On the airport and the seaport

By: Omar Shaban
Gaza had a port before the Israeli occupation in 1967, from which fruits and citrus were exported to all parts of the world, and what it needed was likewise imported. The building of a port and an airport in Gaza is among the articles agreed on in the Oslo agreement with the Israeli government. The Yasser Arafat airport was operated for several years, and the foundation stone was actually laid for the port in the Sheikh Ajlin area, with funding from the European Investment Bank (EIB).
The airport and the port, like the flag, the police, the bureaucratic apparatus, and the national sports team, are among the important symbols of sovereignty, and a littoral state cannot be deprived of possessing a port and an airport of its own. There are 30 states in the world that have no outlet on the sea, and they wish they possessed an outlet on the sea. The Palestinian state will not be without Gaza and without a port of its own. Gaza's port is the only sea window of the coming Palestinian state. The states with a sea outlet have many competitive advantages compared with the non-littoral states. Gaza's port is not necessary for the Gaza Strip only; rather it is more important for the West Bank governorates, which rely on the Israeli ports in exporting and importing, with what that means of restrictions, security measures, costs, and additional taxes. Building and operating a port in Gaza will create 50000 work opportunities, will bring about a leap in the Palestinian economy, will work to consolidate the economic relationship between the governorates of the north and the south, will work an immense development in the skills of work and industry in Palestine and strengthen the technical and knowledge contact between Palestinian society and the world, and will form one of the landmarks of civilisation and urbanity. Taking into consideration Gaza's strategic location in its closeness to Europe and the Suez Canal, the port in Gaza will be a stopping station for many of the giant ships on their way between Asia and Europe. A dry port can be attached to it, which consists of immense warehouses the large companies use to store their goods temporarily until their shipment a second time toward their final destinations, as is the case in the ports of Dubai, Rotterdam, Singapore, and others.
As relates to the Israeli and international demands to apply security conditions to the port and the airport, it goes without saying that these demands are Palestinian par excellence, for they pour into the interest of the Palestinian people and political system. The application of security arrangements to guarantee the non-smuggling of goods, persons, and prohibited materials forms a priority for the Palestinian side. There is no airport or port in the world without security oversight. And no state, whatever it be, can allow its land and sea outlets to be violable. The application of security arrangements is a Palestinian interest par excellence before being an Israeli demand.
Lifting the blockade from the Gaza Strip, raising the standard of living of the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip, creating thousands of work opportunities for the youth, and opening the field for travel and movement between Gaza and the world is the only means of strengthening stability, calm, and peace in the region. Stability cannot occur in two areas separated by a few kilometres while the level of individual income in one of them (Israel) reaches 40000 dollars annually and the individual income in the second (the Gaza Strip) falls to less than 600 dollars.
On the Palestinian level: a port in Gaza does not at all mean separating Gaza from the Palestinian political project — such silly talk insults the positions of the Gaza Strip, which refused and resisted all the attempts at separation in the past years. The Gaza Strip has risen, with all patriotism and belonging, above the policies of neglect and exclusion practised by some in the past years.