Socio-Economics History Blog

Socio-Economics History Blog

Gaza Under Siege!

by mosesman

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9mkRiGbgZg]

”The idea is to put the Palestinians on a  diet, but not to make them die of hunger.” – Dov Weissglass, advisor to the Israeli Prime Minister in 2006

  • Gaza under Siege! 
    by Dylan Murphy, http://www.globalresearch.ca/ 
    Interview with documentary film maker and journalist Harry Fear 
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    ”The idea is to put the Palestinians on a  diet, but not to make them die of hunger.” Dov Weissglass, advisor to the Israeli Prime Minister in 2006
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    In 2005 Israel withdrew its settlers from Gaza. Following this there were democratic elections which Hamas won. Since voting the ”wrong way” the Palestinian people of Gaza have been subjected to a siege by Israel. The Palestinian people of Gaza are blockaded by land, sea and air by the Israeli Defence Force.
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    The EU and America have failed to do anything to stop Israel’s war against the Palestinians of Gaza. Most notable were the massive military attacks of December-January 2008-9 which killed 1,500 Palestinians and the most recent attack of November 2012 which resulted in nearly 200 deaths.
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    The International Red Cross and the United Nations have found the Israeli government’s siege of Gaza to be illegal under international law.
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    In September 2011 five independent UN rights experts made a report to the UN Human Rights Council which said that Israel’s siege of Gaza amounted to collective punishment of the Palestinian people and was a “flagrant contravention of international human rights and humanitarian law”  under the Fourth Geneva Convention. As Noam Chomsky has pointed out the Gaza Strip is the world’s largest open air prison. In October 2012 Professor Chomsky said:
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    ”The siege is a criminal act that has no justification. It should be broken and it should be strongly opposed by the outside world. It’s simply an effort to intimidate the Gazans into self-destruction, to try to get rid of them and destroy the society. There is absolutely no justification for it — military justifications are claimed but they have no credibility.”
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    Israel’s blockade of Gaza is denying the Palestinian people access to medical supplies and food.  Hospitals face critical shortages, with 40% of all essential medicines at zero stock level. Out of the 1.7 million Palestinians living in Gaza 54% are food insecure including 428,000 children.
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    Israel’s illegal blockade has led to a massive shortage of building materials to repair the homes, hospitals, schools and water/sanitation infrastructure that have been destroyed/damaged by the IDF in the last 5 years. Most of Gaza’s water supplies are polluted and unsafe to drink. Meanwhile there are power cuts every day.
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    I spoke to documentary film maker and journalist Harry Fear who is based in Gaza and has reported extensively on the siege of Gaza over the last few years.
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    Chomsky has called the Gaza Strip the ”world’s largest prison”. Would you agree with this description?
    I would largely agree with Chomsky’s description. I’ve found, though, that quite a few of those sympathetic with Palestinians don’t actually know that the Gaza Strip has a border with Egypt, and that Egypt is also largely responsible for the imprisonment (‘security besiegement’) policy. Civilian traffic out of Gaza into Israel is basically a no-no, while leaving into Egypt is diplomatically difficult and unaffordable for most Palestinians. I think the most important aspect of the siege, though, is the economic blockade. The Egyptian border with Gaza is closed to almost all economic traffic —only recently have the Egyptians allowed construction materials to be imported into Gaza. Palestinians want and need economic independence (not aid dependency), and I haven’t met any Palestinians who want to leave Gaza for any reason other than the poor economic opportunities there (prolonged by the deliberately-punishing siege).
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    My on-the-ground experience in Gaza has made me realise that there is a real psychological sense of imprisonment and worldly isolation as a result of the siege, which affects widespread depression and eats away at people’s hope and the future prospects for prosperity. ‘Free Gaza!’ should remain the mantra, so long as this illegal solitary confinement policy continues. Incidentally, the besiegement policy proves that Israel (and Egypt) are the dominating external powers, and that the Palestinians are not in a symmetrical conflict or battle with Israel, but are the persecuted party. The government in Gaza can’t do anything to lift the siege, only help alleviate it by facilitating the underground smuggling tunnels into Egypt.
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    Since the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 the IDF has launched two massive military assaults upon Gaza. What effect/impact have these had upon Gazan society?
    Although I wasn’t present during the winter ‘08-’09 assault, I believe the affects of these military operations on Gaza have of course been grave and multidimensional. At a psychological and spiritual level the resolve and will of the Palestinian people has been tested by most cruel and barbaric aggressions, launched by one of the most powerful militaries in the world, resulting in the ‘collateral damage’ massacring of hundreds. With around one in a thousand Palestinians in Gaza wiped of the map during that 22-day assault, every family and street has been touched by terror and tragedy.
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    Similarly, during this winter (11/2012), the 8-day operation hit every area of Gaza and once again no civilian was really safe during those bloody days. Without meaning to deliberately romanticise or objectify Palestinians, it’s absolutely important to note the unimaginable resilience (including moral resilience) of Palestinians in the face of such barbarity. Some of my closest friends in Gaza volunteered at hospitals during Operation Cast Lead and had to carry dying and dead children through bombed streets, but you wouldn’t know it or guess it from their political stances. I ask myself: would the British people react in a relatively restrained manner to aggressions of these sorts? I can’t imagine so. Interviewing Hamas spokespeople you notice that they often mention their policy desire to perpetuate the steadfastness of their people.
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    That’s a striking policy goal and one that shows that the Palestinian steadfastness is something tangible, remarkable, and fundamental in the conflict with Israel. That steadfastness has been tested. At a physical and political level, massive civilian infrastructural damage and damage to civilian administrative capacity was done during both recent operations. Neither operations have of course been able to stop militant groups from producing home-made rockets, including rockets that can reach 75km away from the Strip. Israel’s operations have tried to prove a terror deterrence to the subjugated Palestinians, but Palestinians resolve hasn’t been broken. 
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    read more!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCKWDarNdGw]

“ … it turns out the creation of Israel had not, after all, been a haphazard fight in which the Arabs fled their homes at the directives of their own leaders, but it had been an unprovoked, systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing by the Jewish militia involving massacres, terrorism and the wholesale looting of an entire nation.” – from 4:22 onwards

“In 2001, Dr. Ariella Oppenheim, of Hebrew University, a biologist, published the first extensive study of DNA and the origin of the Jews. Her research found that virtually all the Jews came from Khazar blood. Not only that but Oppenheim discovered that the Palestinians—the very people whom the Jews had been persecuting and ejecting from Israel’s land since 1948—had more Israelite blood than did the Jews. In sum, the vast majority of the Jews were not Jews; some of the Palestinians were. Some of the Palestinians even had a DNA chromosome which established that they were “Cohens”—workers at the ancient Temple and synagogues of the Jews.” – Quote

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/1/29/the_gatekeepers_in_new_film_ex#.UQf8XvB8aRA.email
Click on image to goto video interview of director Dror Moreh!

“Shalom (Ex ShinBet chief) shocked viewers. He called Israeli occupation no different from Nazi occupied Europe.” – Quote


http://socioecohistory.wordpress.com/2010/05/06/is-the-star-of-david-a-jewish-or-biblical-symbol-or-an-occult-satanic-symbol/
Revelation 2:9 – …. and I know the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.

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