Absolutely Everything Else: Remember Ophira?

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Remember Ophira?

by Uri Avnery

Nobody from Gaza was there. As in the heyday of European imperialism, 150 years ago, the fate of the natives was decided without the natives themselves being present. Who needs them? After all, they are primitives. Better without them

If you stop any ten random passers-by in a Tel Aviv street and ask them what they think about the chances of peace, nine of them will shrug their shoulders and answer: It won't happen. No chance. The conflict will just go on forever.

They will not say: We don't want peace, the price of peace is too high. On the contrary, many will declare that for peace they are ready to give back the occupied territories, even East Jerusalem, and let the Palestinians have a state of their own. Sure. Why not? But, they will add: No chance. There will be no peace.

Some will say: The Arabs don't want it. Others will say: Our leaders can't do it. But the conclusion is the same: It just won't happen.

A similar poll of Palestinians would probably yield the same results: We want peace. Peace would be wonderful. But there's no chance. It won't happen.

This mood has produced the same political situation on both sides. In the Palestinian elections, Hamas won, not because of its ideology but because it expresses the despair of peace with Israel. In the Israeli elections, there was a general move to the Right: Leftists voted for Kadima, Kadima people voted for Likud, Likud people voted for the fascist factions.

Without hope there is no Left. The Left is by nature optimistic, it believes in a better future, in the chance of changing everything for the better. The Right is by nature pessimistic. It does not believe in the possibility of changing human nature and society for the better, it is convinced that war is a law of nature.

But among the despairing there are still those who hope that an intervention by foreigners — Americans, Europeans, even Arabs — will impose peace on us.

This week, that hope was severely shaken.

On TV we were shown a uniquely impressive conference, a huge assembly of world leaders, who all came to Sharm-el-Sheikh. (Remember that during the Israeli occupation of Sinai, it was called Ophira? Remember Moshe Dayan saying that he preferred Sharm-el-Sheikh without peace to peace without Sharm-el-Sheikh?) And for what? For little, poor Gaza. It has to be rebuilt.

It was a celebration of sanctimonious hypocrisy, in the very best tradition of international diplomacy.

First of all, nobody from Gaza was there. As in the heyday of European imperialism, 150 years ago, the fate of the natives was decided without the natives themselves being present. Who needs them? After all, they are primitives. Better without them.

Not only Hamas was absent, a delegation of Gaza businessmen and civil society activists could not come either. Hosni Mubarak just did not allow them to pass the Rafah crossing. The gate of the prison called Gaza was barred by the Egyptian jailers.

The absence of delegates from Gaza, and especially from Hamas, turned the conference into a farce. Hamas rules Gaza. It won the elections there, as in all the Palestinian territories, and continues to govern it even after one of the mightiest armies in the world spent 22 days trying to dislodge it. Nothing will happen in the Gaza Strip without the consent of Hamas. The world-wide decision to rebuild Gaza without the participation of Hamas is sheer foolishness.