Abdulrahman Al-Rashed
The city had a beautiful airport, and there was a Palestinian airline of a small fleet, three aircraft, travelling on scheduled daily flights, to Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Turkey, built by the late President Yasser Arafat in Gaza with funding from the Gulf and European countries in 1998.
A larger port was under construction, for merchant ships and fishermen’s boats, for cargo and passengers with cruises to Port Said and Cyprus. The airport and the harbour were the symbol of freedom and the Palestinian presence. A gift from the sky was added to them; a gas field discovered in the waters of Gaza itself, the future primary resource of the Palestinian government.
Palestinians returning to Gaza and the West Bank quickly stabilised in 1994, after the signing of the Oslo Accords.
The family of Yasser Arafat Ghazawi, who was born in Cairo, returned accompanied by thousands of Fatah, for the first time on its soil since its fall in the 1967 war. Development plans have been close-to-reassable dreams. The airport and drilling are built in the port and negotiations for the gas field begin, on its management and incomes with Egyptian support, and open the door for ambitious proposals, such as the construction of a railway linking Gaza to Cairo.
At the opening of Gaza Airport, in December 1998, U.S. President Bill Clinton asked to attend the ceremony in person, taking his wife Hillary and daughter Chelsea with him. It was an important event.
Arafat’s speeches in the audience Hello, he said: Mr. President, this morning, we share the joy of the opening of Gaza International Airport, it is for us a window on the world, also a window for our people towards freedom, peace and prosperity.
As I promised you in Wye River, you’re here,” Clinton replied. Making peace requires more courage and strength than the continuation of war. I thank President Arafat for having the strength and wisdom to make a peace that requires more courage than continuing the war, and the path ahead may be difficult and uncertain.
It was like a short dream, since the Palestinian warriors returned from Tunisia to their land and their families and turned from an armed organisation to a civilian authority that manages the Gaza Strip, within the outputs of the Oslo Accords. Life returned to the city, and its political activity, markets, and cafes flourished.
But the extremists on both sides, Jewish and Palestinian, didn’t like success. A year after Oslo, Israelis assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and Arab resistant forces intensified their threats to Arafat. Hamas issued a statement rejecting the agreement and threatening the authority, then began waves of mutual violence. The large port, which began construction in 1999, was destroyed by the Israelis in 2000, under the pretext of smuggling Hamas weapons through the sea, and became a large pit. The corridors of the airport were destroyed and turned into ruins. Hamas, in turn, succeeded in complicating the situation; suicide operations are carried out in the West Bank, and Israelis are punishing the authority in Ramallah.
When it was time for parliamentary elections, Hamas surprised everyone asking for political participation. The US and Israeli sides agreed and the Palestinian Authority rejected. Of course, the PA’s leaders were not an idobe, they realised that Hamas’s introduction of power was an Israeli maneuver to weaken the authority. Washington was responding that the introduction of Hamas to the House of Government is better than leaving it on the street in opposition to it, and that its parliamentary participation does not rob them of the executive branch. Fatah leaders were apprehensive, seeing that they spent all their life fighting Israel to bring extraneous Hamas so that everything they built would be spoiled on them. The scene was full of contradictions; Hamas wants and the Palestinian Authority refuses on the pretext that it does not recognise Israel, does not accept Oslo, and refuses to give up its weapons. Americans and Israelis, and in Gaza won 76 seats out of a total of 132, insisted enough to give it legitimacy. Similar to the history of the Brotherhood, which is accused of evasiveness and treachery, Hamas not only led the parliament, but also carried out a coup and seized the entire rule of Gaza.
Today, the majority want the Palestinian Authority to advance the scene and return to the administration of Gaza and get rid of the Strip from Israel and Hamas, but the leaders of Ramallah are not enthusiastic, and they should only accept on conditions that respect their sovereignty, and give Gaza and its people what they were deprived of, by lifting the siege and opening the ports, starting to explore for gas, financing the reconstruction of the destroyed sector, and most importantly, start negotiating the promised Palestinian state. If all this is realised, the Palestinians have two options, Hamas or Palestine, and the option of Hamas to become like Fatah, a national political movement.
This opinion was initially published by Al Sarq Alawsat Arabic Daily newspaper , The English translation is by Apple
Abdulrahman Al-Rashed; A Saudi media and intellectual, the former editor-in-chief of the newspaper “Al-Sharq Al-Awsat”, the magazine “Al-Majal”, and the former general manager of Al-Arabiya channel. A graduate of the American University in Washington, he is a permanent writer in the newspaper.