fugitive peace

Israeli parents are furious at the army for letting their sons, new conscripts, sleep in unprotected tents at the Zikim army base, where dozens of them were wounded on Monday night by a rocket from Gaza. The government, for its part, has decided not to hit Gaza hard in retaliation.

But please spare a thought for another unintended victim of the rocket attack. This morning I got this email from a friend in Gaza who, after months of struggle to get the necessary visa, exit permit and who knows what else, was due to leave yesterday to realise a long-awaited dream of studying abroad. His words express eloquently one of the things that one can so rarely learn from media reports: the misery of being an ordinary Gazan trapped between the forces of Israel’s occupation on the one hand and Palestinian extremism on the other:

I set out of here on time Tuesday 4:00 am. I got on the bus with the other travelers and we moved on to Erez crossing, passed it after we had done all the checking procedures on the Israeli side so swiftly and smoothly. Every thing seemd fine and good. We got on other buses and were supposed to head to Egypt. We waited and waited and waited to move, time of waiting on the buses almost 4 hours. We did not move to Egypt though :-( . Then we were told we have to return to Gaza for security reasons. We heard later that it was because some Palestinian stupid group fired a rocket against Israel and hit a group of Israeli soldiers, one was killed [NB: according to reports today he is critically injured but still alive - Gideon] and 60 others were injured…. On the way back, I saw the women and kids traveling back bursting into tears feeling so disappointed, grievous and upset. All of them were of course stuck in Gaza and this was their only chance to reunite with their families, fathers and husbands… It is so sad and agonizing to know that we ,the Palestinian, do this to ourselves and call this “resistance” of the occupation… The Israelis did not do this to us… quite the opposite they were so helpful at the crossing and let us pass so quickly…. I do not know.. I am beginning to hate my own country and people.. not all of them but those utilitarians blood traders who use the Palestinian cause merely for personal and party interests without caring about the people’s well being… I want to know… why why why… they would fire rockets only when they know people are traveling through Erez crossing… it was not a coincidence, It was known to every body in Gaza that we were traveling today earlier…. It is all because the Palestinian “blood traders” cant travel through Israel, they are screwing this way up…. though more than 80% of the Palestinian people can benefit from this crossing to go after their business, education and to reunite with their families out of Gaza…. It is so fuckin stupid and ungly…. Excuse my words.. I am so upset right now….

This year, in a rare coincidence, the Jewish and Muslim festivals begin together. To everyone, wherever you are, and especially to my Gazan friend,

The EU has some serious egg on its face this week after the Gaza power fiasco.

The European Commission pays an Israeli company (Dor Alon) to provide fuel to Gaza’s only power station. The fuel is turned into electricity; the electricity gets distributed; Gazans pay the electric company; the electric company pays taxes to the PA. Someone whispered in the commission’s ear that Hamas, being in charge of Gaza, was somehow getting hold of these taxes instead.

Panic. Hamas is on the EU’s terrorist list. The EU cannot give money to Hamas. And providing money to an Israeli firm that provides fuel to a Palestinian firm that collects money from Palestinians that then goes to Hamas is of course practically the same thing. It has to stop at once. And stop it did: The commission suspended payments to Dor Alon - so fast that senior commission officials only learned about it from the media. And the power plant, which provides about a third of Gaza’s electricity, shut down, leaving hundreds of thousands of people suffering blackouts at the height of summer.

Except that it seems nobody checked whether the allegations were true before throwing the switch. By today the money was flowing again and the power was back on. There has been a show of setting up “joint Commission/PA audits to ensure that fuel aid in Gaza remains properly managed,” according to the commission’s press release. This is a rather thin fig-leaf (note the “remains”) for the fact that actually, no improper management was found.

Hamas accused Fatah of cooking up the story, which they suggest was based on the fact that Hamas men have been going door to door trying to make people pay their bills and investigating what they allege is corruption at the power company. I haven’t been able to ascertain exactly where the Europeans got their information. But it’s clearly the latest in many cases where the fact that foreign governments will not talk to Hamas has made them reliant on partisan and dubious sources for their knowledge of what is actually going on in Gaza and the West Bank.