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A26
February 26 • 2009
JIM
Elf!
dug up an old, yellowing
Israeli intelligence report
from April 1987 headlined
"The Gaza Strip toward the
year 2000." It was authored
by the "Civil Administration;'
Israel's military government,
only months before the erup-
tion in Gaza of the first inti-
fada.
The secret document, dis-
tributed to Israel's top security
leadership, provides both a
high-resolution snapshot (more than
200 pages) of Gaza and a careful fore-
cast. Amazingly, it predicted a process
of multifaceted integration of the
Gaza Strip into Israel.
The population of Gaza in 1987
was 633,600. Today, it has climbed
to more than 1.5 million. The report
predicted that by the year 2000, the
strip's population would reach 1 mil-
lion — a "maximal forecast" depicted
as "unreasonable," meaning unreason-
ably high. In fact, by 2000, the strip's
population had mushroomed to 1.132
million. The fertility rate for 2000 was
predicted to drop from 6.60 to 5.80,
but it remained at 6.55 and was esti-
mated at 5.19 in 2008.
The report did talk, casually, about
the "increase in the strength" of the
fundamentalist Islamist political
stream, but noted that although the
Islamists support Israel's destruc-
tion, they believe that their first focus
ought to be "preparing the hearts and
minds" within their community.
Around that time, as a reporter
covering Palestinian affairs, I met
with the Israeli governor of Gaza, who
told me that Israel had "no problem"
with the Islamists because they were
not engaged in any subversive or vio-
lent activity. To the contrary: Israel's
military government in Gaza, divid-
ing and ruling as it always did, gently
nurtured the Islamists as a counter-
weight to the Palestinian Liberation
Organization during the 1980s.
The most fascinating — and today
fantastical — chapter in the report is
the one examining the social trends
in the strip. It predicted the acceler-
ated socio-political integration of the
Gaza Strip into Israel, as well as "an
increase in reciprocal dependency
between the Gaza Strip and Israel."
It predicted the "penetration of the
strip's employees into high-level pro-
fessions in Israel," and
even Gazans' "imita-
tion of the Israeli life-
style."
The Palestinians of
Gaza, just like their
brethren in the West
Bank, need and deserve
political independence.
But the Gaza Strip
simply cannot live in
political or economic
isolation. The 22-year-
old Israeli report is
clear about that. Its
message is that the Gaza Strip has
no viability, no future, as an isolated,
detached entity.
At the time, there was no fence
between Israel and Gaza, not even
a roadblock or a checkpoint at the
entrance to the strip. Today, it is
impossible to imagine open borders
between Israel and Gaza.
The only real viable hope for Gaza
is a link to the other Palestinian ter-
ritory, the West Bank. Only a strong
relationship with the West Bank,
reinforced by unhindered safe passage
between the two Palestinian territo-
ries, can provide the remedy for Gaza.
In other words, the only real hope for
Gaza lies in the two-state solution.
Israelis and Palestinians must
keep in mind that a cease-fire is not
an alternative to peace. Israelis and
Palestinians, and the international
third parties that help them advance
toward peace, must remember that
just as a two-state solution is the only
way in which Israel can secure its
long-term character as a Jewish and
democratic state, so does the two-
state solution provide the only hope
for Gaza to reach a reasonable level
of normalcy and sustainability in the
long run. Only a two-state solution
can provide the uninterrupted, robust
lifeline to the West Bank that the Gaza
Strip needs.
The war and the cease-fire that fol-
lowed show yet again that only a two-
state solution provides a horizon of
hope for Israelis and Palestinians to
reach the peace and long-term secu-
rity that they so much deserve.
❑
Od Nir, formerly the Palestinian affairs
correspondent for the Israeli daily
Ha'aretz, is the spokesman for Americans
for Peace Now, a Zionist Jewish organiza-
tion supporting Peace Now, Israel's largest
peace movement.