• Nz
Stewing In Gaza
A year after the secret Oslo negotiations,
life along the Gaza Strip is still miserable
and Gazans wonder who to blame.
INA FRIEDMAN ISRAEL CORRESPONDENT
RNS/REUTERS
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Arafat gets a welcoming kiss from a Palestinian in Gaza City.
he greatest problem is ex- training course on starting small
pectations. The PLO made businesses. Nearby, in the mod-
a fatal mistake in raising ern, well-appointed offices of the
them to unrealistic heights. Arab Structural Bureau Co.,
First people believed the negotia- Hatem Abu Shdban, the head of
tions would be completed on the board of the Gaza Port Au-
schedule. Then they believed that thority, proudly reports that the
as soon as the Israelis left, the PNA recently signed contracts
money would come pouring in with the Italian, French and
and create a dramatic turnabout Dutch companies that will be
in their lives. Now there are still building the local deep-water
no jobs, still no foreign funds, and port. (Pending the receipt of mon-
Gazans don't know who to blame ey from the donor countries, con-
struction should start before the
more:
Israel, the donors, or the Pales- end of the year and will provide
5,000 badly needed jobs.) In these
tinian National Authority."
— Dr. Bashir el-Rayyes cool, computerized pockets of pro-
fessionalism, the assessments,
August is a time of anniver- planning and seminars proceed
saries for the agreement that was apace.
hailed as the start of the historic
But outside on the streets,
reconciliation between the Israeli Gaza still broadcasts bleakness
and Palestinian peoples. It is a at every turn. Still as dusty and
year since the secretly negotiat- littered as ever, as it poaches in
ed Declaration of Principles was the haze of a late-August heat
initialed in Oslo, three months wave, the strip seems particularly
since Israel's troops withdrew dreary. Soha Sisalem, the own-
from most of the Gaza Strip, and er of the chic Jordan Clothing
almost two since Yassir Arafat Shop, which boasts a stock of el-
arrived to head the Palestinian egant gowns, reports that busi-
National Authority. One might ness has actually improved in the
be tempted to hope that these are past few months. But she cred-
still days of grace and celebration. its the surge to the summer vis-
But in Gaza, Dr. Bashir el- itors from the Gulf states who are
Rayyes, deputy field development eager to snatch up local bargains
and planning officer of UNRWA ($200 for a beaded-silk Paris cre-
(United Nations Relief and ation). The clientele at the other
Works Agency for Palestine end of the scale, women who used
Refugees) concludes, "The mood to come in from the adjoining Je-
has turned utterly bleak."
balya refugee camp when there
Gaza today is a city of con- were jobs to be had and money to
trasts. Inside Dr. Rayyes' air-con- be spent, haven't been seen for
ditioned office in the UNRWA months.
compound, an oasis of shade trees
-Hassan Mohammed Hassein,
and flowers in the heart of town, who restricts his clothing shop-
the talk of bleakness seems out ping to the open-air stalls —
of place as the staff prepares to which now feature T-shirts show-
celebrate the completion of a ihg masked Hamas fighters