Palestine Airlines flight 172 from Larnaca to Rafah at the southern edge of the Gaza Strip flies at 19,000 feet over the molten steel blue Mediterranean. The hostess carries out the safety drill and serves snacks to the two of us, the only passengers. The 50-seat aircraft had flown empty to Cyprus.
The aim of the exercise is not to make connections or money but to assert sovereignty.
But our course is not a straight line from Cyprus to the Gaza Strip. Our approach is over the Egyptian Sinai peninsula, minimising the moments we overfly Israel. Waiting on the tarmac at the Palestinian International Airport are Israeli security men in wrap-around dark glasses detailed to see that we get into the bus to go to Israeli immigration and customs at the Israeli-Egyptian border crossing. On the road to Gaza city we skirt Israeli settlements, guarded by watch towers where armed soldiers lounge in the sea breeze. Whenever they move out, settlers form orderly convoys to plunge into the chaos of Gaza's highways. Cars veer sharply round carts drawn by plodding donkeys, clusters of scarved schoolgirls dawdling home. In the thriving town of Khan Younis, women in embroidered dresses sit behind piles of home-grown cucumbers and tomatoes or mounds of yellow sweet grapes. Shops stocking computers stand next to stalls selling traditional pottery. There are no rules of the road, commerce is unregulated. Palestinian self-rule is laissez-faire.
My hotel, the Sea Breeze, is new. Up the slope stand newly-built high-rise blocks of flats and offices; grand villas crouch behind fences bedecked with security cameras to deter thieves. But the street in front of the hotel disintegrates into a sand track bounded by mud-brick, breeze block and tin shacks sprouting satellite dishes. Shabby children run barefoot. Reeking garbage overflows from a dumpster, paper, plastic bags, bottles, tins, broken glass are scattered everywhere. Water leaks from broken pipes, sewage pours into the sea untreated.
There is no zoning or planning, building permits are cheap, banks freely grant construction loans. Gaza is a vast building site. Conservative Palestinians prefer to invest in land and buildings rather than in productive enterprises. Thousands of flats stand empty, wasting assets.
Everywhere signboards advertise the Authority's ministries: planning and international co-operation, commerce, industry, health. The Ministry of Finance is located in a fine stone block eight or 10 storeys tall. Bureaucrats have comfortable offices, high salaries and perks. Most of the Authority's budget is consumed by pay checks.
Signboards, ministerial blocks, bureaucrats create the illusion that the Palestinian state will rise because of its own efforts. But little work is done. The electricity falters and fails. The Palestinian Authority, the government of the state-to-be, has not yet built its own generating plant. The Palestinians depend on Israel for power. Independence remains a distant dream.
The natives of Gaza resent the exiles who "returned" with President Yasser Arafat in 1994. "We welcomed them with open arms," a businesswoman remarks as we order dinner. "But they took over. They supplanted the local leadership and are putting us out of business. The corruption is unbelievable."
A friend added: "Only foreigners thought we would proclaim our state on September 13th. The people in the streets never gave it a thought. That's why there were no demonstrations when the declaration was postponed. We're not ready."
When I left Gaza at the Erez crossing, there was a long line of Palestinians waiting for permits from the Israelis to cross their territory to the West Bank wing of Palestinian self-rule.