Gaza needs trust, not just aid

[Violet_Crumble]

If Palestinians are able to put together a government of genuine unity, then the international community must recognise it

Caroline Lucas guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 3 March 20

"Are EU taxpayers really happy to pay to reconstruct what US taxpayers have paid to destroy?" This was a typically provocative question from Palestinian political leader Mustafa Barghouti, when I met with him last week, as part of a delegation of European parliament members.

And it's certainly true that, as political leaders gather in Sharm el-Sheikh this week for the conference on the reconstruction of Gaza, their agenda must extend far beyond simply providing more aid, important though that is. The demand for Israeli compensation should be high on their list of priorities. At a very conservative estimate, the EU alone has spent over €50m on Gaza's now devastated infrastructure over the past 10 years, yet in a matter of days, the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, supported by the US, has destroyed much of the EU-funded infrastructure.

But there are other important priorities too, chief among them the urgent lifting of the siege on Gaza. There is little point in donors pledging tonnes more aid if it simply joins that which is already piling up at the border, waiting on an arbitrary decision on whether or not to let it through. Meeting with UN officials in Gaza, our delegation was told that around 750 trucks a day are needed to maintain essential supplies. Currently, Gazans are lucky to see 30. As John Ging, the director of operations at the UN Relief and Works Agency, put it to us, with characteristic directness: "The inhumanity and illegality of the situation is that goods are there to distribute – it's just a question of opening the gates."

Yet, lifting the siege is only the start. The free movement of people, as well as goods, is needed for the whole of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, so that the Palestinian people can be allowed to start rebuilding their economies and communities themselves. That means ending the occupation itself. As many of the Palestinians I met last week told me, what they want more than anything else is not aid, much as it's needed – it's justice.

In direct contradiction to their commitments under recent peace agreements, the Israeli authorities are continuing the expansion of the settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and extending the wall still further. Just last Saturday, for example, Palestinians held a general strike as part of their resistance to the planned demolition of 88 homes in the highly sensitive Palestinian neighbourhood of Silwan, East Jerusalem. The demolitions are seen as a key strategic move in Israel's campaign to consolidate control over occupied areas of the city, and fragmenting the territorial integrity of the West Bank itself. By creating such concrete "facts on the ground", the prospects for a two-state solution are fast becoming a geographical impossibility. And yet, Israel's continued flouting of both the Oslo Accords is met by the international community with impunity.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/02/gaza-israel