Let them breathe

The Gaza strip

Nov 17th 2005 JERUSALEM
From The Economist print edition

Despite Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, its Palestinian inhabitants were still suffocating. Now America's secretary of state has helped loosen their straitjacket

IT TOOK a little more than 48 hours for Condoleezza Rice to resolve something that Israeli and Palestinian officials at all levels—and despite the considerable persuasive powers of James Wolfensohn, the former World Bank president who is now a Middle East peace envoy—had been arguing about for five months. After an all-night negotiating session, a deal was announced on the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt. With luck, this could lead towards a better, freer life for Palestinians in Gaza—and perhaps even, eventually, for those in the West Bank, the main bit of a hoped-for Palestinian state. And that, in turn, might create the conditions for a push to a final peace settlement.

Israel, which pulled its settlers and troops out of Gaza this summer, had wanted to keep control of Gazans' only border with another country, so it could track and block suspected terrorists. The Palestinian Authority (PA) wanted to run Rafah itself, with a third party—the European Union—supervising. The compromise: Israeli officers in an observation room a few miles away will watch the crossing point through a barrage of closed-circuit cameras, and ask Palestinian colleagues to detain or stop anyone they don't like. If the Palestinians refuse, European officers at the scene will have the final say.

But while the slight concession to its sovereignty is symbolically important to the Palestinian Authority and to Gazans who will once again be able to visit relatives on the other side of the border, what matters more in practical terms are the deal's other parts. The Rafah crossing is merely the least of several bottlenecks to the free movement of goods and people on which Gaza's future will depend.

The economy will rely on agricultural exports. Those and other products will leave not via Rafah but by the Kerem Shalom goods terminal to Egypt, which will stay under Israeli control with PA officers present; and via the Karni crossing, the gateway via Israel for goods both to the West Bank, virtually a separate part of the Palestinian economy since the second intifada began in 2000, and to the rest of the world, since Gaza does not yet have a working seaport or airport.

Meanwhile, since Israel is still granting few Palestinians permits to work in Israel and plans to bring the number to zero within a couple of years, free movement of workers between Gaza and the West Bank will also be vital for letting the economy breathe. This week's deal includes a promise to speed up the sluggish work rate at Karni from around 35 trucks a day now to 150 by the end of this year and 400 by the end of next year. Limited bus convoys are to start shuttling between Gaza and the West Bank by mid-December, truck convoys by mid-January.

But this is only a start. A port and airport would give Gaza trade access to the world without going via Israel, which adds a lot to transport costs. Here, however, the situation is the same as before. There is no agreement on the airport; Palestinians can start building a seaport, but with no deal on how to supervise it. Plans for a road or rail link between the West Bank and Gaza, so they can function as one economic unit (essential if they are to function as a Palestinian state in the future) remain shelved; Israel fears that Gaza's main export to the West Bank would be weapons and people to use them.

Finally, even as one part of the Palestinian economy sees relief, the noose tightens on another. The day the deal was signed, Israel's upgraded “passenger terminal” between Jerusalem and Bethlehem came into operation. Travellers between the two cities, which are on opposite sides of the new barrier separating Israel from the West Bank, now have to get off their buses, unload their luggage and go through an international-border-style passport check. On its first day, delays of over two hours were reported. The city that makes its living from the tourists and pilgrims who come to Jesus's birthplace was just starting to see a recovery after the intifada, which had driven over 90% of them away. Stifling its economy will feed resentment and terror, not a peace-friendly atmosphere.

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