Elad’s blog

Today’s top story was hiding as a small paragraph in a small reportage published in an inner page at the economics part of my newspaper. It deals with electricity supply to the Palestinians in Gaza, and though I didn’t check the details myself, the reporter that brought this story (N. Shtrasler) is usually reliable. I think it demonstrates profound stupidity.

The story tells that Israel has decided to draw a 9.5k”m power line from the southern city of Netivot into Gaza strip in order to sell electricity to the Palestinians. It is both evil and stupid, but first it has a background everybody should know.

About four months ago, in July, the Palsetinians attacked an Israeli post outside Gaza strip. In that attack they killed two soldiers and kidnapped another one - Gilad Shalit, who is still imprisoned somewhere. This initiated a quick escalation process (actually, it backed the Lebanon assaults that a few days later drew Israel into war at the northern front). This escalation, at least at the Palestinian front, is not over yet.

Here are some of the effects that it had: The israeli army, which withdrew completely from Gaza strip a year ago, is practically back in it, in an endless series of operations. In these operations, over 300 Palestinians (most of them armed) were killed till now; in addition, an unknown - but at least dozens, to look at previous years - amount of Palestinian prisoners that Israel usually releases every year towards the Muslim holiday Id-El-Fiter (that was celebrated yesterday, if I am not mistaken) - remained in jail this year, and they will remain there at least until Shalit is back home from his captivity.

Another efffect, the one relevant to this story, is that during one of the military operations in Gaza, held a few months ago, one of the Palestinian power stations was destroyed and ceased to work. Since then, for a few months now, there are quite a few residents of Gaza strip that live without electricity.

The suggested power line is one means to provide them with electricity. The other, which also takes place, is to let them rebuild the power station. This is under plans now, with some aid the Palestinians receive from Egypt.

Now, who pays for this power line? Right. The Palestinians. Part of the tax moneys that Israel owes the Palestinian authority (I may be wrong here, but I think that at least part of this money is frozen at Israeli banks and Israel doesn’t give it to the Palestinians until they release Shalit.)

So one way to look at it is: first Israel destroys Palestinian power stations, then it sells power lines to the Palestinians. A broader way is: look at what the Palestinians are bringing on themselves with this kidnap story. I want to look at a view which is even a bit broader.

Israel’s best interest is that the Palestinians are independent. We don’t want to sell any electricity to the Palestinians - it is against both our and their interest. Israel’s interest is that the Palestinians in Gaza have an independent power supply, water purification, and all other aspects that would enable a true “disengagement”. Yes, we’d like to have economical cooperation: but cooperation between two independent parts, out of their own will and interest. Not cooperation because they have no choice, but because it is worthwhile for everybody.

Thus, destroying the power station in the first place was foolish. Let’s accept it as a given, and not debate for the moment about its necessity. Maybe it happened in order to press the locals to release Shalit, maybe it was unavoidable due to some military constraints in one of the operations (was it used to store weapons used against Israel? were some armed palestinians hiding in it and shot Israeli soldiers from it? - in both cases, both of them old and well known palestinian behavioral patterns, it is justified to destroy the building, in my judgement), maybe it even was a simple mistake (a plane missed? Could it be?); In any case, selling the electricity to the Palestinians, the way it is performed, is another act against Israel’s interests.

The problem is that this is not a temporary solution. The amount of time it would take to build this line is not small; I don’t know how it is compared to building a power station, but it doesn’t solve the Palestinian necessity in a temporary solution. Also, it is designed to be a regular part of Palestinian power netweork - which draws them another step back from being independent, and into Israel.

A year and a half ago, Israel decided on withdrawal from the Gaza strip. Since then, the Palestinians proved an almost nonunderstansable behaviour, by commencing daily missile attacks against Israel from the area it left, choosing the Hammas extremists as their government, and continue land attacks against Israel sovereign parts, like in the kidnap story. By this they managed to cancel for many years the continuation of the disengagement, that was planned for Judea and Samaria (it was Olmert’s main election ticket); to deteriorate themselves into a state of extreme poverty; to have many deads and imprisoned; and to have literrally every sane man around give up with them and with the idea that they are ever going to react reasonably or under any logic line that is understandable to western eyes.

What the hell are they trying to achieve? Do they really want to be back under occupation?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 24th, 2006 at 21:00 and is filed under Opinions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.