The real game

Gaza crossings talks a miserable chapter in Israeli-Palestinian saga
Nahum Barnea

At midnight on Sunday of last week Condoleezza Rice summoned Dov Weisglass and Shalom Turgeman, Sharon’s aides, to her suite at Jerusalem’s David’s Fort hotel. They brought along Major General (res.) Amos Gilad, head of the Defense Ministry's political bureau, on behalf of Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz. At 8 a.m. Mofaz himself arrived, accompanied by Shin Bet Chief Yuval Diskin.

 

Rice locked the three Palestinian ministers – Salam Fayyad, Muhammad Dahlan, and Ghassan al-Khatib – in a nearby room, along with Abbas’ daughter-in-law, Nissrin. Weisglass was aware of their presence, because when he realized in the middle of the night that he was out of cigarettes he went downstairs and took one from the ministers’ drivers.

 

Rice is very proud of the control she exercised over both sides. On the plane, en route to her next stop in South Korea, she recounted how she only slept two hours the night before. That’s it, the reporters thought, something has changed. The Bush Administration, and particularly Rice, caught the Israeli-Palestinian bug. They kept their distance for five years, but no longer.

 

The real news was the complete apathy with which Israelis and Palestinians received the Gaza crossings deal, an agreement that for the first time since 1967 frees the Palestinians from Israeli control.

 

If the Palestinians misbehave, one Israeli comforted himself in Rice’s presence, we’ll shut down the Rafah crossing. Rice, in turn, directed a chilly glare at him. Someone here forgot this is a border Israel no longer has any connection to, she said.

 

The negotiations on the Gaza crossings will be written down as one of the most miserable chapters in the Israeli-Palestinian saga. The misery began with Palestinian Minister Mahmoud Dahlan’s backaches. He looked for salvation with a doctor in Sarajevo, Bosnia's capital, and took the opportunity to take care of his private businesses in nearby Montenagro.

 

He was away for two and a half months. In his absence, the negotiations were managed by Saeb Erekat. Dahlan can’t stand Erekat. The moment he landed he cancelled all previous agreements and brought the talks back to their starting point.

 

Dahlan is frustrated. After Arafat’s death, he was supposed to be the one ruling Gaza, but the Hamas is in charge there. In fact, Dahlan’s position has weakened to such extent that he needs the patronage of Marwan Barghouti, the Tanzim leader jailed in Israel on terror charges, in order to maintain his position within Fatah. These days Dahlan makes sure to regularly visit Barghouti at his Be’er Sheva prison cell.

 

On Saturday, a senior American delegation visited Ramallah, the guests of the Saban Forum and Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies. Mahmoud Abbas and his Finance Minister Salam Fayyad presented a highly optimistic picture. There are problems at present, they said, but the future is bright. And then Dahlan got up and said the situation is very bad, while laying all blame on Israel.

 

Dahlan is the master of the Gaza Strip crossings. During the Ramadan, Israel sealed off the crossings. Laborers did not leave through the Erez crossing; goods were stuck at the Karni crossing. Security considerations were used to explain the closure (a terror alert regarding an attack at Karni) but the real game was between the Shin Bet and Dahlan. Wednesday last week was the first day the crossings were fully functional.

 

Screams and whispers

 

The government of Israel approached the negotiations table three-headed. Shimon Peres wanted to handle the talks himself; Mofaz, on behalf of the defense establishment, wanted the same; Sharon’s office, in charge of ties with the U.S. Administration, also wanted to be in charge of the talks. Following lengthy quarrels, Sharon ruled in Peres’ favor. However, the decision was consciously fictitious. Simultaneously, Sharon’s people mocked Peres and said he had no authority. When the time came to finalize the deal, Peres was left home.

 

James Wolfensohn, the Quarter’s envoy, started the negotiations as a warm Jew, a lover of Israel, and a seeker of peace, and ended the talks as someone sick and tired of both sides. Most of his anger was directed at the Palestinians: Why don’t they get their security situation in order, he asked. He saw Gaza through the eyes of a businessman. There’s plenty of money in the world searching for rising markets the kind Gaza could offer, but nobody will invest where masked gunmen roam.

 

He could not understand the Israelis’ indifference in the face of the human plight in Gaza and in light of the possibility Hamas would win the elections; the humiliating attitude of the defense establishment towards him (Sharon was forced to apologize); the difficulty the Israelis had in internalizing the fact that the Gaza occupation is over.

 

One of the Israelis who took part in the talks described the defense establishment’s attitude toward Gaza as phantom pain; like a person whose hand was amputated yet he continues to feel the pain as though his hand were still in place.

 

Peres shared his troubles with Wolfensohn, and managed to infuriate him; Wolfensohn made the same mistake former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Kurtzer made: Instead of clearing his way while facing Israelis, he tried to clear his way between them. When he threatened to resign a few weeks ago, a frightened Sharon summoned him; the prime minister feared Wolfensohn would turn the Bush Administration against him. When Wolfensohn threatened to resign again a few days ago, Sharon made due with an appeasing nod of the head as he passed by the envoy’s table at the King David hotel.

 

Wolfensohn’s shrieking cries mobilized the American government. Weisglass was sent to Washington to calm things down. He promised Rice Sharon would deliver the awaited agreement.

 

The awe of Condoleezza worked on everyone. Israel’s main demand was met: Real-time supervision of the Rafah crossing. In exchange, Israel agreed to open a passage for buses on the Gaza - West Bank route on a trial basis - five buses a day; Israel also agreed to allow increased traffic in the Rafah and Karni crossings and permit the construction of a port in Gaza.

 

Now Israel is relying on the Egyptians, who complained Israel left too soon; they claim they weren’t prepared. Now, slowly but surely, at an Egyptian pace, they are taking control of the border.

 

The Palestinians demanded that the Gaza airport be reopened. The Israelis were willing to discuss the issue, but Rice said no, referring to the trauma of the September 11 attacks.

 

“We are not able to handle security in our airports,” Rice said. “So how will you.”