The Lessons of Gaza

The first time I went to Gaza, I stood with a resident of Jabaliya camp as he explained that not one resident of Jabaliya town had ever married a refugee from Jabaliya camp. That may have changed in the intervening decades, but it revealed the division between the people who stayed and those who fled–the awkwardness of refugees, who make up more than 70% of the population of Gaza. The women dressed differently and refugees still had the expectation of returning home, mostly to the coastal villages south of Tel Aviv. Life was peaceful, a sleepy community more like Egypt than Dubai.

Today, Jabaliya is destroyed, so when it is rebuilt it will be designed for all its surviving former residents–the refugees and townspeople. The idea of refugee camps for Palestinians who are actually living in Palestine–but not in their original place of residence–is outdated and does not match the terms of negotiations to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Palestinians who are living in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem are at most internally displaced, not in their place of origin but still within the future state of Palestine. This is a new beginning for Gaza as the cornerstone of a Palestinian state, one that integrates its refugees.

Some unforeseen future event could lead Palestinians to try to return to their homes in the Palestine that existed before Israel, but today, others are living on that property. Peace talks have agreed a compromise for a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza, and E. Jerusalem, with a minimal token number returning to what is now Israel– perhaps 5,000 refugees. The others could move to the Palestinian state–the one solution that offers equal rights, separation, and security. It has not failed, as the Hamas regime did; it has not been tried.

There are lessons from this recent Gaza history, as a seat of Christianity in 600 AD, then Ottoman and Egyptian rule, Israeli occupation, and the Palestinian Authority–when Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s wife opened a cafe with French pastries– and most recently, a hybrid Israeli occupation and Hamas regime that has been reduced to dust.

People who suggest the current conflict for Palestinian rights is part of the fighting for centuries in the region are mistaken. This conflict dates to the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the British Mandate over the region that made conflicting promises to the Jews and the Arabs. That can be reconciled with a division of the land into the State of Israel–created as a homeland for the Jewish people– and a Palestinian state. There is no other way to assure security and the protection of rights than defensible borders. The latest war in Gaza has confirmed how two desperate ethnic enclaves are prone to extremism. In a world cued to react to violence and bloodshed, people take seriously conflicts with loss of life, without necessarily proposing solutions.

Here are the Lessons of Gaza.

1. The Gaza First plan should be revived. The idea that a Palestinian state begins in Gaza is the only way to end the role of Hamas as a resistance movement. End the need for resistance and meet Palestinian national aspirations. That is how an alternative political order develops, not through some crafted reform.

This should have been tested in the last peace process, as part of Gaza-Jericho first. More than ever, Gaza is a separate land, on the threshold of a genesis, with needs distinct from the West Bank and the resources of the Palestinian Authority (PA). The aim should be to construct a Transitional State for the Palestinians that is already recognized by 146 nations. It can be built to meet current needs and those of the evolving State. Designed with input by residents, as a part of the future homeland, it could one day take in refugees from neighboring countries, along with the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

While the PA can help to support the establishment of an administration in Gaza–the first step to providing essential needs and reconstruction– there is no reason to saddle the Palestinian state with the terms of the Oslo Agreement and the Paris Protocol that were meant for a different land and time. A unique structure must be designed to meet immediate concerns. As the need for resistance to occupation and the liberation struggle are gone–both unpopular administrations due to their failings– a new leadership can emerge to develop a political life.

2. Gaza can reconstitute its areas and self-administer them, depending on the people who remain and those who return. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) asked their political leaders in the early days of the war which sites to spare, to save the houses and property of the future leaders upon whom Israel would need to rely.  The Government gave no answer and the elite families of Gaza were among the 120,000 who fled to Cairo and whose homes were burned. What can lure them back? Many qualified persons were killed, injured, or imprisoned. The Palestinian Authority can offer technical assistance along with regional states. Some neighborhoods can be cleared easier than others, in phased reconstruction led by Palestinians and their Arab allies.
3. The neediest Gazans may seek help abroad, such as health care and rehabilitation, but anyone who thinks the solution is to depopulate Gaza of its people and send them to Jordan and Egypt is not cognizant of the reality of history or the culture of a people of steadfastness. Jordan already has a Gaza camp and those refugees have fewer rights than other Palestinians living there. Given the millions of Palestinian, Iraqi, and Syrian refugees residing in Jordan, a poor, water-deficit country, there is no room for Gazans.

It is an insult to let Israel raze Gaza to the ground and then say the people should be moved because it is an unlivable demolition site. Gaza has lacked a regular supply of water and electricity for many years, and much of the damage of the previous war had not been rebuilt. Real leadership should have intervened before such wanton destruction occurred and not suggest the victim pay the price.

4. Gaza, with land on the Mediterranean seafront, will not be like Monaco or Singapore. To create those places one would need to bring those people, their ideas, priorities, lifestyles. To hear American leaders make false comparisons brings to mind those who said Iraq would be like post-war Germany or Japan. Gazans wash their donkeys in the sea, and have casual picnics and coffee on the beach. It is not the prime real estate model of the son-in-law of the US President,  who first suggested Gazans could be resettled in Israel’s Negev desert bordering Gaza until their homes were rebuilt–without checking with the Israelis. They could live there and have open passage to the Gaza construction site through the same gates used by Hamas on October 7th?
5. The current conflict is not a continuation of muddled Bible stories. It dates from the creation of Israel and the attempt ever since to divide the land between Israelis and Palestinians–not Jordanians or Egyptians or Saudis. Gaza was not a place of warfare, and only began launching missiles at Israel when Palestinian areas of Jerusalem were under threat. When the Israelis withdrew from Gaza in 2005, Palestinians said Gaza would still resist the occupation until there was a state including the West Bank and East Jerusalem. A state begins in Gaza but does not end there.

People react with violence if they are treated unfairly with no other recourse. Israelis set the example when they also fought an occupation (British) and massacred civilians to frighten them into leaving (Palestinian villages such as Tantoura, Deir Yassin, Hunin). Most states are founded through a struggle, which is an important lesson of Gaza. This war would not have happened if the international community had fulfilled its promise to create a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. Because the situation was mostly quiet, diplomatic urgency was lost. Reasonable leaders were rendered powerless and resistance fighters took the initiative.

Trying to move the people and the problem to Somaliland or elsewhere will only generate new conflicts. The plan for Palestine was not one state but one for each people. Divide the land, separate peoples with grievances, and Gaza can emerge from the rubble to a peaceful future. Palestinians used to talk of independence first and then federation with Israel. Who knows what might be possible once the Palestinian state begins in Gaza.

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Kerry Abbott is a development strategist and evaluator of interventions in conflict regions for a dozen international agencies in 23 countries, including the OPT.