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September 2009

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Leaked UN report echoes Goldstone and says Israeli blockade is leading to the ‘de-development’ of Gaza

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Susan Rice may want to discount the Goldstone report because she believes “the focus should be the future,” but unfortunately many of issues that Justice Goldstone highlighted as “a crisis of human dignity” continue today.

The Guardian is reporting on a leaked UN report which says the ongoing Israeli blockade of Gaza is leading to “a gradual process of de-development across all sectors, devastating livelihoods, increasing unemployment and resulting in increased aid dependency amongst the population.” Here are some of the statistics from the report:

Goldstone went to Gaza’s Ground Zero: the police massacre

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One achievement of the Goldstone Mission report to the UN Human Rights Council that my country and Israel are battling is that it singles out the thunderclap that started the Gaza onslaught on the morning of December 27, 2008: when Israel hit a graduation ceremony at the Gaza police academy, killing scores of young police cadets. That attack played a significant part in turning the world against the slaughter. When I visited Gaza in May-June, I heard the Gazans calling this “our ground zero.” I’m a terrible photographer, but look at my foto above, a billboard of some of the police dead, outside the central police station in Gaza City one night.

Reader, we had those very same billboards and remembrances all around New York after 9/11.