The difference between the NY Review of Books and the London Review of Books is that the NYRB contains currents of Jeffrey-Goldbergism--it is agonized about Israel and not entirely sure how to think about it, though it often runs excellent pieces--while the London Review of Books is fully aware of the human-rights catastrophe in Palestine and knows it must document this historical disgrace and so it runs this desolating piece by Sara Roy of Harvard. The piece is significant because it demonstrates the utter breakdown of Gaza society in a precise manner that defies obfuscation. It feels like Gaza has been turned into a kind of concentration camp. My words.
Two issues: Why aren't such important accounts, by American writers, appearing in the US? The great Siegman had to go to the LRB to publish this groundbreaking piece, so did Walt and Mearsheimer. Journalistically tragic. My next issue can wait till after Sara Roy:
Banks, suffering from Israeli restrictions on the transfer of banknotes into the territory were forced to close on 4 December. A sign on the door of one read: âDue to the decision of the Palestinian Finance Authority, the bank will be closed today Thursday, 4.12.2008, because of the unavailability of cash money, and the bank will be reopened once the cash money is available.â
The World Bank has warned that Gazaâs banking system could collapse if these restrictions continue. All cash for work programmes has been stopped and on 19 November UNRWA suspended its cash assistance programme to the most needy. It also ceased production of textbooks because there is no paper, ink or glue in Gaza. This will affect 200,000 students returning to school in the new year. On 11 December, the Israeli defence minister, Ehud Barak, sent $25 million following an appeal from the Palestinian prime minister, Salaam Fayad, the first infusion of its kind since October. It wonât even cover a monthâs salary for Gazaâs 77,000 civil servants.
On 13 November production at Gazaâs only power station was suspended and the turbines shut down because it had run out of industrial diesel. This in turn caused the two turbine batteries to run down, and they failed to start up again when fuel was received some ten days later. About a hundred spare parts ordered for the turbines have been sitting in the port of Ashdod in Israel for the last eight months, waiting for the Israeli authorities to let them through customs. Now Israel has started to auction these parts because they have been in customs for more than 45 days. The proceeds are being held in Israeli accounts.
During the week of 30 November, 394,000 litres of industrial diesel were allowed in for the power plant: approximately 18 per cent of the weekly minimum that Israel is legally obliged to allow in. It was enough for one turbine to run for two days before the plant was shut down again. The Gaza Electricity Distribution Company said that most of the Gaza Strip will be without electricity for between four and 12 hours a day. At any given time during these outages, over 65,000 people have no electricity.
No other diesel fuel (for standby generators and transport) was delivered during that week, no petrol (which has been kept out since early November) or cooking gas. Gazaâs hospitals are apparently relying on diesel and gas smuggled from Egypt via the tunnels; these supplies are said to be administered and taxed by Hamas. Even so, two of Gazaâs hospitals have been out of cooking gas since the week of 23 November....
According to the World Health Organisation, the political divisions between Gaza and the West Bank are also having a serious impact on drug stocks in Gaza. The West Bank Ministry of Health (MOH) is responsible for procuring and delivering most of the pharmaceuticals and medical disposables used in Gaza. But stocks are at dangerously low levels. Throughout November the MOH West Bank was turning shipments away because it had no warehouse space, yet it wasnât sending supplies on to Gaza in adequate quantities. During the week of 30 November, one truck carrying drugs and medical supplies from the MOH in Ramallah entered Gaza, the first delivery since early September.
The breakdown of an entire society is happening in front of us, but there is little international response beyond UN warnings which are ignored. The European Union announced recently that it wanted to strengthen its relationship with Israel while the Israeli leadership openly calls for a large-scale invasion of the Gaza Strip and continues its economic stranglehold over the territory
Second issue. Last week Adam Horowitz pointed out that LA billionaire/philanthropist Guilford Glazer gave money to the Central Fund of Israel, which opposes the two-state solution and supports settler militias in the West Bank. In an apparent contradiction, Glazer also has supported creating a Palestinian state, helping to pay for a Rand study to come up with a design for a feasible Palestinian state on two separated pieces of land, the West Bank and Gaza. (I'm cathected on this study because one of the guys who came up with the Rand plan, Doug Suisman, dated my wife in college--a Jewish predecessor to the glorious Mondo.) Anyway, here's the point. The Rand study has this beautiful vision of bifurcated Palestine, then you read Sara Roy, that the West Bank Ministry of Health is having trouble getting drug stocks to Gaza. Of course there's that kind of issue. And then you just wonder, how feasible is such a state, in a hostile environment? Can't we all just get along?
It is a sad commentary on the US intelligentsia.
There is a moral lacuna…visible around the world.