Nicholas Kristof had a very good column in the Times this weekend calling for Israel to lift the blockade on Gaza because it is only helping Hamas. The column has a narrow focus, and suggests that lifting the blockade will cure things, that we have the opportunity to hit Reset on Gaza.
But how do you hit Reset with Gaza without dealing with the larger political realities? Doesn’t Reset mean acknowledging that Israel has done everything it could and can to separate the West Bank and Gaza, the two supposed components of the future Palestinian state, and that they are very distinct culturally and politically and religiously today? Doesn’t it mean acknowledging that Israel out of Zionist demographic understanding seems to be trying to make Gaza Egypt’s problem? Doesn’t it mean acknowledging what Amy Teibel talks about in the AP today: 42 percent of the West Bank is controlled by settlers. How do you even imagine a two-state solution in these circumstances except as how Ali Abunimah describes it, a form of repartition?
Zionism is based on a Jewish historical/political understanding from Europe: Gentiles are anti-Semites, we can’t trust them to rule us. Well, hitting Reset means acknowledging the Palestinian historical understanding rooted not on another continent but in Palestine: that Gaza is filled with refugees whom Israel ethnically cleansed once, in 48, in the central enduring event of Arab political understanding, the Nakba.
Let’s go back to Square One. But where is Square One with Gaza– post-67 occupation? Or pre-48 Mandatory Palestine? I am not sure, but I don’t think you can talk about Gaza without talking about refugee camps and political disfranchisement.
