Lampposts along Gaza's main thoroughfares are decorated with US and Palestinian flags. Banners proclaiming the eternal friendship of the US and the Palestinian people have been stretched across Omar Mukhtar Street. A huge poster showing President Clinton and the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, proclaiming "We have a dream" hangs across from the Rashad Shawa Cultural Centre, where the two leaders will address 1,200 notable Palestinians this afternoon.
Mr Clinton is coming to town. But there is no electric charge of expectation in the atmosphere comparable to that after the signing of the First Oslo Accord in September 1993. Then Palestinians danced in the streets in celebration for two days and three nights, Islamist opponents of the peace process skulked in doorways. Palestinian expectations have shrivelled.
Ms Rawya Shawa, after whose father the cultural centre is named, is boycotting today's combined session of the 730-member Palestinian National Council, the parliament-in-exile, and the 88-seat Legislative Council elected in 1996 by the people of Gaza and the West Bank.
"I feel this meeting as a humiliation. It comes after the Israelis imposed a 17-month freeze on implementation of the Oslo accords then imposed this on us. It is dictation," she told The Irish Times. "They demand cancellation of our covenant. But we already abrogated [anti-Israeli phrases in] the covenant in April 1996. More than 1,000 people attended that meeting and two-thirds voted for change. This was accepted by the former Israeli government and the US," she asserted.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, she continued, "will come up with new demands to block progress. If he implements Wye he loses everything, he is out of office. We cannot simply wipe the slate clean by cancelling the covenant, we can't rewrite the history of our struggle. If the Israelis really want to implement Oslo they should accept the 1996 vote and free political prisoners, open the safe passages between Gaza and the West Bank, let us build the Gaza port, permit movement of labour and free trade. We meet our commitments but they never meet theirs." Ms Shawa expects one-quarter of the Legislative Council to join her boycott, including five other members of the Democratic Alliance which she leads. Dozens of PNC members from 10 opposition factions, such as the Popular Front, Islamic Jihad and Hamas, are also absenting themselves. Mr Arafat "cannot force us to attend because we took no part in what was agreed upon but not implemented by the Israelis." While Ms Shawa and her colleagues can stay away they cannot openly criticise the policies of their government. Because of censorship she has not written her popular weekly column for the last six weeks. "Whatever we do minimises our dream of independence in the whole of Gaza and the West Bank. Although Oslo was supposed to implement resolutions 242 and 338 (calling for Israeli withdrawal from territory occupied in 1967), we are occupied still. In the future we will have something, but we don't know what. This is why we are not celebrating like we did in 1993."
In spite of her boycott, Ms Shawa believes Mr Clinton's visit will have a positive side in that "it is a kind of recognition, a good step towards the state" which she thinks Mr Arafat will proclaim on May 4th, 1999, or thereabouts. "This too has its dangers. Israel can annex the land it holds or invade our areas or impose closure." This is why Palestinians continue to dream - but without expectations.
