What Israelis and Anti-Zionists Get Right

A short account of the worsening situation in the Gaza Strip

The disputed territories (MapQuest 2016)

It’s an accepted fact, in the western world, that Israel is treating Gazans very poorly. With its restrictions on freedom of movement, trade of goods, and essential infrastructure, Israel has reduced life in Gaza to a horrific state, which the UN claims will be unsustainable by 2020. Many believe that Israel’s restrictions are unjust and unnecessary, and that Israel should cease imposing these restrictions immediately and completely in order to improve the life of Gazans. But is this a realistic demand?

What most Israelis and all anti-Zionists get right is that the poor state of the Gaza Strip is not an outcome of Israel’s immediate policies, but rather a problem that stems from Israel’s mere existence.

Egyptians and Jordanians, and their respective governments, have always been great champions of Palestinians and their struggle against the Zionists. Despite successful peace agreements with Israel, the overwhelming perception among Egyptians and Jordanians is that Israel is still very much an enemy state. In both countries, any rapprochement with Israel is met with harsh criticism against the government— a rare act in the Arab world.

But in recent years, it seems that an opposite trend is emerging. On a political level, Israel’s relations with Egypt and Jordan have strengthened significantly, while Gaza’s relations with the two Arab countries gradually deteriorated. So much so that Egypt is imposing its own blockade on Gaza, wages war against it, and considers its ruling party, Hamas, a terrorist organisation. In Jordan, Hamas is effectively banned; the Jordanian government imposes even stricter travel restrictions on Gazans than Israel does. Hamas has also lost the support of countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia. In fact, Hamas hardly has any friends left in the region.

To explain this, we must examine the changes that occurred in the Palestinian arena:

Palestinians have two governments headed by two rivalling parties — a Fatah-controlled internationally recognised government in the West Bank, and a Hamas-controlled government in the Gaza Strip. Hamas gained control over the Gaza Strip in 2007. Its rise to power came after a long period of political squabbling between it and Fatah that quickly escalated into fierce fighting. This period, which some refer to as the Palestinian Civil War, ended in a violent coup confined to the Gaza Strip. Expelling the Fatah leadership from Gaza, Hamas established a separate government in the strip, parallel to that of Fatah’s existing government in the West Bank. It is estimated that some 600 Palestinians were killed in the clashes between the two parties during this period.

Since usurping power, Gazans who are not close to Hamas or the movements it supports suffer from its domestic and foreign policies, that greatly diverge from those of its opposing government in the West Bank. Levying increasingly high taxes, it managed to increase its tax revenue by 600% in the past year alone. Salaries in the public sector were drastically cut, and are often left unpaid. Tax exemptions on fuel for Gaza’s only power plant were gradually removed by Fatah, worsening the energy crisis. Freedom of speech is non-existent. Corruption is rampant. Externally, Hamas got into a bloody feud with Egypt, which resulted in even worse conditions for Gazans. Its ties with the so-called “axis of resistance” (Hezbollah-Syria-Iran), which once supported it financially and militarily, were cut.

One of the main reasons for Hamas’ growing unpopularity in the region is its feud with Egypt — the primary causes of which are the state of Gaza’s western border and Hamas’ affiliation to the Muslim Brotherhood movement in Egypt.

For over a decade the neglected desert region of northern Sinai serves as Gaza’s most lucrative smuggling route. Through this route, Hamas operatives smuggle anything from KFC meals and live lions, to AK-47s and Grad rockets. The tunnel network that facilitates this smuggling operation is jointly controlled by Hamas and ISIS Wilayat Sinai (the Sinai province of the Islamic State). In exchange for their cooperation, ISIS enjoys a portion of the weapons smuggled through the tunnels, refuge in the Gaza Strip is given to its members under the auspices of Hamas, and limited freedom of operation is permitted to various groups in Gaza sympathetic to ISIS and the idea of an Islamic Caliphate.

Egypt, which sees the violation of its sovereignty and the collaboration between ISIS and Hamas in Sinai as a betrayal, is working to systematically thwart this smuggling operation. So far the Egyptian Army destroyed over 1,000 tunnels using various methods. One of the methods used to deal with the tunnels is flooding them with sea-water to cause their collapse (a practice that often kills whoever happens to still be in the tunnel). Achieving the stated goal of destroying the tunnels, the floods also have devastating ecological implications — the sea water poisons aquifers in the area (an important source of fresh water in Gaza) and renders agricultural lands useless.

Relations with Hamas continued to deteriorate as Egypt accused Hamas of involvement in the assassination of Egyptian Prosecutor General Hisham Barakat. In a public statement, Egypt’s interior minister said that the assassination was “carried out on the orders of the Muslim Brotherhood in close coordination with Hamas”.

Hamas’ actions subsequently forced Egypt to shut down Gaza’s (and by large, Palestine’s) only border crossing not controlled by Israel, and classify Hamas as a terrorist organisation — an unprecedented move by all accounts.

A banner in Gaza holding Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas responsible for the electricity crisis as well as the blockade (Shehab News Agency)

Fatah, the rivalling Palestinian group which presides over the Palestinian Authority and the West Bank, has attempted to mend its ties with Hamas multiple times since its ousting from the Gaza Strip. Several mediated reconciliation talks took place in Arab and Islamic capitals since the coup. These talks so far only amounted to unfulfilled agreements and failed transitional governments. The core of the disagreement between Fatah and Hamas is control over the Gaza Strip, which Hamas is reluctant to hand over to the legitimate and internationally recognised Palestinian leadership.

In the interest of easing the Egyptian blockade on the strip, Fatah and Egypt tried to negotiate the reopening of the border crossing near the split city of Rafah. For this much needed relief, Egypt demanded that the border crossing will be operated by Fatah— a demand which Hamas refused to meet.

Hamas largely attributes its hard-line approach to the greater cause of leading an uncompromising war against Israel. Regardless of whether this cause is just or not, it is important to note that this approach comes at the expense of Palestinians who are trapped in Gaza, unable to express their discontent with Hamas fearing political persecution. It’s also important to note that the West Bank government is much more moderate in its approach: it cooperates with Israel extensively on economic and security issues, calls for peace negotiations, and even opposes (or at least doesn't support) the boycotting of Israel. Recent surveys consistently peg Fatah as favourite to win in a general election.

What most western countries and individuals fail to understand is that the dynamics in the region, even between Arabs and Palestinians themselves, are dynamics of war. Imposing restrictions on Gazans, whether it be by Israel, Egypt or Fatah, is a legitimate act and an integral part of war. All parties involved in this conflict have the ability to better the daily life of Gazans, yet only one party is expected to do so.

Hamas has shown that it is unable and downright unwilling to work with its Arab brothers to provide relief for its citizens. As long as Hamas is at the helm, Israel’s laws and regulations will be secondary in importance to its mere existence as an obstacle to normal life in Gaza.