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<div class="subheadlinestyle"><span>31st July 2014<br>
<b><small><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/commentators/2499454/gaza_is_annexation_israels_permanent_solution.html">http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/commentators/2499454/gaza_is_annexation_israels_permanent_solution.html</a></small></small></small></b><br>
</span></div>
<h1 class="article-title">Gaza: Is Annexation Israel’s ‘Permanent
Solution’?</h1>
<div class="mainauthorstyle">by OLIVER TICKELL</div>
<div class="main-text">
<p>At this point in Israel’s unfolding war on Gaza, it’s
reasonable to stop and ask – what is Israel’s end game?</p>
<p>Not it’s stated purpose, which is to stop rocket attacks from
Gaza, destroy Hamas’s <em>“terrorist infrastructure”</em> of<em>“death
tunnels”</em> and so on, and break its hold on political
power in the territory – but the true long term, sustainable
outcome it’s aiming for, the <em>“permanent solution”</em> to
the Gaza problem.</p>
<p>To answer this question, let’s look at what it is actually
doing in this war, and what strategic purposes may underlie
those actions.</p>
<p><strong>Civilian infrastructure destroyed</strong></p>
<p>Early on in the war, <a
href="http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2480165/gaza_israel_bombs_water_and_sewage_systems.html"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.theecologist.org']);">Israel
began to target essential civilian infrastructure</a> - such
as water supply pipes, sewage works, water pumping stations.
There is no reason to believe that these actions were anything
other than deliberate. Certainly Israel never apologised for
them.</p>
<p>More recently it <a
href="http://rt.com/news/176364-powerplant-israel-gaza-strike/"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://rt.com']);"
target="_blank">destroyed Gaza’s only power station</a>, and
it’s now beyond repair. And this does rather more than just
put the lights out. Any water pumps or sewage works that have
somehow survived the bombing and shelling have now ground to a
halt for lack of power.</p>
<p>As <a
href="http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2499292/gaza_water_crisis_grows_as_israel_targets_essential_infrastructure.html"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.theecologist.org']);">noted
by Luisa Gandolfo</a> in the <em>Ecologist</em>, ”Cutting
off the electricity means cutting off the life support to
those who have a chance to survive the bombardment”. Would it
be so extraordinary to imagine that this is, in fact, the
precise purpose – to render Gaza uninhabitable?</p>
<p><strong>Targeting civilians</strong></p>
<p>We must also consider the numerous apparently deliberate
attacks on civilians. Perhaps the most egregious example is
the yesterday’s shelling of a school operated by the United
Nations agency UNRWA as a shelter for 3,300 civilian refugees,
killing 15.</p>
<p>Another is the <a
href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2710397/15-Palestinians-killed-90-injured-Israeli-tank-shell-attack-UN-school-used-refugee-shelter.html"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.dailymail.co.uk']);"
target="_blank">bombing of an outdoor market</a>, which also
took place yesterday, killing 17, shortly after Israel
declared a 4-hour ceasefire. Following an initial bombing, <a
href="http://edition.cnn.com/2014/07/30/world/meast/mideast-crisis/"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://edition.cnn.com']);"
target="_blank">a second bomb was dropped minutes later</a> just
as ambulances arrived at the scene, as CNN caught on camera.</p>
<p>From a military point of view these attacks make no sense.
They have also attracted international condemnation and have
done nothing to boost Israel’s already low, and plummeting
reputation.</p>
<p>So we have to ask – do the attacks serve a purpose that
justifies those collateral costs? What if that purpose is to
tell Palestinians:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“We will kill you and you can do nothing about it. It does
not matter who you are or where you are, even if you are
under supposed international protection. We will kill you
and we will get away with it. No matter what our crimes, we
are untouchable.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>Sticks and stones …</strong></p>
<p>UNRWA has spoken in unprecedently harsh terms of the
attack. ”Tens of thousands may soon be stranded in the streets
of Gaza, without food, water and shelter if attacks on these
areas continue”, tweeted UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness.</p>
<p>And its <a
href="http://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/official-statements/unrwa-strongly-condemns-israeli-shelling-its-school-gaza-serious"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.unrwa.org']);"
target="_blank">Commissioner-General Pierre Krähenbühl
released</a> a statement: ”Children killed in their sleep –
this is an affront to all of us, a source of universal shame.
Today the world stands disgraced.”</p>
<p>“I condemn in the strongest possible terms this serious
violation of international law by Israeli forces … We have
moved beyond the realm of humanitarian action alone. We are in
the realm of accountability. I call on the international
community to take deliberate international political action to
put an immediate end to the continuing carnage.”</p>
<p>And therein lies the problem. The UN Security Council stands
supine, knowing that the US will veto any attempt to hold
Israel and its military accountable. We are not in the <em>“realm
of accountability”</em>, but precisely where we have always
been as far as Israel’s crimes are concerned – in the realm of
impunity.</p>
<p>We may like to imagine otherwise, but we know the truth.
Neither Israel, nor its soldiers, nor its commanders, not its
political leaders, will ever have to defend their actions in
this round of conflict, or face any kind of punishment or
sanction, no matter what they do.</p>
<p><strong>In fact it’s the gas</strong></p>
<p>Now consider another dimension to the issue, already written
about in <em>The Ecologist</em>: Gaza is valuable property
thanks to its <a
href="http://www.theecologist.org/search.php?q=gaza+gas&offset=0&submit=Go"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.theecologist.org']);"
target="_blank">enormous resources of natural gas</a>.</p>
<p>When originally discovered in 2000, Gaza’s ofshore 1.4
trillion cubic feet of gas reserves were valued at $4 billion.
Since then the Gaza Marine reserve has been re-estimated to
1.6 trillion cubic feet, according to the US Energy
Information Administration (EIA), while”offshore Gaza
territory may hold additional energy resources.”</p>
<p>Israel is approaching a severe domestic ‘gas crunch’ pending
the development of its own deep-water Leviathan gas field.
Moreover it is now estimated that Gaza Marine’s exploitation
could yield revenues of $6-7 billion per year.</p>
<p>And one thing is clear – Israel has no intention of letting
Hamas anywhere near that money – nor even Fatah, which runs
the West Bank, on any terms other than those that Israel lays
down. In 2007 <a
href="http://jcpa.org/article/does-the-prospective-purchase-of-british-gas-from-gaza-threaten-israel%E2%80%99s-national-security/"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://jcpa.org']);"
target="_blank">Moshe Ya’alon, a former IDF chief of staff,
stated</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“It is clear that without an overall military operation to
uproot Hamas control of Gaza, no drilling work can take
place without the consent of the radical Islamic movement.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And needless to say, that would be entirely unacceptable.</p>
<p><strong>The international dimension</strong></p>
<p>Another factor to consider is international politics.
Currently Israel commands overwhelming political support in
the USA and Canada, and rather weaker support in Europe and
the Arab world, where governments side with Israel but with
fast diminishing public support.</p>
<p>For now, Israel get get away with its crimes, not only
scot-free but to applause and material support. Hot on the
heels of its attacks on ‘protected’ civilians, for example, <a
href="http://edition.cnn.com/2014/07/30/world/meast/mideast-crisis/"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://edition.cnn.com']);"
target="_blank">as reported on CNN</a>, the US decided to
release stocks of munitions for Israel to continue its
attacks:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Among the items being bought are 120mm mortar rounds and
40mm ammunition for grenade launchers, the [anonymous US
defense] official said. Those will come from a stockpile the
United States keeps in Israel, which is worth more than $1
billion.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But this situation may not continue indefinitely. Thanks to
its uncritical support of Israel, America’s standing as the
world’s leading advocate of freedom, democracy and human
rights is looking increasingly threadbare, and many senior US
officials and politicians are surely looking for a long term
way out – no matter what praise, money and weaponry they
shower on Israel today.</p>
<p>While support for Israel in Europe falls away, elsewhere in
the world, sentiment is turning to outright hostility. Bolivia
now <a
href="http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/07/30/declaring-israel-terrorist-state-bolivia-president-ends-free-entry-for-israeli/"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.foxnews.com']);"
target="_blank">classifies Israel as a <em>“terrrorist
state”</em></a>, and on 23rd July the <a
href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/SpecialSessions/Session21/Pages/21stSpecialSession.aspx"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.ohchr.org']);"
target="_blank">UN Human Rights Council voted overwhelmingly</a> (only
the US voted against) to</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“urgently dispatch an independent, international commission
of inquiry … to investigate all violations of international
humanitarian law and international human rights law in the
Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem,
particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip …”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And only yesterday, the <a
href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/pa-to-sign-rome-statute-of-international-criminal-court/"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.timesofisrael.com']);"
target="_blank">Palestinian Authority decided to accede</a> to
the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court – a first
move towards allowing the proto-state to file lawsuits against
Israel for its alleged war crimes.</p>
<p><strong>So what does this mean?</strong></p>
<p>For now Israel can act with impunity, but not forever. Even
in a few years time the international political climate is
likely to have turned further against Israel and restrict its
freedom of action. In short, Israel has a finite window of
opportunity in which to impose its will on Gaza.</p>
<p>So what is Israel’s will? It could be this simple: to finish
the job of 1948, when the indigenous inhabitants of southern
Palestine were ‘ethnically cleansed’ from the land by Jewish
militia, terrorised into abandoning their homes, towns and
villages, and forced to seek refuge in the narrow strip of
land that is Gaza.</p>
<p>The next step in this historic process would be to empty Gaza
of its people. A drastic step indeed – but not an irrational
one. It was all very well to keep 1.8 million Palestinans
incarcerated in Gaza, so long as the land was of little value.
But now, thanks to its offshore wealth, it’s a treasure trove.</p>
<p>So why can’t Israel simply take the gas, but leave the people
where they are? In a word, rockets. So long as Hamas and other
armed groups can target offshore gas infrastructure with their
rockets, the gas is unexploitable. So not only must Hamas go,
but the entire ‘sea’ in which Hamas swims (that is, the
Palestinian people) must also go.</p>
<p>Moreover, so long as Palestinians control the territory of
Gaza, they will also be able to assert and sustain claims of
ownership of its offshore marine resources.</p>
<p>The real estate of Gaza would be an additional boon – and a
highly valuable one, releasing 365 square kilometres of prime
development land, including 41 kilometres of to-die-for
Mediterranean coast. Estimates of its economic value must
surely begin around $10 billion.</p>
<p>Israel is also severely alarmed at the impact that Hamas’s
increasingly sophisticated rockets can have on vulnerable
infrastructure: in particular Tel Aviv airport, which came
under a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-28457734"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.bbc.co.uk']);"
target="_blank">partial international travel ban</a> last
week after a Hamas rocket landed nearby.</p>
<p>And more importantly, the Dimona nuclear reactor which
provides Israel with its military plutonium. Of <a
href="http://www.jta.org/2014/07/09/news-opinion/israel-middle-east/hamas-says-aiming-for-israels-nuclear-reactor-in-dimona"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.jta.org']);"
target="_blank">a salvo of three rockets targetted at the
reactor</a> on 9th July, only one was intercepted by
Israel’s ‘Iron Dome’ missile protection system. A successful
strike on Dimona would represent an ‘existential threat’ to
Israel from the nuclear fallout that would be released.</p>
<p>If it is indeed Israel’s intention to ‘cleanse’ Gaza of its
people, then the attacks on civilians, and vital civilian
infrastructure, make perfect sense. So too do Netenyahu’s
warnings of a <em>“prolonged offensive”</em> and his <a
href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-28579278"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.bbc.co.uk']);"
target="_blank">call-up of another 16,000 military
reservists</a>, and the US’s release of further munitions
into the fray.</p>
<p><strong>Where would the people go?</strong></p>
<p>There does remain one unanswered question: where are all the
people to go? One answer is that many may die. Not from direct
bombing and shelling – the total of dead, now approaching
1,400, is well short of having a ‘demographic’ impact on the
territory. Even if 6,000 are killed by the time it’s all over,
that would be only 0.5% of Gaza’s population.</p>
<p>But what could have a demographic impact is the effect of
disease. If by some mischance the ebola virus, or cholera were
to take root in Gaza, with its filthy water, lack of
electrical power, failed sewage system and demolished
hospitals, a great many more would surely die, perhaps
hundreds of thousands.</p>
<p>And this would also increase the pressure for the survivors
to be removed to safety, for purely humanitarian reasons.</p>
<p>With appropriate financial inducements – in all probability
financed by the US in its ‘honest broker’ role – some could be
sent to enclaves in the West Bank, others to Egypt, others
again to Jordan, and yet more dispersed across the world to
countries where Palestinian relatives may have settled. Some
may even find refuge in Israel itself.</p>
<p>We cannot know if this really is Israel’s plan for Gaza – the
true purpose of its Operation Protective Edge. But if it is,
that would explain otherwise inexplicable aspects of Israel’s
conduct of the war so far, and fit with Israel’s strategic
interests.</p>
<p>It would be a dazzling display of Netenhayu’s proverbial <em>chutzpah</em>,
and enormously popular with Israel’s increasingly right-wing,
nationalist electorate. The construction boom would also
create much needed housing and employment, and trigger a huge
surge of money-making to rekindle Israel’s depressed economy.</p>
<p>And as for the principle – would Israel really contemplate
such a wholesale theft of Palestinian land? – we already have
the answer in Israel’s unceasing annexation of land in East
Jerusalem and the West Bank, notably the entire Palestinian
section of the Jordan Valley.</p>
<p>The annexation of Gaza is therefore a possibility – and one
that Palestinians, their supporters, and the wider
international community must consider, and decide how to
respond if this is indeed the scenario that plays out in
coming weeks and months.</p>
<p><em><strong>Oliver Tickell</strong> is the editor of <a
href="http://www.theecologist.org/"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.theecologist.org']);">The
Ecologist,</a> where this essay originally appeared.</em></p>
</div>
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