From Rootless Cosmopolitan:
The hole blown by Hamas in the Gaza-Egypt border fence has finally punctured the bubble of delusion surrounding the U.S.-Israeli Middle East policy. In a moment reminiscent of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, through the breach surged some 350,000 Palestinians — fully one fifth of Gaza’s total population, as my friend and colleague Tim McGirk observed at the scene. And what did they do on the other side? They went shopping for the essentials of daily life, denied them by an Israeli siege imposed with the Wehrmacht logic of collective punishment. And the Egyptian security forces didn’t stop them, despite Washington and Israel urging them to, because U.S.-backed strongman Hosni Mubarak would provoke a mutiny among his citizenry and even his own security forces if they were to be ordered to stop hungry Palestinians from eating because Israel has decided that they should starve until they change their attitude. – Link
From Jeff Halper:
I am not a Palestinian; I am not one of the oppressed. I only hope I can use my privilege in an effective way in order to redeem the gift the people of Gaza have given all of us: the realization that the people do have power and can prevail even in the face of overwhelming power*. We may each express our responsibility towards the people of Gaza in whatever way most suits us, but as the privileged we must do something. We owe the Palestinians and the Palestinians writ large at least that. – Link (link added by me)
Hopefully, THIS ONE will be brought down soon … to the satisfaction of both peoples. Fingers crossed!
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Article by Ilan Pappe, January 11th, 2007
Israel defined a third of the West Bank as Greater Jerusalem, which allowed it to build within this new annexed area towns and community centers. Secondly, it expanded old settlements to such proportions so that there was no need to build new ones. This trend was given an additional push in 2006 (hundreds of caravans were installed to mark the border of the expansions, the planning schemes for the new towns and neighborhoods were finalized and the apartheid bypass roads and highway system completed).
In all, the settlements, the army bases, the roads and the wall will allow Israel to annex almost half of the West Bank by 2010. Within these territories there will be a considerable number of Palestinians, against whom the Israeli authorities will continue to implement slow and creeping transfer policies — too boring as a subject for the western media to bother with and too elusive for human rights organizations to make a general point about them. There is no rush; as far as the Israelis are concerned, they have the upper hand there: the daily abusive and dehumanizing mixed mechanisms of army and bureaucracy is as effective as ever in contributing its own share to the dispossession process.
The strategic thinking of Ariel Sharon that this policy is far better than the one offered by the blunt ‘transferists‘ or ethnic cleansers, such as Avigdor Liberman’s advocacy, is accepted by everyone in the government, from Labor to Kadima.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Something’s changed though now. Some level of empowerment has been reached. The next few days/weeks will be important, I think.
May depend on Mubarak’s willingness to continue to refuse to close the border. Right now, Egyptian soldiers are looking the other way. How long will it be before the US threatens Egypt’s yearly dole and demands that it comply with the Israeli-US torture, otherwise known as collective punishment, of the Gazan Palestinians.
350,000?
Indeed, that’s quite a crowd! That’s what Karon wrote. I’ll try to find some other source to corroborate.
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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.
Two-thirds of wall along Gaza-Egyptian border is destroyedEarlier 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."Thanks Oui. 350,000 or 100,000. What is the difference? When you see your family and people starving and dying from oppression and deprivation of life sustaining basics, you do what you have to do. My only concern is for those unemployed Palestinians who lack the funds to buy essentials in Egypt. About them we hear nothing. The only hope is that the UN is fulfilling its role to prevent starvation and malnutrition among oppressed peoples.
Thanks for the new figures, Oui! I guess under the circumstances, one should expect different numbers cropping up in the reports.
are building walls in Texas. Huh, walls that go up can come down.
Thanks for keeping on top of this humanitarian crisis. My disgust is with our own, the United States’, complicity in it, including the deaths that resulted from this collective punishment of the Gazan Palestinians.