Besides the comments Phil has already posted, there are lots more things that could be said about Terry Gross's interview with Lawrence Wright about Gaza on NPR's Fresh Air today. Here's the comment I sent today to Fresh Air and NPR's ombudsman, Alicia Shepard:
On Fresh Air on June 22, 2010, guest Lawrence Wright said "Then in 2007, there was an election in the Palestinian territories, and to the astonishment of practically the entire world community, Hamas won." In fact, the election Hamas won (to the Palestinian Legislative Council) was on January 25, 2006, not 2007 (see, for example, the Linda Gradstein report entitled "Hamas Appears to Win Majority in Palestinian Elections" on Morning Edition, Jan. 26, 2006).
This seemingly small mistake is only one problem in Wright's extremely distorted response to Terry Gross's request that he "Remind us how the Israeli blockade of Gaza was started, how and why." His response starts with the capture of Gilad Shalit in June 2006, then proceeds to Hamas's election victory, which he says occurred in 2007, then to the ouster of the (US-backed) Fatah forces in Gaza in June 2007 - "that's when they [the Israelis] began imposing this very strict blockade," he says.
It's certainly true that Israel tightened its blockade then, and Wright is hardly alone in dating its beginning to that moment, but in fact the Israelis started it, if in somewhat less stringent form, much earlier. Some would say it dates to the 1990s, when Israel launched its "closure" policy, but in something like its current form it began shortly after Hamas's election victory in January 2006 - not only before the ouster of the Fatah forces, but also before the capture of Shalit. See, for example, your own Peter Kenyon's Morning Edition report entitled "Gaza Misery Growing Under Israeli Embargo, Attacks" on Sept. 22, 2006. Or, even earlier and in more vivid detail, the story entitled "Gaza on brink of implosion as aid cut-off starts to bite" in the UK Guardian/Observer as early as April 16, 2006, which begins:
An empty watchtower overlooks a deserted road lined with rusting vehicle parts. This is Gaza's economic lifeline, the Karni crossing into Israel, which is supposed to handle 1,300 containers of merchandise and food per day in order to sustain 1.3 million people.
But nothing is entering or leaving Gaza, and now the funds to purchase what is available there are also drying up, bringing the dire situation of its people to a new and febrile crisis.
Karni is officially closed because the Israeli army has declared a security alert for the Jewish Passover holiday. Yet it has barely been open this year. The effect is a paralysis of Gaza's commerce and severe shortages of basic foods. Not that the locals are in a position to buy what food there is. There is little money because the European Union, Canada and the United States have stopped funding the aid-dependent Palestinian Authority, which can no longer pay its staff's wages.
The result is that families are existing on tiny amounts of money and businesses are facing collapse.
All that, to repeat, well before the capture of Shalit and the ouster of the Fatah forces.
Wright may be a good writer, but he's spent only three weeks in Gaza, and he's clearly no expert on the subject. If you really want to know what conditions are like there, why don't you interview Sara Roy of Harvard, who is universally recognized as the leading Western expert on the Gaza economy (and also happens to be the daughter of Holocaust survivors)? And how about talking to some people who actually live in Gaza and can report first-hand on what the siege means - like Dr. Eyad El Sarraj, director of the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme, or Dr. Mona El-Farra, Chair of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society of the Gaza Strip, who been published by the Boston Globe and Le Monde Diplomatique and who does a blog called "From Gaza, with Love," or Laila El-Haddad, a young mother and journalist who lives part of the year in the US and the other part in Gaza, has a B.A. from Duke and a Master's degree from Harvard, has written for the Guardian and the Baltimore Sun, among other publications, and writes the blog "Gaza Mom"?
At a minimum, I'll be listening for a correction to Wright's error about the date of Hamas's election victory.
An excellent post, Henry. I knew there was something wrong about the chronology when I read the transcript of the interview with Wright that was posted earlier.
Has anyone ever heard Sara Roy on the radio?
Boy, oh boy, do I agree. Excellent, Henry.
You scraped NPR’s adolescent pretensions to being a careful, cautious news organization right off the table. Makes you wonder what their producers are doing there daily, watching porn?
Fueling the distorted and twisted agenda and perspective of Israel and the I lobby. There is “pervasive cronyism” at NPR and who gets those host jobs and what perspectives they promote and the unsubstantiated claims that they allow to be repeated on their programs. And in the case of Terry Gross repeats them herself
Karni has been attacked multiple times by HAMAS and Fatah terrorists.
In any case, Egypt can very well open its borders. There is no reason to insist on any crossings from the ethnically cleansed of Jews Gaza into Israel, there is no logical reason why any people, goods, aide, coriander, jam or anything else should come from Israel to Gaza.
Send it through Egypt.
Maybe if the commenters on this website weren’t so biased against the Jewish state, they would spend equal energy attacking Egypt for its blockade.
“Send it through Egypt.”
So you’re in favor of arming the people of Gaza? Good for you! A conduit for goods not supervised by the Israelis is a good start on that.
Your devotion to freedom for the Gazans is commendable, but most of us, I think, would prefer a non-violent solution.
But I understand how your empathy for the Gazans forces you to conclude that only by not including the Israelis will a free flow of goods resume.
No offense intended, by why does this crap show get so much attention here? It’s racist, Judeosupremacist rubbish, a yuppy version of hate radio.
The problem, hayate, is that NPR is considered one of the least compromised news sources in the United States. And even it is thoroughly compromised.
I know, Chaos4700, I used to work with a guy who was infatuated with them.
We wont change them, at least as long as zionism, inc. runs things in the usa. Until then the nprs are no different from the hannity/north bugger bro duo.
I agree, this is an excellent post. [It's as good as hayate's comment is bad]
Regarding Sara Roy, I was looking for her book “The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-development (1995, 2001)” There appear to be very few copies available, and the paperback version is $161.00 at Amazon. A bookstore in Beirut had a similar price. Someone should tell the publisher to get this on Kindle at a reasonable price.
You can get ““The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-development” for a mere $35.24 plus shipping at Half.com (in this case, it’s the list price that’s half the used price!): link to product.half.ebay.com
But unless you need all the gory details, you can get her basic argument from “Failing Peace: Gaza and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict,” a collection of her essays over 20 years, published in 2007 and still readily available for $25 or less.
Many thanks.
:D
As good at researching booksellers as writing comments.
RE: “At a minimum, I’ll be listening for a correction…” – Norr
MY COMMENT: Why don’t you take a cue from Gertrud ‘Traude’ Krüger in Vier Minuten (4 Minutes) [2006] and insist that they eat the original report – literally eat it! Perhaps that would teach them a little humility, as Gertrud was fond of saying. And they should also learn how to do a proper curtsey!
P.S. “What’s the big deal?” – Joe “The Schmo” Biden
What did Terry Gross ever do that was so awful, besides interview Bert Bachrach or Gene Simmons? “Fresh Air” really doesn’t veer into serious topics often, and when it does apparently it doesn’t do it well-enough to your taste. If you follow NPR, you might get higher quality political talk radio with Diane Rehm or Tom Ashbrook. So enough with the kvetching!
“What did Terry Gross ever do that was so awful….?” Well, joining in the uncritical enthusiasm for the war on Iraq in 2002-2003, for one thing. She typically addresses “serious topics” (i.e., economics or politics, as opposed to the arts) a couple of times a week, usually when something in the New Yorker or the New York Times or a new book from a major mainstream catches her fancy. As for Diane Rehm and Tom Ashbrook, they’re not broadcast here in the Bay Area, as far as I know. How do they deal with Palestine?
Terry Gross did some decent interviews on Palestinian topics in the 1990s, IIRC. Politics is not her forte. Music is perhaps what she knows best. I regard her as the best music subject interviewer on mainstream radio. At least who I can listen to where I live.
She has inspired many young women to become broadcast journalists.
It has been sad to see her do so many terrible recent interviews on I/P issues. And, listening to this one, they just keep getting worse.
Philip, check this out:
link to msnbc.msn.com
The ckua.org, which CBC copied, then NPR.
interesting singer, awful interview.
… Sara Roy of Harvard, who is [...] (and also happens to be the daughter of Holocaust survivors)?
Henry, how does that qualify her for knowing the facts about Gaza?
I believe that it’s supposed to give her “street cred” and prevents any bogus charges of “antisemitism” – like Finkelstein. I think this was a rhetorical question, though, sorry if it was. I agree with you that it shouldn’t matter at all, and the fact that one has to even say it shows the irrationality that abounds.
Notice, eGuard, that I put Sara Roy’s family background in parentheses and used the words “and also happens to be” – all to suggest that it’s information that’s incidental to the main point. Certainly it doesn’t qualify her as an expert on Gaza, but I’m sure – she says it herself – that it has an effect on her perspective. And in the current U.S. mainstream political/cultural environment – in the eyes of people like Terry Gross and many of her listeners – the unfortunate reality is that it makes her more credible than if she didn’t have that background.
Henry,
Did Terry Gross get the jist wrong? Or, just details, just specific assumptions?
How do you think the gist of the reality is different than her summary and assumptions?
Picking on details is taking potshots, irrelevant, unconvincing except to those already converted. More Pavlovian invocation than information. You know that right?
Did Terry Gross get the jist wrong? Or, just details, just specific assumptions?
witty, israel always frames it’s action as a ‘response’. why do you think it is the blockade is framed as a response to shalit’s capture? do you think timelines and details ever matter in terms of ‘the gist’? if they don’t why mention them at all?
Shalit was abducted on 25th june. One day prior to 24th June , one Gazan doctor and his brother were abducted and sent to israeli prison. Fawning media in US and UK dont give F* to the fact or the fate of that duo. Israeli chatterbox have convinced the moron of the moral superiorioty and leaglity of Israeli postion .
train, you are absolutely right. Israel is presumed to be holding legally thousands of people, including the two brothers you mention, while Hamas committed the crime of “kidnapping” Shalit. Israel’s imprisonment, just like its killing, is automatically cloaked in moral superiority.
One day prior to 24th June , one Gazan doctor and his brother were abducted and sent to israeli prison.
this happened directly before the lebanon war as i recall. i never connected it to shalit’s capture. thanks.
annie, it was a few weeks after shalit’s capture, when Israel had been putting the screws to the entire Gaza population in retaliation, that Hezbollah conducted a similar cross-border raid (if it was indeed cross-border) and “captured” two soldiers, who apparently were killed at the time. Israel’s pummeling of Lebanon followed, and it has since become accepted myth that Israel bombed and invaded Lebanon to stop the rocket fire, which did not exist. Did Hezbollah conduct this raid to relieve Israel’s strangling pressure on Gaza, as if to open up a new front? I thought it was one possible explanation, though I could be easily convinced otherwise.
Blocakde started in 2005 , one year before the election of the Hamas.
“At a minimum, I’ll be listening for a correction to Wright’s error about the date of Hamas’s election victory.”
I would guess they would do that and nothing more. All they’d have to say is “NPR erred when we reported the election as having occurred in 2007. It actually occurred in 2006.” A simple correction of the date without mentioning why it matters would give the illusion that they care about getting their facts right without having to correct the false impression that they’ve given about the reasons for the blockade.
Donald, I was thinking the same thing. In fact, they might even give Henry “credit” for this correction to make him look like an idiot, like he bothered to write in and say the Magna Carta was signed in 1215, not 1214.
Your thinking was one step ahead of mine, , darn you.
But you’re right–that would be an act of rhetorical jujitsu, where you acknowledge just enough of your opponent’s point to make yourself both concerned about accuracy while still making it seem trivial and portray Henry to be a nitpicking idiot (as RW tries to do above).
from NPR’s corrections page (link to npr.org) :
June 23, 2010
Israel And Gaza: A Crack In The Stalemate
Fresh Air from WHYY, June 22, 2010
Our guest misstated the year of Hamas’ election victory. The elections were held in January 2006, not June 2007.
Henry, great post. Of course, NPR is not the only place where you’re treated to the hasbara version that the Gaza blockade was a result of the capture of Gilad Shalit. Just an hour ago, the AP’s Jeffrey Heller wrote this as his opening paragraph:
“JERUSALEM — The parents of an Israeli soldier whose kidnapping led to the Gaza blockade are accusing the government of abandoning their son now that it has eased the closure. A primary goal of the blockade has been to put pressure on Gaza’s Hamas rulers to free Sgt. Gilad Schalit, who was captured by militants in 2006 in a raid that killed two other soldiers.”
In the first sentence, Heller claims Schalit was kidnapped, not captured. This means Heller disregards the 12,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons, who I suppose we can now say were “kidnapped” and not “captured” by the IDF.
Then Heller provides the Israeli hasbaric timeline that states the blockade was a response to Schalit’s captivity. If so, it doesn’t make the situation any better PR-wise for the Israelis. It confirms that the blockade is an illegal collective punishment of the innocent civilian population, clearly a violation of the Geneva Convention.
What is there about the word “occupation” that these people fail to understand? Another phrase they need to appreciate is “free fire zone” which is what Israel turned Gaza into as soon as its settlers were withdrawn from Gaza.
Well, the “occupation” just broadened, settlers are now busing in and attacking mixed neighborhoods in Tel-Aviv –
“YAFO IS FOR JEWS:GET OUT OF YAFO
In wonderful “cosmopolitan” Tel-Aviv
Lawrence of Cyberia also has a good article on Jaffa – which was slated under the UN Partition to remain part of the Palestinian state – a small Palestinian enclave in the Israeli state.
The attacks of Jaffa were particularly vicious (far worse than any Gaza rocket) and ended with the literal driving of the Jaffa Palestinians into the sea – with all road exits blocked they had to evacuate by boat.
link to lawrenceofcyberia.blogs.com
[Not the 1st time I've posted it, but a worthwhile read - especially as a documentation of the zionist terrorism.]
Sumud, that Lawrence of Cyberia post you link to is one of my favorites! The pictures are very powerful, yes, but I would urge all readers to not stop when the pictures end, but keep reading, especially the typescript of the reports from the British Colonial Office, which detailed the day-by-day terrorist activities of the Zionists.
Terrorists? How about shelling and mortaring civilian’s neighborhoods to drive out the occupants? With real shells and mortars.
Sadly, the usually excellent Irish Times also gets this wrong:
“The Israeli blockade was first introduced in June 2006 when its soldier Gilad Shalit was captured. It was strengthened when Hamas seized power from Fatah one year later,[...]“
Thanks to Henry for pointing out the actual timeline and complaining about the error. Watch out, Henry, that could be a full time job. In any event, Dov Weissglas’s infamous comment about putting Palestinians on a diet was made in January 06, immediaely after the elections, five months before the Shalit incident.
One of Israel’s most notorious actions in response to the Shalit capture (as Oscar points out, “kidnap” is the word more often used) was to bomb a major Gaza power plant and plunge hundreds of thousands into darkness and deprive them of electricity in the grueling summer months. I recall seeing on youtube an excellent interview by a British reporter of an Israeli official, asking if this bombing did not amount to collective punishment. The Israeli (ambassador to the UK, perhaps?) responded that it was not, because it was designed to make hiding Shalit more difficult. The openly incredulous newsman wouldn’t let the Israeli get away with that bs, asking repeatedly how darkness made it easier to find Shalit. I remember thinking how impossible it would be to see Michael Oren or a comparable hack being grilled like that on US TV.
btw, does anyone recall if the Palestinian “diet” that began in 2006 was directed against both Gaza and the West Bank? I see no reason why it would not have been, with the focus on Gaza developing only after the 2007 fighting that resulted in Hamas controlling Gaza alone. But what was going on in the West Bank that first year?
“does anyone recall if the Palestinian “diet” that began in 2006 was directed against both Gaza and the West Bank?”
The focus was definitely on Gaza, as the discussion centered on the “disengagement” plan and how to annex most of the WB. But let’s research it again to make sure.
annie’s nyt article below suggests it was against the WB as well. It probably started out as mostly against Gaza and in 2007 developed into exclusively against Gaza.
Thanks, David. I thought about using Dov Weisglass’s 2006 “diet” comment in my note to NPR, but apparently Weisglass denies having made it. Of course I don’t believe him for a minute – who would have made it up? – but in my many years of wrestling with NPR and other media operations, I’ve come to the realization that, from a tactical point of view, it’s best to stick to points that are absolutely indisputable. If you bring up anything that’s remotely debatable, even if the evidence for it is overwhelming, they’ll focus on that and ignore any other issues you might be raising
As for your question about the “diet” and the West Bank, it was mainly if not entirely aimed at Gaza. I was in al-Khalil (Hebron) from May to the end of July 2006, and though economic conditions were bad, I don’t recall hearing or seeing anything suggesting that they were particularly deteriorating a that moment. In fact, the main economic problem I remember hearing about, aside from a temporary shortage of cooking gas at one point, was the flood of cheap Chinese goods (including shoes, traditionally one of the main products of the city, and even kaffiyehs!) that were imported by the Israelis, which were driving a lot of small Palestinian factories (really just workshops) out of business.
Of course the Israelis never want any Palestinians (except maybe a few prized collaborators) to live well, but I do believe that the “diet” was specifically in response to the election of Hamas, which seems to have genuinely freaked out the Israelis, and Gaza was where Hamas was strongest. From the point of view of the Israelis, who have no real grasp of Palestinian sumud – steadfastness – I think they really believed they might be able to “persuade” the Gazans to go back into the grip of Fatah, not only by making them suffer, but also by showing them that things were a bit better in Fatahland.
nyt February 18, 2006
Thank you annie. I also recall that Israel began to withhold tax money it collected on behalf of the PA, thereby making it impossible for civil servants to be paid their salaries, even though the tax money belonged to the PA. Anyway, your NYT article confirms what we all know, that the whole siege was intended to be collective punishment aimed at making life very difficult for Palestinians. It was not recast as an effort to keep arms out of Gaza until the days leading up to the flotilla attack. See how the Israeli PR machine has gone into overdrive to construct this new reality, an effort which has been quite successful.
well, i came here to post another article from ynet from the same period, a few days before the swearing in that talked of withholding taxes and something about 50 million a month being withheld and on the way i intercepted IrishMark’s link and naturally had to contact the irishtimes and somehow i lost the article. i could find it but but but..so much to read so little time..
maybe later..
Former President Jimmy Carter begged the U.s. congress not to isolate and demonize Hamas after that fair election process. But Ros Lehtinen, Lantos and the rest of the I lobby who control the congress made sure that they would do everything in their power to demonize and isolate Hamas.
link to encyclopedia.com
link to foxnews.com
link to ros-lehtinen.house.gov
Had heard that Gross was going to put her toes into the water. I don’t believe she has ever touched this issue except from her and the Israeli lobbies perspective. Will be interested in hearing it.
Terry has consistently been doing Israel and the Israeli Lobbies bidding by continuously allowing guest to repeat the debunked and inflammatory statement “Iran wants to wipe Israel off the Map” and Iran has a “nuclear weapons program” instead of a “nuclear program”
Not only has she allowed guest to repeat these unsubstantiated claims she has repeated them herself…many many times.
link to alisonweir.org
Other journalists with ties to the Israeli military… Is Ethan Bronner the rule rather than the exception?
Now that there has been so much controversy over the fact that the son of the New York Times’ Israel-Palestine bureau chief is serving in the Israeli army, more is starting to come out about other major journalists who had/have their own intimate connections to the IDF.
Jewish Week reports that a previous Times bureau chief, Joel Greenberg, “before he was Jerusalem bureau chief but after he was already having bylines in the Times from Israel, actually served in the IDF.”
Richard Chesnoff admits: “I’ve been covering and writing about Mideast events for more than 40 years. And like Bronner, I had a son serving in the Israeli army during part of the 14 years I covered both Israel and the Arab world as US News & World Report’s senior foreign correspondent.” (I wonder if he disclosed this to readers at the time.)
As I’ve noted previously and featured in a video, Atlantic Monthly’s Jeffrey Goldberg served in the Israeli military himself; it’s unclear when/if his military service ended.
NPR’s Linda Gradstein’s husband was an IDF sniper and may still be in the reserves. I don’t know whether Gradstein herself is also an Israeli citizen, as are her children and husband.
Thanks for this information on Linda’s husband. There are many more Israeli forsyters who masquerade as impartial ,emotionally and ethnically nonchalant and disconnected nonpartisan reporters,columnist or even goverenmnt employees who influence or make policies for the US vs Middle East.
If Americans Knew is a great site for accurate information. You can order great information sheets and postcards to hand out to folks
link to ifamericansknew.org
Allison Weir’s If Americans Knew is a great site!
Canadian Jews for Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) have a detailed fact sheet with a chronology of the progressive (regressive) tightening of the noose in Gaza.
Factsheet: Humanitarian Disaster in Gaza, 2006-2007
link to cjpme.org
It’s a PDF but I’ll quote it in full (except footnotes):
While life for Palestinians under Israeli occupation since 1967 has never been easy, nothing since 1967 can compare to the politically- and militarily-imposed humanitarian disaster wrought on the Palestinians in Gaza by Israel and Western powers in the past two years.
MILITARY OCCUPATION AND INTERNATIONAL SANCTIONS IN PARALLEL IN 2006
The decisive victory of Hamas in the Jan., 2006 Palestinian elections triggered a drastic international reaction against the Palestinians for their democratic choice. Israel immediately began withholding customs revenues that it legally owed to Palestinians –49 percent of the Palestinian government’s revenue. When the Hamas government was formed in late March, Canada led the West in ceasing aid programs to the Palestinians – 25 percent of the Palestinian government’s income. Israel also intensified punitive controls on movement and access throughout the West Bank and Gaza, ignoring directives put in place in a Nov. 2005 Agreement on Movement and Access by the US, Israel and the Palestinians. Given this worse-case scenario, the World Bank predicted that unemployment would increase from 23.4 percent (est. 2005) to 47 percent in 2008. It also estimated that poverty would increase from 44 percent (est. 2005) to 74 percent.1 By late-Spring, 2006, the Palestinian government was unable to pay its civil servants, and government services became more and more scarce in many regions of Palestine.2
COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT IN GAZA IN SUMMER 2006 AND BEYOND
Following the capture of an Israeli soldier in Gaza by Palestinian militants in late June, Israel imposed broad collective punishment on the entire Palestinian population in Gaza. Despite international humanitarian law strictly forbidding it,3 bridges, roads, electrical stations, agricultural assets and other civilian infrastructure in Gaza were destroyed by Israel. Through the three summer months of 2006, Israeli strikes killed about 250 Palestinian civilians, many of them through artillery shelling from Israel.4
Starting at this time, subsistence conditions began to be imposed on Gaza by Israel, including some of the following statistics: 70 percent of Gazans were unable to cover their daily food needs without assistance; only 30 percent of Gazans had regular income; most Gazans only had 6-8 hours of electricity per day, and six hours of water every two days.5 These conditions have only deteriorated since.
STARVATION AND OTHER OPPRESSIVE MEASURES IMPOSED IN GAZA
In early 2007, the two leading Palestinian parties, Hamas and Fatah, formed a Unity Government in hopes of achieving Western acceptance of the government and therefore alleviating the suffering imposed on the Palestinian people. When the West –including Canada –refused to adjust its aid boycott with this new government, the Unity Government was dissolved when security tensions provoked Hamas to take control of Gaza by force.6 This is when the very worst of the crisis began as Israel began to punish the Gaza population in its feud with Hamas, through a variety of malicious mechanisms:
Israel declares Gaza “hostile territory.”
In September, the Israeli cabinet declared Gaza “hostile territory” and voted to “restrict the passage of various goods… and reduce the supply of fuel and electricity.” Israeli officials claim that because of this declaration, Israel is no longer obliged under international law to supply utilities to the Gazan population. This is wrong, as described by HRW, “A mere declaration does not change the facts on the ground that impose on Israel the status and obligations of an occupying power.”7
Israel blocks Medical Supplies into Gaza.
Israel has also severely blocked passage of medical supplies into Gaza since June. The UN reported shortages of several medicines, including pediatric drugs, antibiotics and treatments for chronic disease.8 Late in 2007 in Gaza, there were generally zero-stock levels of about 80-90 drugs from the 416 item “Essential Drug List.”9 HRW also found that due to medical supply shortages, facilities in Gaza can no longer offer advanced services like cardiovascular surgery, neurosurgery and advanced ophthalmology services.
Israeli Cuts to the Fuel Supply into Gaza.
Late in October, as part of its sanctions, Israel began reducing the amount of fuel allowed into Gaza. In November, there was a 40% decrease in petrol, 49% decrease in diesel fuel, and a 14% decrease in industrial gas. Among other impacts: the Gaza water utility received only 19% of its monthly requirement for water and waste-water treatment; two Gaza hospitals faced severe shortages of diesel fuel; 11 primary health care facilities were forced to stop emergency generators; and municipalities have been unable to provide garbage collection.10
Israel severely restricts commercial imports to Gaza.
As reported by UNRWA, “Since the middle of June, Gaza’s main terminals for movement of people and goods have been closed… A range of basic commodities are currently either unaffordable or unavailable [in Gaza.]”11 Another UN organization (OCHA) reported a 71 percent decrease in goods entering Gaza in October as compared to May. Due to the lack of raw materials, the Palestinian Federation of Industries recently reported that 95 percent of Gaza’s factories had closed, leading to the loss of about 113,000 jobs.12
Israeli virtual blockage of all exports from Gaza.
From June through November, exports were only allowed to leave Gaza on two occasions: 7 truckloads of potatoes on August 27, and 12 truckloads (strawberries and flowers) from November 28-30.13 The Red Cross reports that 5000 commercial farmers underwent a virtual 100% drop in sales as the export embargo left produce rotting at export crossings.14
Terrible Israeli violence in Gaza.
Despite a Gaza-Israel truce on violence in the first five months of 2007, the first 10 months of 2007 saw 329 Palestinians killed by Israelis, including 39 children. (During the same period, 10 Israelis were killed by Palestinians.) Two-thirds of all Palestinian deaths were in Gaza.15
Israel blocks Medical Evacuations from Gaza.
Israel arbitrarily cites “security concerns” when preventing exit permits for emergency medical cases from Gaza. In addition to the administrative harassment that evacuees must go through, they are also sometimes required to provide “information” to Israeli intelligence officers in order to get exit approval. According to HRW, “Israel’s denial of medical care to those in urgent need amounts to collective punishment against the population, which violates international law… Denying treatment to a 16-year-old girl with a congenital heart defect doesn’t make Israel any safer.”16 Eight patients died while awaiting exit permits from Gaza in November alone.17
Israel blocks Gazan students from studying abroad.
After the summer of 2007, Israel has denied exit permits to approximately 670 Gaza students with credentials to study abroad in the Middle East and the West. According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), “Israel should not make young people seeking education pay the price for its conflict with a political or military group.”
Not having read that for a while I noted the argument “Gaza is no longer occupied by us” is tied to the Nov 2007 declaration by Israel that Gaza is “hostile territory”, not the unilateral “disengagement” of 2005 which is what Regev and the other hasbarbots regularly say nowadays.
Also – “subsistence conditions” were imposed on Gaza during the summer of 2006, making the blockade 4 years old, not three as was commonly reported after the flotilla raid.
Terribly sad to read about the hundreds and hundreds killed by the IDF – this fact sheet was written in Jan 2008, 11 months BEFORE the Gaza Massacre.