The State of Israel is on the defensive. Next month, pro-Palestinian groups across the world will be marking 40 years of occupation with calls for protests and boycott. The anti-Zionist movement is picking up speed. The entire world is against the occupation.
The good news is that the State of Israel is also against the occupation - its people and government seek peace with the Palestinian people on the basis of "two states for two peoples." Speaking at the United Nations in September 2005, Prime Minister Sharon said that the Palestinian people are "entitled to freedom and to national sovereign existence in a state of their own."
The Israeli public relations strategy must be premised on this position - the State of Israel wishes to end the occupation; it seeks peace and is willing to take risks in order to achieve it...
...the position of "no partner" was very convenient for Prime Ministers Barak and Sharon, who espoused complete separation from the Palestinians. However, today we still keep saying there is no partner. Palestinian leader Abbas is indeed weak, but instead of repeating this as if the State of Israel was not at least partly responsible for his weakness, we would do well to quickly grasp that his weakness does not serve us, and that Israel's actions only serve to further weaken his constantly deteriorating status.
Proof of this is the situation in the Gaza Strip: Israel argues that Abbas controls tens of thousands of uniformed police officers, who fail to curb the Qassam rocket attacks. Is that indeed the case? His loyalists have not been paid regularly for more than a year now. The Palestinian Authority's government system has collapsed a long time ago. Gaza Strip residents live without any personal or social security. They can see neither political nor economic horizon.
Radical elements pay every boy willing to fire Qassams at Israel NIS 250 (roughly USD 60.) The Gaza smuggling, and we are not only talking about arms, helps many make a living. Gaza residents have almost gotten used to the occurrences of abductions for ransom. There is no law and order. Private militias are being established on a daily basis.
Perhaps Israel does not bear direct responsibility for this situation, yet it is certainly a direct result of its policy. The complete lack of Palestinian Authority control in Gaza threatens its hold over the West Bank as well. Similarly, the weakening of the moderate and non-religious parts of Palestinian society boosts the radical Islamic sectors not only in Palestine, but rather, across the region...
...the IDF and Shin Bet are busy scaring the Israeli public in order to apparently prepare it for yet another useless military campaign in Gaza. They tell us that American General Dayton's plan for improving the economic situation in the Territories by easing restrictions on movement is dangerous, claiming that it would boost terror. They also say that opening the road connecting Gaza to the West Bank, even under Israeli monitoring, would enable the transfer of technologies - as if this information cannot be relayed through e-mail.
They are seemingly scared of the transfer of arms through truck convoys - yet each truck departing from Gaza undergoes a strict and thorough security screening process. Don't we trust this screening process, considered the most intrusive in the world? Why don't we approve and implement? Perhaps we prefer real estate and control over another people over an end to the occupation after all?
Instead of putting an end to our control over the Palestinian people, we invent patents that make us feel as though we are not occupiers, while maintaining the occupation nonetheless: For example, the unilateral disengagement; "We're here - ? they're there"; bypass roads that circumvent Palestinian communities, so that settlers can travel through the land of settlements as if there are no Arabs there; road arteries for Jews only; security fences, which are in fact separation walls and obstacles that enable us to maintain our control. Meanwhile, we're here -but we're also there. And so are they...
...Does anyone actually believe that the Palestinians will resign themselves to the grand land grab taking place in the shadow of the walls? Does anyone think that the world will accept the imprisonment of millions in large detention camps such as the Gaza Strip and growing parts of the West Bank?
True, Israel left Gaza, yet the occupation there continues. Israel still maintains full control over the borders; we open and close them when we want to. The European observers in Rafah are helpless in the face of Israel's blatant violations of the agreement. Since the opening of the Gaza-Egypt crossing, the border has remained open roughly 30 percent of the agreed-upon time, thus leaving about a million and a half Palestinians imprisoned in one of the globe's most crowded areas.
...the destruction of Palestinian governance in Gaza and perhaps later in the West Bank is a disastrous situation for Israel. Whether they realize it or not, we need a Palestinian partner...
...I don't know if we as a state of the Jewish people will be able to survive either. Our hatred, our fears, our extremism and our arrogance have helped us to arrive at a place and a time when the possibility of liberating ourselves from the occupation of the Palestinian people may be too late. I, for one, am at a total loss of what happens then. Once the possibility of creating a Palestinian state next to Israel is no longer real, it seems to me that the dream of a democratic state of the Jewish people comes to an end. Israel can and will continue to exist but it will no longer be able to claim its commitment to democracy or to prophetic values of our Biblical teachings...
...After 40 years of occupation, it is time for all of us to be liberated.
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