107 Days to Go
What Should We Do About Gaza?

By Sherwin Pomerantz

With 107 days remaining to the opening day of the United Nations General Assembly’s 2011 session in New York and the proposed vote to grant the Palestinians recognition for statehood, current estimates indicate that as many as 160 countries might vote in favor.

Many people continue to tell me that the concern is overblown, that nothing will happen and that this is a minor byplay in the overall situation in the Middle East. Perhaps, and I respect those opinions, I just don`t agree. But whatever we do we must, as a nation and as a people, show strength. Change in Gaza over the last week gives us such an opportunity.

Over the weekend the new government in Egypt has opened the Rafah Crossing which now permits relatively unhindered passage of people and goods between Egypt and Gaza. With the opening of that passage and the continued existence of the tunnels under the border built when the passage was closed, for all practical purposes the Egyptians have put an end to the siege of Gaza. In effect, Israel has very little control any longer of what comes in or goes out of the area so why continue our blockade? It`s as if we are attempting to keep fluid inside a pipe when only one end of the pipe has a cork in it. How silly is that? Does anyone think that by blockading our side of the border we really are any longer preventing the flow of weapons into the area? I don`t!

So what is our alternative? I would suggest that we immediately announce that the border between Gaza and Israel is now the border between two sovereign entities. What would that mean? I think all of the following:

• The marine blockade of the Gaza shore ends and, as a result, we would then have no right to prevent or hinder shipments into or out of that area. This would then make further Mavi Marmara attempts to end the blockade totally pointless and take the wind out of the sails (no pun intended) of any such events planned for the future.
• If the border is then seen as one that exists between two sovereign entities, we have full control and decision making power over who comes into Israel from Gaza and who leaves Israel to go into Gaza, just as with any international border. We will, furthermore, not hinder the passage of any quantities of civilian goods from Israel into Gaza or reverse.
• Given that this is an international border, we will then advise the government in Gaza (which theoretically, today, is a combined Fatah-Hamas group) that the rules of engagement have changed. We will now consider any missiles of any type fired into Israel from Gaza by any entity there, official or otherwise, to be an act of war. Our response will be to totally obliterate every building on the one square kilometer of land whose center was the launching site of each of these missiles. My guess is we will only have to do this two or three times at most before the Gaza government gets the message.
• We further advise the Palestinian National Authority that given that the entire world agrees that a future Palestinian state, when it comes into being, will be demilitarized there is no need for the people of Gaza to import large weapons caches. As such, the Government of Israel, in its desire to uphold what President Obama has recently called “understandings under which we have had agreement for some years” reserves the right to seize any ships destined for Gaza whose cargo is composed of military weaponry.

This approach will signal to the world wide members of the UN that Israel really does support the potential for regional change represented by the Arab spring, that it recognizes the right of the people of Gaza to live normal lives, and that in accordance with our earlier withdrawal from Gaza, we recognize the sovereignty of Gaza as a part of a future Palestinian state.

Frankly, we should have done some of this when we first pulled out of Gaza but we did not. Now is the best time to establish these principles given that Egypt has unilaterally changed the dynamic over the weekend. Perhaps then the members of the UN will understand that a country who believes that it is the legitimate homeland of the Jewish people also knows what it has to do to help the world understand this as well. Does our government have what it takes to do this? Let`s hope so.