{"id":45420,"date":"2014-08-04T12:00:36","date_gmt":"2014-08-04T11:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=45420"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:30:47","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:30:47","slug":"how-the-west-chose-war-in-gaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2014\/08\/how-the-west-chose-war-in-gaza\/","title":{"rendered":"How the West Chose War in Gaza"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gaza and Israel: The Road to War, Paved by the West<\/em><\/p>\n

As Hamas<\/a> fires rockets at Israeli cities and Israel<\/a> follows up its extensive airstrikes with a ground operation in the Gaza Strip<\/a>, the most immediate cause of this latest war has been ignored: Israel and much of the international community placed a prohibitive set of obstacles in the way of the Palestinian<\/a> \u201cnational consensus\u201d government that was formed in early June.<\/p>\n

That government was created largely because of Hamas\u2019s desperation and isolation. The group\u2019s alliance with Syria and Iran was in shambles. Its affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt<\/a> became a liability after a July 2013 coup replaced an ally, President Mohamed Morsi, with a bitter adversary, Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Hamas\u2019s coffers dried up as General Sisi closed the tunnels that had brought to Gaza the goods and tax revenues on which it depended.<\/p>\n

Seeing a region swept by popular protests against leaders who couldn\u2019t provide for their citizens\u2019 basic needs, Hamas opted to give up official control of Gaza rather than risk being overthrown. Despite having won the last elections, in 2006, Hamas decided to transfer formal authority to the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah. That decision led to a reconciliation agreement between Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Organization, on terms set almost entirely by the P.L.O. chairman and Palestinian Authority<\/a> president, Mahmoud Abbas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Israel immediately sought to undermine the reconciliation agreement by preventing Hamas leaders and Gaza residents from obtaining the two most essential benefits of the deal: the payment of salaries to 43,000 civil servants who worked for the Hamas government and continue to administer Gaza under the new one, and the easing of the suffocating border closures imposed by Israel and Egypt that bar most Gazans\u2019 passage to the outside world.<\/p>\n

Yet, in many ways, the reconciliation government could have served Israel\u2019s interests. It offered Hamas\u2019s political adversaries a foothold in Gaza; it was formed without a single Hamas member; it retained the same Ramallah-based prime minister, deputy prime ministers, finance minister and foreign minister; and, most important, it pledged to comply with the three conditions for Western aid long demanded by America and its European allies: nonviolence, adherence to past agreements and recognition of Israel.<\/p>\n

Israel strongly opposed American recognition of the new government, however, and sought to isolate it internationally, seeing any small step toward Palestinian unity as a threat. Israel\u2019s security establishment objects to the strengthening of West Bank<\/a>-Gaza ties, lest Hamas raise its head in the West Bank. And Israelis who oppose a two-state solution understand that a unified Palestinian leadership is a prerequisite for any lasting peace.<\/p>\n

Still, despite its opposition to the reconciliation agreement, Israel continued to transfer the tax revenues it collects on the Palestinian Authority\u2019s behalf, and to work closely with the new government, especially on security cooperation.<\/p>\n

But the key issues of paying Gaza\u2019s civil servants and opening the border with Egypt were left to fester. The new government\u2019s ostensible supporters, especially the United States and Europe, could have pushed Egypt to ease border restrictions, thereby demonstrating to Gazans that Hamas rule had been the cause of their isolation and impoverishment. But they did not.<\/p>\n

Instead, after Hamas transferred authority to a government of pro-Western technocrats, life in Gaza became worse.<\/p>\n

Qatar had offered to pay Gaza\u2019s 43,000 civil servants, and America and Europe could have helped facilitate that. But Washington warned that American law prohibited any entity delivering payment to even one of those employees \u2014 many thousands of whom are not members of Hamas but all of whom are considered by American law to have received material support from a terrorist organization.<\/p>\n

When a United Nations envoy offered to resolve this crisis by delivering the salaries through the United Nations, so as to exclude all parties from legal liability, the Obama administration did not assist. Instead, it stood by as Israel\u2019s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, called for the envoy\u2019s expulsion on the grounds that he was \u201ctrying to funnel money\u201d to Hamas.<\/p>\n

Hamas is now seeking through violence what it couldn\u2019t obtain through a peaceful handover of responsibilities. Israel is pursuing a return to the status quo ante, when Gaza had electricity for barely eight hours a day, water was undrinkable, sewage was dumped in the sea, fuel shortages caused sanitation plants to shut down and waste sometimes floated in the streets. Patients needing medical care couldn\u2019t reach Egyptian hospitals, and Gazans paid $3,000 bribes for a chance to exit when Egypt chose to open the border crossing.<\/p>\n

For many Gazans, and not just Hamas supporters, it\u2019s worth risking more bombardment and now the ground incursion, for a chance to change that unacceptable status quo. A cease-fire that fails to resolve the salary crisis and open Gaza\u2019s border with Egypt will not last. It is unsustainable for Gaza to remain cut off from the world and administered by employees working without pay. A more generous cease-fire, though politically difficult for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a>, would be more durable.<\/p>\n

The current escalation in Gaza is a direct result of the choice by Israel and the West to obstruct the implementation of the April 2014 Palestinian reconciliation agreement. The road out of the crisis is a reversal of that policy.<\/p>\n

____________________________<\/p>\n

Nathan Thrall is a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group covering Gaza, Israel, Jordan and the West Bank. <\/em><\/p>\n

A version of this op-ed appears in print on July 18, 2014, on page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: How the West Chose War in Gaza.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 nytimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Join the BDS-BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT, SANCTIONS <\/em>campaign<\/em><\/strong><\/span> to protest the Israeli barbaric siege of Gaza, illegal occupation of the Palestine nation\u2019s territory, the apartheid wall, its inhuman and degrading treatment of the Palestinian people, and the more than 7,000 Palestinian men, women, elderly and children arbitrarily locked up in Israeli prisons.<\/p>\n

DON’T BUY<\/strong> PRODUCTS WHOSE<\/strong> BARCODE<\/strong> STARTS WITH<\/strong> 729<\/strong>, which indicates that it is produced in Israel.\u00a0\u00a0 DO YOUR PART! MAKE A DIFFERENCE!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

7 2 9: BOYCOTT FOR JUSTICE!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The current escalation in Gaza is a direct result of the choice by Israel and the West to obstruct the implementation of the April 2014 Palestinian reconciliation agreement. The road out of the crisis is a reversal of that policy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-palestine-israel-gaza-genocide"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45420\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}