It looks like everyone wants to do away with Gaza. In Israel, saying “Go to Gaza!” is the equivalent of “Go to hell!” The late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was known for his off-the-cuff “witticisms,” once declared that he would like to see Gaza drown in the sea. Just like that, nothing more, nothing less. I also remember a conversation that then-opposition leader Shimon Peres and I had with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in Vienna in July 1978. At that meeting, Sadat told us that Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin had offered to give Gaza to Egypt in exchange for the right to annex the town of Yamit in the Sinai. Sadat responded with his rolling, baritone laugh, “Begin thought I was stupid. I immediately told him, ‘You can keep that damned place for yourself.’”

It was inevitable that the violent incidents along the border between Gaza and Israel over the last two weekends did nothing to improve Gaza’s terrible image. Anyone who follows the most recent news from the Middle East might reach the mistaken conclusion that Gaza is nothing more than the source of black smoke billowing from burning tires and of wanton bloodshed. Anyone who has followed the news over the past few years will recall violent military confrontations, rocket fire and a humanitarian crisis. Even the Palestinian leadership treats Gaza as disposable, or as a liability much more than an asset. Anyone who really knows Gaza, however, would be hard-pressed to see it as such a wretched place. There are several reasons for this:

• It is a tiny territory of just 139 square miles with a moderate climate, wonderful beaches and tourist potential that has yet to be exploited.
• In 1999, the Gaza marine field, a natural gas reserve with an estimated value of more than $7 billion, was first discovered.
• Gaza residents are highly educated, and Gaza's proximity to Tel Aviv — just under an hour’s drive —means that many of them could find employment in Israel and earn relatively high wages.
• The miserable state of the Gaza Strip is a consequence of extreme overcrowding, mainly because Palestinian refugees fled there from Israel in 1948. On the other hand, Gaza’s enormous potential has proven itself in the past. From 1994, right after the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accord, to 2000, Gaza’s skyline changed overnight. Skyscrapers were built, and lavish hotels, shopping malls, country clubs, entertainment centers and restaurants popped up. It seemed, if only for a moment, that the situation had taken a turn for the better. There is no reason that the window of opportunity that opened back then cannot be reopened, this time with financing provided by Gaza’s natural gas reserves.

The Oslo Accord, which provides an outline for a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, determined that the West Bank and Gaza would constitute a single political entity and that whatever solution is found would apply to both. Upon being elected in 2001, however, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon showed no intention of fulfilling the agreements. He did not trust any Arabs, whether they were from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) or Hamas. This he told me during a lengthy conversation in 2005, when I led Meretz.

Instead, Sharon decided to disengage from Gaza unilaterally and evacuate Israeli settlements there. No one had promised Sharon that by doing this, Israel would be released from its international obligations to deal with the issue of Gaza as part of a comprehensive agreement, which even the most right-wing governments in Jerusalem, including the current one, have never renounced.