Activism

Over 30,000 people tuned into a virtual rally calling for an end to the Gaza blockade

On March 30, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), MPower Change, and other Palestinian solidarity groups held a virtual rally to call for an end to the blockade on Gaza. Over 500 people attended the online event, and over 30,000 have viewed it over Facebook. Speakers included Linda Sarsour (MPower Change), Dr. Mona Qasim El-Farr (Middle East Children’s Alliance), and Salem Barameh (Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy)

In addition to the rally, JVP also released a petition that has already been signed by over 15,000 people. It calls on Israel to lift its embargo on Gaza in response to the COVID-19 crisis. “This crisis has been building since Israel’s life-threatening blockade began 13 years ago, and the U.S. is complicit,” it reads.

In conjunction with the rally, a number of Twitter users are using the platform to call on Congress to take action. Using the hashtag #SpreadSolidarity, individuals are tweeting at their elected officials over the blockade.

 

Gaza has only confirmed ten cases of the virus so far, but the situation could quickly devolve into a disaster as a result of the blockade. “The Palestinians of Gaza have no room to practice the social distancing recommended by public health experts, and their health care system, which for decades has been starved of resources, will be unable to cope,” wrote Neve Gordon in The Nation recently, It is also very unlikely that other countries will reach out to help, given their own virus crisis and the unfolding global economic meltdown.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=33&v=nhmD0To_siw&feature=emb_logo
Video: “Israel’s blockade of Gaza and the coronavirus”

The legal status of “Israel’s” now 15 year blockade of the Gaza Strip:
The International Committee of the Red Cross: “The whole of Gaza’s civilian population is being punished for acts for which they bear no responsibility. The closure therefore constitutes a collective punishment imposed in clear violation of Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law. The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, ratified by Israel, bans collective punishment of a civilian population.”

“Israel’s” strategy regarding the Gaza Strip:
As is now common knowledge among enlightened folk, the “collective punishment imposed [on the Gaza Strip by Israel] in clear violation of…international humanitarian law”, was carefully planned by “Israel’s” government in 2004: “‘The significance of the [then proposed] disengagement plan [from the Gaza Strip, implemented in 2005] is the freezing of the peace process,’ Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s senior adviser Dov Weisglass has told Ha’aretz. ‘And when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda. And all this with authority and permission. All with a [U.S.] presidential blessing [i.e. President George Bush] and the ratification of both houses of Congress.’ Weisglass, who was one of the initiators of the disengagement plan, was speaking in an interview with Ha’aretz for the Friday Magazine. ‘The disengagement is actually formaldehyde,’ he said. ‘It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians.’ (Top PM Aide: Gaza Plan Aims to Freeze the Peace Process, Ha’aretz, October 6, 2004)

Ironically, maybe Israel’s imposed isolation of the people of Gaza from the rest of the world will work in Gaza’s favor for once. That’s not to say that there isn’t a crisis brewing nor that Israel doesn’t have a moral and humanitarian responsibility to provide what these people need to survive this pandemic with the least loss of life. But, by putting these people in the equivalent of solitary confinement, maybe the spread of the virus will be significantly less than it would have been if Gazans had the freedom to travel like the rest of us.

Anyway, let’s hope this is true, and that Israelis will finally open their hearts and give Gazans the essential PPE they need to fight this.