By J. Zel Lurie
DELRAY BEACH, Florida — Forty-four years ago, an official of the Israel Government Press Office took me on a tour of the West Bank, which had been named by the Jordanians to contrast it to Jordan, the East Bank, a few years before the Jordanians were kicked out of the West Bank and replaced by the Israel Army of occupation.
My guide took me to Ben Shemen, a youth village, which is close to the Ben Gurion Airport. We climbed a tall fire tower. Before us stretched the airport and beyond were the hills that Jordan had occupied. “How would you like too see a concrete bunker on that hill with a Jordanian cannon pointing at Ben Gurion Airport?” the guide asked me.
“I would like it,” I replied, shocking him. “It could not happen unless there was permanent peace between Israel and Jordan.”
“You don’t know what you are talking about,” he said with disgust dripping from every word.
But it was not a Jordanian cannon that closed the bustling airport for two days last month. It was a Hamas rocket from far off Gaza, a rocket that that had landed in a field less than a mile from the airport. The Federal Aviation Administration in Washington got scared and ordered all international airlines to stop flights to Israel.
A graphic artist from New York described on the op-ed page of the New York Times how he felt when he descended from an El Al plane into a vast, deserted building.
The Israel tourism business, which is the 2nd or 3rd largest industry in the country, was shut to hell. Israelis went about their daily business, never getting very far from a shelter. The wail of a siren gave them 15 seconds to reach a shelter. In the shelter, they would wait to hear a boom which meant that the $30,000 Iron Dome had destroyed the $1,000 Hamas rocket.
(I have seen figures on the Iron Dome missiles as high as $50,000 a piece. Who pays this? We do, of course. The Pentagon appropriated $285,000 for Iron Dome missiles a few weeks ago.)
The success of the Iron Dome missiles have prevented any major property damage in this five week war.
My daughter, Susan, who lives in a Tel Aviv suburb says that things are fine, and she is planning a party for the 85th birthday of her husband.
Other people are scared. Some have gone berserk. A neighbor of Susan hears voices of Hamas tunneling underneath her home.
An Israeli Arab scientist in her Ministry of Agriculture building received a hate message tacked to his door. My granddaughter, Natalie, owns a farm in central Israel about 20 miles east of Haifa. She and her husband are circus artists. Her income depends on Israeli families feeling confident enough to picnic at her farm on Saturday and enjoy their show. Her income in July was almost nil.
Israel is suffering, but it is nothing like the devastation of Gaza which has been filling the media for five weeks. Nothing photogenic has been happening in Israel. There are no cries of mourners for dead children.
Beit Hanoun is a village close to Israel in the northern Gaza strip, Beit Hanoun was destroyed early in the fighting. Abir lost a cousin. She circulated a world wide petition for peace. Beit Hanoun is a ghost town. Its population are refugees in Gaza City, yet rockets continue to fly out of Beit Hanoun. On the night of August the 4th, Israeli Air Force planes returned to bomb the cemetery, suspecting underground rockets and launchers. “I can no longer visit my dad’s grave,” Abir cries in an e-mail.
Hamas wanted war, and Hamas got it. This tiny group of religious fanatics figured that only war, which would be followed by negotiations, might end the complete isolation and lack of electricity and water which Israel has imposed on Gaza..
They were right and the negotiations are now being conducted as this column is being written. Negotiations are not with Hamas directly as Israel still calls Hamas a terrorist organization. But Israel has been reconciled to the reconciliation agreement between Hamas and the Palestine Authority, which it had earlier attacked as a victory for Hamas. Now Israel is talking to Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestine Authority, for peace in Gaza.
Palestinians’ demands are quite ordinary, but vital – free prisoners and permit movement back and forth of people and goods across borders in and out of Gaza. A new and important item has been added. “Fulfill the pledges that you had made years ago for a Gaza port and an airport,” the Palestinians are telling Israel.
Building a port in Gaza was first mentioned in the Oslo Accords in 1993. It was detailed at Sharm el Sheikh in 1995 and a Dutch-French consortium raised $40 million to begin construction, but Israel would not agree. In 2000, work actually began and continued for six months until Israel bombed it. The plans called for a port that would have three eirths that would cost $100 million. It would take three years to build and would do nothing to end Gaza isolation.
Gaza engineers have now proposed a floating pier. Israel shows signs of interest.
If the Israeli government works with Mahmoud Abbas, representing the Palestinians, with the aid of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, this could eventually happen, but it will take time.
A word about the Palestinian airport, which was authorized in 1995 at Sharm el Sheikh.
In the presence of President Bill Clinton, the Palestinian Airport was dedicated on November 24th, 1998. It operated for three years. It was built for $84 million provided by five countries: Japan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Spain, and Germany.
On December 4th, 2001 during the Al Aksa Intifada, the IDF bombed the control and radar towers, and the airport closed. For the next five years, the airport staff continued to man the ticket and baggage areas, and were paid by the Palestine Authority without any passengers.
Current negotiations should provide for its reopening.
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Centenarian J. Zel Lurie is a freelance writer based in Delray, Florida. He may be contacted via jzel.lurie@sdjewishworld.com