Gaza liberation

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's recent announcement of his government's willingness to give permission to develop a natural gas field off the coast of the Gaza Strip provided a rare ray of hope in the turbulent social, political and security landscape in the region. Anyone who knows Netanyahu's biography well must be very optimistic, especially since this readiness was unavoidably coupled with a request for security guarantees, which we already know contain all imaginable demons in their details.

However, the news itself contains a necessary reminder of the size of the missed opportunities in Gaza, as in the general Palestinian national project, whether in terms of revenues from the strategic geographical location of the Strip, or because the Palestinian territories - contrary to expectations - are a huge gathering of talents and untapped natural resources. Nothing prevents Gaza from achieving much of what Singapore or Hong Kong achieved, had it not been for the inability to imagine alternatives to conflict other than militarization, and a different definition of the horizon of the Palestinian national project, which has shifted from the project of the Palestinian and Israeli states to the two-state project in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The news is also an indication of the distortion of the idea of ​​peace itself on the Israeli side, and a reminder to both peace camps on both sides of the distance that separates us today from the vision of the late Israeli Prime Minister and President Shimon Peres, who bet on a peace based on common economic, financial and environmental interests, and not on signing Treaties and agreements on paper.

When Lee Kuan Yew took office as Singapore's first Prime Minister in 1959, he inherited a fishing town suffering from severe unemployment and a housing shortage. But through strategic planning and economic foresight, he has transformed Singapore into an internationally recognized financial and innovation powerhouse, making it a stunning economy driven by a thriving technology sector and one of the busiest ports in the world. This was achieved by investing in education, promoting political stability, and creating an attractive environment for foreign investment, which is - for Gaza - a sharp reminder that the region's future is not determined solely by its current conditions or turbulent past, but by its ability to envision a more prosperous future. and strive to achieve it.

The discovery of the gas field in 1999 by British Gas, and the subsequent ebb and flow of peace negotiations over two decades, indicates the amount of time and economic wealth that was wasted due to the cycles of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the Palestinian-Palestinian conflict.

Moreover, Gaza's human resources are also an important untapped asset. The sector is teeming with young talents, especially in the technology sector, around which the beginnings of an integrated technology industry can be built, rather than transforming the sector into a reservoir of poor talented labor serving the technology sector in Israel. In this context, for example, the initiatives of former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who also comes from the technology sector, in addition to the programs of the Israeli technology sector to train Palestinian talents, reveal an important aspect of Israel's endeavor to benefit from these talents to enhance its technology industry, in the face of the lack of Israeli talents. Due to migration to Silicon Valley, and the increasing need to expand the scope of innovation and increase talent in the cyber services sector, at the civilian and military levels.

There is no doubt that the strict restrictions imposed by Israel on Gaza, under the pretext of security necessities, have severely impeded its chances of economic development and prosperity, especially the policies that limit the movement of people, goods and resources inside and outside the Strip, which has raised unemployment rates to exceptional levels, exacerbated poverty, and impeded Local business growth. In addition, the restrictions imposed on the development of infrastructure and the import of vital materials have led to a significant deterioration in living conditions, including problems with water supply, sanitation and electricity that deprive the sector of the least objective conditions necessary to build a prosperous and sustainable economy.

On the other hand, the responsibilities of the armed groups, especially Hamas, cannot be underestimated in reinforcing the state of misery in Gaza and turning the strip from which Israel withdrew in 2005 into a military base for Iran, at the expense of Palestinian civil peace and the priority of economic development for the Palestinians.

However, the game of distributing responsibilities is a vicious circle that can only be broken by imagining a better future and honest pursuit of the conditions conducive to it.

Japan recovered from the ashes of World War II, and employed the recognition of its defeat to create a new Japanese national consciousness, which paved the way for it to become a global economic power. This is a lesson that should not be forgotten in the minds of those responsible for the Palestinian national project, instead of exposing the Palestinians to the permanent consequences of not recognizing the imbalance of power to their disadvantage. .

It can be said that acknowledging defeat is a prelude to a better future, incomparably nobler than the disappointed illusions of victory that lead the Palestinians from misery to misery. Nothing prevents Gaza from being transformed, with its favorable geographical location, vast human resources, and untapped natural resources, from a war-torn region into an economic center resembling Singapore or Hong Kong, within a Palestinian vision first, and with Arab-Gulf-Egyptian partnership.

The recent announcement of the gas fields off the coast of the Gaza Strip, regardless of their size, is a call to atone for national Palestinian policies that focus on human development and economic growth, as a path towards a better future, and as a newer title for Palestinian national dignity.

It is a test of the Palestinian's ability to define his cause outside the war process. In agreement with the "Middle East"