Tears From the Garden

Saw the picture of the Israeli soldiers forcibly evicting the Gaza Israelis from their homes and my heart sank. Regardless of the impropriety of HOW they came to be there, from their perspective that was rightfully THEIR home. To have that taken away, to be forcibly relocated to some new place must be devastating.

Such are the snarled weeds of injustice and the pain of unraveling them.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/18/international/middleeast/18arabs.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1124453233-m19iLh9zkCzIY0PCp1MAbA


· Some Arabs See Withdrawal as Hollow Victory
By HASSAN M. FATTAH NY Times
Published: August 18, 2005

AMMAN, Jordan Aug. 17 - The images of Israeli soldiers clashing with settlers in Gaza have left many Arabs in the Middle East ambivalent about the significance of the pullout. While some see it as a resounding victory for the Palestinians, crediting them with pushing Israel out of the Gaza Strip, others say it will do little to settle the core issue of Palestinian sovereignty.


"There's a mixture of victory and failure here," said Hassan Abu Taleb, assistant director of the Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo. Dampening the sense of victory is that Israel maintains control over Gaza's borders, Mr. Abu Taleb said, while the West Bank, the most contentious part of any settlement, is not even a subject of discussion.

"There remains a principle governing the Arab view of Israel: comprehensive peace will be followed by completely normal relations," he said. "But so far, the Israelis have not achieved the comprehensive peace."

Still, the evictions of Israeli settlers have brought change. Instead of victims, Palestinians appeared on Arab television screens as victors, a notable shift in tone after five years of violence and hardship.

Almost all the major Arab channels poured resources into covering the pullout.
"We think this is a very big event," said Nakhle al Haj, director of news and current affairs at Al Arabiya. "It was historic and deserved a lot of attention."

For many Arabs, the winner is Hamas, the militant Palestinian group. Like Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite movement that undertook a fight against Israel in southern Lebanon that lasted decades, Hamas has capitalized on the Gaza withdrawal to build its image and vie for influence with the Palestinian Authority. One of the group's leaders, Mahmoud Zahar, was prominently featured on most Arab broadcasts in recent days, emphasizing the success of the Intifada and encouraging Palestinians to celebrate their victory.

On Wednesday, Khaled Meshaal, a Hamas leader based in Damascus, held an unusual news conference in Beirut, vowing that Hamas would keep up the fight, sending the kind of message that resonates with many Arabs.

"We made it clear - you scare us, we'll scare you," said Ismail Mustafa, 28, a Palestinian living in the Gaza Refugee Camp about an hour's drive from here. "Whatever is taken by force can't be won back without force."

Yet whatever brief elation was felt in the early days of the pullout was exceeded by fear that Israel's move might in fact hamper the longer term prospect for a Palestinian state to be created in Gaza and the West Bank. The pullout may have put pressure on Arab governments, which will find it hard to demand further concessions from the Israeli government soon.

"Sharon trumped them," said Mohammed al Ameer, political editor at the Saudi daily Al Riyadh. "The Arabs are in a difficult position now because they have been presented with an olive branch and must do something in return."

The pullout also hampers the propaganda war in the Arab world. Gaza, the site of some of the most violent clashes between Palestinians and Israelis, has become synonymous with the Israeli occupation, images of which have been beamed into Arab homes nightly. With ostensibly fewer confrontations and fewer images of violence in Gaza, the Palestinians' case against Israel becomes less telegenic, if not less immediate.

"The pullout was a serious step, but after that things will change significantly," said Oraib al Ramtawi, director of Al Quds Center for Political Studies here. "Sharon will be able to avoid the road map for six months to a year, and nobody will be able to tell him to pursue another pullout. It buys him a lot of time."