A Gaza port will be no panacea for poverty - Martin Sherman

The crippling unemployment in Gaza, reportedly above 40%, will not be alleviated by transferring Israeli supervision from Ashdod and the Gaza border crossings to an offshore islet. There is soaring unemployment because any creative energies that might exist in Gaza are not being channeled toward productive or constructive goals, but rather into fomenting violence against the despised "Zionist entity." A port will not change those realities. Indeed, it is likely to exacerbate them.

Martin Sherman..
Israel Hayom..
27 May '16..

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.- Attributed to Albert Einstein

Just when you thought that you could not possibly hear anything more preposterous on how to help resolve the conflict with the Palestinians, somehow someone always manages to prove you wrong by coming out with a policy proposal so glaringly absurd that it transcends what you mistakenly believed was the pinnacle of imbecility.

Harebrained and hazardous

Disturbingly, precisely such a hopelessly hare-brained scheme is now being repeatedly bandied about by Israelis in positions of influence.

The idea is to provide Gaza with what, in effect, will be a detachable civilian port, under Israeli supervision. It is to be built on an offshore artificial island, connected to the mainland by a bridge over 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) long, which, according to its proponents, can easily be disconnected should the Gazans "misbehave."

Actually, this nonsensical notion has been around for quite some time. Indeed, as early as 2011, British daily The Guardian reported that Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz was pursuing the idea, which he estimated would cost $10 billion and take about a decade to complete.

Lately, however, it has been raised with increasing frequency in the media, and publicly endorsed by both government ministers and senior IDF brass.

Thus, earlier this year, Construction Minister Yoav Gallant, formerly the head of the IDF Southern Command, expressed his support for the idea in an interview with Bloomberg.

Just prior to that, Haaretz reported that "senior Israel Defense Forces officers are in favor in principle of a port for the Gaza Strip," and just last week The Jerusalem Post wrote: "High up within the defense establishment, some believe that the time has come for Israel to set up a civilian seaport for the Gaza Strip."

Detachable port? Detached from reality!

Indeed, at a conference held this weekend in New York, Katz, who, in addition to the transportation portfolio holds the post of intelligence minister, reiterated his previous support for a Gaza port on an artificial offshore island: "The offshore project could provide Gaza with an economic and humanitarian gateway to the world without endangering Israeli security."

I confess that the first time I heard of this appallingly absurd idea was in a private conversation several months ago with someone (who shall remain nameless) considered a serious contender for the post of Mossad director. I remember at the time being taken aback by the idea, so clearly ill-conceived and illfated, being promoted by someone so high ranking. But I took (false) comfort in the belief that it was so wildly outlandish that it would never be given serious consideration by those in authority.

As it turns out, I was sadly mistaken -- as this perilous proposal continues to enjoy sustained attention in the discourse.

An irresolvable dilemma, staggering stupidity and concessions too perilous to make

By accepting the principle of two-states, successive Israeli leaders have impaled the nation on the horns of an irresolvable dilemma.

Martin Sherman..
Into the Fray..
21 April '16..

We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them. – Albert Einstein

One does not have to be an Einstein to grasp that Israel cannot solve the problems created by the endeavor to establish a Palestinian state by continuing the endeavor to establish such a state.

Futile and self-obstructive

Sadly, what should be a simple self-evident truth seems to have eluded Israeli political leaders – who for almost a quarter century have impaled the nation on the horns of an irresolvable dilemma. For by ostensibly accepting the principle of a two-state resolution of the conflict with the Palestinian-Arabs, they have, in effect, committed the nation to a policy whose implementation requires concessions too perilous for any responsible government to make.

On the one hand, this necessarily makes Israel appear disingenuous and duplicitous, since it cannot take the actions required to facilitate its alleged political goals. On the other, because of its commitment to Palestinian statehood, Israel must limit its use of military force to levels that cannot eradicate the threat to its civilian population, for fear of eliminating any prospect of negotiations with some as yet unidentified Palestinian interlocutor with whom agreement might be reached.

Little could highlight the futility of the starkly self-obstructive approach, adopted by successive Israeli governments, than three items that made the news this week.

The first was the announcement of the discovery of an underground attack tunnel, extending from somewhere inside the terrorist enclave of Gaza into Israeli sovereign territory.

The second was the report that, having rid itself of the “costly” upkeep of the settlements in Gaza, Israel is about to invest a gazillion shekels in a super-sophisticated barrier, designed to detect any additional tunnels that Gaza-based terrorists might have burrowed or are about to burrow.

The third was an interview with Construction Minister Maj.-Gen. (res.) Yoav Galant, formerly head of Southern Command, in which he reiterated his support for the construction of a port off the Gaza coast that he expressed several weeks before.