Seth Frantzman is an American going to university in Jeruselem. During the disengagement, Seth went to the Kissufim crossing, not to protest but to check out what was going on. “we’d been watching it on TV, so we figured, hey, let’s go down there.” There was a general sense of wanting to be part of a major historical moment. He described seeing other people, just sort of wandering around the area the Isreali army had roped off by the entrance points to Gaza. Some of them were hoping to be picked up and taken in to protest.
Although the protests were emotional, they were fairly non-violent.
We stayed with a family that had raised all their kids there, ages 4 to 12. One of the boys showed us all the rockets he’d collected. When I was little we used to collect transformers, but it’s the same thing. I can see how it’s pretty emotional for these people, to be removed from their homes…some of the oldest ones are 30 years old. I mean, think of what we would do if the government suddenly said we’re gonna give Arizona back to Mexico.
Seth Frantzman
Now that the evacuation is over, Seth and other people’s attention turns to what will happen next. Seth describes the integration of the settlers into Israeli society as complex.
I think they’re going to try to keep the settlements together as communities, but in general it’s not going to work out. A lot of things in this country are very inefficient…In Tel Aviv, it’s like another world. They’ve never been to the settlements. They don’t even know what the Kotel [Western Wall] is. They have a different mentality. They’re closer to Paris than to Jerusalem. It’s a very secular place…The settlers were all there for different reasons–some secular, some religious. Some will integrate better than others.
Workers filling rush orders for Palestinian flags for planned post-disengagement celebrations [RafaToday/flickr]
What remains to be seen is what the Palestinians will do in Gaza, now that the Isrealis no longer want to be involved.
As Seth put it Israelis believe that “it’s up to Palestine now. It willl be interesting to see what they do. If they cant deal with Gaza, how will they deal with the West Bank?” Seth will be looking to the Palestinian Authority for leadership.
Jose was in Palestine working for an NGO. Organizations such as the one he works for are trying to help rebuild and move forward.
“The Palestinian Hydrology Group is a non-profit, non-government organization that protects and develops the water resources of Palestine. We strive, through community participation, to achieve justice in the service, allocation, and protection of the water resources of Palestine, since the sustainability of this resource is vital for the protection of the Palestinian nation, the protection of future generation, and the protection of the planet.”
Jose for the Palestinian Hydrology Group
Looking forward also means hope for continued dialogue. A flickr group called Cultural Exchange started “as an attempt to undo the ban on Flickr in the UAE” and it worked. Now its thousand-member-strong community shares photos and engages in discussion. In this safe virtual environment, people from all over the world are free to ask questions on such touchy subjects as “If it’s written in the Quran, could you help me find where?” in reference to Muslim women wearing the hijab or burqa. [Teotwawki /flickr]
“What remains to be seen is what the Palestinians will do in Gaza, now that the Isrealis no longer want to be involved. As Seth put it Israelis believe that “it’s up to Palestine now. It willl be interesting to see what they do. If they cant deal with Gaza, how will they deal with the West Bank?â€? Seth will be looking to the Palestinian Authority for leadership.”
This attitude of ‘now it’s up to the Palestinians to prove themselves’ misses a crucial point: Israel still very much ‘wants to be involved’ in Gaza. ‘Disengagement’ is not an end to Israel’s occupation of Gaza, merely a reorganization of it. Israel will remain in control of Gaza’s borders, coastline, and airspace; it will have a veto over the entry and exit of goods and people; Gaza will continue to rely on Israel for water, electricity, sewage, and telecommunications; Gaza will still be in the Israeli ‘customs evelope’ and continue to use the shekel as currency. As the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights, the Red Cross, Human Rights Watch, and various legal experts have pointed out, the Gaza strip is still an occupied territory.
Most importantly, Israel reserves the ‘right’ to launch incursions at will and military officials have promised that they will show even less ‘restraint’ than before — a shuddering thought.
The Palestinian Authority that Seth looks to for ‘leadership’ is not in any sense a state; it is, legally and practically, a subcontractor for the occupying power, with far fewer powers and territory than Vichy France ever had (no, I am not comparing Israel to Nazi Germany). It is laughable that, as Bush et al. suggest, in order to ‘deserve’ a state, the Palestinians must create a responsible state in the tiny, overcrowded, prison camp called Gaza — all without the basic rudiments of statehood, like sovereigty and control over territory. Talk about putting cart before horse.