7 Questions for Defenders of Israel's Inhumane Siege of Gaza
The Gaza blockade has nothing to do with Israel defending itself.
June 7, 2010 |
Apologists for the brutal siege of Gaza base their defense largely on a single, spectacularly dishonest argument: that Israel is only trying to keep arms out of Gaza -- arms that Hamas might use against Israeli civilians.
It’s a red herring of monstrous proportions, made more pernicious by the brutal effects of the blockade it supports. It’s dishonest because people around the world are not outraged by the idea of Israel keeping weapons out of the hands of Hamas. The entire world (perhaps aside from the United States and Israel) is appalled by the gradual strangulation of the people of Gaza -- young and old, innocent and guilty-- under an intentional man-made humanitarian crisis.
It’s imperative that people of good conscience not let Israel’s defenders get away with this bait-and switch. Israel’s “right to defend itself” has nothing to do with the moral outrage caused by the blockade. But it is nonetheless becoming the center of the debate.
In order to keep the focus on the real issue, here are seven questions for those who continue to claim the siege is about Israel’s security. If you encounter such an argument, just concede the point that Israel has every right in the world to check incoming containers for weapons, at least for the sake of argument, and then launch right into these Columbo-style questions. They’re impossible to answer. (Unless otherwise noted, this is the source for the following info).
Impossible-to-Answer Question #1: What’s the connection between a hungry Palestinian population and keeping weapons out of the hands of Hamas? I know Israel says it’s letting in enough food in to prevent a humanitarian crisis, but UN officials have called the situation "grim," "deteriorating" and a "medieval siege." A bare minimum of 400 truckloads of goods needs to enter Gaza per week, and an average of 171 get in. According to the World Health Organization, one in 10 Gazans suffer from “chronic malnutrition,” and the UN says six in 10 Gaza households are "food insecure."
Question #2: What changed? I mean, the Gaza strip has been under Israeli occupation since 1978, and in that time Israel has always prohibited the importation of weapons. Hamas has been around since 1978, and has always been an armed enemy. So if it’s all about security, why is it that Israel started preventing 75 percent of all manner of imported goods coming into Gaza only after the election of Hamas, a result rejected by Israel and the international community?
Question #3: Is Israel afraid of some sort of deadly sweet-and-savory weapon? Because I know it has, at various times, prevented chocolate, jam, sage and coriander from coming into Gaza. Just wondering what Israel’s security has to do with Gazans’ flavoring options, you know? Or are you saying that people who don’t have access to French fries, dried fruit -- or fabric, notebooks or toys for that matter -- are less likely to become terrorists?
Question #4: Israel attacked Gaza’s main power plant in 2006, and it won’t let the Gazans bring in the parts needed to restore its output to the previous levels. The majority of houses in Gaza experience power outages of at least eight hours per day, but some have no juice for as much as 12 hours a day. So, you know: Is Israel worried about rechargeable weapons of some sort?
Question #5: So, Israel “has not permitted supplies into the Gaza Strip to rebuild the sewage system,” and Amnesty International says that up to 95 percent of the water in Gaza isn’t healthy for human consumption. There isn’t enough power to run the desalination and sewage facilities, so significant amounts of sewage are seeping into Gaza's coastal aquifer, the population’s main source of water. Help me understand what Israel is defending against, here? Some sort of frozen ice-missile technology?
Question #6: How does barring the export of allgoods from Gaza keep weapons out of Gaza? Am I not getting what the words “out” and “in” mean? The World Health Organization says, "In the Gaza Strip, private enterprise is practically at a standstill as a consequence of the blockade. 98 percent of industrial operations have been shut down.” Not sure how further impoverishing Gaza’s already poor population makes Israel more secure -- help me understand?
Question #7: If it’s about keeping weapons out of Gaza, then why won’t Israel allow in medical equipment, spare parts and the building materials necessary to rebuild the health-care infrastructure that was devastated in the 2008 war? The World Health Organization says the blockade has "accelerated the degeneration" of Gaza’s health system. Is the idea that keeping the health-care system down will make people too weak and infirm to pick up a weapon?
These questions are unanswerable because the blockade of Gaza is about keeping goods from flowing in and out of Gaza. Push them on their answers. Are they saying it enhances Israel’s security because people who are jobless, hungry, poor and in bad health may have less will to resist? That’s the definition of collective punishment, a serious crime since World War II, when the world reacted with revulsion to the collective punishments meted out by the Axis powers to the populations of the territories they occupied.
The argument that Israel is only keeping weapons out of the hands of terrorists is not a minor distraction. As I wrote last week, the Israeli government is an occupying power that exercises “effective control” over Gaza. Some have argued that Gaza is an independent en y at war with Israel, and the Israeli Supreme Court agreed, ruling that Israel “had no commitment 'to deal with the welfare of the residents of the Gaza Strip or to allow unlimited amounts of goods and merchandise' to pass through, but only vital and humanitarian goods."
But outside of Israel it’s not a serious claim. According to the United Nations, “Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem [are designated] as Occupied Palestinian Territory… that definition hasn't changed." The United States government, Israel’s closest ally, says unambiguously: “West Bank and Gaza Strip are Israeli-occupied with current status subject to the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement… permanent status to be determined through further negotiation; Israel removed settlers and military personnel from the Gaza Strip in August 2005.”
As an occupying power, Israel does have the right to keep weapons out of Gaza. But it also has a legal responsibility to safeguard the well-being of the civilian population. This is why the whole narrative of keeping rockets out is such a insidious lie.
The suffering in Gaza doesn't make Israel any safer. As the progressive pro-Israel group J Street noted, “Israel is a world leader in the monitoring and border control technology necessary to ensure weapons are not moved across the border into Gaza.” It added: “with fewer soldiers and resources assigned to enforcing the current blockade on non-military items, Israel could more effectively devote its energies to detecting and closing the tunnels through which Hamas is currently shipping arms.” Israel claims that just about any aid could be "diverted" to Hamas, but as the BBC notes, aid groups working in Gaza "have stringent monitoring systems in place."
For supporters of the siege, the value of the defense argument is simple to grasp. Intercepting weapons is a military objective. In international law, an occupying power has broad leeway in the use of force to accomplish military objectives. The siege of Gaza is, and always was, meant to crush Gaza’s economy, impose severe suffering on the population and ultimately make it impossible for Hamas to govern. The Israeli government has not hidden this fact. As J Street put it, "Israeli officials have repeatedly characterized their blockade policy in the following terms: ‘No prosperity, no development, no humanitarian crisis.’" When the siege was first imposed, Dov Weisglass, an adviser to then Prime-Minister Ehud Olmert, explained, "The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger."
The blockade’s objective is political, not military. It’s a collective punishment of the entire population of Gaza (approximately half of whom are under 18 years of age). It is a violation of the 4th Geneva Convention. It’s a serious crime. And the world is calling for Israel to bring it to an end, not to stop intercepting weapons.
People who know what has happened to Gaza over the past 3.5 years consider the weapons argument a kind of tragic joke. As Lindsey Hilsum, the international editor for Britain’s Channel 4 put it, “Somewhere in Gaza, someone may once have tried to fashion a missile from a chicken hatchery, a goat, a bunch of coriander and a fishing rod stuck together with jam.” Israel’s kept all of those goods out of Gaza, with the intended result of making the people miserable. Strangling the Gazan economy, making eight out of 10 people dependent on international aid groups and making sure the residents can’t get their hands on tea and coffee isn’t making Israel one bit more secure.
Why no crayons?
When exactly did we start believing Israel can do no wrong? That any criticism of Jewish misconduct is tantamount to anti-semitism? God knows their Arab neighbours are not innocent at all, but it amazes me how much crap people tolerate from Israel simply on the premise that either "they wouldn't do that" or "their situation warrants it".
, I'm willing to bet American's in general are more willing to believe their government engaged in some manner of criminal behavior before they'll even entertain the idea that Israel might be.
Lots of Jew hating going on.
Yeah, thats it.
List of items allowed into Gaza.
Source: BBC 3/5/2010
1 wheat 1st half 2009
2 animal feed 1st half 2009
3 flour 1st half 2009
4 cooking oil 1st half 2009
5 cooking fat 1st half 2009
6 sugar 1st half 2009
7 salt 1st half 2009
8 pasta 1st half 2009
9 dates 1st half 2009
10 garlic 1st half 2009
11 chick peas 1st half 2009
12 rice 1st half 2009
13 beans 1st half 2009
14 lentils 1st half 2009
15 kidney beans 1st half 2009
16 margarine 1st half 2009
17 dairy products 1st half 2009
18 powdered milk 1st half 2009
19 frozen meat and fish 1st half 2009
20 frozen vegetables 1st half 2009
21 animal medicines 1st half 2009
22 gas for medical use 1st half 2009
23 empty bags for flour 1st half 2009
24 medicines and medical equipment 1st half 2009
25 female hygiene products 1st half 2009
26 nappies (diapers) 1st half 2009
27 toilet paper 1st half 2009
28 detergent 1st half 2009
29 washing liquid 1st half 2009
30 shampoo 1st half 2009
31 soap 1st half 2009
32 toothpaste 1st half 2009
33 toothbrushes 1st half 2009
34 cleaning products for tiles 1st half 2009
35 cleaning products for glass 1st half 2009
36 toilet-cleaner 1st half 2009
37 yeast 1st half 2009
38 fertilised eggs 1st half 2009
39 fruit 1st half 2009
40 semolina 1st half 2009
41 polythene for greenhouses June 2009
42 agricultural materials June 2009
43 tea October 2009
44 coffee October 2009
45 instant coffee November 2009
46 canned tuna November 2009
47 salami November 2009
48 canned meat November 2009
49 washing-up sponges November 2009
50 bath sponges November 2009
51 cloths for mopping the floor November 2009
52 baby wipes November 2009
53 other canned goods, with the exception of tinned fruit November 2009
54 zaatar (dried herb mix) November 2009
55 sesame seeds November 2009
56 black pepper November 2009
57 chicken stock powder November 2009
58 blankets November 2009
59 olives December 2009
60 matches December 2009
61 candles December 2009
62 sticks for brooms December 2009
63 rubbish bins December 2009
64 mops December 2009
65 hand-cleansing gel December 2009
66 aniseed December 2009
67 cinnamon December 2009
68 camomile December 2009
69 unfertilised eggs December 2009
70 glass (to a maximum of 200 trucks) December 2009
71 water-dispensers December 2009
72 potatoes December 2009
73 mineral water February 2010
74 tahini (sesame paste) March 2010
75 combs March 2010
76 hair brushes March 2010
77 clothes March 2010
78 shoes March 2010
79 wood (for doorposts and window frames) April 2010
80 aluminium April 2010
81 kitchenware April 2010
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/06...products-gaza/
"Palestinian liaison official Raed Fattouh, who coordinates the flow of goods into Gaza with Israel, said that soda, juice, jam, es, shaving cream, potato chips, cookies and candy were now permitted. He said some products have already entered Gaza, and others would cross in the coming days."
they're giving them cookies?
them jews are gettin soft.
FTA:
"The closure has devastated Gaza's already battered economy, erased tens of thousands of jobs and prevented the area from repairing damage after a fierce Israeli military offensive in Gaza early last year.
Wednesday's gesture was unlikely to blunt the international criticism since it doesn't lift the ban on materials needed to rebuild Gaza. Fattouh said Israeli officials rebuffed Palestinian requests for construction goods, raw materials for factories to operate and medical devices.
Israeli officials confirmed the decision to allow in the new foods.
They said the move was meant to defuse pressure for an international investigation of the raid. Another government official said they would continue to ease the blockade but offered no further details. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity pending a formal government announcement.
Much of the international criticism of Israel's blockade has centered on the ban on raw materials and some fuels from entering Gaza, and the arbitrary nature of some of the banned items. Israel had barred things like potato chips and cookies, while permitting gourmet items like diet yogurt and herbal tea."
As you can see, with all the items that are allowed in, Gaza is just like a giant Auschwitz.
As it relates to the OP, this is a good article.
End the Gaza blockade? If only it were that simple
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...-gaza-blockade
The devastating events off the Gaza coast are shocking to all. Nobody wanted this to happen, and all involved need to look at what they could have done to avoid these deaths. However, much of the response to this incident has failed to look at the reality of the situation that lies behind it. Widespread calls on Israel to lift its restrictions on access to Gaza have been made with little serious discussion of the implications.
There are good reasons to object to the situation in Gaza. The condition of the people there is deeply disturbing to all individuals of good conscience. However, many commentators critical of Israel's policies have ignored the reasons why those policies are in place. Israel, along with Egypt, the moderate Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, and much of the international community, faces an acute dilemma over how to contain the Hamas regime in Gaza.
The naval blockade addresses a real military-security threat. Iran is trying arm Hamas to the same levels as Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Currently their method is to smuggle weapons under the Gaza-Egypt border. Without a naval blockade, they can simply dock their boatloads of rockets in the Gaza port. No sensible observer can think that this is an acceptable situation to Israel or the international community. UN security council resolution 1860, adopted towards the end of the conflict in Gaza in January 2009, called on all states to intensify efforts to "prevent illicit trafficking in arms and ammunition" to Gaza.
With regard to the Israeli restrictions on the Gaza-Israel land border, many have called for the 2005 Agreement on Movement and Access to be implemented. This is a good agreement, and reflected a moment of hope after Israel removed all its settlements and military forces from the Gaza Strip. The agreement, if implemented, would provide for the normalisation of access to Gaza, and would facilitate enormous economic improvements for the people there.
However, to call for the agreement as it was signed in 2005 to be implemented today is to ignore the changed political reality. The Agreement on Movement and Access was signed by Israel and the Palestinian Authority under President Mahmoud Abbas. Since it was signed, forces loyal to Abbas were violently ousted from Gaza in a coup, after which Hamas took sole control of the strip. To this day, there remains a split in the Palestinian camp between the moderate Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, which is committed to negotiation with Israel, and the Hamas regime in Gaza which, backed by Iran, seeks to maintain a state of war.
The policy of the Quartet and Israel since 2007 has been to isolate Hamas and strengthen the West Bank Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad. This is why most western diplomats refuse to have contact with Hamas officials, without Hamas first moderating its position by recognising Israel, renouncing violence, and adhering to previous peace agreements. In the context of this wider international effort to weaken Hamas, Israel allows basic goods into Gaza, but restricts other materials that might be used by Hamas for military purposes, or might strengthen them politically.
As a result of these policies, there is a sharp contrast between the situation in Gaza and that in the West Bank. The economy of the West Bank has greatly improved in the last three years thanks to international aid, improved Palestinian security forces, and seen a corresponding reduction in Israeli restrictions on movement and access. By contrast, denied international recognition and access, the Hamas regime in Gaza, having refused to moderate its stance, has failed to provide for its people.
Hamas has rejected repeated attempts by Egypt to reunify the Palestinian Authority and bring about new Palestinian elections. Hamas has also repeatedly rejected a prisoner exchange deal that would bring the release of captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and a potential relaxation of border restrictions by Israel or Egypt. I know from a recent visit to Cairo that the Egyptians are furious with Hamas. This explains why they have kept their own border with Gaza closed most of the time. They perceive the Palestinian Islamist group to be no less a threat to them than to Israel.
The policy of differentiation between the Hamas regime in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank has shown some measure of success. It is not hard to see why Hamas are avoiding a Palestinian unity agreement that would bring elections. Repeated polls indicate that their popularity has waned severely and that they would be likely to lose badly. What is the one thing that could rescue the Palestinian rejectionist camp? A successful campaign to break the international policy of isolation, and the removal of the restrictions on access to Gaza.
It is legitimate to ask whether Israel has got the balance right on its restrictions, and whether the harm to the ordinary citizens of Gaza can be justified to maintain the isolation of Hamas. But to simply call for an end to the blockade, or an implementation of the Agreement on Movement and Access, without any reference to the political and security consequences is to avoid dealing with the difficult political reality. Western policymakers must address the rights of the people of Gaza, but must also take account of the imperative not to strengthen those who reject the peace process, or their backers in Tehran and Damascus.
Somehow soda, juice, jam, es, shaving cream, potato chips, cookies and candy are no longer threats to Israeli national security. Weird world.
No, it's worse. they fatten then up before the slaughter.
I thought some on the items not automatically allowed was weird myself. Still, people are judging before you know the reason.
The blockade began in 2007, so the items on this list were all forbidden to pass for 2-3 years.
Wouldn't you say it is a pretty serious hardship to go without the first 50 items on this list for a matter of years?
why would animals need all these things?
Unwittingly, you just underscored the severity of the Gaza blockade, Darrin.
Still less have you -- or anyone else -- addressed how it has made Israel more secure, or why it is uniquely appointed to meet this end.
Israel is a state not a religion, Jack.
They weren't forbidden, they were not automatically excepted. This did effectively make then forbidden because they were inspected after acceptable goods were. I would guess this all had to be with possible carriers of banned items.
Implanted explosives.
Why were those items ever prohibited, Darrin?
WC?
More PFA from WC.
The Blockade Keeps “Working”
Posted on June 8th, 2010 by Daniel Larison
Hamas’s security forces remain strong and in full control, while more extreme Islamist challengers are gaining influence because of an Israeli embargo that has done more to frustrate the population than to weaken Hamas’s grip, analysts say. ~The Washington PostThe article goes on to say that Israel wanted to “wait and see whether Gaza’s residents would rise up and force Hamas out.” One might conclude from this that Israel would end the blockade once it realizes that this is never going to happen, but that would be wrong. The trouble with this wait-and-see approach to regime change is that there is no obvious end to it. If Gazans haven’t overthrown Hamas yet, just wait a few more years and see what happens. A few more years becomes a decade, and then two decades, and in the end the blockade becomes essentially a permanent feature. Even if Hamas is eventually overthrown by people in Gaza, it will likely be by a more radical faction that comes to see Hamas as corrupt and ineffective, much as Hamas saw Fatah, and the rise of that faction will provide new justification for continuing the blockade.
There is a certain perverse logic to all of this. The misery, poverty and hopelessness created by a virtually stagnant private economy in a densely-populated, isolated enclave radicalizes the population even more, but more than that it deprives them of the incentive to turn against their own leadership and it makes them incapable of organizing effective resistance against the local regime. Everything about the blockade ensures that the political conditions in Gaza can only get worse, but lifting the blockade depends on the improvement of those conditions. Sometimes critics will refer to Gaza as an “open-air prison,” but the remarkable thing about the situation is that Israel and Hamas effectively collaborate as the jailors of the civilian population: Israel hems them in and controls their access to the outside world, and Hamas runs internal security to keep the population under their control. Officially, Israel claims that it wants a prison riot to break out, but by their actions the Israeli government seems satisfied to bring about a very different outcome.
The Post article continues:
Bruce Riedel, a former Middle East analyst for the CIA who is now with the Brookings Ins ution in Washington, said he has no doubt that “Hamas now faces a much bigger threat from the extreme jihadists sympathetic to al-Qaeda” than from Fatah, which controls the West Bank. Al-Qaeda sympathizers appeal to Hamas’s core cons uency “of militants who want to fight Israel, not live in a cease-fire and under blockade. They are frustrated that Hamas won’t allow [rocket] attacks or attempts to kidnap more Israelis [bold mine-DL]. Hamas has the upper hand for now because it has more force and is ruthless in using it, but the long trend is worrisome.”The standard line we hear in defense of the blockade is that it is necessary to prevent Hamas from attacking Israel. The analysis in the article suggests that the blockade is actually making future attacks more likely by encouraging more radical groups to challenge Hamas on account of its apparent lack of militancy. The cease-fire is holding, but the blockade is still being enforced rigorously. The tightness of the blockade seems to have no relationship to security conditions. Under these conditions, Hamas appears unduly weak and conciliatory. To the extent that there are any political forces opposed to Hamas in Gaza, they are even more implacable and uncompromising, and the blockade is slowly making them stronger.
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