Transcripts For CSPAN2 Gaza And Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

CSPAN2 Gaza And Israeli-Palestinian Conflict August 8, 2017

Discussed the israelipalestinian conflict how of gaza strip interest in the Peace Process it is one hour 35 minutes. [inaudible conversations] afternoon in the Vice President for policy research and i am a the moderator for todays discussion with the politics of daily life this is the latest of the Family Foundation in serious lecture series we are not relatives although we are perhaps distant cousins at this even to you can find it on our web sites and even cspan is covering it as well and it will be available later on the web site the because it is recorded please put your phones on silent but we do encourage tweeting we hope you will connect regularly with us on twitter and facebook we have a lot of articles in graphics and tools for understanding the region and the also just published a new book which looks at ways to get from where we are today to and alternative future. 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Were looking at the critical humanitarian situation in a round the cause of strip with the Palestinian Authority with that movement itself with the shift in the gulf and possibly impacting the situation in gaza it has been under a blockade for almost a decade now and got worse as the Palestinian Authority is also refusing payments and asking that those issues confront that dire situation part of the discussion today is how they can mitigate the current suffering but also the it regional and international deliberation and how does one of the oil those even after that last war in in 2014 was very devastating than so we serve the one to avoid another conflict so we are very fortunate to have a panel with us today there full biography is before you buy will introduce them briefly. Immediately to my right is a policy fellow and as a Palestinian Network of a think tank without borders to foster public debate on palestinian humanrights and the framework within International Law and then the president of the foundation and the expert on of the views with the israeli thinking as well m previously with the americans been serving with distinction in the valley east but to my immediate left is the acting director of the Washington Office of the United Nations in Office Agency that has approximately 12200500 staff in those affiliations across mentalhealth in the beef and the Emergency Assistance and to the extreme right to tell her of the Brookings Institution and then started in georgetown then stanford then indonesia now currently writing a book for the his domestic origin. Nl we will have time for questions at the end that we will close promptly at 1 30 p. M. Today. If you could paint a picture of the current humanitarian and Economic Situation on the ground with gaza and paid a picture of what is obstructed and proceeding and how we describe the situation. I know there has ben day un report and amendments to that. As you mentioned there was a report called gaza 2020 that was five years ago so i will share a brief course asian the population increase from 2. 1 million. Purity at that number is only 2017 so much of this infrastructure municipal and social services struggling to keep pace with their own population by 2020 the electrician needs will be to double damage to the offer is a reversible and Health Services will be for a young population there has been continued development in the gaza strip through 2014 during that conflict we had 290,000 civilians sheltering and 86,000 refugee homes to image including 7,000 destroyed and thousands still remain displaced. There were some savvier social recycle second distress. Nearly onethird experienced some type of ptsd d. So rather than development i can tell you the last few times we see a lot more jockey cards are on the street so people are going backwards. Offical unemployment is 32 points and four men and 60 percent for women but unemployment for the youth is the of personnel from electricity so just on the current electricity crisis blackouts are running about 22 hours per day than really disrupts their daily life and to put that into perspective they could have electricity for as long as this Panel Discussion takes place so then they scrambled to get everything done that they can sell more than 90 percent of the tap water is not drinkable implants are functioning in only 15 of capacity in more than 100 million liters of sewage is pumped into the ocean every single day. The equivalent of 40 olympics size swimming pools going into the ocean. So the u. N. Put out an updated a few weeks ago and i want to read one portion this underscores that these projections have deteriorated further. Average daily class times students is four hours a day. Causes only water source is nervous about depleted by 2020 and reconstruction triggered increased imports of Construction Material to gaza. However, access to materials needed to allow the gaza economy and its services to recover has been restricted. The question that everyone asks is what can be done at this point how can that be reversed. The un has been asking all actors including israel and the International Community to invest in the Sustainable Development initiative which hasnt been done as needed. Treated by lies the economy and will support need to improve the freedom of movement for people both in and out of gaza. Something that robert piper said is the alternative would be a gaza that is more isolated and more desperate, more devastating escalation will increase and the prospect for inter palestinian directly insulation will end. Thank you. Will ask you a number of followup questions. First of all, what is your Current Situation given that youre probably the main source of their . Secondly, qatar used to be and maybe that is changing has been a contributor and so on and are that europeans im talking humanitarian. Thirdly, what are the current passageways. Put on. Sure. Ill take them in order. The funding situation i always have a funding issue and this year at this very moment we are facing a deficit of 126. 5 million on a budget of about 750 million a year. Its quite substantial. We are working to make it budget deficit out and we also expect the next several years and we calculated that we have roughly a 100 million structural deficit that we face every year and thats we need to overcome. As you know the United States contributes about 22 of the overall funding for the agency. In terms of the other donors we do have quite a bit of support from the countries and European Union and the European Union itself is the number two contributor and the European Countries whether part of the genre not to give about 25 and the rest of the world the additional 25 . To answer your third question here the imports, as you know there used to be most of those have been close. One of the procurement done through the tunnels. Have a very active and coordinated role with the Israeli Governments. The materials that we need to bring in for construction or food items or whatever may be may have a sophisticated system that we work with israel on in order to develop that. For the average person there is a dual use with many things that could be considered secondary use generally foodstuff are able to come in the biggest problem is to buy the items that come in export, again, is a major hindrance because gaza is traditionally a manufacturing economy and they export their goods. Without being able to export those goods jobs are there and traditional markets have been israel and they got a drink. You mentioned other donors but do other programs have aids that they run themselves or they provide directly to gaza outside of una agencies . Yeah, its not just you and are a but the eu and qatar give both to other ngos that operate their works and some also support the fact the government is there. Help us under stand the current complicated policy. [inaudible] walk us through what is going on politically why he has been doing the things that he is now been doing and is the shifting and how does this play out . Thank you can, paul. Thank you for hosting this panel. I will try to go through a Chronological Order over the past six months or so as we try to give context to where we are today. Can everyone hear me . A great attention was given to gaza about a month ago that was the result of a decision that had been taken by the president and the west bank and it followed a number of decisions from the beginning of the year. Some decisions included things like restricting medical supplies in the gaza strip and cutting all of the salaries of pa employees, palestinian authorities that are present and living within the gaza street rather than the west bank. The decision. [inaudible] allegedly it was said that the pas had the budget deficit and its something to control as payment of employee salaries which is a big part of the pa budget. The fact that the politics were taking focused on the gaza strip showed that there was a concerted effort on his part to increase activation and to increase pressure on the government within gaza. [inaudible] he said he would stop making payments for electricity on the gaza strip and the combination of these three resulted in a significant escalation of the humanitarian crisis on the gaza strip. I want to answer the why. Why is he doing that at the moment. Theres a number of factors. Local dynamics and International Dynamics that have been unfolding for the past four years but most noted in 2014 hamas and israel. Immediately context, itinerary, was the new american president and President Trump had already showed wanting to have policies that would produce the ultimate deal between israel and the palestinians and was positioning himself as someone who could provide that deal. There was also the Trump Administration coming into office that would involve or change and americas semi alleys quote unquote and islamic extremists quote islamic extremist with american policy shifting under the Trump Administration the president most likely to get as he wanted to position himself in a strong man on the ground it would be able to implement the Trump Administration agenda on the ground and someone whos able to unify the palestinians. And someone whos able to take strong policy to the hamas government in the gaza strip. That forms the backdrop of his decision in generate to escalating the gaza strip. Thats the international context. From there things started to expand. If the on the ground there was a significant for the president of the gaza strip over the past few years there was economy severely no taxes on the relationship with iran and saudi arabia and the emergence of the class was policies of marginalizing. [inaudible] this meant the border to the gaza strip and egypt wasnt all of these factors together resulted in a situation where the hamas government was isolated. This presented opportunity for president abbas. On the other hand, there was also an increasing effort by president abbas rival to come back into the political establishment through the gaza strip. Discussions are happening between powers within gaza the backing of the eua in egypt to position himself as someone who could come back into the political establishment. The threat of the hamas weakness and the possibility the idea of an american initiation that would be supportive of some of the policies that president abbas was taking all culminated in his decision to increase measures that would isolate hamas and possibly weaken the government to expand so that they could come back into the gaza strip and take over control of the territory. What we saw in the gulf crisis with escalation as a country supporting a terrorist organization that is reflected within some of the dynamics that are happening in the gaza strip. The challenge for qatar now is to show that it is in supporting organizations such as hamas but playing into president abbas hands and further weakening it. Of course, it was a flawed decision for several reasons and we can talk about now. It actually resulted in counterproductive and they have backfired. The situation we see on the ground now is one where hamas is much closer and theres a new alliance that is forming that is presenting a significant threat to president abbas. He now has backtracked on some of his policies to reinitiate some form of reconciliation. Let me interject a question here. [inaudible] what was he counting on in terms of support . I wouldnt be able to directly say but my reading of the situation in my assessment is that there was a capitalist need by president abbas that he was able to present himself as a secular Palestinian Authority able to take control of the gaza strip and the west bank that he would be able to enhance the support of countries like saudi arabia. Even egypt and the uae might fall into that if he was able to present a strong hand and demonstrate that he could take control of the gaza strip. That has backfired. What has resulted instead was the uae continuing to support the successor to president abbas in egypt coming out more strongly than it ever has before in terms of support. Egypt was probably seen as a country that could fall either way and its now come out as a country that is supportive of him coming back to power. Its important to understand that president abbas policies in deciding to further increase gazas isolation that he bought into the rationale of the which is that you can increase pressure on a population of too many people in order to weaken a political fraction or in this case a running government. Apart from the fact that its morally reprehensible because its collective punishment to to achieve a political goal it had also proven to be flawed. Hamas hasnt weekend but rather than collapse or the coming back into that gaza strip will we have seen are several escalation of force gaza and israel. Actually the reading of hamas desire to further weaken hamas is a misreading of the situation which is that it benefited from the separation of the gaza strip from the west bank and maintaining hamas government in gaza that administers the territories without presenting the security. Theres a number of factors here that president abbas has misread back let me ask you a bit also to think about the policies on the west bank. Maybe a few words about how you think the latest troubles on temple mount in that area played the politics and how the groups take advantage of the palestinian side and maybe a few words about how you see what he has inside the west bank and reporters and so on and affections and how you see the future there in terms of palestinian equality. In terms of the first question. I think we would all benefit going back to a in the days just for the flareup or the less flareup gaza and israel. The events that happened in jerusalem accentuated the relationship between the ground and it has weaken them now. It was open to an agreement then and president abbas hoped it would be earlier this year and there was tension that has been in jerusalem with the murder of the three israeli teenagers. The same recipe is an element that paved the way for escalation 14 are very much present today. Hamas gets a lot of legitimacy from presenting itself in the middle of the movement and the temple mount area in jerusalem. It is an organization that would publicly be able to play opportunistically and take advantage of the situation thats happening in jerusalem now. If the crisis wasnt immediate, as i said last month, with shipments coming into the gaza strip that would probably have the been. [inaudible] i dont think we can separate from whats happening in jerusalem. It is connected. It rises from how it treats the pa in the gaza and west bank. [inaudible] terms of the, its an ironic twist of fate that the two are an organization bitter enemies because this goes back to the early 1990s under his leadership there was a significant amount of repression that losses members of the west bank particularly but also in the gaza strip. Patient opportunity reliant and hamas benefits from the funding from the uae support him from taking on some of the responsibilities that hamas has been trying to shed for years. Israel primarily but also prevented because right now its contained in the gaza strip is still there. There is that front and they benefit also by getting a political entry point into the political establishment. Even though his entry point is the gaza, gaza is a critical element of the palestinian political astonishment even though we often think of it as its own problem that somehow marginal and separated from the political establishment. For them to gain a strong foothold in the gaza strip is a way to get back into the Palestinian Authority within the west bank. Terms of hamas, is extremely facing the. [inaudible] if they are able to position itself in the gaza strip someone who has political power my guess is that he would be able to get Political Support within the west bank as well. Having said that there are other contenders and none that his eye here in mind that could be as powerful but certainly there would be a power dynamic that he would have a good chance thank you. The major to you. Enlighten us a bit about the current israeli discussions and debates about changing developments in gaza and area that israel withdrew from that has sensors there. Has a currently troubling relationship. What is the current debate is whether Palestinian Authority for the situation and the jewish role of the uae in egypt dynamic. What is the thinking there and the risk of war. Its a pleasure to be here. Thank you. Im on the extreme right and dont think the actio

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