December 21, 2008
UN fears irreversible damage is being done in Gaza
Israeli blockade 'forces Palestinians to search rubbish dumps for food'.
Peter Beaumont in The Guardian:
Figures released last week by the UN Relief and Works Agency reveal that the economic blockade imposed by Israel on Gaza in July last year has had a devastating impact on the local population. Large numbers of Palestinians are unable to afford the high prices of food being smuggled through the Hamas-controlled tunnels to the Strip from Egypt and last week were confronted with the suspension of UN food and cash distribution as a result of the siege.
The figures collected by the UN agency show that 51.8% - an "unprecedentedly high" number of Gaza's 1.5 million population - are now living below the poverty line. The agency announced last week that it had been forced to stop distributing food rations to the 750,000 people in need and had also suspended cash distributions to 94,000 of the most disadvantaged who were unable to afford the high prices being asked for smuggled food.
"Things have been getting worse and worse," said Chris Gunness of the agency yesterday. "It is the first time we have been seeing people picking through the rubbish like this looking for things to eat.
More here.
Posted by Abbas Raza at 04:21 AM | Permalink
Comments
One wonders who might credibly speak out as to these outrages. Palestinian acquaintance become outraged when Pakistanis, for example, become very wry (well, that's putting it mildly) at the progressive assumption of territory by Israel in the years since 1948: the Muslim states have done nothing very useful for the Palestinians, it is suggested; in the refugee camps in Lebanon and elsewhere in the years after 1948 it was western Christian charities that kept Palestinians from utter misery, but western, and in particular American, sympathy for Palestinians soon drastically waned. Persuading America that this is a human rights fiasco is an uphill battle and must be begun anew with each incoming administration. Now Mr Obama too suggests that an undivided Jerusalem must be the capital of Israel, so clearly renewed persuasion must begin again.
Posted by: Mac | Dec 21, 2008 6:05:04 AM
While Gaza's situation is, indeed, dire, and the UN[*] may very well be right in its warning, it doesn't seem dire enough, at least for some Gaze'ans, to stop their mindless export of rockets across the border. Just as it didn't stop them from exporting suicide bombers PRIOR TO Israeli-Gaza, and Israeli-West Bank borders having been made secure by erection of the Wall and other --to Israelis : administrative/ to Palestinians: punitive-- measures.
So what exactly do the starving Palestinians in Gaza want - other than, I assume, freedom to work in and trade across open borders with Israel including, one has to assume, that of large-scale export of terror.... presumably 'til the state of the Jewish Crusaders --to borrow the term from that famous Islamic freedom-fighter, Osama Bin Laden-- "withers away"?
Yeah, the above was irony uncalled for in the circumstances, but let us not forget the Arabs' own rôle in this 60+ year drama. While conditions in Gaza and the West Bank can hardly ever been as rosy as those seen by Martha Gellhorn in 1961 [ theatlantic.com/doc/196110/gellhorn ] not everything there is made-up or imagined.
[*] Indeed, one has to wonder what could have become of the 1948 year's war Arab refugees (the Jewish ones from all over, not fewer than Arabic in numbers, got promptly integrated into the state of Israel) had the UN then NOT TAKEN upon its shoulders to feed them in (as we now see) all-perpetuity. Thus working against the Palestinian Arabs' own survivalist initiatives, while playing along with the surrounding "fellow-Arab" states' disinterest to solve the issue - other than by preventing all attempts at Arab-Arab integration in order to keep the refugees in peonage as some kind of "exhibit A of the Eternal Jewish Perfidy."
"You reap what you sow, even if the harvest is long in coming." [JLC]
Posted by: Ianf | Dec 21, 2008 7:39:28 AM
There's always an element of "now look what you made me do" in pro-Israel apologia.
Posted by: Sagredo | Dec 21, 2008 8:52:08 AM
lanf-
Is it that hard to see why someone who is a member of a community full of unemployed, starving, worthless-feeling people might 1) take up arms or 2) wish the destruction of their oppressor? You expect people in such a situation to be calm and rational about the long-term? You ask more than is reasonable to expect of homo sapiens.
Now, and I get so tired of having to always include this, lest I immediately be accused of wishing the destruction of Israel, what I've said above in no way makes it reasonable for residents of Sderot to agree to a fate of constant fear and possible death. It in no way means that the desire to destroy Israel is a reasonable. The question is how to make Sderot and the rest of Israel safe, while at the same time not denying an entire collection of people basic human needs like food. Safety for one side only will never lead to a lasting solution.
Israel as a nation needs to continue to take a hard look at where it wants to be 20 years from now. Continuing a policy of extreme suppression in Gaza will not win the country peace, nor will it drive radicalism away. This particular play to weaken Hamas may work in the short run, but the feelings that elevated them to power will not go quietly into the night.
Cyrus
Posted by: Cyrus Hall | Dec 21, 2008 10:13:38 AM
The situation is dire and it is time for the Palestinians and Arab nations to embrace civility and reason. The constant spewing of hate is not helping them prosper.
Posted by: simone | Dec 21, 2008 10:59:56 AM
"If you don't stop this constant spewing of hate, I'll give you something to spew hate about!" That's the idea, is it?
Posted by: Vicki Baker | Dec 21, 2008 11:49:43 AM
"Is it that hard to see why someone who is a member of a community full of unemployed, starving, worthless-feeling people might 1) take up arms or 2) wish the destruction of their oppressor? You expect people in such a situation to be calm and rational about the long-term? You ask more than is reasonable to expect of homo sapiens."
right. But then, how many times have the arab states attacked Israel so as to destroy that nation? Can't have it both ways.
Is Hamas willing to recognize Israel's right to exist? If not, then are they willing to stop sending rockets into Israel? If not, then....
Posted by: joehill | Dec 22, 2008 5:46:39 PM
Does Israel have a right to exist?
More generally, does any country have any rights, besides expressions of rights of people?
Posted by: Sagredo | Dec 22, 2008 6:36:29 PM
President of UN General Assembly urges Israel to be recognized as an Apartheid State:
http://www.zmag.org/zvideo/2948
(sorry for the dual post, but posted on the wrong thread before)
Posted by: dave ranning | Dec 22, 2008 9:32:08 PM
Wakey wakey, folks!: Israel ended the occupation of Gaza over 3 years ago. Thousands of Jewish settlers were dragged from their homes, farms and factories that employed thousands of Palestinian workers were wiped out, even the dead were removed from cemetaries to avoid being dug up and desecrated (as the synagogues were ). So what do you want already? What goes on inside the Gaza strip is their business, but the rockets and motars that have been fired continuously over the past 8 years from there into Israeli towns , that's plain unneighborly.
Posted by: aguy109 | Dec 23, 2008 5:12:27 AM
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