Promised land

They stood shouting and chanting while some were being carried away - defiant souls set on standing their ground. The police and soldiers were staving off physical and emotional opposition as best they could. Some broke down, overcome by the unbearable confrontation - kinsman against kinsman; Israeli evacuating Israeli from towns in the Gaza strip.

The scenes are reminiscent of the forced evictions in South Africa by police of black and coloured people from their houses. Yet, the circumstances are very different. Here in Gaza we have Israeli police and soldiers moving out Israeli citizens from foreign territory, occupied by Israel since the 1967 war. In South Africa we had mostly white police and soldiers evacuating, rather less delicately, thousands of people of non-white race from "whites only" areas within the territory of South Africa. Even so, many defiant Israelis claim to be on their land - the promised land, promised by God to their forefathers, to Abraham himself.

If one turns to a religious, Biblical, basis for the prickly debate over Gaza, then the picture becomes much more muddled than when sticking to modern, international law. According to the Christian Bible, God promised land to Abraham and his descendants. But, who were the descendents of Abraham? He had two prominent sons, Izaac by his wife Sarah and Ismael by her slave, Hagar, who became his wife when Sarah was still barren.

It is commonly accepted that the Arab nations trace their ancestry to Abraham through Ishmael and the Jews theirs through Isaac. But there the picture turns rather nasty. Religious Israel claims that Isaac was blessed by Abraham to receive his inheritance and not Ishmael, even though Ishmael was Abraham's first-born. The reason why Isaac was blessed instead lies with Sarah, who decided that Hager and Ishmael were rather too much of a domestic threat and had to be sent off into the Negev. She convinced Abraham to do so. However, legend would have it that God protected Ishmael and Hager in the desert and Ishmael had a great number of descendants, whom we today know as the Arab nations - including the Palestinians. According to Jewish theology and tradition, Isaac became the officially blessed one and through his lineage we had King David and, so it is claimed, today's Jewish people.

So, in the greater Palestine, including the state of Israel, we have a battle of brothers. That is, if one takes the religious point of view. Of course, this view makes the conflict all the sadder. One would think that brothers, even half-brothers, should at some point see the folly of their fighting and stop it all. Let's embrace, not obliterate, each other.

But, there is modern, international law to speak the last word on Gaza. We are not ruled by religion any more, but rather by secular law. At least, that is the case as far as the United Nations are concerned. According to international law and a UN resolution, Israel is illegally occupying the Gaza and West Bank regions of Palestine. Withdrawal, however painful after 30 odd years there, is the only right thing to do. Unless, of course, one gives the settlers a choice to become Palestinian citizens, once Gaza becomes a fully independent part of the Palestinian state, and let them stay.

The option to stay were followed in South West Africa (Namibia), which took independence from South Africa in 1990, after many years of international pressure as well as a bloody anti-insurgency war fought at the north of the then South West Africa. At the end of World War I, South Africa received Deutsch West Afrika as a protectorate under the Treaty of Versailles. The region were promptly renamed to South West Africa. However, in 1969, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution that revoked South Africa's rights to South West Africa and called for immediate withdrawal of South African governance and troops. After many years of pressure and eventual sanctions, South Africa did comply. On 21 March 1990 its citizens, born in South West Africa, became Namibian citizens at the stroke of a political pen. The circumstances are legally similar in Gaza. Yet, the Sharon government has chosen to evacuate its citizens at great emotional and financial cost.

One can only wonder if Palestinians would have accepted Jews as Palestinian citizens and if Jews would have accepted Palestinian rule in Gaza, were the settlers to stay. Perhaps then, the brothers would have found each other again and laid to peace their bitter differences. Alas, as is often the case, it is better for brothers each to have his own kingdom to rule over.