10-21-05, 11:56 am
The Israeli occupation of Gaza Strip didn't end it merely changed form.
With the completion of the Israeli army withdrawal from Gaza Strip, and the eviction of all the settlers from there, its occupation has seemingly ended. And indeed, if by 'occupation' we mean, as the Israeli establishment wants us to understand, a mere direct military presence, then sure enough, Gaza Strip is no longer occupied by Israel. But is that truly the objective situation?
Ariel Sharon's government tries to instill, both in Israel and abroad, the impression that the occupation of Gaza has ended, and now the Palestinians must 'prove themselves worthy'. This serves the purpose of allowing the ongoing occupation to continue, well hidden behind the smokescreen of 'ending the occupation'.
The occupation is a far more intricate project than mere direct military presence. The occupation is a project on which fingerprints of class interests can be clearly seen. It can be carried out in numerous ways, colonial as well as neo-colonial. Peace activists in Israel identified for many years the fight against the occupation, with the fight for human rights and self determination for the Palestinian people. This is an important and central struggle, which remains to be completed. Yet it seems that those who benefited the most from the occupation, feel that even with the completion of the withdrawals and evictions, they can still continue to maintain a state of economic occupation, based on keeping the Palestinian territories as colonies, bounded and integrated with Israeli capitalism.
In the 40 years that have passed since Israel occupied Gaza Strip (as well as the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights), a pattern of socio-economic relations between the Palestinians and Israel has evolved a colonial pattern. The Gaza strip, just like the rest of the occupied territories, became a captive market for Israeli goods. The Israeli occupier, relying on its military might, prevented the Palestinians from developing their economy. The Palestinians were prevented from developing industries such as cement, which might have posed a competition for Israeli industries. At the same time, Gaza was being kept as a huge pool of cheap labor force for the Israeli economy. The winning colonial formula was established: Costly Israeli goods for cheap Palestinian labor.
The two Intifadas (Palestinian uprisings) damaged badly this colonial project, and severely weakened the Israeli occupation. As a result of this weakening, the Oslo accords were signed in 1993 with the PLO (previously regarded a dreaded foe), and in 2005 the Israeli army and settlers withdrew from the Gaza strip, and several West Bank settlements were dismantled.
The Oslo accords, and especially the economic agreements that followed (the Paris accords), gave contractual approval to the redeeming colonial scheme that Lautman formulated. The Paris accords suit exactly the vision dictated by the heads of the Israeli bourgeoisie. The one signing the Paris accords was Finance Minister Abraham (Baiga) Shohat, but the logic according to which the accords were written, was Lautman's. The Israeli Labor Party, including the Prime Ministers elected from its ranks, gave much thought to what would happen next. Shimon Peres, Labor Party veteran leader and Sharon's right-hand man, often displays his eagerness to put the colonial formula into practice. This is evident in the elaborate ways he talks about 'turning Gaza into the Hong Kong of the Middle East', 'setting up joint industrial zones', 'market-oriented peace agreement', etc.
The actions taken by the Sharon-Peres government after the Gaza withdrawal suit Peres's vision: Closing the Gaza strip to Egyptian import/export of goods, and leaving it open only for Israeli import/export; Continuing to prohibit the Palestinians from rebuilding their airport (destroyed by Israeli air force); Continuing to prohibit the constructing of a naval port (whose infrastructure was bombed by Israeli air force as an 'act of retaliation'); Allowing low-paid Palestinian workers into Israel, where they'll compete with migrant workers.
As of now, the Palestinian Authority is not taking any significant steps towards ending its reliance on Israel and achieving economic independence. The Palestinian Authority's economic policies have been, for many years, monitored closely by representatives from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the tentacles of capitalist globalizations. The representatives of these international (i.e., American) bodies, together with their Palestinian colleagues, whose world view was formulated based on neo-liberal economic theory, contribute their part of implementing the Israeli neo-colonial formula. As it turns out, there are also Palestinians who make profit off-, and therefore have interest in-, continuing Palestinian reliance on Israeli economy.
The Israeli neo-colonial dream can quickly turn into a Palestinian nightmare: This neocolonial formula requires a weak and dependant Palestinian economy, very low wages (for the workers employed in the international trade zones), and high unemployment rate to keep wages low. As a matter of fact, Israel's plans for the Palestinian economy are exactly what the US is already implementing in Israel: An economy run by representatives of the World Bank and IMF, with a thin layer who profits greatly from its services to corporate globalization, and alongside it mass unemployment and wage erosion.
--Efraim Davidi is member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Israel (CPI) and member of the Histadrut Israeli trade union federation) leadership. This article was originally published on 19.10.05 in 'Zo Haderech', the CPI's Hebrew-language weekly paper.
