Letters to the Editor
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You don't have to imagine it
In 1947 Mandate Britain wanted to divide up the Mandate into Arab and Jewish territory. Their original proposal was to limit Jews to small areas around what is today Tel-Aviv, Yaffo and Ashkelon. The Arabs balked which triggered a series of anti Jewish riots that culminated in the UK simply chucking the whole thing over the wall to the UN. Pre UN181 the UN proposed dividing up the Mandate 75% Arab 25% Jewish. The Arabs balked again. The Jewish section was cut by half leaving the Arab 87% and the Jews 13%. The 87% of the Mandate today comprises Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza. The Hashemites were given Jordan as a consolation prize for being deposed as the rulers of what is today Saudi Arabia and replaced by the as Aziz ibn Saud clan which was more friendly to UK business interests. At the point of UN181 the West Bank and Gaza were supposed to be reserved for neither the Jordanians nor the Egyptians but for this nascent nationality, the "Palestinians". Well Jordan and Egypt illegally occupied the West Bank and Gaza and cut the "Palestinians out of the loop. Though to be fair, Egypt created relocation camps in Gaza for their own Palestinians and began to forcibly put them there. Jordan being a little more humane simply denied them Jordanian citizenship (in their own country).
When 1967 rolled around, after 19 years of foreign occupation of Gaza, the Egyptians effectively eliminated their own Palestinian underclass problem by just giving away Gaza. Though 'giving away is an abstract thing. No IDF troops fought in or occupied Gaza during the 6 day war. Gaza was essentially left on its own. No Jewish 'settlers would propose moving there for another 15 years at a least. Similarly in the West Bank, Jordan walked away from it. No IDF troops maintained any permanent status in the west bank from 1967 though the early 1980's with the arrival of the Gush Emunem movement. From the period 1967-through at least 1992 there was no border between Gaza and Israel and the West Bank and Israel. About 150-175,000 Palestinians a day had open access to Israel for work. Arabs were moving back to East Jerusalem the areas around French Hill, Ammunition Hill and Jews were moving into bedroom communities and suburbs expanding around municipal Jerusalem as the population expanded.
Then came Oslo and the Hamas. Oslo was hated by Hamas who saw it as a betrayal of both Palestinian absolutism and a betrayal of radical Islam. This was the beginning of the first intifada. Hundreds of terrorist attacks in Israeli civilians inside of Israel. This was the beginning of checkpoints and roadblocks. This was the beginning of YAMAM (Non Military Police border control services and HRT) incursions into the West Bank and Gaza to root out attacks and to defend Jewish communities that were coming increasingly under attack. And when we say suburbs, we mean Jewish so called settlements, 3 miles from downtown Jerusalem and abutting to it. So here it is 14 years and two intifada later and Hamas hasn't really accomplished much of anything except keeping the attacks up and changing tactics with the times. It's nearly impossible to pursue suicide bus bombings now, the Jewish towns are more heavily protected so hit squads, grenade attacks and sniper attacks are much less effective so that leaves thousands of unguided rockets fired into Israeli cities from the midst of their own civilian populations as a shield. Once in a while there will be a mass murder like at the Yeshiva a few weeks ago. But those tend to be from people who work there already and whom Israel can't really maintain security checks.