`The nature of the resistance`
source: The Jordan Times, 16-9-2005.
By Paul McCann
summary: According to polls taken earlier this year, 75 per cent of Palestinians believe this weeks` "Israeli" withdrawal from Gaza was a victory for the Palestinian armed resistance of the last four years.
Significantly, 44 per cent of "Israelis" agreed with them. If the same polls were taken now, those figures would be even starker. Whatever efforts President Mahmoud Abbas makes to convince his people that "Israel" remains militarily impossible to defeat; few will remember his words while watching the scenes of jubilant Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters raising their flags above Neve Dekalim.
The contrast seems simple: after more than a decade of Fateh negotiations with "Israel", not one settler left the occupied territory. In fact their numbers doubled. Yet after five years of bloody resistance, the "Israelis" are gone from Gaza.
It is worth taking a moment to consider exactly what kind of armed resistance Palestinians were able to deploy from Gaza. Despite being the target of most "Israeli" aggression after Operation Defensive Shield reoccupied and pacified the West Bank in 2002, Gaza`s militants only ever managed to send two self-sacrifice missions into "Israel" from the enclosed strip during the entire conflict.
In late April 2003, two British-Asian men, travelling on British passports, left Gaza and targeted the Mike`s Place bar in Tel Aviv, killing two people (settlers) and wounding 34. In March 2004, a joint Hamas - Aqsa Martyrs Brigade operation smuggled two self-sacrifice bombers out of Gaza in a shipping container. At Ashdod port in "Israel", they blew themselves up and killed 11 "Israeli" settlers and wounded 20.
Clearly this tally of 13 dead and 54 injured "Israelis", when compared with the total "Israeli" casualties of around 1,000 dead and 5,000-6,000 injured during the first four years of the Intifada, means the threat from Gazan self-sacrifice bombers was negligible.
Inside Gaza itself, around an additional 100 "Israeli" soldiers and 50 settlers were killed in the first four years of the conflict, according to media reports. This compares with the more than 1,600 Palestinians who were killed in the Strip during the same period.
It seems fanciful to believe that "Israel" pulled out of Gaza after suffering less than 200 dead because of Gazan resistance fighters - especially given the distinction the "Israeli" media make between those killed in the occupied territories and those inside the state itself. Instead, I believe it instructive to study the events of 2004, shortly after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made public his decision to leave Gaza.
From the end of June until August 2004, "Israel`s" "Operation Active Shield" bulldozed around 3,900 dunums of land in northern Gaza, demolished 15 houses, killed 22 Palestinians, wounded 200 and imposed a five-week curfew on Jabalyia refugee camp and the northern village of Beit Hanoun. All this in the name of halting the Qassam rocket fire out of Gaza, aimed at "Israeli" border communities like Sderot and Yad Mordechai. Even during this operation, Hamas managed to fire more rockets.
When that operation failed, "Operation Widen the Buffer Zone" was launched, in September 2004. This time, the "Israelis" moved deeper and fifty homes were demolished, 90 dunums were cleared and eight Palestinians were killed.
And yet still the rockets continued to fall on "Israel". Under-powered and untargeted, they mainly hit farmland or caused minor injuries, but their incessant nature brought fear and panic to the population of Sderot. Demonstrations about the government`s weakness were already being staged outside Sharon`s residence when on Sept. 29 two young "Israeli" settlers were killed by a rocket in the border town. The pressure on the Jewish state`s government from the "Israeli" media and population to take action against the rockets was immense.
On Oct. 1, "Israel" began its deepest and longest incursion into Gaza: "Operation days of Penitence".
Thousands of troops in 300 tanks and armoured personnel carriers, backed up by Apache helicopters, occupied all the high ground in northern Gaza. Over 120 Palestinians were killed, including around 25 children. Almost 200 homes were demolished and thousands went without food or water for two weeks as the ground offensive wore on. And yet, during this time, even with control of a 10km buffer zone inside Gaza, Qassam rockets continued to fall on "Israel".
"Israel`s" senior military told the government that they might only be able to stop the firing of rockets if they reoccupied the entire Gaza Strip and placed it completely under curfew, a move which, given the Palestinian death toll this would have caused, might finally have made the international community act to rein in "Israel`s" actions in the occupied territory.
Instead, the "Israeli" government, which was already committed to leaving Gaza, made behind-the-scenes arrangements with the Palestinian militants to withdraw its forces and lift the siege on Beit Hanoun if the rocket firing would, at least temporarily, come to an end.
The events of the summer and autumn illustrate the nature of the resistance that, at least in part, drove "Israel" out of Gaza. Just as was shown by Hizbullah`s rockets from Lebanon, the Palestinians illustrated that "Israel`s" political class cannot tolerate rockets falling on Jewish communities inside the Green Line. Nor, given the likely diplomatic and international cost, could they do anything realistic to stop them. The only other option was to leave and see if, as on its northern border, the end of occupation brings an end to the rockets.
The writer was spokesperson for the UN`s Palestinian Refugee Agency in Gaza from 2001-2005. He contributed this article to The Jordan Times.
