Divided leadership cannot cope with domestic challenges or counter Israel's plans, writes Michael Jansen
Asked what they expect to happen once Israel's disengagement from Gaza is complete, Palestinians reply: "Nothing." In their view, it has not "disengaged" but "redeployed". Israel has simply rearranged certain aspects of its long-standing engagement.
Jabr Wishah of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights says: "Palestinians demand either marriage - a binational state where they have equal rights with Israeli Jews - or divorce, a two-state solution involving the creation of a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank with East Jerusalem as its capital."
Israeli settlers and soldiers are being withdrawn from Gaza, 5.9 per cent of Palestinian territory occupied in 1967. But Israel remains in control of Gaza's borders, coast, airspace, communications and electricity and retains the right to intervene militarily.
Israel is also pulling its settlers out of four small colonies in the northern West Bank, another 15 per cent of the Palestinian territory occupied in 1967, but its soldiers are set to stay on and control the region.
Thus, Gazans have regained their space and northern West Bankers have shed settlers. The 9,000 settlers who are being evacuated amount to only 0.018 per cent of the total of nearly half a million.
Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon is likely to retain the initiative by carrying on with unilateral measures rather than negotiating a final status agreement with the Palestinians.
It is expected that he could propose further "disengagement" from areas comprising 39 per cent of the West Bank. This would involve removal of minor settlements but not withdrawal of major settlement blocs and Israeli forces and bases.
The maximum Palestinians would secure would be limited autonomy in 59.9 per cent of the Gaza-West Bank territory, or 13 per cent of geographic Palestine.
Palestinians argue that Sharon is "trading Gaza for East Jerusalem", which will be taken off the agenda as a reward from the Gaza withdrawal.
Hind Khoury, Palestinian minister in charge of the Jerusalem portfolio, says the Israelis are using Gaza to distract attention from the annexation of Jerusalem. "They have engineered the Gaza withdrawal to end around September 1st, the day Israel plans to complete the wall and gates cutting East Jerusalem off from its West Bank hinterland," she remarks. "It's perfect timing."
Once the last Israeli soldier leaves Gaza, its 1.3 million Palestinian inhabitants will have internal freedom of movement, and the evacuated areas, 30 per cent of Gaza's land, will be returned to the Palestinians.
But the World Bank holds that economic deterioration will continue if Israel does not yield control over Gaza.
The lives of the 2.4 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem will continue to be dominated by Israel's walls and fences, closures, administrative measures and the 200 checkpoints and earth barriers.
At present, 76 per cent of Palestinians in Gaza and 62 per cent in the West Bank live below the poverty line.
Personal incomes have fallen by 40 per cent since 2000 in spite of $1 billion in donor funds injected annually.
While aid to Palestinian refugees has been necessary to maintain security in the Levant over the past half-century, the majority of non- refugee Palestinians dwelling in Gaza and the West Bank are also becoming dependent on the international dole.
Dr Mahdi Abdel Hadi, the head of the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Relations, argues that the Palestinians are at a crossroads but do not know where they are going.
"The situation is confused and filled with contradictions. The Israelis do not tell us their plans. People are brutally crushed by Israeli taxation, residency requirements and lack of freedom of movement.
"Palestinians see no solution and endless conflict. They see only arrangements, management and containment. Nothing is certain, we are moving from transition to transition."
The weak and divided Palestinian leadership cannot cope with domestic challenges or counter Israel's plans. The ruling Fatah movement is split between the impotent "old guard" and the aspiring "new guard" which has no charismatic leader.
Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, is divided between zealots and pragmatists. The security forces are outgunned by political factions and criminal gangs.
Palestinian fishermen and farmers, businessmen and professionals do not want the Palestinian Authority to handle reconstruction funds flowing into Gaza because of corruption.
"The money goes into the pockets of our millionaires and we go hungry," says a taxi-driver.
"There'll be assassinations," observes Dr Abdel Hadi.
Everyone predicts a third intifada.
In the West Bank, terraces of olive trees many centuries old are being bulldozed, vineyards uprooted and homes demolished, and Palestinian families are being evicted from Jerusalem's Old City.
Lego-like Israeli settlements spring up everywhere, and the wall, of 8m-tall slabs of reinforced concrete, marches up hill and down dale.
"The international community is absent. No one will pressure Israel until its Gaza withdrawal has been achieved," says Palestinian deputy prime minister Nabil Shaath.
"No one wants to overload the Israeli wagon. The Europeans can't get the Security Council or General Assembly to meet. They can't fight the Americans now."
He recalls two lines from a prose piece written by the Palestinian nationalist poet, Mahmoud Darwish:
"We are not allowed to be unhappy, we are not allowed to be happy."
Dr Shaath elaborates: "We are not allowed to be unhappy because of the concessions we are forced to make to Israel and we are not allowed to be happy because Israel's withdrawal from Gaza is a victory for us."