“We are at an historical moment,” said Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, speaking today at the re-opening of the somewhat renovated shallow-water seaport that harbours a few dozen fishing boats and Gaza’s tiny de-commissioned navy.
No matter how you look at it, he said, the international flotilla of human rights activists trying to make its way to Gaza is an opportunity for this territory of 1.7 million Palestinians to break out of the Israeli blockade that has made this place a kind of open-air prison.
“If the ships reach Gaza, it’s a victory for Gaza,” the Prime Minister shouted to the crowd of about 400 cheering officials and party faithful. “If they are intercepted and terrorized by the Zionists, it will be a victory for Gaza, too, and they will move again in new ships to break the siege of Gaza.”
It was a bold statement by a man trying to put on the best face with the hand he has been dealt.
Mr. Haniya’s Hamas party won the January 2006 legislative elections in the West Bank and Gaza, but few in the West would recognize or deal with his government. Efforts at satisfying critics by forming a unity government with members of the Fatah party of Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas failed when fighting broke out between the two parties.
Hamas forces won control of Gaza in the summer of 2007, sending Fatah packing for the West Bank, and Israel has imposed an economic blockade on the small seaside territory since then.
Three years later, with some brave words and a modest little port, Mr. Haniya is trying to will an historical change.
But as the ceremonies and fire-fighting exhibition ended, and the crowd walked up the dirt road leading from the harbour, people who looked out at the glistening Mediterranean could see very clearly the shape of two powerful Israeli naval boats moving across the horizon from left to right. The vessels appeared no more than three kilometers away.
“They’re closer than I’ve ever seen them,” said one disillusioned man, shaking his head.
