The Disengaged: Gaza And The Fragmentation Of Palestinian Nationhood

[Violet_Crumble]

by Jennifer Loewenstein
April 26, 2005

Shortly before midnight on July 22nd, 2002 I heard an unusually loud roar from an aircraft flying low above the skies of Gaza City. Because the sound of Israeli warplanes is commonplace in the area, I didn`t feel particularly alarmed and went to sleep as usual. I was awakened less than a half hour later by a call on my cell phone: An F-16 fighter jet had just dropped a one-ton bomb on an apartment building in one of Gaza City`s poorest and most crowded neighborhoods, about 15 minutes from where I lived.

Ambulances, fire fighters and the press were already on the scene. Salah Shehadeh, leader of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, was dead. So were 14 others, we learned later on, most of them women and children. Later that morning, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon would proclaim this event “one of greatest successes.” I wandered through the wreckage of the bombing the following afternoon, practically numb to what I was seeing, what struck me most was that I could have been almost anywhere in the Occupied Territories: Jenin, Ramallah, Khan Yunis, Rafah… The familiarity of the destruction was, for me, the most disturbing thing because it had begun to symbolize the success of a much greater goal: the fragmentation of Palestinian nationhood into ruined, localized identities. As the popularity of Hamas continues to rise and the media blindly herald the coming “disengagement” from Gaza, I remember the freshly painted graffiti on a wall near the site of the blasted-away building that hot July day. “This is the Israeli Peace,” it declared.

The head of the Israeli Air Force, the man who ordered the bombing, was Major General Dan Halutz. In an interview nearly a month later, when asked about charges that he was a war criminal who should be tried at The Hague, Halutz commented, “ e operate according to an extremely high moral code. And since that is what guides us, I don`t think that there is any court to which we have to give an accounting…. Personally, I have a deep feeling of justice and morality. And as for how I feel - I feel just fine, thank you. I really meant it when I told the pilots that I sleep very well.”

Pressed to comment on the fact that so many innocent civilians died in the bombing, Halutz remarked that he was “sorry” that “uninvolved civilians were hurt” but added “I deliberately say `uninvolved civilians` because we know for a fact that even the greatest terrorists are sometimes cloaked in a civilian guise.” With such equivocation, he rationalized the indiscriminate killing of Palestinians.

Halutz was later promoted to Deputy Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and this February, with Sharon`s crucial support, was appointed Chief of the IDF General Staff. He will replace outgoing Chief Moshe Ya`alon this summer -just in time to oversee the implementation of the Gaza “Disengagement Plan.” His appointment will ensure that no dissent arises from among the tightly knit circle of leaders closest to Ariel Sharon at a crucial moment in the history of Israel`s occupation.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=107&ItemID=7739