Not as catchy a movie title as “Escape from New York” and as far as I know no movie director is filming it, but it has the advantage of being a real live human drama occurring as we speak:
10.15am GMT
Palestinians flood into Egypt after blowing up border wallMark Tran and agencies
Wednesday January 23, 2008
Guardian UnlimitedTens of thousands of Palestinians today poured into Egypt from Gaza after militants blew up part of the wall between the two territories in protest at an Israeli blockade.
On foot, in cars or riding donkey carts, Gazans burst into the Egyptian border town of Rafah to buy cigarettes, plastic bottles of fuel and other supplies that have become scarce and expensive after months of economic isolation.
“I have bought everything I need for the house for months. I have bought food, cigarettes and even two gallons of diesel for my car,” Mohammed Saeed told Reuters.
Many of the Palestinians, some travelling from the northern Gaza Strip, found transport towards the Egyptian coastal town of El Arish, about 40km away.
Others stayed on the Egyptian side of Rafah and clamoured to buy merchandise that has been in short supply in Gaza, even going as afar as emptying some shops.
Imagine having to blow a hole in a wall and travel miles on foot just to get the supplies (probably at drastically marked up prices) you need to live. I can’t, frankly, but that is exactly what the democracy of Israel has forced the Palestinians in the occupied territory of Gaza to do. Why? Because they were literally imposing a blockade on the inhabitants of Gaza as a “collective punishment.”
Last week Israel tightened its economic blockade on Gaza in response to an increase in rocket attacks from Palestinian militants. Egypt tacitly supported the Israeli decision by keeping its border with Gaza closed.
In response to international warnings of a humanitarian crisis, Israel yesterday allowed one-off shipments of fuel and cooking oil into Gaza. However, Gazans still face critical shortages of electricity, fuel and other supplies.
I know this is not a popular story in the US press or media, but usually we, as a people and our government, at a minimum, condemn governments who take such actions to starve and bomb ethnic minorities over whose territory they exert control. Hell, in Bosnia and Kosovo we put the US Air Force to work bombing Serbian military and civilian targets to get the Serbian government to cease its genocidal activities. But, as we all know, Israel is sacrosanct. Official and /or media criticism of its actions against people living in the “occupied territories” is simply not done.
Because, they’re only Arabs after all. Poor, dirty crazy Arabs. Less than human. They don’t even belong in Greater Israel. So why not starve them out?
But seriously, if collective punishment wasn’t the preferred modus operandi of the Israeli government to punish the many for the sins of a few, maybe Hamas wouldn’t be as powerful a political force in Gaza among ordinary Palestinians as it is today. Because when you trade large acts of violence (air strikes, economic blockades, massive detentions, bulldozing homes, etc.) for smaller acts of violence against you (as we are learning in Iraq) pretty soon everyone who used to be a moderate has been radicalized. But then when have the beneficiaries of “occupation” and “apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing” ever voluntarily surrendered their advantages out of humanitarian concerns for the people they exploit. Not very damn often in this world.
Walls < explosives.
The American people as a whole are largely unfamiliar and unsympathetic with the Palestinians situation, but the activist American left is unfamiliar and unsympathetic with something else.
And it is no accident that Egyptian dissidents Ayman al-Zawahiri and Mohammed Atta were/are Egyptians. The Egyptian government is Arab. So how does your sentence fit it in with that?
Egypt is a dictatorship. They don’t want no stinking Hamas in their backyard. They are quite content to allow the Israelis to be the bad cop here.
yes, but for all that talk of Arab solidarity and all the concern for the Palestinians, the history of the region shows that the Lebanese, Jordanians, and Egyptians have treated the Palestinians with just as much contempt and disregard as the Israelis, which is one of the reasons that the United States is resented for allying with the leadership of those countries. Until we understand that, we won’t fully understand why there are terrorists from those countries trying to kill us.
I don’t disagree with your analysis Boo, just that Israel is wrong for treating the Palestinians the way they do.
On that I agree completely. Although I will say that the rocket attacks are ineffectual and stupid.
This opinion may sound counterintuitive, but one has to agree here with Jeff Halper’s analysis that Israel is opting for “managed conflict” over peace, because it intends to annex, in some way, possibly through the bantustan concept, Judea and Samaria, the remaining territories comprising old King David’s empire. You might call it the Begin plan, which is actually accepted by all major Israeli political parties (Likud, Kadima, and Labor, none of which conceive of a Palestinian state in the West Bank). Jeff Halper, by the way, is former professor of anthropology at Ben Gurion University and founder of the peace org, Israel Committee Against House Demolition.
Israel needs those Hamas rockets to continue in order to stall any peace efforts and eventually to nullify them as a consequence of the “security” meme: that Hamas will eventually take over the West Bank if a Palestinian state were ever to exist as a sovereign nation, and destroy Israel. It is of course total bullshit, but that is what we and the world have been getting from Israel for the past 40, nay 60 years.
If Hamas were to stop its rockets voluntarily, another red herring would be invoked to avoid a real two state solution and the occupation would just continue. As a measure of the deception Israel is willing to take on, one needs only to recall that Israel aided the early development of Hamas as a counter to Fatah (formerly the PLO) and derail its efforts to achieve a two state solution early on. It was Arafat actually who first intimated acceptance of Israel in the 1980s. That was dangerous to Israel’s colonial plans.
That sounds about right.
After all, as bad as the rocket attacks are (and let’s face it, no one would want katushas landing in their neighborhoods), if Israel had a working relationship with the civil authorities in Gaza that could have been eliminated. IF THEY WANTED TO. The Israelis would prefer weak, desperate enemies all around them to be “threatening” but ultimately no real threat. Sort of like America’s foreign policy.
It would require some kind of admission by both parties of each others’ positions and needs.
Best news Israel could ever ask for.
Chris Hedges on Gaza “The Lessons of Violence” — The former New York Times Middle East bureau chief warns that the actions that led to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza will not bring peace to Israel but will instead create a new generation of Palestinian militants.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080121_the_lessons_of_violence/
Israel does not want peace; it want land, and has avoided every peace effort made by Arab countries since the 1950s for that reason. Since 1967, and especially since the late 70s, its occupation/colonial efforts spoke for themselves. In 2002 and again in 2006, the Arab League comprising 22 nations offered Israel full recognition in return for a Palestinian state. Refused. In 2003, under a moderate government, the Iranians, through the Swiss, offered Israel the same thing. Refused. In 2000, at Camp David the Palestinians would have accepted a two state solution, except that Israel refused (or under Barak was unable) to dismantle a single Israel village, town, or city built in the West Bank since 1967 under the euphemism, “settlements,” regardless of the other issues at stake.
Nothing could please Israel more than a new generation of Palestinian militants to fight for Palestinian freedom and self-determination. It will aid in postponing any future unwanted peace deal.
while what you said is true, it’s also true that the egyptian government is particularly unlikely to do much for hamas-ruled gaza. hamas is an offshoot of the muslim brotherhood (it’s often referred to as the israeli chapter of the group) and the MB is the main and largest opposition to mubarak’s regime in egypt. which is why the group is currently banned.
it’s not that arab states have any concerted ill will towards the palestinian people. on the contrary they all use the rhetoric of palestinian liberation all the time. but they’re all also quite willing to use palestinians are a football for their own political gains, and don’t have any problem with making palestinians suffer if it suits the interest of their respective governments.
How is this really much different that the situation within Israel?
in two ways:
1st, israel doesn’t talk up the suffering of the palestinians as i described above.
2nd, because israel, unlike israel’s neighbors, has an actual conflict with the palestinians over land rights. egypt, jordan, syria and lebanon (and to a greater and lesser degree, most other arab states) regularly use the palestinian cause cynically, to deflect criticism of their own regime, etc. on israel’s part, they are not using someone else’s conflict to avoid dealing with local issues, for israel, the palestinian issue is their own local issue.
And Egypt Government has been admirably paid.
Which ties Pakistan to teaching and financing Atta:
rocket attacks drop to three and the Israelis open the crossing for humanitarian aid.
Then, 19 rockets are fired into Israel.
Egypt closes its border. Hamas holds a meeting lit by candles during Daylight hours(BBC)
And the games go on!
They are all wrong. There has to be continuing talks. And, the other neighbors(ha!) have to be held as responsible as everyone else.
Finally, the US either must be the Honest Broker! The arms and the aid must be offered based on Humanitarian needs. Enough bullshit.
Or-………..?
The U.S. long ago took sides and cannot be “honest broker”
rockets will fall silent means nothing. Israel does not intend to change its policy of occupation and subjugation fo Palestinians and their lands. Without that policy of subjugation and apartheid the Jewish State disappears by sheer population. Notice the Israelis refer to Israel as the Jewish state that can only be maintained by the status quo and that Wall.
But like the walls of Jericho, the Israeli Wall of Shame (built with U.S. tax dollars) also will fall or be blown up mile by mile.
Imho, The Nazi era oppressed are now the oppressors.
Israel refused.
Hamas in their own words:
http://www.politicalfleshfeast.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1316
With the willing assistance of the US (e.g., the State Department, Congress) and prominent political figures like Hillary Clinton (but not limited to), to say nothing of mainstream media complicity, Israel has succeeded in transforming the dialogue about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from one of occupier/colonialist to one of victim/antiterrorist, providing a context whereby the Arab stereotypes mentioned above can proliferate. As a consequence, the Palestinians deserve their suffering and death, and the American public accepts it as part, now, of the war on terror. The Israelis are the good guys; the Palestinians, the bad guys.
The extent to which Americans are accepting the siege of Gaza with all of its suffering and death as justified, to that extent have we become co-conspirators in war crimes and a humanitarian crisis.
Israel is dragging the US into the abyss. We have become no better than the nationalist Serbians, or for that matter the fascist regimes of 60 years ago.
I am beginning to think Hillary’s New York senate seat was payback for letting the settlers continue confiscating land throughout the 1990s, and never really pressuring the Israelis to stop. The settlements doubled in population in the 1990s. What a scam.
Food for thought. Given her agenda for Israel-Palestine, who can argue?
From the American peace org, Jewish Voice for Peace, this appeal:
instead of spending all those billions so israel can have even more weaponry to use on palestinians and thus encourage some of them to reply in kind, our “aid” should be spent on building back the if’structure of palestinian society. they need schools, hospitals, roads, good housing…just think of the change a little rebuilding aid could bring about.
instead of joining ‘radical’ political parties and strapping bombs to their bodies, young people could work and support their families and feel hope. happy, working people have less emotion and time for hate.
once a little hope was restored, and once the palestinians saw that someone actually cared about their plight, i bet they’d elect “better” leaders and force them to sit down at the peace table. i don’t know why this seems such a radical idea to so many.
the ongoing I/P tragedy is all the proof i’ll ever need that no state should be founded upon a religious superstition/myth/tradition, and that peace is impossible so long as some people elevate religious belief over the political process. let everyone “return” and participate in a secular, unified, democratic state in which more money is spent on people instead of “security.”
http://www.boomantribune.com/?op=displaystory;sid=2008/1/23/13505/8695
Israel just considers it a PR problem.
I’m surprised CNN gave it a few minutes.
I’m not,surprised, that is.
If you don’t understand that the neocon right considers Palestinians subhuman, you need to read Atlas Shrugs more often.
Laney
On the Atlas Shrugs link – They honestly believe Israel is right in punishing the whole of Gaza. Starving, isolating and radicalizing a whole people. Did you see the picture of the Palestinian baby crying and the child being mocked by the writer of the blog? WTF?
Did you see the picture of the Palestinian baby crying and the child being mocked by the writer of the blog? WTF?
That’s in this Atlas Shrugs post.
Steven D thanks for frontpaging.
Israel has a vested interest in radicalizing the Palestinians after all “you don’t negotiate with terrorists”. These people are and have been brutalized since 1947 and the Nakba.
END THE OCCUPATION
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GAZA (Haaretz) Jan. 23, 2008 – The Gazans rushed to purchase food, fuel, and other supplies made scarce by Israel’s blockade of the Strip, after militants detonated 17 bombs in the early morning hours, destroying some two-thirds of the metal wall separating the Gaza Strip from Egypt.
Palestinians make their way to Egypt after Palestinian gunmenblew up a section of the border wall (Mohammed Salem/Reuters)
Two-thirds of wall along Gaza-Egyptian border is destroyed(Suhaib Salem/Reuters)Earlier Wednesday, the United Nations estimated the number of Gazans who had crossed into Egypt at 350,000.
Palestinians have breached the Egypt-Gaza border several times since Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005. In the past, Egyptian security forces restored order after hours or days.
Hamas police channeled the crowds through two sections of the border, and inspected some bags, confiscating seven pistols carried by one man returning to Gaza.
Others walked unhindered over the toppled metal plates that once made up the border wall, carrying goats, chickens and crates of Coke. Some brought back televisions and car tires, and one man bought a motorcycle. Vendors sold soft drinks and baked goods to the crowds.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."