Settling the settlements

What should happen to the settlements left behind by the evicted settlers of the Gaza Strip?

Israel tastes bitter fruit of the Gaza settlements

The eviction of settlers from the Gaza Strip has created a dilemma for the authorities: what to do with the farms they will be leaving behind. Donald Macintyre reports

[Some extracts:]


'When Mr Sender first arrived 27 years ago in this Palestinian territory seized from the Egyptians in the Six Day War, 10 years earlier, Gannei Tal was nothing but desert and sand dunes. Married with two young children, he had been head of the export branch of the Bank Mizrahi in Tel Aviv. "I was looking for a moshav [farming community] in a good area for a better quality of life. I looked all over the country and Gaza wasn't even our first choice. We didn't come for ideological reasons."

The ideology came later. His ancestors came from Lithuania to the Holy Land eight generations ago. "We are the true Palestinians," he says, defiantly. Asked whether he didn't always think he might one day have to leave, he gets up from his chair, takes a bible from the shelf, bangs it down on the table and exclaims: "This is my Kashun [deed of property entitlement]. This says to the Jews that Israel is your country, not that of the Arabs or anyone else."'

'In the Israeli media, the issue has been treated as one of public relations. Television pictures of Israeli bulldozers destroying homes will be bad for the Sharon government; pictures of Hamas flags fluttering from the red-tiled roofs of the settlers' ample villas, let alone jubilant bands of Gazans marauding through will be bad for the Palestinians.

But that is only part of the story. The army doesn't want the extra time - up to three months - and risk involved in destroying the houses and, as they would surely be obliged to do under law, of clearing the rubble.

For the PA, the houses, mainly, though not exclusively, large and in gated California-style communities, could prove a major headache; unconvertible into badly-needed high density housing, an obstacle to efficient land use, from extraction of desperately needed water-to promoting productive agriculture. (8,000 settlers and their military protectors occupy 17 per cent of the land; 1.3 million Palestinians occupy the rest).

Convinced the Israeli cabinet will reverse its earlier decision to destroy the houses, Saleh Abdel Shafi acknowledges a real risk of looting and destruction. "Settlements are the biggest symbol of the occupation in the eyes of the people," he says.

"People are very emotional about this and there could be a spontaneous reaction."

To try to prevent that, he says, civic groups have prepared a campaign in schools and elsewhere to persuade the population "what Israel is leaving behind is the property of the Palestinian people, no longer of the enemy, and we have to protect it."

Mr Abdel Shafi acknowledges that one option, apart from the possibly inevitable one of the PA eventually destroying them, is for the PA to bring in revenue by selling them privately at market value. "But if that happens they have to be very careful," he says. "The process will have to be very transparent to ensure they don't simply become houses for senior PA security people or ministers."'