Gaza on my mind.

 

“Gaza on my mind”

 

Twelve years ago, I wrote something about Gaza, Hamas and other villains.

I’m recycling the title only, even though the protagonists haven’t changed.

 

Invariably I write something about Hanukkah. However, this year I’ve been preoccupied with the war In Gaza. So, instead I decided to include an adapted version of what I wrote in 2010.

“Like all our festivals Hanukkah commemorates an event that happened here in our region.  A late comer, not included in the Hebrew canon it is, nevertheless one of the most widely celebrated festivals in our calendar.                                                                                            Hanukkah commemorates the Jewish revolt against the Seleucid Empire in 165 BC.

The root causes of the revolt are still disputed by historians. Suffice to say that a power vacuum created in the context of the rising Parthian Empire and the Seleucid Empire’s conflict with Ptolemaic Egypt, opened a window of opportunity for our ancestors. Some people see the success of the revolt as an act of Divine intervention. The result was a brief 103 years of Jewish Independence. This was but one of the Hanukkah miracles. The miracle of the flask of oil that lasted for eight days instead of one, is perhaps referred to more than the military actions and battles.

However, the authors of the Books of Maccabees omitted to mention the flask of oil and its miraculous attribute. The Jewish historian Josephus Flavius mentions a “festival of lights” but overlooks the flask of oil.

Hundreds of years later we find the first reference to the flask of oil in the Talmud. It appears that the miracle of the flask of oil was imbedded in the Hanukkah narrative at a later date.

That being said, I think we should accept the miraculous flask of oil as a welcome latecomer. The oil of course was none other than olive oil.

There’s no better description of the olive than Lawrence Durrell’s wonderful account -

“The entire Mediterranean seems to rise out of the sour, pungent taste of black olives between the teeth. A taste older than meat or wine, a taste as old as cold water. Only the sea itself seems as ancient a part of the region as the olive and its oil, that like no other products of nature, have shaped civilizations from remotest antiquity to the present."

A sharp transition to the present day.

The German news outlet Deutsche Welle reported that Prime Minister Netanyahu said, “Neither military losses nor waning international support would impact Israel’s course of action.” Meanwhile US and German politicians are visiting Israel with the intention of getting up-to-date information regarding the situation in Gaza.

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan is due to arrive in Israel today. Sullivan is scheduled to meet with the prime minister and other Israeli leaders. 

According to White House National Security Spokesman John Kirby, Sullivan will hold "extremely serious" and "constructive" talks with Israeli officials. Sullivan is expected to discuss the next phase of the Gaza war.

The visit comes after US President Joe Biden criticised Netanyahu's right-wing government and said it is engaging in "indiscriminate bombing" of Gaza.

Bavarian State Premier Markus Söder arrived here yesterday. Söder emphasised that his visit to Jerusalem was very important for him personally, but also for the Bavarian government, to show solidarity with Israel and the victims of the Hamas terror attacks on October 7.

Despite the United Nations' call for a cease-fire, Söder has supported Israel's actions against Hamas in Gaza. "Of course, we also sympathise with the people in the Gaza Strip, with the civilian victims," Söder said shortly before his departure from Munich. "Nevertheless, we believe that Israel has a right to self-defence and that it is now necessary to give priority to security," he added. 

Söder’s schedule includes a meeting with President Isaac Herzog, and a visit to a kibbutz on the Gaza border.

The Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research (generally a reliable polling centre) reported that public support for Hamas is increasing, more so in the West Bank.

The poll appears to indicate anger over the war's toll boosting Palestinian support for Hamas, particularly in the West Bank where Hamas has no official standing.                              

Some 44% of respondents in the West Bank said they supported Hamas, compared to just 12% three months earlier. 

The change in Gaza was more muted, with 42% saying they supported Hamas against 38% three months earlier. 

Meanwhile, a majority of respondents in both areas said they believed Hamas would emerge from the conflict with continued control over Gaza. A smaller majority also said this would be their preference, albeit with Gaza residents very divided on the question.

Fewer than one in 10 respondents said they believed Hamas assailants had committed war crimes like abducting, raping and murdering Israelis during their October 7 assault, despite clear evidence to the contrary including footage uploaded from Hamas assailants own body cameras.

Satisfaction figures for Fatah and Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas, already near rock bottom, plummeted to a 90% disapproval rating. Abbas and his administration are often criticised at home for perceived corruption and inefficiency.

The figures show how difficult the solution advocated by much of the international community — namely Abbas and the PA taking charge in Gaza with a view to resuming efforts towards a two-state solution — might be to achieve once the fighting ends. 

Leading Israeli officials have said "international pressures" will not halt their military campaign against Hamas in Gaza. 

In a radio broadcast to IDF units Prime Minister Netanyahu said, "We're continuing until the end, until Hamas is annihilated." Netanyahu’s radio address came at the end of a terrible day. An IDF spokesman reported the deaths of ten soldiers in the space of 24 hours, its worst losses in a day since late October. 

"I say this in the face of great pain but also in the face of international pressures. Nothing will stop us," Netanyahu said. 

Although Israel's closest ally, the United States, has continued to vote in our defence at the UN, even Biden administration officials have repeatedly and publicly urged Israel to do more to limit civilian casualties. Biden warned on Tuesday that the "indiscriminate bombing" of Gaza was causing Israel to lose international support.

I encountered difficulty while reading a transcript of President Biden’s campaign speech, mainly with its coherency in general. In particular, his reference to indiscriminate bombing got me wondering if it was an unintentional ‘slip of the tongue’, or was he paying lip service to the broad UN gallery. Surely Biden knows that even the Israel air force’s surgically accurate bombing can’t always avoid incurring “collateral damage”, especially when Hamas uses Gazans as human shields.

Regardless of Biden’s apparent censure we are going to finish the job!

Freelance journalist Cathrin Schaer and many observers and analysts are wondering who is going to pay for the reconstruction of Gaza.

Ms. Schaer wrote, “The violence continues but wrangling over reconstruction has already started. The problem is that funding for Gaza and other Palestinian territories and projects has always been about more than money.

Even as the fighting, dying and destruction continue, the arguments about money have started.

“The human toll of the conflict in Gaza is incalculable. But the costs of rebuilding Gaza are not. Early estimates suggest they may be as high as $50 billion.

Israel has not yet laid out a plan for who would govern Gaza if it succeeded in its goal of destroying Hamas, though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ruled out any transfer of power to the Palestinian Authority.

Nonetheless, he has already addressed the topic of Gaza's reconstruction. This week, Israeli news outlets reported that he told fellow politicians that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates would be willing to foot the bill. It has also been suggested that Europeans will pay: The EU, and Germany in particular, have been major, long-term donors of humanitarian aid for Gaza and the Palestinian Authority. The US is also one of the biggest donors and would likely be involved in the funding of reconstruction.

However, Cathrin Schaer says, in both the US and Europe, insiders report that, behind the scenes, decision-makers are already asking why they should once more pay millions in taxpayers’ money to rebuild infrastructure likely to be bombed again in the near future.

Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs commentator at the Financial Times wrote this week,"I have heard senior EU officials say unequivocally that Europe will not pay for the reconstruction of Gaza. (The sums of money required by Ukraine are already mind-boggling)," "The US Congress also seems to be turning against all forms of foreign assistance." Rachman added.

There have also been calls for Israel to pay for the damage it has done during its current campaign in Gaza, with some arguing that because it is considered by the UN, the EU and other international organisations to be the main occupying power there, it should shoulder rebuilding responsibilities. And there is a precedent. In 2010, Israel did agree to compensate the main United Nations' agency working in Gaza — the UN Relief Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East, commonly known as UNRWA — $10.5 million for buildings destroyed during its far smaller 2009 operation in the Gaza enclave. However, that appears to be the rare instance when Israel has agreed to pay compensation.

As a result of Israel’s response to the vicious pogrom-like October 7 Hamas assault, over half of all of Gaza's housing has been destroyed — up to 50,000 housing units, with over 200,000 more damaged. In addition, scores of schools, mosques and government buildings have been severely damaged or destroyed. Many were built with funding from international donors. Before blaming Israel, the generous international donors should review indisputable evidence that Hamas fired missiles from these facilities targeting Israel cities, towns and rural communities prior to and after the October 7 assault.  

"The level of structural damage and destruction is unprecedented," Marta Lorenzo, director of the UNRWA Representative Office for Europe said of the current conflict. "It's not comparable to any other war in Gaza." "So right now, it's very difficult to know how much it will cost, but it won't be the responsibility of just one donor," Lorenzo said.

In an interview with Deutsche Welle (DW) Ms. Lorenzo said that what is most likely to happen when violence abates, is that there might be a pledging conference, "during which we expect the international community to share responsibility." So, who is most likely to foot the huge — and still growing — bill for all this? The answer is difficult because funding for aid and reconstruction in Gaza, as well as for the Palestinian Authority and other Palestinian-related projects, has been politically fraught for decades. The fact that Hamas has been ruling the enclave since 2007 has been problematic for donors, who have questioned how to get aid and money to those who need it, without also financing Hamas' military activities. 

A 16-year blockade of Gaza by Israel and Egypt, as well as years of neglect by the enclave's rulers, Hamas, has led to the degradation of the Gaza economy. According to UN sources in 2022, an estimated 80% of people in Gaza were dependent on aid. UNRWA provided a lot of that aid before the current crisis, including social welfare services, schools and health clinics; it is Gaza's second-largest employer. It has also regularly had to fend off criticism of bias. Senior ministers in the Israeli government have said they want to get rid of UNRWA altogether.

Another example of the kind of controversies around reconstruction is the so-called Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism, or GRM. Created in 2014 as a temporary measure to prevent Hamas getting its hands on "dual purpose" building materials with which they could, for instance, build tunnels. It ended up becoming a complex, overly-bureaucratic system, one that led to significant delays in getting building materials into Gaza. It also increased building costs by up to 20%, leading to charges that Israeli contractors were gaming the system for profit. Gaza builders even boycotted GRM-approved materials at one stage.

“These controversies are not about to go away simply because of the greater need and exceptional destruction,” predicts Nathan Brown, a senior fellow with the Carnegie Endowment's Middle East programme. “In fact, it's going to get worse,” he noted.

"Funding is not going to be the issue, politics is," Brown told Deutsche Welle. "If tomorrow, all the actors — Israel, the Palestinians, regional actors, Western actors — said 'here is the future, it will look like this,' whether a two-state solution or a one-state solution or whatever, then money wouldn't be a problem."

“Plenty of donors would be willing to donate if they were convinced the problem was about to be resolved once and for all.” Brown said.

“Right now, there are too many unanswered questions,” added Dr.Yara Asi, a non-resident fellow at the Arab Centre Washington DC. "If there's no legitimate governance in Gaza, will donors be comfortable sending tens of millions of dollars?" Asi asked. "I would imagine they would want some guarantee of a different kind of political future before they send all this money, all over again."

 

Notwithstanding that, I remain an incorrigible optimist.

 

Take care.

 

Beni

 

14^th of December, 2023