Freedom Rider: Slow Death in Gaza
Collective Punishment is a War Crime | 05.06.2008 19:06 | Anti-racism | World
Freedom Rider: Slow Death in Gaza
By BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
June 4, 2008
Each American claim to moral authority becomes a foul excretion in light of U.S. complicity in Israel's barbaric and illegal treatment of the Palestinians. Washington deploys its superpower apparatus to smother dissent against its Middle East policy in Europe and elsewhere, leaving former president Jimmy Carter and Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu as lonely defenders of Palestinian human rights. No change in American policy is on the horizon, as "the rot in America goes beyond this administration, and so does the rot in Israel." The "abomination," as Desmond Tutu describes it, against 1.6 million people in Palestine shows the hypocrisy of American and Israeli pretenses to civilization.
"The Europeans seem to be quite satisfied acting as America's puppet states."
How would the civilized world react if 1.6 million people were kept imprisoned, denied access to food, clean water, sanitation facilities and electricity? If those people were also prevented from fleeing their oppression, would Americans and Europeans speak out in protest?
If those aforesaid people lived in Gaza, and were oppressed by Israel, then the civilized world would say and do absolutely nothing. Israel is the Untied States' number one client state, and fear of American power has silenced everyone on earth who has the power to stop this atrocity.
While Tibet and Darfur are the subjects of selective cause celebre condemnation, there are almost no voices raised publicly on behalf of Palestinians, who live in danger of indiscriminate shelling and gunfire, whose homes are destroyed by Israeli tanks, and who are literally denied an exit from their hellish existence. While they suffer, Israel continues to build settlements on what is rightfully Palestinian land.
It is not surprising that Washington takes no action against Israel, but silence from the rest of the world community is the most shocking aspect of this continued violation of human rights. Former president Jimmy Carter and Nobel peace prize laureate Desmond Tutu are alone among world leaders who openly condemn the Israeli government and the complicit silence from other nations.
Gaza's woes began in 2006 when its people voted for a government headed by Hamas, the Palestinian group that Israel and the U.S. didn't like. The United States then demanded a blockade of Gaza and the rest of the so-called Quartet (European Union, Russia, the United Nations) went along. Carter has revealed the ugly truth about this decision."The Quartet's final document had been drafted in Washington in advance, and not a line was changed."
"Former president Jimmy Carter and Nobel peace prize laureate Desmond Tutu are alone among world leaders who openly condemn the Israeli government."
Carter called the blockade that has imprisoned more than 1 million people a "human rights crime." He has called on the other Quartet members to break with the United States and end the blockade and he has tried in vain to encourage the Europeans to oppose American policy. "Why not? They're not our vassals. They occupy an equal position with the U.S." Apparently Carter has given Europeans more credit than they give themselves. They seem to be quite satisfied acting as America's puppet states.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu has joined Carter in calling for international action to end Gaza's suffering. He recently led a United Nations Human Rights Council delegation to Gaza specifically to investigate the 2006 killings of 19 members of a Palestinian family whose homes were destroyed by Israeli rocket fire in the town of Beit Hanoun.
The Israeli government made no pretense of showing Tutu the respect that he receives everywhere else on earth. The government refused to grant him and the other members of his party entry into Israel, and they were forced to enter Gaza through Egypt. Tutu's conclusions about the situation in Gaza were inescapable and obvious. Yet the words may seem odd to American ears, who never hear a discouraging word about their government or Israel's.
"This is not something you want to wish on your worst enemy," said Tutu. He called the situation in Gaza "abominable" and condemned the "silent complicity" of the world community. He called the killings at Beit Hanoun a "massacre" and in a diplomatic understatement said that Israel's explanations of the killings "fell short of accountability."
"Gazans have nothing to look forward to except more suffering."
The situation in Gaza is of course a result of America's support of Israel. In the past that support was at least tacitly criticized by the world community, but now shows signs of being accepted in much the same way that all of America's aggression has become accepted.
America is feared like a bully on the playground and European nations have decided to be quiet and let Bush have his way. Jimmy Carter said they should not be "supine" but they are, and so they acquiesce, living in denial and inertia while running out the clock until January 2009 in hopes of getting a better deal.
They won't. The rot in America goes beyond this administration, and so does the rot in Israel. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert may be forced to resign because he has been caught taking bribes from a rich American. United States foreign policy will not change with a new administration. Only Jimmy Carter and Desmond Tutu will have anything to say about the crime being committed in Gaza, but neither of them are in power, so their words won't matter at all. Gazans have nothing to look forward to except more suffering, more Beit Hanouns and more silence from the rest of the world.
Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.Com. Ms. Kimberley maintains an edifying and frequently updated blog at freedomrider.blogspot.com. More of her work is also available at her Black Agenda Report archive page.
www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=644&Itemid=1
With economic siege comes malnutrition
Rami Almeghari writing from the occupied Gaza Strip, Live from Palestine
Palestinian children in Gaza protest Israel's crippling siege on the Gaza Strip, April 2008. (Wissam Nassar/MaanImages)
June 4, 2008
"Can you imagine that when a child of mine asks me for one shekel [USD 0.30], I can't afford to give it to him? That's why I hide from my children from early in the morning until evening."
Naser al-Batran is a 41-year-old father of five children living in the central Gaza Strip. He used to work for a weaving factory inside Israel but found himself jobless after Israel's total closure of Gaza's travel and commercial crossings in June 2007, worsening an already difficult economic situation since Israel began shutting out Palestinian laborers years ago.
"Life has become miserable, extremely miserable," he said.
The crippling economic blockade of the Gaza Strip colors all aspects of life there. According to the Hamas-run Palestinian Health Ministry, 70 percent of Gaza's 1.5 million residents suffer from anemia, including 44 percent of pregnant women.
Malnutrition among Palestinian children has also increased over the past 11 months, affecting more than 10 percent of Gaza's children under the age of 18, according to the Gaza City-based Ard al-Insan health organization.
A recent survey conducted by Ard al-Insan revealed that around 10.4 percent of households in Gaza City and in the northern and southern Gaza Strip suffer from chronic malnutrition. Stunting and low birth weights are also affecting children there.
"The inability of the majority of Palestinian households to purchase basic food items has increased the magnitude of this health problem," explained Dr. Adnan Abdel Aziz al-Wahadi, the head of the health care unit of Ard Al-Insan.
"In comparison with previous times, the demand for health and nutrition care has increased over the past 11 months, as evidenced, for example, by a survey conducted in 2003 indicating that only 3.4 percent of households had malnutrition during that year," Dr. al-Wahadi explained.
A large number of households in Gaza are currently unable to afford essential food items. Israel's siege and collective punishment on the Gaza Strip following the democratically-elected Hamas government's takeover there a year ago has been characterized by severe restrictions on food and fuel imports.
The situation means that Palestinians in Gaza are simply unable to afford former staples. Mohammed Mohareb, a fishmonger at the Nuseirat refugee camp market in the central Gaza Strip, complained of the residents' inability to buy fish.
"Prior to these circumstances, I would bring in 100 boxes of fish, but now I only bring in 20, and I still can't sell all of the fish. Now, I lose much more than I earn," he said.
Nour al-Din Abu-Saqer, a fruit vendor, standing idle behind his fruit stand in the Maghazi refugee camp market in the central Gaza Strip, lamented, "Over the past couple of months, people have become even less likely to buy fruit, bearing in mind that for the past 11 months we have been selling less fruit than we used to."
"We only sell fruit during the first week of each month when government employees obtain their salaries. During the rest of the month, many of our goods perish as sales go down. The prices are beyond people's purchasing power, especially for those who are unemployed," he explained.
The World Food Program states that 80 percent of households in the Gaza Strip depend on international food aid as the unemployment rate has reached more than 80 percent.
More than 95 percent of Gaza's industrial sector, involving textiles, canneries, weaving factories and metal workshops has already stopped working, rendering 32,000 laborers jobless.
Last month, Israel further reduced shipments of diesel, cooking gas, and food into the Gaza Strip, thus aggravating the deteriorating living conditions to the extent that many motorists were forced to use cooking oil instead of diesel to keep their vehicles running.
"We are a society with no natural resources; the only resource we have is the human one, so unless there is adequate food and health, how are we supposed to develop a nation?" wondered Dr. al-Wahadi. For the time being, it seems this question will remain unanswered.
Rami Almeghari is currently contributor to several media outlets including the Palestine Chronicle, IMEMC, The Electronic Intifada and Free Speech Radio News. Rami is also a former senior English translator at and editor in chief of the international press center of the Gaza-based Palestinian Information Service. He can be contacted at rami_almeghari at hotmail.com.
electronicintifada.net/v2/article9588.shtml
Warnings Pour in For Israel to Cease Collective Punishment
http://winnipeg.indymedia.org/item.php?10555S
Red Cross Condemns Gaza Collective Punishment (the First Round)
winnipeg.indymedia.org/item.php?8994S
As Predicted: Gaza Reoccupation Planned
www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/01/388658.html
Probe: At Least Half of Palestinians Killed by IDF Were Civilians
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/944276.html
Israeli Attacks on Palestinians, Killings, Doubled Since Annapolis
www.uruknet.de/?p=m40008&hd=&size=1&l=e
UN Condemns Collective Punishment of Gaza
www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/01/389757.html?c=on#c187937
It's All Right, I'm Only Bleeding
http://winnipeg.indymedia.org/item.php?10557S
Israel, World Jewry Drift Apart
http://winnipeg.indymedia.org/item.php?10554S
Jewish Groups Condemn Collective Punishment of Gaza
http://winnipeg.indymedia.org/item.php?10877S
Poll Reveals Neo-Con Zionist Groups Unrepresentative
www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/12/12/ajc_poll/index.html
An invention called 'the Jewish people'
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/959229.html
Zionism's Support Faltering
www.israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/7472/index.php
Western Jews Revolt Against Zionist Bully Tactics
www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/world/2007/03/364749.html
By BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
June 4, 2008
Each American claim to moral authority becomes a foul excretion in light of U.S. complicity in Israel's barbaric and illegal treatment of the Palestinians. Washington deploys its superpower apparatus to smother dissent against its Middle East policy in Europe and elsewhere, leaving former president Jimmy Carter and Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu as lonely defenders of Palestinian human rights. No change in American policy is on the horizon, as "the rot in America goes beyond this administration, and so does the rot in Israel." The "abomination," as Desmond Tutu describes it, against 1.6 million people in Palestine shows the hypocrisy of American and Israeli pretenses to civilization.
"The Europeans seem to be quite satisfied acting as America's puppet states."
How would the civilized world react if 1.6 million people were kept imprisoned, denied access to food, clean water, sanitation facilities and electricity? If those people were also prevented from fleeing their oppression, would Americans and Europeans speak out in protest?
If those aforesaid people lived in Gaza, and were oppressed by Israel, then the civilized world would say and do absolutely nothing. Israel is the Untied States' number one client state, and fear of American power has silenced everyone on earth who has the power to stop this atrocity.
While Tibet and Darfur are the subjects of selective cause celebre condemnation, there are almost no voices raised publicly on behalf of Palestinians, who live in danger of indiscriminate shelling and gunfire, whose homes are destroyed by Israeli tanks, and who are literally denied an exit from their hellish existence. While they suffer, Israel continues to build settlements on what is rightfully Palestinian land.
It is not surprising that Washington takes no action against Israel, but silence from the rest of the world community is the most shocking aspect of this continued violation of human rights. Former president Jimmy Carter and Nobel peace prize laureate Desmond Tutu are alone among world leaders who openly condemn the Israeli government and the complicit silence from other nations.
Gaza's woes began in 2006 when its people voted for a government headed by Hamas, the Palestinian group that Israel and the U.S. didn't like. The United States then demanded a blockade of Gaza and the rest of the so-called Quartet (European Union, Russia, the United Nations) went along. Carter has revealed the ugly truth about this decision."The Quartet's final document had been drafted in Washington in advance, and not a line was changed."
"Former president Jimmy Carter and Nobel peace prize laureate Desmond Tutu are alone among world leaders who openly condemn the Israeli government."
Carter called the blockade that has imprisoned more than 1 million people a "human rights crime." He has called on the other Quartet members to break with the United States and end the blockade and he has tried in vain to encourage the Europeans to oppose American policy. "Why not? They're not our vassals. They occupy an equal position with the U.S." Apparently Carter has given Europeans more credit than they give themselves. They seem to be quite satisfied acting as America's puppet states.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu has joined Carter in calling for international action to end Gaza's suffering. He recently led a United Nations Human Rights Council delegation to Gaza specifically to investigate the 2006 killings of 19 members of a Palestinian family whose homes were destroyed by Israeli rocket fire in the town of Beit Hanoun.
The Israeli government made no pretense of showing Tutu the respect that he receives everywhere else on earth. The government refused to grant him and the other members of his party entry into Israel, and they were forced to enter Gaza through Egypt. Tutu's conclusions about the situation in Gaza were inescapable and obvious. Yet the words may seem odd to American ears, who never hear a discouraging word about their government or Israel's.
"This is not something you want to wish on your worst enemy," said Tutu. He called the situation in Gaza "abominable" and condemned the "silent complicity" of the world community. He called the killings at Beit Hanoun a "massacre" and in a diplomatic understatement said that Israel's explanations of the killings "fell short of accountability."
"Gazans have nothing to look forward to except more suffering."
The situation in Gaza is of course a result of America's support of Israel. In the past that support was at least tacitly criticized by the world community, but now shows signs of being accepted in much the same way that all of America's aggression has become accepted.
America is feared like a bully on the playground and European nations have decided to be quiet and let Bush have his way. Jimmy Carter said they should not be "supine" but they are, and so they acquiesce, living in denial and inertia while running out the clock until January 2009 in hopes of getting a better deal.
They won't. The rot in America goes beyond this administration, and so does the rot in Israel. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert may be forced to resign because he has been caught taking bribes from a rich American. United States foreign policy will not change with a new administration. Only Jimmy Carter and Desmond Tutu will have anything to say about the crime being committed in Gaza, but neither of them are in power, so their words won't matter at all. Gazans have nothing to look forward to except more suffering, more Beit Hanouns and more silence from the rest of the world.
Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.Com. Ms. Kimberley maintains an edifying and frequently updated blog at freedomrider.blogspot.com. More of her work is also available at her Black Agenda Report archive page.
www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=644&Itemid=1
With economic siege comes malnutrition
Rami Almeghari writing from the occupied Gaza Strip, Live from Palestine
Palestinian children in Gaza protest Israel's crippling siege on the Gaza Strip, April 2008. (Wissam Nassar/MaanImages)
June 4, 2008
"Can you imagine that when a child of mine asks me for one shekel [USD 0.30], I can't afford to give it to him? That's why I hide from my children from early in the morning until evening."
Naser al-Batran is a 41-year-old father of five children living in the central Gaza Strip. He used to work for a weaving factory inside Israel but found himself jobless after Israel's total closure of Gaza's travel and commercial crossings in June 2007, worsening an already difficult economic situation since Israel began shutting out Palestinian laborers years ago.
"Life has become miserable, extremely miserable," he said.
The crippling economic blockade of the Gaza Strip colors all aspects of life there. According to the Hamas-run Palestinian Health Ministry, 70 percent of Gaza's 1.5 million residents suffer from anemia, including 44 percent of pregnant women.
Malnutrition among Palestinian children has also increased over the past 11 months, affecting more than 10 percent of Gaza's children under the age of 18, according to the Gaza City-based Ard al-Insan health organization.
A recent survey conducted by Ard al-Insan revealed that around 10.4 percent of households in Gaza City and in the northern and southern Gaza Strip suffer from chronic malnutrition. Stunting and low birth weights are also affecting children there.
"The inability of the majority of Palestinian households to purchase basic food items has increased the magnitude of this health problem," explained Dr. Adnan Abdel Aziz al-Wahadi, the head of the health care unit of Ard Al-Insan.
"In comparison with previous times, the demand for health and nutrition care has increased over the past 11 months, as evidenced, for example, by a survey conducted in 2003 indicating that only 3.4 percent of households had malnutrition during that year," Dr. al-Wahadi explained.
A large number of households in Gaza are currently unable to afford essential food items. Israel's siege and collective punishment on the Gaza Strip following the democratically-elected Hamas government's takeover there a year ago has been characterized by severe restrictions on food and fuel imports.
The situation means that Palestinians in Gaza are simply unable to afford former staples. Mohammed Mohareb, a fishmonger at the Nuseirat refugee camp market in the central Gaza Strip, complained of the residents' inability to buy fish.
"Prior to these circumstances, I would bring in 100 boxes of fish, but now I only bring in 20, and I still can't sell all of the fish. Now, I lose much more than I earn," he said.
Nour al-Din Abu-Saqer, a fruit vendor, standing idle behind his fruit stand in the Maghazi refugee camp market in the central Gaza Strip, lamented, "Over the past couple of months, people have become even less likely to buy fruit, bearing in mind that for the past 11 months we have been selling less fruit than we used to."
"We only sell fruit during the first week of each month when government employees obtain their salaries. During the rest of the month, many of our goods perish as sales go down. The prices are beyond people's purchasing power, especially for those who are unemployed," he explained.
The World Food Program states that 80 percent of households in the Gaza Strip depend on international food aid as the unemployment rate has reached more than 80 percent.
More than 95 percent of Gaza's industrial sector, involving textiles, canneries, weaving factories and metal workshops has already stopped working, rendering 32,000 laborers jobless.
Last month, Israel further reduced shipments of diesel, cooking gas, and food into the Gaza Strip, thus aggravating the deteriorating living conditions to the extent that many motorists were forced to use cooking oil instead of diesel to keep their vehicles running.
"We are a society with no natural resources; the only resource we have is the human one, so unless there is adequate food and health, how are we supposed to develop a nation?" wondered Dr. al-Wahadi. For the time being, it seems this question will remain unanswered.
Rami Almeghari is currently contributor to several media outlets including the Palestine Chronicle, IMEMC, The Electronic Intifada and Free Speech Radio News. Rami is also a former senior English translator at and editor in chief of the international press center of the Gaza-based Palestinian Information Service. He can be contacted at rami_almeghari at hotmail.com.
electronicintifada.net/v2/article9588.shtml
Warnings Pour in For Israel to Cease Collective Punishment
http://winnipeg.indymedia.org/item.php?10555S Red Cross Condemns Gaza Collective Punishment (the First Round)
winnipeg.indymedia.org/item.php?8994S
As Predicted: Gaza Reoccupation Planned
www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/01/388658.html
Probe: At Least Half of Palestinians Killed by IDF Were Civilians
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/944276.html
Israeli Attacks on Palestinians, Killings, Doubled Since Annapolis
www.uruknet.de/?p=m40008&hd=&size=1&l=e
UN Condemns Collective Punishment of Gaza
www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/01/389757.html?c=on#c187937
It's All Right, I'm Only Bleeding
http://winnipeg.indymedia.org/item.php?10557S Israel, World Jewry Drift Apart
http://winnipeg.indymedia.org/item.php?10554S Jewish Groups Condemn Collective Punishment of Gaza
http://winnipeg.indymedia.org/item.php?10877S Poll Reveals Neo-Con Zionist Groups Unrepresentative
www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/12/12/ajc_poll/index.html
An invention called 'the Jewish people'
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/959229.html
Zionism's Support Faltering
www.israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/7472/index.php
Western Jews Revolt Against Zionist Bully Tactics
www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/world/2007/03/364749.html
Collective Punishment is a War Crime