By Stan Goodenough
Apr 10, 2007
It's been a total and disastrous failure, the kind of debacle that should lead to the downfall of any democratically-elected government.
Twenty months after the world insisted that Israel rip the Jews out of the Gaza Strip, and then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon complied, not only do the Arabs left free and unaccountable continue to fire rockets daily at Jewish targets "in" Israel, but life for most residents in the Strip continues its spiral downwards, as anarchy, crime and violence reign unchecked.
The situation has become so bad that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency - UNRWA, the UN arm responsible for perpetuating the "Palestinian refugee crisis - last Saturday warned that it may have to stop providing aid and pull its personnel out of Gaza.
"The Gaza Strip is full of thugs and gangsters who are responsible for the ongoing anarchy. [It may soon] be declared a dangerous zone, which means that all international organisations would have to leave."
An unnamed human-rights activist described Gaza as "worse than Somalia," according to a report in the Saudi Arabian Arab News.
"Thousands of gunmen continue to roam the streets and the new government [sic] hasn't done anything to restore law and order. Every day you hear horror stories about people who are killed and wounded. The situation is really intolerable."
Said recently appointed PA national security adviser Mohammed Dahlan, "anyone who does not admit that there is a curse in the Gaza Strip does not know what he's talking about."
Before the August 2005 disengagement, those in favour of it, both in Israel and abroad, spoke optimistically of what it would mean for Israel and for the Palestinian Arabs.
Israel would no longer be occupying "Arab territory," which would mean the cessation of terrorism originating from Gaza.
The Arabs there would finally be free to begin developing their own economy, with generous injections of aid from the Arab world and the rest of the international community.
Sharon himself promised that Israel's withdrawal would bring a decline in terror - a promise that was not swallowed by the majority of Israelis.
Just a week before "disengagement" polls showed that only 25 percent of the country had bought into that pledge.
Hundreds of Kassam rockets have been fired at Jewish targets from the Gaza Strip since the last Israeli soldier left. Israel's surrendering of control over the border crossing between Gaza and Egypt - something demanded by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice - opened the gates wide to weapons smuggling into Gaza.
The Palestinian Authority's refusal to clamp down on the violence forced Israel to repeatedly close the various crossings into Gaza, severely damaging what economy existed in the Strip before the Jews left.
Consequently, as a direct result of this "Palestinian" terrorism and the Palestinian Authority's cynical exploitation of it for nationalistic purposes, the only fruits enjoyed by Gaza's Arabs have been the rotten fruits of violence and crime gone out of control.