To suffer Palestinian flags strung up in victory from abandoned Jewish homes or incur global wrath for dynamiting the legacy of a 38-year occupation. That is what Israel must decide when uprooting settlers from nearly 2 000 homes in the Gaza Strip this summer.
”On the one hand, the image of destroying houses is not good for Israel. But on the other hand, I don’t want terrorist flags waving from the rooftops,” said Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, summing up the dilemma earlier in May.
Less than three months before leaving the Palestinian territory, Israel has yet to decide on the fate of the private property of 8 000 Jewish settlers in Gaza and another few hundred in four West Bank settlements.
The army has said mass demolition will waste time and endanger the lives of soldiers, while left-wingers are horrified at the prospect of a public-relations catastrophe as the world watches Israel scorch earth in retreat.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has said he wants the homes left intact, calling Gaza and the settlements ”the property of the Palestinian people”.
But as the countdown to eviction day nears, officials on both sides have been more circumspect, fearing that mass looting could unleash violence, expose the powerlessness of Palestinian security and undermine any climate of peace.
”I hope that the Israelis will destroy them. The Palestinians will not get any benefit from them. It will make some problems for us, looting, putting obstacles in the way of our work,” said General Jamal al-Qayed, the Palestinian head of Gaza’s southern command for national security.
”It should be dealt with according to international law,” was all chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat would say.
At an Israeli Cabinet subcommittee meeting on May 3, most senior ministers, including Minister of Defence Shaul Mofaz and Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres, came out against blowing up the settler homes.
A week later, Peres warned demolitions could delay the pull-out by months with Israel obliged by international law to remove the debris.
”This alone can spoil it [the disengagement],” he was quoted as saying.
But some officials and settlers have stepped up calls for dynamite, insisting the spacious homes are inadequate to meet the immense Palestinian housing shortage and sickened at the thought of Arabs luxuriating in their loss.
”Leaving these houses does not even start to adequately cater for the real shortage of housing in the refugee camps, which necessitates at least tens of thousands of new constructions,” said former United States ambassador Zalman Shoval, who serves as an adviser to Sharon.
”Those with the political will or force of arms will be there first”, at the expense of the most needy, he said.
Like Shoval, Israeli commentator Danny Rubinstein suggests looting and the accompanying hatred could undermine peace efforts.
”They will storm the homes of the settlers, pulverise them and turn them into dust,” Rubinstein wrote of the Palestinians in the liberal Haaretz daily.
”Its [Palestinian Authority] members are afraid that it will be impossible to prevent the attack of the masses. The entire world will then witness the pictures of destruction and will speak of the Palestinians as uncultured vandals.”
Shoval said: ”We should work to create a situation of continuing the peace process. This sort of dramatic situation would make it more difficult in the future for the government to take certain steps.”
But if those are practical arguments against, it is the psychological torment of watching Palestinians enjoying the fruits of settlers’ labours after they have been dispatched to new lives in temporary caravans that really hurts.
”We should do nothing to exacerbate the very real trauma that exists in Israel because of the evacuation of the settlers,” said Shoval.
”They can do it in hours. Just blow them up. Sometimes huge skyscrapers are destroyed in days.” — Sapa-AFP