In Focus: Unfinished business Galal Nassar examines the timing of Israel's assault against Gaza For the third week running the Israeli occupation army has been waging a relentless war in Gaza. Nearly 1,000 have died so far and at least 4,400 have been injured and despite a ceasefire resolution by the UN Security Council the assault is not yet over. The din of explosions is met with a rising chorus of protest, including accusations of treason and betrayal. It is as disconcerting as it is surreal. So what was the cause of this barbaric, indeed Nazi-inspired, onslaught? Why must we have a re-enactment of the Holocaust? The Zionists say they are reacting to rockets fired from Gaza. But then the Zionists also admit that these rockets are barely effective. Those who have nothing but contempt for the resistance often refer to the rocket firing as "pathetic". There is more to Israel's aggression than meets the eye. The Israelis want something that means more to them than the lives of their soldiers, the expense of the campaign, the body blows to Israel's international standing. We need to know what the real aims of the Israelis are, if only because the Zionist scheme threatens not only the Palestinians but Arab collective security as well. Let's go back to 2006 and the war in Lebanon that was supposed to propel the region -- birth pangs and all -- into becoming the greater Middle East. It was Donald Rumsfeld who first coined the term "birth pangs" following the occupation of Iraq in 2003. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice obviously liked the term and used it during the 2006 Lebanon war. The general idea is that Israel will become an integral part of the region, not just an equal partner with the Arabs but the advance party of Western imperialism in this part of the world. Back in the early 1970s Israel's then prime minister, Yigal Allon, proposed a self-governing Palestinian entity in the West Bank and Gaza federated with Jordan. His idea was that the Palestinian-Jordanian federation would help the Zionists infiltrate into Asia and Africa. Then Allon came up with other proposals, including exporting Arab natural gas through Palestinian ports and piping water from Turkey to the occupied territories. The authors of these schemes also contemplated Israeli expansion into south Lebanon so as to control the waters of the Litani and diverting River Jordan to the Negev desert. The 1973 War, coinciding with the rise of resistance movements, convinced the Arab world to make the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) the sole representative of the Palestinian people, putting a quick end to the Allon scheme. Back then the idea of two independent states sharing the land of historic Palestine hadn't yet matured in the minds of Arafat and his colleagues. From the mid-1970s on Gaza took the lead in resistance to occupation. With its dense population, opposition movement and defiant mood, the Gaza Strip, as subsequent Israeli governments admitted, was a headache to the occupation authorities. During the Camp David talks between Egypt and Israel prime minister Menachem Begin tried to talk president Anwar El-Sadat into annexing the Strip. Sadat declined on the grounds that the PLO was the sole representative of the Palestinians and Gaza continued to be a pain in the neck for the Israelis. The 1987 Arab summit in Amman was a disappointment to the Palestinians. And when the Palestinian issue got no mention during summit meetings between Gorbachev and Reagan the Palestinians took matters into their own hands. Children of the first Intifada started pelting the occupation forces with rocks, initially in Jabalya Camp in Gaza, then in Balata Camp in Nablus, then across all Palestinian areas. Former Israeli prime minister Yitzhaq Rabin once said that he wished to wake up and discover that Gaza no longer existed. Rabin's top aides tried everything they could to get rid of Gaza. At one point they called one of Arafat's aides and told him they wanted to give Gaza back to the PLO. Similar messages were passed through Nablus dignitary Said Kanaan and Knesset members Ahmed Al-Tibi and Abdel-Wahab Al-Darawshah. These messages paved the way to the Oslo negotiations, which started in late 1992 and ended with the signing of the Gaza- Jericho First agreement on 17 August 1993. The Israelis don't want to reoccupy Gaza. What they want is to break its spirit of resistance. This, the Israelis reckon, is the best way to bring about the greater Middle East, a project Shimon Peres has dreamed of for years. Just like the occupation of Iraq and the war on Lebanon, the Gaza incursion is part of the "constructive chaos" needed to induce this regional vision. The Lebanon war ended in a disappointment for the Israelis, some of whom believe it remains unfinished business. Seeking to salvage some of his political standing Olmert ordered troops into Gaza. After all, Gaza is more compact than Lebanon, harder to smuggle weapons into, and easier -- or at least seems easier -- to subjugate. Gaza may prove him wrong again.
