We Must Not Mourn the Zionists' Departure from Gaza

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

The correct Palestinian national position is that Israel must withdraw and dismantle the settlements without conditions, coordination, or guarantees. This must be our clear and explicit stance on Sharon’s plan now on the table, which calls for withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the dismantling of the settlements. Let the army and the settlers leave — none of us will stand in their way to stop them.

But the problem is that the Palestinian Authority is afflicted with a fever of participation, and wants to be a partner with Israel, Egypt, and the United States in arranging affairs in the Strip before the Zionists’ departure. The Authority wants to pave the way for security control over the Palestinian resistance factions and their symbolic absorption into the Authority’s institutions, in accordance with security agreements that take Israel’s interests into account rather than the requirements of liberation. It is preoccupied with bringing in an official Egyptian role to reinforce Israel’s security guarantees.

…than to manage a coop of chickens. It is time, from now on, that a national committee be formed, representing the various forces in the Strip, to act as a temporary administration and make preparations for transitional elections that would produce a leadership for the Strip — pending the holding of general political elections in both the West Bank and the Strip together.

As for an official Egyptian role, it is welcome — but only once the Zionist flag stops fluttering in the skies of Cairo, and once the regime decides it wants to free itself from American-Zionist domination. The people of Egypt are our people, but the regime does not express the aspirations of the Palestinians, the Arabs, and the Muslims.

This Israeli withdrawal is the fruit of Palestinian steadfastness and of Palestinian blood shed in struggle, and no one has the right to turn it into a matter of individual heroics and personal interests.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “يجب ألا نحزن على رحيل الصهاينة من غزة” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.