'Gaza is a jail. Nobody is allowed to leave. We are all starving now'

[muriel_volestrangler]

Gaza is dying. The Israeli siege of the Palestinian enclave is so tight that its people are on the edge of starvation. Here on the shores of the Mediterranean a great tragedy is taking place that is being ignored because the world's attention has been diverted by wars in Lebanon and Iraq.

A whole society is being destroyed. There are 1.5 million Palestinians imprisoned in the most heavily populated area in the world. Israel has stopped all trade. It has even forbidden fishermen to go far from the shore so they wade into the surf to try vainly to catch fish with hand-thrown nets.

Many people are being killed by Israeli incursions that occur every day by land and air. A total of 262 people have been killed and 1,200 wounded, of whom 60 had arms or legs amputated, since 25 June, says Dr Juma al-Saqa, the director of the al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City which is fast running out of medicine. Of these, 64 were children and 26 women. This bloody conflict in Gaza has so far received only a fraction of the attention given by the international media to the war in Lebanon.

It was on 25 June that the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was taken captive and two other soldiers were killed by Palestinian militants who used a tunnel to get out of the Gaza Strip. In the aftermath of this, writes Gideon Levy in the daily Haaretz, the Israeli army "has been rampaging through Gaza - there's no other word to describe it - killing and demolishing, bombing and shelling, indiscriminately". Gaza has essentially been reoccupied since Israeli troops and tanks come and go at will. In the northern district of Shajhayeh they took over several houses last week and stayed five days. By the time they withdrew, 22 Palestinians had been killed, three houses were destroyed and groves of olive, citrus and almond trees had been bulldozed.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1372026.ece

[Name removed]

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[mike_c]

2. "A whole society is being destroyed."

Is it genocide yet?

[msongs]

4. israelis learned a lot from Che Guevara, your hero.... nt

[mike_c]

7. LOL-- I chose the Che avatar from the DU list-- it's "off the rack...."

OT, but I rotate avatars occasionally, just because I like to pick new ones. I was reading Jon Lee Anderson's biography of Che when I last rotated. I wouldn't call him my "hero." I do think he was a fascinating man, although I wouldn't have wanted to live his life. Hmm, was he heroic? I think heroism is often relative, i.e. some people live lives that are exactly right for their time-- I think in some ways Che's life was like that, at least through the early years of the Cuban revolution. Afterward, maybe not so much-- the Congo, Bolivia-- but then, who knows what the future would have held had he returned to Cuba? Or if he even could have returned?

Oh well, enough with the OT musings. What do you mean about the Israelis learning from him? That seemed a curious statement.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

44. Yes, it is and it's sponsored by us.

[Name removed]

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[breakaleg]

5. This is insane!

I cannot fathom how / why Israel is able to get away with this.

What did this man do to the IDF?

"Fuad al-Tuba, the 61-year-old farmer who owned a farm here, said: "They even destroyed 22 of my bee-hives and killed four sheep." He pointed sadly to a field, its brown sandy earth churned up by tracks of bulldozers, where the stumps of trees and broken branches with wilting leaves lay in heaps. Near by a yellow car was standing on its nose in the middle of a heap of concrete blocks that had once been a small house."

The actions of the IDF are indefensible. It's one thing to go after the fighters, but they seem to target the civilians as well for no other reason than because they can.

How often are IDF soldiers held accountable for these types of actions? Perhaps the answer is, they have carte blanche to do whatever the heck they want.

[lumpy]

31. This is just evil in action.

There is just no other way to describe the horrible crimes being committed against the people of Gaza. Insane and unbalanced.

[Fridays Child]

6. This needs a big light shined on it.

Edit: I'm sorry to learn that I-P threads can't go to the Greatest page. Can this be re-posted in GD? It deserves attention.

[lumpy]

34. It certainly does deserve front page.

Posters don't like to come to the I/P forum because it is so discouraging; consequently those who rely on DU for openings to the news miss out on what is going on in Gaza,

[katinmn]

49. My thread on this was in GD for over 13 hours. 17 recs

before being re-directed to I/P about 5 minutes ago.

It was a pretty good run.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x148524

[msmcghee]

8. Perhaps I missed it but nowhere can I find any suggestion . .

. . that if the kidnapped soldier were released and no more rockets are fired into Israel - that perhaps their lives might improve. You think?

It may make Hamas leaders feel quite bold to be able to confront Israel this way - but they have been depending on Israel's desire not to appear as too brutal in the past.

When Israel withdrew all forces from Gaza I suspect that they redid the calculations. Perhaps Hamas would be wise to run the math again too.

[mike_c]

9. blaming the victims is a time honored way to divert attention...

...from the crimes committed against them. Let's assume that everything you said is true, just to get it out of the way. Does that justify what Israel is doing, and has done, to the non-combatants of Gaza? Does it justify the collective punishment of the roughly 1.4 million people living in Gaza, many of them as multi-generational refugees from Israeli oppression that has gone on for decades?

Let's agree that Hamas is inherently evil, that its simple existence is a stain upon the earth. Let's agree that the Palestinians have no love for Israel. You see, even if the world acknowledges all of these things, it would not lessen the egregiousness of the crimes Israel has committed. The overwhelming majority of Palestinian victims are civilians, targeted indescriminantly or just squeezed for too long beneath a brutal occupation that ultimately wears them down and kills them. At best, it is collective punishment on a massive scale. It is an atrocious crime, no matter how bad Hamas might be, because it is wildly disproportionate to any injury committed against Israel. It is a crime because it is done in support of deliberate apartheid-- and now it has grown far worse than anything the Afrikaans ever committed.

[msmcghee]

11. Hamas kidnapped an IDF soldier.

Israel wants him back. Israel has the military might to apply progressively greater pressure to the people of Gaza - who elected Hamas to run their affairs - to secure that soldier's release.

That's the reality. The question is - will the complaints of the Gaza-ites as picked up and expressed to Israel by other states - be enough to cause Israel to release the presure - before the pressure becomes so great on Gaza that they demand from hamas that the soldier be realeased.

It seems to me that it is in Israel's interest to increase the pressure as quickly as practical - before the calls from outside Gaza become too loud. It seems to me that the pressure on Gaza is not high enough yet to cause Hamas to release the soldier.

What do you think?

[mike_c]

13. I think that what you're defending is a crime against humanity....

It is against international law for armies (and the governments they represent) to "apply progressively greater pressure" to civilian populations under occupation as a means of punishing combatants. It is utterly immoral, abhored by civilized people. I also think the "kidnapped soldier" is a POW, and hope that he is being treated accordingly, but it is hard to imagine that his life is worth the number that Israel has murdered since his capture. Israel must regard Palestinian lives as cheap beyond measure.

[msmcghee]

16. As you said,

" . . but it is hard to imagine that his life is worth the number that Israel has murdered since his capture."

I agree. We will now find out how many Palestinian lives Hamas believes that IDF soldier is worth.

[mike_c]

18. that is dishonest at best....

It is another attempt to blame the victims. Hamas isn't killing Palestinians. Israel is killing them. In fact, there is no direct evidence that Hamas is even responsible for capturing Shalit-- the al-Qassam Brigades is only one of three groups claiming responsibility, and is not the governing branch of Hamas in any event.

Even if we accept that Hamas is responsible for capturing Shalit, Israel has deliberately targeted non-combatants under an occupation and is killing, maiming, and depriving them as collective punishment-- no circumstances can alter the nature of that crime. Furthermore, Shalit was a soldier engaged in hostilities against the Palestinians. What you seek is to divert attention elsewhere, so that we will waste our time talking about what Hamas could or could not do, when the victims are the people of Gaza and the crimes against peace are being committed by Israel, not by the Palestinians who are being killed. Now Israel is starving them as well as bombing them, bulldozing their homes and farms, depriving them of access to medical attention, etc. Hamas is not responsible for any of those actions.

[breakaleg]

15. I can't believe you just said that they should increase the pressure

on innocent civilians! What makes you think those civilians have the power to force Hamas to release that soldier?

[breakaleg]

14. Are you endorsing collective punishment? Because

making all Palestinians pay for the actions of a few is exactly that.

[msmcghee]

17. Endorsement has nothing to with it.

Israel has the guns and power - Hamas is betting on diplomatic pressure to rescue their ass.

I hate to see people gamble with the lives of their citizens . . because invariably governments that do that don't value their citizens' lives very much . . and lots of them will probably die in the process.

As I said in another post . . we will now find out how many Palestinian lives Hamas believes one IDF soldier is worth.

[breakaleg]

19. sounds to me like you realize that endorsing this is not wise so

you choose to dance around the question.

you either endorse it or you don't. and based on your words, you do.

[Tom Joad]

23. Give him credit for honesty.

[msmcghee]

24. I would not presume to tell Israel . .

. . how to deal with the kidnapping of one of her soldiers. Israel left Gaza and within days Hamas declared war on Israel by firing rockets across the border, sending saboteurs into Israel through a tunnel with explosives and kidnapping a soldier - obviously a planned strategy with much in common with the campaign by Hizbullah on the Northern border a short time later.

I used to believe that starting wars was wrong and those who start them deserve what they get. I am trying to see Mr. Magistrate's position that it makes no difference who starts them and there is no morality involved.

I'll have to admit that once they are started the side that has more power and guns and manages things best usually wins. And I will admit that whether it is immoral to start wars or not - it is probably very unwise for those who have fewer guns and less power - to start them with those that have more.

About the collective punishment thing. It seems that Israel highly values the lives of its soldiers. And that when someone who is valued is kidnapped - that is seen as a very outrageous insult - and those who have been insulted in that very personal way will do whatever is in their power to get them returned. That's what Israel is doing. While it is not my place to endorse them I could hardy blame them for that. I'm sure if I was that Israeli soldier or a family member I would very much approve.

How many Palestinian lives do you think one Israeli soldier is worth? How many Palestinians will die before you get angry at Hamas - and demand that the soldier be released - instead of venting your anger at Israel for trying to get him back? How hard would it be just to release him to his family so he can continue his life - and so that the Palestinians in Gaza could get on with theirs?

The complaints by some here that it is not certain who kidnapped him are disingenuous. If Hamas called Israeli officials in and pledged to work with them to get the soldier released from whoever is holding him - as any responsible government would do that was not criminally involved themselves - I suspect that Israel would relieve considerable pressure on the citizens of Gaza.

I'd like to see that happen but I have little hope.

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[breakaleg]

27. No, I'm not.

And I considered making that statement above, but I decided that if someone accused me of that, it just meant they read out of my statement what they wanted, and didn't bother with the truth.

I'm saying we should stand up when people get trampled on BEFORE it gets to a point when it's too late. Just like people should have stood up in Germany at the beginning, when they saw what was happening.

Is there a threshold or something that Gaza needs to reach before we, the world are obligated to stand up and say "ok. they've now killed xxxxxx Palestinians. That's enough. You must stop now."

Because it seems to me, that when innocent civilians, including children are killed, we don't need to wait until there's a hundred or a thousand or more before we can recognize they need our help.

But you go ahead and see in my statement what you want.

[msmcghee]

28. You ask,

"Is there a threshold or something that Gaza needs to reach before we, the world are obligated to stand up and say "ok. they've now killed xxxxxx Palestinians. That's enough. You must stop now."

You just don't get it. Hamas has complete control over that number. Hamas can say "enough" at any time that Hamas chooses to say it.

And is this extortion? Is Israel demanding gold, jewels or land in exchange?

Israel is only asking for the return of what was stolen from her. For you not to see this - for you to claim that Israel is killing innocent Palestinains for no reason and the world should intervene must require a very deep seated hatred of the people of Israel - as I said in the last post.

[breakaleg]

29. Last comment.

First of all, it's Israel that's shooting the weapons, doing the killing. You are basically saying that all Palestine has to do is give in to the pressure and Israel will stop. When Israel has already determined that their lives are worthless. Would you stop fighting if someone told you your life was worthless and you might as well give up?

You are putting the onus on the VICTIM to stop the violence when it's the AGGRESSOR that is responsible.

And on the extortion charge - are you nuts? Israel is occupying Palestinian land and has been for over 40 years!!! They want gold and jewels? They want THEIR LAND BACK! Extortion is when you try to get something that ISN'T yours.

Seriously, I'm not wasting any more time on this or you.

[lumpy]

33. "making life difficult for the citizens of Gaza"

It is much worse than making the life "difficult" for the citizens of Gaza for Christ sake. People in Gaza are being murdered, terrorized, their homes/livelyhood being destroyed and you call their lives... DIFFICULT? I guess people can hate that much to committ such crimes against the people of Gaza.

[msmcghee]

43. In the previous post I asked,

"How many Palestinian lives do you think one Israeli soldier is worth? How many Palestinians will die before you get angry at Hamas - and demand that the soldier be released - instead of venting your anger at Israel for trying to get him back? How hard would it be just to release him to his family so he can continue his life - and so that the Palestinians in Gaza could get on with theirs?"

It seems we are getting closer to the answer - but I see another element is now in the mix - making things a little more complicated. I found this in today's JP:

Abbas willing to meet with Olmert

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said Friday that he was willing to meet with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and would not set any conditions for any such meeting.

Abbas said that efforts were continuing to be made toward the release of kidnapped IDF Cpl. Gilad Shalit in exchange for the release of Palestinian security prisoners currently incarcerated in Israel, and Abbas hoped that many Palestinians would be freed as part of an exchange agreement, Israel Radio reported. <snip>

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154526035254&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull

I see that Abbas is hoping to have many Hamas prisoners released from Israeli prisons. That shows that the pain and suffering and deaths of the people of Gaza is the price being paid - to have some of his militia (hopefully) released from jail. He seems to have no problem trading off the pain and even the actual lives (according to some here) of Palestinian citizens against the freedom of his fighters.

He is saying - if you don't release my prisoners, I'll keep your soldier and allow more Palestinians to die - until the world gets really pissed off at you.

However, his administration his now under attack from his own citizens who are getting a bit impatient with his "tough-guy" strategy against Israel. When the leader of Hamas says he is willing to negotiate with "no conditions" - to me that means he's got nothing and is hoping to come out of this alive.

I guess were going to see how well all this works out for him.

[Jcrowley]

48. A few points

The day previous a team of Israeli commandos had entered the Gaza Strip to “detain” two Palestinians Israel claims are members of Hamas.

The significance of the mission was alluded to in a final phrase describing this as “the first arrest raid in the territory since Israel pulled out of the area a year ago”. More precisely, it was the first time the Israeli army had re-entered the Gaza Strip, directly violating Palestinian control of the territory, since it supposedly left in August last year.

The next day another daring mission was being launched in Gaza that would attract far more attention from the corporate media – and prompt far more concern.

Shortly before dawn, armed Palestinians slipped past Israeli military defences to launch an attack on an army post close by Gaza called Kerem Shalom. They sneaked through a half-mile underground tunnel dug under an Israeli-built electronic fence that surrounds the Strip and threw grenades at a tank, killing two soldiers inside. Seizing another, wounded soldier the gunmen then disappeared back into Gaza.

Whereas the Israeli “arrest raid” had passed with barely a murmur, the Palestinian attack a day later received very different coverage. The Palestinian attack was deemed by the papers of record “a major escalation in cross-border tensions”. So why was the Palestinian attack on an Israeli army post an escalation, while the Israeli raid into Gaza the previous day was not? Both were similar actions: violations of a neighbor’s territory.

The Palestinians could justify attacking the military post because the Israeli army has been using it and other fortified positions to fire hundreds of shells into Gaza that have contributed to some 30 civilian deaths over the preceding weeks. Israel could justify launching its mission into Gaza because it blames the two men it seized for being behind some of the hundreds of home-made Qassam rockets that have been fired out of Gaza, mostly ineffectually, but occasionally harming Israeli civilians in the border town of Sderot.

So why was the Palestinian attack, and not the earlier Israeli raid, an escalation?

On a related note let us bear in mind Israel has also been kidnapping innocent Lebanese citizens: fishermen and shepherds.

[Tom Joad]

21. A startling admission! You are saying that the people of Gaza are

being allowed to suffer, and even die, in Israel's effort to free Shalit.

"we will now find out how many Palestinian lives Hamas believes one IDF soldier is worth"

That is just another form of terrorism, that is, attacking the civilian population to gain political concessions.

I do appreciate you telling it like it is.

[Name removed]

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[mike_c]

12. mocking the suffering, the dead and dying...?

Wow. That was quite a post.

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

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[Tom Joad]

22. "put Palestinians on a diet but not make them die of hunger."

That was a joke by Dov Weisglass, (oh those funny men) was saying to the Israeli cabinet not long ago. Looks like some of them are dying now.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=10500

[lumpy]

35. Bloodthirsty

and worse.

[Name removed]

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[Eugene]

32. UN warns of Gaza 'breaking point' (BBC)

Last Updated: Friday, 8 September 2006, 08:21 GMT 09:21 UK

UN warns of Gaza 'breaking point'

Living conditions for Palestinians in Gaza have reached breaking point,
a senior UN official has said.

The warning came from Karen Abuzayd, head of the UN Relief and Works
Agency.

She said Israeli military action in Gaza over recent weeks was creating
suffering and mass despair, rather than any desire for political compromise.

-snip-

Ms Abuzayd called for a UN observer mission to be sent to the territory.

-snip-

Full article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5326378.stm

[pelsar]

36. so why did the palestenians in gaza....

try to kill israelis after israel left gaza.....?

why did they destroy the greenhouses, complete with ready made markets in europe?

why didnt they pressure egypt to further open up the border for its markets, to send in food, medicine and export?

why did they insist on attempting to cross the intl border to kill israeli farmers and citizens?

and finally why doesnt the govt of gaza just give back the israeli solider or (as egypt and jordan do) show good faith and start looking for him.....

______

funny thing about the solution....its very simple.....all the palestenains have to do is turn their energies on their own economy and get to work on it (but first stop trying to kill israelis and return the solider).....

and i have no idea why people here dont blame the continual kassams falling on israel as a declaration of war, terrorism, war crimes etc...after all isnt attempting to murder a 'people" just because of their ethnic and nationality a crime? (I believe some have called that genocide)

and as far as what the IDF is doing.....i'm a bit short of suggestions...anybody here got anything i can pass on to the citizens of sedrot and other kassam victims?....as well as the soldiers family?

[mike_c]

37. more attempts to change the subject and blame the victims....

The OP is not about any of those things, and you are simply trying to dodge the main topic by misdirecting discussion elsewhere. The OP is about the disproportionate Israeli oppression in Gaza-- something that remains a crime NO MATTER what Hamas and the Palestinians do.

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[The Magistrate]

46. It Is Not Changing The Subject, Mr. C

It is a simple statement of fact that these things would not be occuring if it were not for certain recent violent actions by Arab Palestinian militant bodies. They are in the nature of foreseeable consequences, courted deliberately by the militants, because a reaction like this from Israel serves their own political agendas. To try and discuss the subject without reference to this is akin to discussing how a person is dead of broken organs on the ground without mention of his leap from a seventh storey rooftop.

[Violet_Crumble]

47. It was changing the subject...

Because what you describe and what was posted in the post Mike replied to are entirely different things. I do agree that nothing happens in a vacuum, but that applies to many things that happen in this conflict. Totally out of proportion and deadly reactions by Israel, and suicide bombings come straight to mind as things that don't happen in a vacuum nor are justifiable, but are foreseeable consequences...

[Englander]

38. UNDP: Losses in Gaza Strip Estimate $46 Million

JERUSALEM, September 7, 2006 (WAFA)- United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) reported that the estimated total cost of the damages in the Gaza Strip assessed for the period between June 28 and August 27, 2006 is around $46 million.

In an executive summary of a report on the damages in Gaza, issued Wednesday, the UNDP said that Israeli troops launched a military offensive in the Gaza strip codenamed "Operation Summer Rains"on 28 June 2006 killing over 200 Palestinians, including 44 children.

It added that the "operation "resulted in extensive damage to Palestinian infrastructure and economy in the Gaza strip.

UNDP reported that damages across sectors are as follows:

1. Municipal infrastructure (including bridges water and wastewater lines and roads) $8 million

2. Energy (including the electricity lines and power station) $8 million

3. Agriculture (including olives and citrus orchards, greenhouses, poultries and livestock farms, water wells) $ 23.5 million

4. Housing $2 million

5. Public buildings (both governmental and NGO) $4.2 million, and

6. Industry $0.3 million

The UNDP added that the damage estimates per Governorate are:

1. Gaza - $13.5 million

2. Middle - $12 million

3. Rafah - $9.6 million

4. North - $6.6 million

5. Khan Younis - US$ 4.2 millions

http://english.wafa.ps/body.asp?id=7408

[Spinoza]

42. In another post,

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=124&topic_id=147793&mesg_id=148227

before reading this board, I listed some of the following attitudes of many on the left towards Israel which I felt did NOT necessarily represent classic Jew hatred but still exhibited maifestations of Anti-Semitism. I wrote this yesterday.

repeatedly apply double standards against Israel--
always believe Israeli actions have the worst possible motivations--
appear incapable of any compassion toward a tiny, democratic and blood-soaked nation--
never see Israeli actions in context--
be completely incapable of answering Pelsar's question of how EXACTLY can Israel protect its people when Gaza and Lebanon show that even complete Israeli withdrawal doesn't stop the missiles--
not immediately laugh to scorn stories of 'shrunken corpses'--
etc., etc., etc.

[newyorican]

45. Framing the debate...defined

A sloppy attempt, but an attempt none-the-less.

[Jcrowley]

50. Palestinians forced to scavenge for food on rubbish dumps

Palestinians forced to scavenge for food on rubbish dumps
By Patrick Cockburn in Jerusalem
Published: 09 September 2006

The Israeli military and economic siege of Gaza has led to a collapse in Palestinian living conditions and many people only survive by looking for scraps of food in rubbish dumps, say international aid agencies.

"The pressure and tactics have not resulted in a desire for compromise," Karen Abuzayd, the head of the UN Relief and Works Agency is said to have warned. "But rather they have created mass despair, anger and a sense of hopelessness and abandonment."

Israel closed the entry and exit points into the Gaza Strip, home to 1.5 million Palestinians, on 25 June and has conducted frequent raids and bombings that have killed 262 people and wounded 1,200. The crisis in Gaza has been largely ignored by the rest of the world, which has been absorbed by the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon.

"Women in Gaza tell me they are eating only one meal a day, bread with tomatoes or cheap vegetables," said Kirstie Campbell of the UN's World Food Programme, which is feeding 235,000 people. She added that in June, since when the crisis has worsened, some 70 per cent of people in Gaza could not meet their family's food needs. "People are raiding garbage dumps," she said.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1431114.ece