I have finished the last piece of Gaza Strip history, essential to understand what is happening, during Camp David process of acquiring peace with Egypt.
The truth is that few things that happened earlier have had outstanding importance for what came next. Let me come back a bit to some occurrences from 1970s:
In 1978 in Gaza, still under Israeli military administration, Islamic Center has been registered. It was an offshoot of Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, vehemently opposed to Jews and Zionism, and standing, among others, behind a great Arab revolt in British Palestine (1936-1939) seeking to forbid Jewish immigration into the mandate, unfortunately pretty successfully, at the time when it was a matter of life and death for Jewish emigres. The Center was registered by Sheikh Yassin, a quadriplegic (due to childhood sport accident) imam from Gaza teaching in UNRWA schools from 1958 and arrested by Egypt once for belonging to Muslim Brotherhood. Initially Israel viewed Islamic Center as an alternative to PLO with no military or terrorist aspirations and thus provided some financial support to it for the first 10 years leading to subsequent legend about creation of Hamas by Israel. Islamic Center, while for the first 10 years not violent or broadly anti-Israeli, took control of social services, schooling, and life rules in Gaza strip. It was deeply religious pursuing fundamentalist Islam. It was undoubtedly Israel's mistake, both the harshness of early 70s military administration of Gaza and support for what looked like peaceful, though very oppressive towards Palestinians, alternative to PLO.
In 1983 Yassin was arrested for the first time for leading terrorist organization which evolved from Islamic Center (and released as a consequence of negotiations with PFLP - Jibril agreement).
The situation changed in 1987 with the start of first intifada and rebranding of Islamic Center for Hamas together with showing military, terrorist and very anti-Israeli attitude. Initially Hamas was treated as counterweight to PLO, but, however these two movements were indeed rather fighting each other, Hamas soon started the campaign of terror. Being under great influence of Iran from the very beginning of Ayatollahs' regime, it adopted suicidal methods of terrorism, embraced by Shea Islam and previously extremely rare in Sunni one. In effect Hamas was de-legitimize in 1989 and Yassin arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment for ordering killings of alleged Palestinian collaborators the abduction and murder of Israeli soldiers Ilan Saadon and Avi Sasportas.
When the peace process started in 1990s Hamas condemn it and introduced it's reign of terror directed against peace talks. As indicated in other posts Arafat, living at the time in Gaza, was aware of many of the prepared terrorist plots proving his lack of sincerity and real engagement in peace process (among others he warned a young Swedish diplomat working to bring about peace, against visiting Jerusalem on the very day when bus 18 was targeted by suicide bomber under the auspices of Hamas). Nevertheless, Arafat at least paid the lip service to the peace process and maybe (just maybe) would take it a bit further without the Hamas campaign. To discredit in the eyes of Israelis the peace process Hamas, already after the end of intifada and during peace process, orchestrated a campaign of terror with no less than 13 terror attacks during less than 3 years which killed no less than 138 Israelis. The attacks were the most often and the worst after PM Rabin assassination, as extremists hoped this is their chance to undermine peace process. Here how it looked: "On Sunday 25 February 1996 a Palestinian student stepped onto a crowded bus in Jerusalem and detonated a bomb, killing twenty-six Israelis. One week later a second Palestinian detonated a bomb on a Jerusalem bus, killing eighteen Israelis. The following day a known Muslim extremist lay down on a busy street in Tel Aviv and blew himself up along with ten Israelis. These attacks were designed to undermine and halt what extremist groups viewed as the humiliating and misguided Palestinian–Israeli peace process." (after Sabotaging the Peace: The Politics of Extremist Violence by Andrew Kydd and Barbara F. Walter).
Of course on the Israeli side there were also people vehemently opposed to the peace process. After assassination of Rabin in 1995, by such Jewish extremist, Yigal Amir, Shimon Perez, who became a new PM, was dedicated to continuing peace process, although he had his reservations. He was not sure if two-state solution is the proper one, true, but he was dedicated enough to the state of Israel, the will of constituents and Rabin's achievements to cautiously continue with peace talks. Unfortunately to strengthen his position he declared the new elections for May 1996. He showed a 10% majority in polls and expected to win easily, which probably would have happened if not for Hamas. Vehemently opposed to the peace process Hamas orchestrated such an avalanche of suicide attacks (4 of them during 3 month, killing at least 60) that the Israeli public lost their belief in the peace process. The young (at the time) Israeli politician, very opposed to the two-state solution, and favoring militaristic approach to Palestinian demands, won the election exactly because this wave of terror. Hamas was pleased, confrontation and not cooperation and co-existence was its goal. The winner, who became PM for the first time in 1996 was also pleased. This ambitious politician was Benyamin Netanyahu.
A year after becoming PM Netanyahu authorized the assassination of Meshaal, Hamas's head of political bureau in retribution for Hamas’s suicide bombings. The plot went avry and to rescue peace treaty with Jordan Netanyahu had to release Sheikh Yassin from prison. The proposition of such deal was Netanyahu's idea and some claim it was a main goal. The same year the USA recognized Hamas as terrorist organization and two years later Jordan expelled Hamas bureau from Amman.
In 1999 Netanyahu lost power and the PM became Ehud Barak. His 2000 peace proposal, that granted Palestine almost everything they asked but was still rejected by Arafat, I described here. How was the life in Gaza in these years? In 1994 80% of Gaza territory was left by IDF troops as a result of Oslo Accords. Yet the security checks were present, which were to control movement of Gazans to Israel. Still, many Palestinians had right to work in Israel, however after the intifada the number of permits went down. In 1990s it was normal for many Gazans to go to work to Israel daily, and for Israelis to come to Gaza for shopping at the markets or to visit beaches. Definitely there was lots of reservations between groups, yet for example in kibbutz Nahal Oz the peace festival gathering together Gazans and Israelis from kibbutz was celebrated from 1994 with a hope (unrealized) to bring two societies closer. There were friendships, working together, some understanding in both groups. Unfortunately the pulling apart forces were also present on both sides, albeit on the Palestinian one much more viscous.
In 2001 Ariel Sharon, at the time standing as a leader of Likud party, that he himself created years earlier, won the election and took PM sit. It was during extremely bloody second intifada when the suicide bombings in Israel were plenty and people lost any remnants in peace process that they possibly held before.
Sharon, whose political legacy is complicated and remains dividing figure for many, wanted to address the security and peace issues in the best interests of Israel. He was a skeptic when it comes to total peace between Israel and possibly created Palestine, yet he was also realist and knew Israel should somehow change the dynamics. The intifada, peace process destroyed by Hamas with the help of Arafat and Israeli far right, the international standing - all had to be addressed. He addressed it by few very unique decisions. He started building of the wall between West Bank and Israel proper, he proposed unilateral evacuation of Gaza including existing 21 settlements and - facing the resistance of his party - he left Likud and created Kadima.
The era of peace process unfortunately ended in failure. The second intifada was raging around. Gaza was to become experiment in Palestinian self-governance in a new approach to possible peace or at least truce. The next chapter in Gaza's history was disengagement and what came next. Unfortunately the series of bad decisions on both sides were already heavy.
Nevertheless it was Israel that finally backed from Gaza, allowed a lot of help to reach it and hoped for the best notwithstanding many victims on Israeli side. Hoping for the best. Unfortunately Gaza was already under strong Hamas's influence becoming fast the fallen state, not for the lack of money, for the lack of will to build a state instead of fighting its neighbor.
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