I was a bit hesitant about traveling by the Allenby bridge but at the last minute I decide to go. A few friends from abroad were in town for the first time and it made sense that I would go with them back to Amman .

 So, Gaza was occupied

     by Daoud Kuttab





      For 37 years, Israel has consistently rejected Palestinians’ and the

world view that the status of the areas its military took in 1967 was

occupied. When Israel was not using the biblical terms of Judea and Samaria

(to refer to the West Bank) they used the terms “administered territories”

or “disputed territories”. That is until now.

      After the evacuation of the illegal Jewish settlers and before the

resolution of the international crossings, the Israelis want Palestinians to

say the “O” word.



      Despite Israel’s refusal to allow the reopening of Yasser Arafat

International Airport in Gaza and the Rafah crossing point between

Palestinian Gaza and Egypt, the Israelis want Palestinians to publicly

proclaim that the occupation of Gaza is over. Well, to be exact, some in the

Israeli government (mostly those in the National Security Council) want this

statement, while Israeli officials in the foreign ministry are simply

interested in a Palestinian statement saying that the Palestinian Authority

and not Israel will (after the Israeli army leaves most of Gaza) be the

party overall responsible for the strip.



      Israeli officials and columnists are surprised that Palestinians are

not too enthusiastic about rushing to make a declaration which they have

been hoping to make for some time.



      The official Palestinian reluctance is understandable as long as the

airport and the land crossings (with all that means in security, customs and

administrative responsibility) are not fully and permanently in Palestinian

hands. Partial control means partial sovereignty and therefore partial end

of occupation. Ending occupation is like pregnancy. You can’t be half

pregnant.



      But if these two sovereign crossings are fully placed in Palestinian

hands, Israel would have a stronger case in making the claim that the PA

needs to declare an end to occupation.



      I personally think that the Palestinian leadership should not make any

one-sided declaration about the full or partial end of the occupation until

the Israelis are willing to make a much simpler declaration. By asking

Palestinians to declare an end to occupation, they need to admit themselves

that there was an occupation in Gaza and that there still is an occupation

in the West Bank.



      While such an Israeli acknowledgement would be nothing more than a

recognition of the reality that it has been literally occupying Palestinians

since 1967, such an admission would have far-reaching consequences.



      The Fourth Geneva Convention, which was devised specifically to deal

with cases of prolonged occupation (following the German occupation of most

of Europe), deals specifically with the rights of persons (and property) in

occupied territories. The Israeli government has consistently refused to

recognise the Palestinian (as well as the Syrian) areas as occupied and

therefore has not felt obliged to fulfil the mandate that such a recognition

would entitle people under occupation.



      International humanitarian law (of which the Fourth Geneva Convention

is part) specifies, for example, that the occupying power is not allowed to

take citizens from occupied territories into its country and is not allowed

to bring its own citizens to live in occupied areas. So, now that the

Israeli violation of bringing settlers illegally to the occupied areas has

been rectified, it is natural to demand that Palestinians imprisoned in

jails in Israel (also denied family visits since the Intifada) should be

released into the areas that Israel is demanding Palestinians to say is no

longer occupied.



      Impeding movement of local citizens within occupied areas is also

illegal, according to international law. Not only does this make the Israeli

closures between West Bank cities and between these cities and occupied East

Jerusalem illegal, it also makes illegal closure between freed Gaza and

still occupied West Bank.



      Declaring the end of occupation in Gaza should be equated with the

recognition of the continuation of the occupation and, thus, all the Israeli

violations still taking place in the West Bank, the latest of which was the

illegal decision to build yet another 117 illegal houses in the Nablus-area

exclusive settlement of Ariel for citizens of the occupying power.



      Once Palestinians take full control and sovereignty over all of Gaza,

including the borders with Egypt, they should begin rebuilding and using the

international airport and simultaneously declare the end of the occupation

in Gaza and demand the same for all remaining occupied territories that were

forcefully taken in June 1967.

Printed in the The Jordan Times      Friday-Saturday, September 9-10, 2005