The Gaza Striptease

When Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced his decision to withdraw unilaterally from the Gaza Strip and dismantle 17 settlements, there was reason, one might think, for celebration in certain quarters. Yet few rejoiced. There is the uneasy feeling that his words do not bode an end to the 37-year-old Occupation, rather further entanglement. Some call the would-be withdrawal an escape, some call it a threat against the Palestinians, and some call it a means to strengthen Israel's hold on the West Bank. One thing it is not: a step toward resolving the conflict. In Israeli eyes, Gaza was always damaged goods. The campaign slogan of Yitzhak Rabin in 1992 was "Pull Gaza out of Tel Aviv". The Oslo Agreement originally bore the title, "Gaza and Jericho First". (Hamas and others are mistaken, then, when they present an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza as a victory for the resistance.) It suits Sharon, whose approval rating has plunged, to propose disconnection" from this unwanted place. It makes a show of progress toward security, and it may distract the public from corruption scandals in which he is mired to the neck. Under present conditions, however, Sharon will find it almost impossible to disconnect from Gaza. The hurdles are high: Hurdle 1: The White House

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How Israel is founding a Hamas state

Four years ago, when Ariel Sharon agreed to support the withdrawal from Lebanon, he proposed a prior condition: to deliver a powerful strike against the country, so the might of the Israel Defense Forces would be engraved on the collective memory and no one would try to operate against Israel after the IDF pullout. The recent spate of IDF actions in the Gaza Strip, and the large number of Palestinian casualties they have caused, are liable to create the impression that this is the realization of Sharon's "Lebanese" proposal: When withdrawal from Gaza is announced, accompany it by burning into the Palestinian consciousness the terrifying power of the IDF. However, national memory, as everyone knows, is selective. The history of the 18 years of Israeli occupation in Lebanon ended with a Hezbollah "victory album," which demonstrates its ability to bend Israel's hand, and worse, is portrayed as a deterrent force equivalent to the IDF. The recent prisoner exchange deal certainly did nothing to detract from that image. South Lebanon became the Hezbollah state, and a similar situation is liable to develop in the Gaza Strip. The point is that Israel is in the process of creating two Palestinian states, one in Gaza and the other in the West Bank. In Gaza, it is conducting its major military campaign against one organization, Hamas; it is proposing to withdraw from that organization's territory, evacuate settlements and demarcate a perfect boundary line with an enemy state. At the end of the process, Gaza is liable to become an entity cut off from the main Palestinian system, the autonomous province of an organization and not a separate section of the Palestinian state.

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