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Militants attacking the Palestinian telecommunications company January 2006, calling for a lift of taxes from bills. |
A masked gunman was setting up a roadblock along Salah Al-Deen Street, Gaza’s main north-south highway. One of his comrades, his voice muffled by his mask, leaned close to whisper, “Why here? Why make problems for ordinary people? Shouldn’t we be blockading some ministry in Gaza City?”
“We’ve done that,” said the other. “Now we have to get the citizens to understand we’ve been begging for jobs and have been ignored over and over.”
To the motorists trapped far back in the growing traffic jam, it must have seemed like a time warp back to the bad old days when the Israeli Army closed roads for any, or no, apparent reason. But now their adversaries were fellow Palestinians.
| “We cannot accept this [chaos] even though there is justice in the militants’ demands.” |
Roadblocks, abductions, taking over government offices and public buildings, even private wars that descend into public chaos—this has become everyday life in the Gaza Strip. To the distress of Palestine’s friends, and very likely to the delight of her enemies, a relative handful of the armed, desperate, and frustrated have created a public relations nightmare for Gaza. The high officials of the Palestinian Authority, while issuing predictable condemnations, have been woefully short on any useful action. While the armed demonstrations and building takeovers sound dramatic, and always have the potential to turn tragic, the Palestinian security services have no more interest in starting a shooting war with fellow Palestinians than do the armed militants. When all goes well, the militants fire in the air. The police arrive and fire in the air. Demands are stated. Promises are more or less made. Everyone fires in the air some more. Then, honor satisfied on both sides, everyone goes home—and nothing has changed for anyone. But at least no one has been hurt.
In some ways, the inter-family vendettas are more disturbing, with two especially bad ones growing into major violence in the last month. In Beit Hanoun in North Gaza, a feud between the Al-Kafarneh and Al-Masri families escalated into a full-scale shooting war, with the fighting families imposing curfews on their neighbors, and setting up checkpoints and free-fire zones. One wonders what terrible crime, or alleged crime, started this conflict that to date has killed and injured scores—surely they’re fighting over an alleged murder, rape, or massive theft?
In fact, all this bloodshed began when a donkey-cart driver of one family scratched a car owned by someone from the other clan. In Khan Younis in southern Gaza, two other families have gone to war for equally murky reasons—the only thing clear is the amount of collateral damage to uninvolved citizens, as bystanders get caught in the cross-fire. It is, however, a sign of the huge frustrations Gazans are living with; the powerful armed families have seen no action whatsoever from the Palestinian Authority in restoring the lands they lost to the now-empty Israeli settlements. If they were so eager to wage war over a dented car, could they actually reclaim and start rebuilding their ruined farms and groves?
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| The American School in Gaza’s deputy principal greets the crowd January 2006 following his release. |
Kidnappings of foreigners, mainly journalists and NGO workers, have mushroomed in the last few months, with 18 incidents to date. Without exception, the foreign victims have been released unharmed and they told the press they had been treated well by their captors. In almost every instance, the masked militants were asking for jobs within the Palestinian Authority.
Perhaps the most dramatic case was the New Year’s Eve kidnapping of 24-year-old Kate Burton and her parents, all citizens of the UK. Burton had been living in the Gaza Strip for a year as a volunteer with the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights. Her parents came to Palestine for the Christmas holidays and toured Bethlehem and other pilgrimage sites in the West Bank. Wanting to show her parents her home in Gaza, Burton and her parents flew to Egypt and entered Gaza through the Rafah Crossing; soon afterwards, they were abducted by armed militants and held for two days. The irony, of course, is that those victimized by the abductions—NGO workers and international journalists—are the very people working to help the Palestinians, or at least report the truth of daily life in Gaza to the international community. Worse, in the heat of each kidnapping crisis, the Palestinian Authority usually promises jobs to the militants and never, ever keeps those promises.
| Hostages abducted by militants are the very people working to help the Palestinians. |
One of the 20 Al-Aqsa Brigade militants who invaded a government building in Khan Younis agreed to speak on condition of anonymity. Asked what he was protesting, or against whom, he replied, “We’re protesting against every government official setting up roadblocks to our employment. We spent years sacrificing and risking our lives for a better future for Palestine. Now we want jobs and the Palestinian Authority is ignoring us.”
Asked if there wasn’t some better way to express grievances and stage protests, he replied, “Some get their demands through pure favoritism and good connections. We don’t have any special connections, so power and pressure seem the only means available for us,” he explained.
Abu Nabil Abdel Razeq, a social reformer who heard this exchange, commented, “It’s dangerous that the chaos is so out of control; and it’s shameful because it harms not only the government targets but normal citizens. We cannot accept this, even though there is justice in the militants’ demands.”
The Burton kidnapping, plus border clashes between rogue militants and Egyptian police, brought new protests from Gaza’s citizens and other militant factions. A coalition of six militant groups, including Fateh, Islamic Jihad, Hamas, and the Popular Front, issued a statement condemning the kidnappings and other forms of violence as “not serving the Palestinian national interest.”
Some international media have, simplistically and incorrectly, stated that the Israeli occupying army imposed civil law and that its withdrawal is the cause of the present internal problems. To the contrary, the Israeli Army did all in its power to destroy Gaza’s civil institutions, especially the Gaza police and the Palestinian Authority; and since Israel’s withdrawal, it has maintained a stranglehold on Gaza’s economy.
Of course, the Palestinian Authority has committed non-violent “crimes of omission” by promising jobs to the militants time and again, and failing, time and again, to keep those promises. The militants, with their dangerous, if rarely lethal theatrics, seem the obvious villains, while the high government officials do little more than watch. But the incontrovertible fact is that many in the Palestinian Authority are collecting high salaries and living extremely comfortable lives while many other Gaza citizens cannot find food to feed their children. Yet, in the eyes of the world, when the militants fire in the air and occupy a public building, they are, of course, the “terrorists” whereas the Palestinian Authority is blameless—all of which, sad to say, makes it that much easier for the Sharon government to solemnly declare “they have no partner for peace.”
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