August 12, 2005 The final countdown
The final countdown, Friday, August 12, 2005(Updated 20:30)
A $14 million deal was signed last night handing over some 3,500 dunam (1,000 square meters) of greenhouses in Gush Katif to the private Economic Cooperation Fund, which will hand over the greenhouses to the Palestinians. The deal, which gives $4,000 per dunam of standing greenhouses to those departing Israeli farmers who chose to trust that Quartet envoy James Wolfensohn and Vice Premier Shimon Peres would manage to pull off the arrangement, is said to guarantee that at least 3,000 Gazan Palestinian workers will continue to earn a livelihood from the export-quality herbs, vegetables and flowers grown in the plastic-sheeted barns. Earlier reports that USAID, the American government's international aid agency, were scotched. Some of the ECF money included $500,000 from Wolfensohn's own pocket, a show of faith in the deal by the former World Bank president who has been focused on how to help the Palestinians rebuild Gaza after the Israeli departure.
Much depends on how exactly the Palestinians take over the area left behind by the Israelis – indeed, how they manage Gaza once the Israelis are gone. The Hamas yesterday put on a show for the international Arab press in Gaza, with a few hundred uniformed and armed Hamas men simulating the ‘takeover’ of an abandoned settlement, up to and including planting the Hamas flag on the rooftop of the building. The Palestinian Authority meanwhile continues its efforts to win a pan-Palestinian agreement for unified celebrations organized by the PA after the Israeli departure, hoping to avoid scenes such as the one performed yesterday for the Arab TV cameras. PA President Mahmoud Abbas angered some in Fateh and the PA when he agreed this week to form a committee that includes Hamas representatives to approve plans for how the PA will deal with the Gush Katif and northwestern corner of Gaza that is being left by the Israelis.
According to PA negotiator Saeb Erekat, who spoke with Channel One TV this week, the main effort nowadays by the PA is to prove to the Palestinian public that ‘it was cooperation and coordination, not Qassams,’ that made the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza (and the northern West Bank around Jenin) possible. In other words, proving to the Palestinians that it was Abbas’ political-diplomatic approach, not the Hamas’ military-terrorist approach, that won the withdrawal from Gaza. It may not be much help that Hamas leaders in Gaza went to a meeting this week with Abbas, flanked by armed, uniformed Hamas ‘soldiers.’ That’s a direct challenge to Abbas’ ‘one PA, one law, on gun’ policy, which Palestinian Authority officials like Erekat, say will only be possible to enforce once the Israelis are out of the territory.
The question is being asked in Israel, however, if indeed the army and police can handle the job they face starting on Monday, when they will go around knocking on the doors of the settlement homes, telling the residents that it is time to go and that their presence in Gaza is illegal. The residents get a 48-hour reprieve, during which the army will send soldiers to help them pack. The fact is that at least 900 of the estimated 1,500 Gaza settler households are already gone. Several settlements are already empty, the homes stripped by their owners of anything valuable, from faucets and window frames to air conditioners and kitchen cabinets. Some homeowners went so far as to remove the tiles from their homes’ roofs for refitting on new homes. In many of the abandoned homes, the departing settlers wrote on the walls, expressing their sadness, their anger, their longings.
But some settlements – Netzarim, Kfar Darom, Shirat Yam, and Atzmona, for example – are busier than ever with hundreds of ‘oranger’ protestors who have managed to slip into Gush Katif over the last few weeks to ‘help’ ideologically motivated settlers resist removal. Police estimate there are altogether some 3,000 of such protestors – mostly teenagers – inside the settlements. Settler organizers put the number at twice that. And the Yesha Council, fighting a rearguard operation out of the conviction that the Gaza withdrawal is a harbinger of what is yet to come in the West Bank, is directing its supporters to the Kissufim Junction, the only road in and out of Gush Katif, with the goal of blocking any entrance or exit.
The army is promising sensitivity combined with determination when it comes to the actual settlers it finds in the areas due for evacuation. But according to the press this morning, the police and army are planning to get tough with the ‘illegals’ they find inside the closed military zone. As of last night, nobody is being allowed into Gush Katif, unless they are residents and can prove as much. On Sunday – the religious fast day of Tisha B’Av, the date marking the destruction of the First and Second Temples as well as the Spanish Inquisition’s expulsion of the Jews – the entire southern part of the country will be declared under emergency orders, enabling police to halt any traffic heading toward Gaza. It’s not a minute too soon – on Saturday night, the settlers are adding a new element to the Tisha B’Av ritual – a mass demonstration in Jerusalem opposite the Prime Minister’s Office, to kick off the move to Gaza.
For the settlers, the coincidence of Tisha B’Av, the most sorrowful of the Jewish religious holy days, identified with the greatest disasters of Jewish history (except the Holocaust), with the evacuation of Gaza and the four settlements south of Jenin, only buttresses their faith that they can halt the withdrawal, and do so without destroying the modern state of Israel’s institutions. Indeed, the clash coming up in Gaza and the northern West Bank is nothing less than the greatest crisis in the modern history of religious Judaism, for it positions a small but tenacious minority of true believers against the state of Israel, which for religious nationalists since 1967 in particular, has been nothing less than the harbinger of the imminent arrival of the messiah.
Last night’s rally in Tel Aviv put some wind in their sails – except that the crowd of an estimated 150,000 people was entirely homogeneous: the kippa-clad religious nationalists from settlements and fellow travelers. The settlement movement appears to have lost its grip on the national psyche: in the residential and commercial blocks around the city square, few Tel Avivians accepted the anti-Sharon leaflets that the bright-eyed (some might say wild-eyed) youths tried to foist on them.
True, the city square was turned orange for a few hours, but as has been the case since the pro-disengagement camp met the challenge of the orangers and began handing out blue and blue and white ribbons for people to wear or pin on their cars, most cars remain without a ribbon of either color: in short, most Israelis, those who are not worried about the future of Judaism and Zionism or believe they are God’s own cadres on earth, are indifferent to the entire issue. They just want to stay out of the humid heat this terrible hot and humid summer.
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A $14 million deal was signed last night handing over some 3,500 dunam (1,000 square meters) of greenhouses in Gush Katif to the private Economic Cooperation Fund, which will hand over the greenhouses to the Palestinians. The deal, which gives $4,000 per dunam of standing greenhouses to those departing Israeli farmers who chose to trust that Quartet envoy James Wolfensohn and Vice Premier Shimon Peres would manage to pull off the arrangement, is said to guarantee that at least 3,000 Gazan Palestinian workers will continue to earn a livelihood from the export-quality herbs, vegetables and flowers grown in the plastic-sheeted barns. Earlier reports that USAID, the American government's international aid agency, were scotched. Some of the ECF money included $500,000 from Wolfensohn's own pocket, a show of faith in the deal by the former World Bank president who has been focused on how to help the Palestinians rebuild Gaza after the Israeli departure.
Much depends on how exactly the Palestinians take over the area left behind by the Israelis – indeed, how they manage Gaza once the Israelis are gone. The Hamas yesterday put on a show for the international Arab press in Gaza, with a few hundred uniformed and armed Hamas men simulating the ‘takeover’ of an abandoned settlement, up to and including planting the Hamas flag on the rooftop of the building. The Palestinian Authority meanwhile continues its efforts to win a pan-Palestinian agreement for unified celebrations organized by the PA after the Israeli departure, hoping to avoid scenes such as the one performed yesterday for the Arab TV cameras. PA President Mahmoud Abbas angered some in Fateh and the PA when he agreed this week to form a committee that includes Hamas representatives to approve plans for how the PA will deal with the Gush Katif and northwestern corner of Gaza that is being left by the Israelis.
According to PA negotiator Saeb Erekat, who spoke with Channel One TV this week, the main effort nowadays by the PA is to prove to the Palestinian public that ‘it was cooperation and coordination, not Qassams,’ that made the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza (and the northern West Bank around Jenin) possible. In other words, proving to the Palestinians that it was Abbas’ political-diplomatic approach, not the Hamas’ military-terrorist approach, that won the withdrawal from Gaza. It may not be much help that Hamas leaders in Gaza went to a meeting this week with Abbas, flanked by armed, uniformed Hamas ‘soldiers.’ That’s a direct challenge to Abbas’ ‘one PA, one law, on gun’ policy, which Palestinian Authority officials like Erekat, say will only be possible to enforce once the Israelis are out of the territory.
The question is being asked in Israel, however, if indeed the army and police can handle the job they face starting on Monday, when they will go around knocking on the doors of the settlement homes, telling the residents that it is time to go and that their presence in Gaza is illegal. The residents get a 48-hour reprieve, during which the army will send soldiers to help them pack. The fact is that at least 900 of the estimated 1,500 Gaza settler households are already gone. Several settlements are already empty, the homes stripped by their owners of anything valuable, from faucets and window frames to air conditioners and kitchen cabinets. Some homeowners went so far as to remove the tiles from their homes’ roofs for refitting on new homes. In many of the abandoned homes, the departing settlers wrote on the walls, expressing their sadness, their anger, their longings.
But some settlements – Netzarim, Kfar Darom, Shirat Yam, and Atzmona, for example – are busier than ever with hundreds of ‘oranger’ protestors who have managed to slip into Gush Katif over the last few weeks to ‘help’ ideologically motivated settlers resist removal. Police estimate there are altogether some 3,000 of such protestors – mostly teenagers – inside the settlements. Settler organizers put the number at twice that. And the Yesha Council, fighting a rearguard operation out of the conviction that the Gaza withdrawal is a harbinger of what is yet to come in the West Bank, is directing its supporters to the Kissufim Junction, the only road in and out of Gush Katif, with the goal of blocking any entrance or exit.
The army is promising sensitivity combined with determination when it comes to the actual settlers it finds in the areas due for evacuation. But according to the press this morning, the police and army are planning to get tough with the ‘illegals’ they find inside the closed military zone. As of last night, nobody is being allowed into Gush Katif, unless they are residents and can prove as much. On Sunday – the religious fast day of Tisha B’Av, the date marking the destruction of the First and Second Temples as well as the Spanish Inquisition’s expulsion of the Jews – the entire southern part of the country will be declared under emergency orders, enabling police to halt any traffic heading toward Gaza. It’s not a minute too soon – on Saturday night, the settlers are adding a new element to the Tisha B’Av ritual – a mass demonstration in Jerusalem opposite the Prime Minister’s Office, to kick off the move to Gaza.
For the settlers, the coincidence of Tisha B’Av, the most sorrowful of the Jewish religious holy days, identified with the greatest disasters of Jewish history (except the Holocaust), with the evacuation of Gaza and the four settlements south of Jenin, only buttresses their faith that they can halt the withdrawal, and do so without destroying the modern state of Israel’s institutions. Indeed, the clash coming up in Gaza and the northern West Bank is nothing less than the greatest crisis in the modern history of religious Judaism, for it positions a small but tenacious minority of true believers against the state of Israel, which for religious nationalists since 1967 in particular, has been nothing less than the harbinger of the imminent arrival of the messiah.
Last night’s rally in Tel Aviv put some wind in their sails – except that the crowd of an estimated 150,000 people was entirely homogeneous: the kippa-clad religious nationalists from settlements and fellow travelers. The settlement movement appears to have lost its grip on the national psyche: in the residential and commercial blocks around the city square, few Tel Avivians accepted the anti-Sharon leaflets that the bright-eyed (some might say wild-eyed) youths tried to foist on them.
True, the city square was turned orange for a few hours, but as has been the case since the pro-disengagement camp met the challenge of the orangers and began handing out blue and blue and white ribbons for people to wear or pin on their cars, most cars remain without a ribbon of either color: in short, most Israelis, those who are not worried about the future of Judaism and Zionism or believe they are God’s own cadres on earth, are indifferent to the entire issue. They just want to stay out of the humid heat this terrible hot and humid summer.
More news from today || Yesterday's situation (Archive)
© Today's Situation From Ariga, http://www.ariga.com by Robert Rosenberg; Feel free to pass this page on, including this line: Subscribe to get it daily by email -- or unsubscribe -- at
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