”
My understanding is that these areas within Israel have relatively large Arab populations. I can only interpret this to mean that the U.S. will look the other way if Israel decides to confiscate some of the Arab lands in these areas to make way for Jews being relocated from Gaza.
Is there another explanation?
most of the donor money is coming from private American sources. The sources aren’t named, but I’d assume that most if not all of they are “private supporters” of Israel.
A consortium of wealthy Americans has put up $14 million to compensate Jewish settlers for their Gaza Strip greenhouses, and the facilities will be handed over to the Palestinians as soon as the Israelis leave, participants in the deal said Friday.
By GREG MYRE
Published: August 13, 2005
http://nytimes.com/2005/08/13/international/middleeast/13mideast.html
Of course these donors will get Tax Cut for their donationes to Israel, the realty will affect US taxpayers are going to pay for Israel
Friday night on CSPan the Israeli Ambassador to the US, Ayalon, speaking before the Washington Press Club, referred to development in Negev and Galilee as the basis for the US aid for Israel under negotiation by the two governments. He referred to it as development aid for directing settlers’ resettlement to those two areas. Clearly sounds like something to watch closely.
Jonathan Edelstein, You are a lawyer, why US government and private donors give money to compensate Israel occupation land? As John said these settlers the knew before the came these homes and greenhouses are illegal and the land that put one not their land, so in which law this be write thing to do? Can you tell me?
In legal terms, the greenhouses are “movable property” rather than “fixtures” because they can be dismantled and taken off the land. This means that the ownership of the greenhouses is separate from the ownership of the land on which they stand. The settlers don’t own the land, but they do own the greenhouses, and they’d be within their rights to take the greenhouses apart and move them back to Israel. So if the PA wants to have the greenhouses instead, it’s reasonable for the settlers to be paid.
More to the point, though, the evacuation is a political issue as well as a legal one. The goal is to get the settlers out quickly, with a minimum of trouble, and to get the greenhouses into Palestinian hands intact. If compensation will get them out more quickly and with less trouble, then it might be worth paying. Politics is made of compromise, and practicality must take precedence over legal or moral purity in many political situations; it would be self-destructive for the PA to do itself out of the greenhouses simply because it doesn’t like where the money’s coming from.
I regard to the donations and compensation to Israel this not first time Israel lived on the major donation and support by aide from US from day one and US taxpayers are going to pay for this
Private donors can do whatever they want with their money; if Wolfensohn wants to kick in half a million bucks to buy the Gush Katif greenhouses for the PA, that’s his affair. And if the evacuation will serve any American interest – for instance, moving the Middle East one step closer to peace and political stability – then it’s for the American government to decide whether helping to fund it would be worthwhile.
You aren’t an American taxpayer, Salah, so why would you object? I am an American taxpayer, and I’m perfectly OK with my tax money going to facilitate the first step toward ending the occupation.
Re the Negev and Galilee: every proposal I’ve seen involves resettling the Gush Katif residents on public land. Arab land inside Israel hasn’t been confiscated for settlement purposes since the early 1950s, and Arab farmers in Wadi Ara recently got 11,400 dunams back.
“”
From everything I have read and observed the Ghaza withdrawal is not a step toward ending the occupation, but part of an Israeli shell game.
“every proposal I’ve seen involves resettling the Gush Katif residents on public land. Arab land inside Israel hasn’t been confiscated for settlement purposes since the early 1950s”
Public land in Israel consists largely of Arab land which became “public” by one pretext or another.
You aren’t an American taxpayer, Salah,
Yes, you are quite right it
Jonathan Edelstein,
Gush Katif residents on public land. Arab land inside Israel
Excuse me Jonathan I think this misused of words.
The main thing her it
“every proposal I’ve seen involves resettling the Gush Katif residents on public land”
Jonathan, I bow to your superior knowledge of the situation, but if it’s just a matter of Israel giving some of its “public land” to the former Gaza residents, then why was it necessary to insert the sentence I quoted above in a letter of understanding between George Bush and Ariel Sharon? Surely it is no business of ours what Israel does with its own “public land.”
Salah:
The main thing her it
The question I have is why does Israel need assistance from the the US for developments (Galilee, Negev, et cet.) if the individual settlers are being compensated. They have been “made whole” (I am a lawyer, too), so there should be no reason for the US to “compensate” Israel for fixing its violation of international law and its citizens’ (settlers’) violation of international law. The settlers should be able, with their compensation, to build a new house anywhere in Israel proper with their compensation. It seems to me this is an undisguised payoff to the Israeli government, and for what? Given the expansion of bantustans in the West Bank and Jerusalem, the US is getting one problem for another. I resent, as a US citizen, that my money is being spent for these purposes. The government of Israel should not be compensated for correction of violations of international law. It should be punished.
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I dunno, Charles. We can speak of international law, but the fact is that the rule of law doesn’t function effectively on an international scale, and international disputes are still dealt with primarily on political rather than legal terms. This wouldn’t be the first time that a country was compensated or offered compensation for bringing itself into compliance with international law; for instance, consider all the incentives offered to Iran and North Korea in return for stopping their WMD programs, or the EU’s use of trade deals as a carrot for obtaining human rights commitments.
When there are courts that can issue binding and effective rulings on this sort of dispute, and when there’s a mechanism for bringing violators of international law (a category not limited to Israel by any means!) to book, then the ethics of compensation might be different. As things are, though, the fact of compliance is much more important than how compliance is obtained. Personally, I think that any American payment for resettlement expenses (as opposed to logistical aid directly related to the pullout) would be excessive, but I have no problem with compensation as a concept.
Jonathan, if you are right about how the Gaza settlers are being relocated, then I would agree that compensation is not a major issue. I would rather see U.S. aid to Israel being used to facilitate withdrawal from the occupied territories than for military purposes, even if some of the recipients are less than deserving.
I would rather see U.S. aid to Israel being used to facilitate withdrawal from the occupied territories than for military purposes
Yeah, me too – as far as I’m concerned, this is money better spent than most of the aid that’s gone that way. Hopefully there’ll be some diplomatic follow-up once the pullout is over.