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October 29, 2014<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/10/29/how-israel-is-turning-gaza-into-a-super-max-prison/">http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/10/29/how-israel-is-turning-gaza-into-a-super-max-prison/</a><br>
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<div class="subheadlinestyle"><b><big><big>Freedom Doesn't Ring</big></big></b></div>
<h1 class="article-title">How Israel is Turning Gaza into a
Super-Max Prison</h1>
<div class="mainauthorstyle">by JONATHAN COOK</div>
<div class="main-text">
<p><em>Nazareth</em></p>
<p>It is astonishing that the reconstruction of Gaza, bombed
into the Stone Age according to the explicit goals of an
Israeli military doctrine known as “Dahiya”, has tentatively
only just begun two months after the end of the fighting.</p>
<p>According to the United Nations, 100,000 homes have been
destroyed or damaged, leaving 600,000 Palestinians – nearly
one in three of Gaza’s population – homeless or in urgent need
of humanitarian help.</p>
<p>Roads, schools and the electricity plant to power water and
sewerage systems are in ruins. The cold and wet of winter are
approaching. Aid agency Oxfam warns that at the current rate
of progress it may take 50 years to rebuild Gaza.</p>
<p>Where else in the world apart from the Palestinian
territories would the international community stand by idly as
so many people suffer – and not from a random act of God but
willed by fellow humans?</p>
<p>The reason for the hold-up is, as ever, Israel’s “security
needs”. Gaza can be rebuilt but only to the precise
specifications laid down by Israeli officials.</p>
<p>We have been here before. Twelve years ago, Israeli
bulldozers rolled into Jenin camp in the West Bank in the
midst of the second intifada. Israel had just lost its largest
number of soldiers in a single battle as the army struggled
through a warren of narrow alleys. In scenes that shocked the
world, Israel turned hundreds of homes to rubble.</p>
<p>With residents living in tents, Israel insisted on the terms
of Jenin camp’s rehabilitation. The alleys that assisted the
Palestinian resistance in its ambushes had to go. In their
place, streets were built wide enough for Israeli tanks to
patrol.</p>
<p>In short, both the Palestinians’ humanitarian needs and their
right in international law to resist their oppressor were
sacrificed to satisfy Israel’s desire to make the enforcement
of its occupation more efficient.</p>
<p>It is hard not to view the agreement reached in Cairo this
month for Gaza’s reconstruction in similar terms.</p>
<p>Donors pledged $5.4 billion – though, based on past
experience, much of it won’t materialise. In addition, half
will be immediately redirected to the distant West Bank to pay
off the Palestinian Authority’s mounting debts. No one in the
international community appears to have suggested that Israel,
which has asset-stripped both the West Bank and Gaza in
different ways, foot the bill.</p>
<p>The Cairo agreement has been widely welcomed, though the
terms on which Gaza will be rebuilt have been only vaguely
publicised. Leaks from worried insiders, however, have fleshed
out the details.</p>
<p>One Israeli analyst has compared the proposed solution to
transforming a third-world prison into a modern US super-max
incarceration facility. The more civilised exterior will
simply obscure its real purpose: not to make life better for
the Palestinian inmates, but to offer greater security to the
Israeli guards.</p>
<p>Humanitarian concern is being harnessed to allow Israel to
streamline an eight-year blockade that has barred many
essential items, including those needed to rebuild Gaza after
previous assaults.</p>
<p>The agreement passes nominal control over Gaza’s borders and
the transfer of reconstruction materials to the PA and UN in
order to bypass and weaken Hamas. But the overseers – and true
decision-makers – will be Israel. For example, it will get a
veto over who supplies the massive quantities of cement
needed. That means much of the donors’ money will end up in
the pockets of Israeli cement-makers and middlemen.</p>
<p>But the problem runs deeper than that. The system must
satisfy Israel’s desire to know where every bag of cement or
steel rod ends up, to prevent Hamas rebuilding its home-made
rockets and network of tunnels.</p>
<p>The tunnels, and element of surprise they offered, were the
reason Israel lost so many soldiers. Without them, Israel will
have a freer hand next time it wants to “mow the grass”, as
its commanders call Gaza’s repeated destruction.</p>
<p>Last week Israel’s defence minister Moshe Yaalon warned that
rebuilding Gaza would be conditioned on Hamas’s good
behaviour. Israel wanted to be sure “the funds and equipment
are not used for terrorism, therefore we are closely
monitoring all of the developments”.</p>
<p>The PA and UN will have to submit to a database reviewed by
Israel the details of every home that needs rebuilding.
Indications are that Israeli drones will watch every move on
the ground.</p>
<p>Israel will be able to veto anyone it considers a militant –
which means anyone with a connection to Hamas or Islamic
Jihad. Presumably, Israel hopes this will dissuade most
Palestinians from associating with the resistance movements.</p>
<p>Further, it is hard not to assume that the supervision system
will provide Israel with the GPS co-ordinates of every home in
Gaza, and the details of every family, consolidating its
control when it next decides to attack. And Israel can hold
the whole process to ransom, pulling the plug at any moment.</p>
<p>Sadly, the UN – desperate to see relief for Gaza’s families –
has agreed to conspire in this new version of the blockade,
despite its violating international law and Palestinians’
rights.</p>
<p>Washington and its allies, it seems, are only too happy to
see Hamas and Islamic Jihad deprived of the materials needed
to resist Israel’s next onslaught.</p>
<p>The New York Times summed up the concern: “What is the point
of raising and spending many millions of dollars … to rebuild
the Gaza Strip just so it can be destroyed in the next war?”</p>
<p>For some donors exasperated by years of sinking money into a
bottomless hole, upgrading Gaza to a super-max prison looks
like a better return on their investment.</p>
<p><em><strong>Jonathan Cook</strong> won the Martha Gellhorn
Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are “Israel
and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to
Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing
Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed
Books). His website is <a
href="http://www.jonathan-cook.net/"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.jonathan-cook.net']);">www.jonathan-cook.net</a>. </em><em>A
version of this article first appeared in the National, Abu
Dhabi.</em></p>
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