According to
press reports, the Palestinian Authority (PA) played a major role in rebuilding
Gaza after Gaza-Israel fighting in 2012 (“Ruined Gaza Will Not Be Rebuilt By
Hamas, But International Aid”, International Business Times, August 7,
2014). The PA did this even though it had been kicked out of Gaza in 2007
(ibid). It took a leadership role working with donors and wealthy Arabs to help
reconstruct homes and businesses that had been destroyed in Gaza by Israel (ibid).
At least,
that’s the Arab narrative.
Now, after another
war with Israel in 2014, the PA says it will once again play a major role in
rebuilding Gaza. At least, that’s the Arab narrative.
The fifty-day
2014 conflict created at least 273,000 internal refugees in Gaza and caused at
least $5 billion in damage (“The fourth Gaza War: 5 predictions”, Jewish
Journal, October 14, 2014). The actual cost to rebuild Gaza could be closer
to 8 billion (“Will this be the last time the world is willing to rebuild Gaza?”,
EMAJ Magazine, October 8, 2014). So far, pledges for Gaza have reached
$5.4 billion (“Donors Pledge $5.4 Billion to Rebuild Gaza”, Wall Street
Journal, October 12, 2014).
That’s a lot
of cash. The Arab narrative is, it’ll all be used to rebuild Gaza.
Of course,
the PA and Hamas have world-class reputations for corruption. But the Arab
narrative is, that 5.4 billion won’t disappear.
The official
challenges of rebuilding focus on how funds and construction materials will be
used. Israel is concerned about that rebuilding. Israelis are worried about
what actually will be ‘rebuilt’.
Israel has
good reason to be concerned. During the 2014 fighting with Gaza, Israel
discovered more than 36 ‘terror tunnels’. These tunnels were extremely
well-built. Israeli officials have estimated that each one of these
tunnels had required at least 350 truckloads of material, mostly cement and
mortar (“Palestinian Authority: Reconstructing Gaza will cost at least $ 6
billion), Palestine Monitor, August 8, 2014). Israel wants to control
the flow of such material into Gaza. It doesn’t want to see these materials
diverted to rebuild these tunnels.
We’ve been
down this road before. The Arab
narrative has been that, after 2007, Israel had unfairly restricted cement
imports into Gaza; the Israelis, they claimed, were preventing Gaza from rebuilding
homes, schools, and hospitals. Anti-Israel advocates demonized Israel over
these restrictions (“Genocide: The Israeli-Egyptian Siege against the People of
Gaza”, Global Research, December 17, 2013). The argument was, Israel
refused to allow building materials into Gaza. Poor people were being left
homeless (ibid).
At least,
that was the Arab narrative (ibid).
As it turns
out, a large share of the cement that did reach Gaza didn’t go to homes,
schools, infrastructure or factories, as the Arab narrative claimed “(“Gaza's
Next Disaster: No Cement for Rebuilding”, Bloomberg Business Week, July
31, 2014). Instead, as the Israelis had said all along, those materials went
towards the building of underground lairs and attack tunnels for fighters from
Hamas (ibid).
After the
2014 Gaza fighting, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) estimated that, if some 350
truckloads of building material(above) had been used for each tunnel
discovered, that added up to something like 12,600 truckloads. Since the
average cement-truck carries a lot of cement, that meant that more than 300,000
tons of cement had been diverted from homes, schools and infrastructure in
order to complete military-use construction.
As one
pro-Israel site explains this problem, if you want to see how Gaza has in fact used
its past reconstruction donations and rebuilding materials, consider what Hamas
has built since 2007: 2 hospitals, 20 schools, 3 ‘towers’, 3 malls—and perhaps
as many as 1,370 terror tunnels (“Pot calls kettle black: Hamas accuses PA of
'misusing' Gaza reconstruction funds”, Israel Matzav, January 7, 2015).
Of course, anti-Israel
advocates don’t give a damn about Israel’s concerns. They don’t care that Hamas
and the PA have used cement for terror tunnels instead of schools and homes.
Their attitude is, “It’s impossible not to allow construction materials into
Gaza. You cannot leave 1.7 million people without homes, schools, clinics, a
working sewage system” (Bloomberg Business Week, ibid).
Well, it now
seems that Hamas has its own narrative about the rebuilding of Gaza. Three weeks
ago, Hamas accused the PA, not Israel, for ‘harming’ the rebuilding effort (“Hamas:
The PA uses Gaza reconstruction funds for other purposes”, Palestine
Information Center, January 6, 2015).
Here are
some of Hamas’ accusations against the PA:
-The PA has
taken money away from the rebuilding donations fund. The PA uses this money
instead to pay salaries—but only to civil servants who had been appointed by
the PA, not by Hamas (ibid).
-the main
reason (Hamas’s words) behind the failure to reconstruct the post-war Gaza
Strip wasn’t Israel. It was the PA’s misusing grants which had been provided for
reconstruction projects (ibid).
-A report released
by Oxfam, a global UK charity, has already warned that, despite $5.4 billion in
pledges at a 2014 international donor conference--and despite an agreement
between the Palestinian Authority, Israel and the UN to allow for the transfer
of building materials-- only a few truckloads of materials have actually found
their way into the Strip (ibid). Already, most have had their loads diverted
for black-market sale or unauthorized use (ibid).
The Arab
narrative states that the PA-Hamas unity government works for the good of its
people. It doesn’t. It has no concern for its people whatsoever.
This
so-called ‘government’ misleads, lies to, and steals from its own people. On a
daily basis, they do more damage to their people than Israel.
Unfortunately,
no one gives a damn. They’re too busy reciting the Arab narrative.
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