Our West Coast correspondent Seham writes:
Several months ago, ministry officials approached the United Nations to consult with them about their dietary plan for the Gaza Strip. The UN officials – as one might guess – politely told them to go to hell, refusing to have anything to do with such a policy. The Israelis then turned to a Health Ministry dietician, whose advice might have led to the present policy according to which, as Israeli officials have stated, "the minimal requirements for the sustenance of Gaza Strip residents are being observed without inflicting a humanitarian disaster."
But this diet is neither a new mechanism to subjugate the Palestinian population nor is it retaliation for the capture of that Israeli soldier–whose name shall go unmentioned in the same way that the 11,000 Palestinian detainees are unmentioned. The Israelis simply took an already horrifying situation and made it worse. A report published in 2003 documented Palestinian malnutrition rates in Gaza as equal to those in the Congo and Zimbabwe. Back then, Palestinians were subsisting on less than $2.00 a day, which was already below the UN poverty line.
From the report:
Responsibility for the current humanitarian crisis rests principally with Israel's military occupation of the Palestinian territories. But the foundations for impoverishment were laid long ago. Starting with an already poor agrarian economy, Palestinians have seen the promise of a secure future stripped away – by the progressive loss of land from 1948 onwards and by successive military incursions marked by violence, land occupation and the subordination of the Palestinian economy to the Israeli economy. The Oslo Accords of September 1993, despite the great hopes surrounding them, failed to deliver significant change, as has the Palestinian Authority. Attention given by the Palestinian Authority to poverty eradication – even allowing for the destruction of its infrastructure – has been notable by its absence. Frustration, despair and disillusionment – especially following the failure of the Camp David talks – were partly the result of the slide into deeper poverty after 1993.
So contrary to Israeli propaganda, this "diet" had been in place years before Hamas took power in Gaza and that soldier was captured. Here, a different report from 2003 further illustrates the fate of Palestinian children during the years before Hamas controlled Gaza:
Jean Ziegler, Special Rapporteur of the UN Commission on Human Rights on the right to food, has issued a report after touring the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in July. Mr. Ziegler said 9 per cent of Palestinian children under the age of five suffer some form of brain damage because of chronic malnutrition caused by the Israeli occupation.
It'd be nice to see any of the major news outlets in the U.S. report on the conditions in Gaza prior to the siege, instead of mindlessly parroting Israeli talking points.
Related posts:
- We Live in Johannesburg
- Leaked UN report echoes Goldstone and says Israeli blockade is leading to the ‘de-development’ of Gaza
- UN Special Rapporteur calls for Israeli sanctions unless it lifts the Gaza blockade
- UN fact finding mission finds that Israeli actions in Gaza amounted to war crimes, and possibly crimes against humanity
- Ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza?
{ 28 comments }
Cut a channel around Gaza and let it float out to sea, they can fish in micronesia :)
Spoken like a true sadist and Zionist, scumbag. You go on and on about the right of Jews to the 'Holy Land' and how you and your people alone have a 'spiritual connection' to the land (and somehow all of this bullshit is a justification for your theft/colonization of Palestinian land) – and then here you are mocking suffering children. Like all the other Zionists on this blog, you're steeped in ideology. Facts that do not conform to your ideology are dismissed. You harp on Jewish this and Jewish that and that's the problem – you do not recognize non-Jews as people. You're selfish and insane. Go away psycho.
The US should starve Israel of military and economic aid.
Tommy, The US should starve Egypt and Saudi Arabia of military and economic aid.
There is no aid to Saudi Arabia they actually buy all their weapons with oil money. As for Egypt the aid is necessary to keep Mubarak buddy-buddy with Israel.
Israel and its stinking politics of ethnic cleansing and land theft should make every Jew ashamed of the country that says it represents the Jews of the world. As a Jew whose relative was involved in the ethnic cleasning of the Palestinians in 1948, denounce this little country that has showed that veniality is common to all people even though the "chosen people" have pretended for so long that they are better than everyone else. People such as eitanbenshlomo show that Israel has corrupted Judaism and that Zionism has triumphed over Judaism. Or have Jews always been like this? I hope not. Maybe there is still hope but Israel drives that hope further into the ground every day.
NO PROBLEM. Where do you live eitanbenshlomo?
Thank you for not mentioning *his* name. Some sort of equivalency is always refreshing.
I'm trying to decide: Is it a plus that the Zionist Fanatics don't realize how bad they sound? Or: Is it a negative that they spew their racism here without any embarrassment. Kind of a "glass half-full, half-empty" situation.
Why oppose starving the Egyptiian police state and the Medieval Saudi Monarchy of military and economic aid? (And for the record, the USA does not give Saudi Arabia foreign aid. Apparently eitanbenshlomo confuses the Saudis for the moochers in Tel Aviv). All this putz is doing is trying to starve Zion of its only two accomplices in the Arab world.
Well said. And you beat me to to it. This guy eitanbenshlomo probably finished at the bottom of his class in Hebrew School.
I think that ethnic cleansing of Jews is wrong.
But you have no problem with the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians I venture to say.
Don't venture
So state your position. Your silence on this is speaking volumes. . Oh wait, you already let it slip with your first comment here. You're a hypocrite.
"Don't venture." Wow. That's like Bernie Madoff refusing to venture an opinion on a pump-and-dump scheme. How noble.
The people of Gaza have created quite a disaster for THEMSELVES. Israel unilaterally backed out of the territory in 2005 – and Jewish donors put up $14 million dollars so the Gazans could continue working on their farms and growing vegetables, as a humanitarian gesture. They stepped back so the Palestinian dream of independence could unfurl. What did the Gazans do? They looted the farms and greenhouses, senselessly destroying them and elected a militant party that promised WAR and destruction of Israel. Now they are ruled by viscous thugs who use their homes for launching rocket attacks, use their Mosques for storing Iranian arms, who will shoot them in the legs if anyone dares protest or dissent their leadership style. I feel sorry for the Gazans in the way I'm sorry for someone who drinks their liver into the ground – or who picks a bar fight with the bouncer when they're trashed. It's sad to see them suffer through a situation they entirely created for themselves – and that only they themselves can put an end too. Egypt and Israel aren't going to bend over and take their abuse.
you missed the new hasbara pamphlet that is posted above. the zionists suggest you try a different less disgusting approach to get your point across.
it's great. considering that the mainstream media only focuses on the crazy muslims it's about time that other lunatics get equal air time.
No sense putting it delicately to the likes of you and Strahl.
No, that aid to egypt equales the amount of discounted oil and gas that egypt has to sell to the shitty little racist country acoording to the so called peace agreement.Israel is the only beneficiary here.again.The real amount of american largesse to israel is estimated to be in the tens of billions,direct and indirect.Liberate America,starve Israel.
If the comments made by zionazis on this blog were made public on, say Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC (not to mention the network and public TV channels, Israel would lose its top welfare status overnight. I love what the hasbara agents feel free to express here; I just see the need to get them a wider average USA citizen audience. It would be helpful it they sponsored NASCAR cars, and had their slogans emblazoned on those cars going in circles to the endless enjoyment of the masses.
I agree, zionazi drone. You're so stupid you can't see that would result in Israel actually getting more of its due. Plus, the USA would be less of a hypocrite. A bonus would be we'd have more money to give to our own desperate citizens.
No need to venture. Res ipso locquitor (sic): the thing speaks for itself.
Yes, that was an astute sentence by Phil. Don't let the zionazis frame the debate.
There is no God but Marx and Chomsky is his messenger.
eitanbenshlomo, Saudi Arabia doesn;t get economic aid. It is one of the US's biggest creditors. I agree that the US should starve Egypt of aid, which is pays Egypt to be nice to Israel.
"Don't venture " That means yes Jan.
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