Gaza Imploding

I love to hear Palestinians tell stories of how Gaza used to be, because it reminds me that mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, uncles, aunts, grandmothers and grandfathers live there--not just the armed militants that make the news. All anyone needs to do is to reach for their dusty copy of "Lord of the Flies" and they'll be able to understand why Gazan society is imploding. The simplistic analysis offered by armchair Middle East pundits states that "Gaza minus Settlers equals Gaza's opportunity for peace and prosperity". When Gazan tribal politics erupt, these same dumbdits state that this just "proves" their point that Palestinians are incapable of helping themselves. This somehow puts the Israeli Occupation in a positive light--the Israelis must be doing Palestinians a favor by sticking around because clearly Palestinians are predisposed to self-destructive behavior.

I completely agree that the violence among factions is absolutely sinful. The truth is that political and economic greed drives militants to engage in violence against fellow Palestinians. The power struggle includes those who pick up the banner of Islam to legitimize their claim to power. It becomes a pissing contest to see who is the real Palestinian/Muslim/Freedom Fighter. Then new groups like Army of Islam throw their kaffiyeh into the ring, and they completely up the ante. In turn, this banner provides cover for militants who attack women in the name of "honor". But let me be clear, there is no honor in attacking the most vulnerable members of society. Furthermore, the attack on "honor" is often just a means for political rivals to damage the reputation of the other. If the women of one party are deemed "dishonorable" than the entire party is tainted. It is the same logic that war criminals used when they authorized rape as a means of perpetrating genocide.

But the reality of Gaza is that it takes more than just the removal of a couple thousand settlers to empower Gazans to build a viable Palestinian state. A professor once told me that if someone ever presents a bivariate analysis of an issue as "absolute proof" of their hypothesis, you know they are either conning you or they're too dumb to know anything about anything.

Gaza is often referred to as the largest prison in the world simply because the movement of approximately one and a half million Gazans is completely restricted by land, air and sea. It is also often noted as the most densely populated place on earth. The economy is in a perpetual strangle hold due to restrictions on industry that can only flourish through the export of goods beyond the Strip. If you can't ship your goods by land, and can't ship your goods by sea, and you can't ship your goods by air, and NO ONE around you has any money because unemployment is estimated to be around 80%, what is the point of producing goods?

How are people supposed to embrace democratization and enforce the rule of law when they are trying desperately to find a way to feed their family? Healthy legal and social institutions don't just spontaneously emerge in a power vacuum. In times of severe economic crisis, an organic socialist model in which all people benevolently care for one another does not automatically emerge (although, against great odds, Palestinian civil society has demonstrated remarkable skill in that area) I don't mean to get all Thomas Hobbes on you, but when times are hard, people take care of their own. It is human nature to hunker down into a tribal mentality. As a result of years of economic and political misery, good people are getting caught in the crosshairs of factional violence that erupts as these "tribes" scrambled to gain control of scarce resources.

Settlers or no settlers, when people are starving they become desperate. These are desperate times in Gaza.