標題:New Israeli Tack Needed on Gaza, U.S. Officials Say
以色列需要一個新的迦薩政策
新聞來源: 紐約時報
http://tinyurl.com/25esasy
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration considers Israel’s blockade of Gaza
to be untenable and plans to press for another approach to ensure Israel’s
security while allowing more supplies into the impoverished Palestinian
area, senior American officials said Wednesday.
The officials say that Israel’s deadly attack on a flotilla trying to break
the siege and the resulting international condemnation create a new
opportunity to push for increased engagement with the Palestinian Authority
and a less harsh policy toward Gaza.
“There is no question that we need a new approach to Gaza,” said one
official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the policy shift is
still in the early stages. He was reflecting a broadly held view in the upper
reaches of the administration.
Israel would insist that any approach take into account three factors: Israel
’s security; the need to prevent any benefit to Hamas, the Islamist rulers
of Gaza; and the four-year-old captivity of an Israeli soldier held by Hamas,
Staff Sgt. Gilad Shalit.
Since the botched raid that killed nine activists on Monday, the Israeli
government has said that the blockade was necessary to protect Israel against
the infiltration into Gaza of weapons and fighters sponsored by Iran.
If there were no blockade in place, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on
Israeli television on Wednesday evening, it would mean “an Iranian port in
Gaza.” He added, “Israel will continue to maintain its right to defend
itself.”
But the American officials said they believed that even Mr. Netanyahu
understood that a new approach was needed.
Yet Mr. Netanyahu has resisted American pressure in the past. The Obama
administration initially demanded a complete freeze on Israeli settlements in
the West Bank, but had to accept a 10-month partial freeze. Pressure on
Israel also carries domestic political risks for Mr. Obama, given the passion
of its supporters in the United States.
Israel withdrew its soldiers and settlers from Gaza five years ago and built
the makings of an international border. But after Hamas, which rejects Israel
’s existence, won Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006, Israel cut
back on the amount of goods permitted into Gaza. When Sergeant Shalit was
seized in a raid in June of that year, commerce was further reduced.
A year later, Hamas drove the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority entirely
out of Gaza in four days of street battles, leading Israel to cut off all
shipments in and out except basic food, humanitarian aid and urgent medical
supplies.
Hamas declines to recognize Israel’s right to exist, renounce violence or
accept previous accords signed between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
The diplomatic group known as the Quartet, made up of the United States,
Russia, the European Union and the United Nations, has said that until Hamas
meets those requirements, the Quartet will not deal with it.
But the world powers have grown increasingly disillusioned with the blockade,
saying that it has created far too much suffering in Gaza and serves as a
symbol not only of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians but of how the West is
seen in relation to the Palestinians.
“Gaza has become the symbol in the Arab world of the Israeli treatment of
Palestinians, and we have to change that,” the senior American official
said. “We need to remove the impulse for the flotillas. The Israelis also
realize this is not sustainable.”
At a meeting of the Quartet a year ago in Italy, for example, the group
asserted that the current situation was not sustainable and called for the
unimpeded provision and distribution of humanitarian aid within Gaza, as well
as the reopening of crossing points.
But Obama administration officials made it clear that the deaths had given a
new urgency to changing the policy.
Pressure against the blockade continued to grow on Wednesday: Turkey, which
withdrew its ambassador to Israel after the raid, said full restoration of
diplomatic ties was contingent on an end to the blockade.
The new British prime minister, David Cameron, also called for an end to the
blockade, criticizing the raid as “completely unacceptable.”
In Israel, officials say there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza because the
Defense Ministry makes sure that enough food and medicine reach the
population. But international aid groups assert that real malnutrition is
growing to about 10 percent and that problems with medical and sanitation
supplies are rising perilously because of the Israeli and Egyptian embargoes.
In recent months, Israel has permitted increased — although still quite
limited — movement of goods and people into and out of Gaza. One Israeli
official said that under Mr. Netanyahu there had been a 20 percent increase
in goods, including some limited building materials under third-party
supervision so that Hamas would not get hold of them.
But Israel remains adamant, saying that if cement and steel were allowed to
pass in any serious amount, they would end up in Hamas missiles and other
weapons that would be aimed at Israel.
Discussion in Israel this week has largely focused on the details of the
seizure of the ship where the deaths occurred rather than on the broader
question of whether the blockade is good policy.
Amos Gilad, a senior defense official, said in an interview that in Gaza, “
we only have bad solutions, worse solutions and worst solutions.” He added:
“Hamas is a terrorist organization sworn to Israel’s destruction. We, on
the contrary, are facilitating them to bring in all kinds of food, materials;
they are even exporting strawberries and flowers.”
Aluf Benn, a senior editor and columnist for the left-wing Israeli newspaper
Haaretz wrote on Wednesday that the time had come for a new Gaza policy.
“The attempt to control Gaza from outside, via its residents’ diet and
shopping lists, casts a heavy moral stain on Israel and increases its
international isolation,” he wrote. “Every Israeli should be ashamed of the
list of goods prepared by the Defense Ministry, which allows cinnamon and
plastic buckets into Gaza, but not houseplants and coriander. It’s time to
find more important things for our officers and bureaucrats to do than update
lists.”
He suggested sealing the Israel-Gaza border and informing the international
community that Israel was no longer responsible for Gaza in any way, forcing
Gaza to turn to Egypt as its corridor to the outside world.
Egypt has consistently rejected such an idea in the past, asserting that Gaza
is Israel’s responsibility because it has occupied it since 1967.
One of the primary rationales for the blockade offered by Israeli officials
is the need to create a material and political gap between the West Bank, run
by the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority, and Gaza, run by Hamas. And
political surveys have shown a preference for Fatah and discontent with Hamas
among Palestinians. But the latest events, the American officials say, have
given Hamas a dangerous lift.
Isabel Kershner contributed reporting from Jerusalem.
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個人評論：
一位美國的匿名官員表示，在迦薩問題上，以色列需要改弦易轍。在報導中指出，
過去加薩走廊一直由巴勒斯坦的哈馬斯組織所佔領，也是以色列和埃及互推責任的領土。
雖然以色列政府曾表示基於人道考量，允許非官方組織在當地監督發送人道物資，以避
免這些物資為哈瑪斯所用，但實際上以色列封鎖邊境，並嚴格限制物資與救援團體進入，
存心圍困哈馬斯，但也造成迦薩地區的人民出現疾病與營養不良的現象。過去歐巴馬政
府曾想解決迦薩問題，但受制於國內猶太人壓力而無所作為。但目前局勢有了新的變化，
以色列攻擊救援船隊使得以土耳其為首的阿拉伯國家，以及英法等西方國家皆嚴重抗議。
目前以色列已被國際所孤立，如果繼續封鎖迦薩，可能連帶使西岸屯墾區問題也連帶浮
現，給予哈瑪斯與巴勒斯坦政府合作的機會，使以色列在談判中更趨弱勢。故對於以色
列來說，迦薩問題無論如何都不能「國際化」，繼續封鎖迦薩只會造成各種國際勢力介
入，甚至哈瑪斯可以「人權」為名進行攻擊，危機將會無法避免。
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