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Why Won't Israel Allow Gazans to Import Coriander?
In its response to a freedom-of-information suit last week, the state admitted that there is specific list of goods permissible for import to Strip.
The Defense Ministry is refusing - on security grounds, it says - to reveal why Israel prohibits the import into the Gaza Strip of items such as cilantro, sage, jam, chocolate, french fries, dried fruit, fabrics, notebooks empty flowerpots and toys, while allowing cinnamon, plastic buckets and combs.
A Palestinian smuggler climbs down into a tunnel, temporarily closed by Hamas forces, beneath the Egyptian-Gaza border in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip April 14, 2010. (REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa) But in its response to a freedom-of-information suit last week, the state did admit, for the first time, that there is specific list of permissible goods.
The suit, filed in the Tel Aviv administrative court by Gisha: Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, sought to clarify the criteria and procedures the authorities use to determine what goods to allow into Gaza. It was filed after Gazans began claiming that commercial interests inside Israel, and their lobbying power, were determining the permitted items.
In its response, the state "apologized to the court and the plaintiff for inaccuracies presented during oral arguments [in January], due to certain misunderstandings." The inaccuracy in question was its denial of the existence of written directives.
The response included two documents that the state termed drafts that are already being used in practice - one titled "Procedure for Permitting the Entry of Goods into Gaza" and one titled "Procedure for Tracking and Estimating Inventories in Gaza." The latter is supposed to warn of existing or likely shortages.
The state also submitted a third document, a "List of Critical Humanitarian Goods for the Population," whose existence it had previously denied. This list is periodically updated, it said.
A fourth document, called "Foodstuffs Consumption in Gaza - Red Lines," is a draft for internal use only, the state said, "and has never served as a basis for decision-making." Haaretz reporters Uri Blau and Yotam Feldman revealed the existence of this document in a June 2009 investigative report. It apparently determines the minimum nutritional needs of Gaza's population, according to caloric intake and grams of food, parsed by age and gender.
The state seeks to deny Gisha's suit on the grounds that revealing the first three documents would "harm national security and possibly even diplomatic relations." And since the fourth is not a basis for policy, there is no need to reveal it, the state argued.
Gisha filed its response with the court yesterday, in which it reiterated its demand for any documents that determine the goods transfer policy. "It is difficult to imagine how publishing a list of products, such as medications, foodstuffs and hygiene products, or revealing the procedures that determine this list, could harm state security," wrote attorney Tamar Feldman.
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19 Comments so far
Show All["It is difficult to imagine how publishing a list of products, such as medications, foodstuffs and hygiene products, or revealing the procedures that determine this list, could harm state security,"]
No, it's not difficult at all to imagine how publishing a list of products that show they're deliberately trying to starve out the population of Gaza would indeed harm the security of the state.
The 'state' of Israel uses Genocidal torture for their 'security.'
Who will they torture into oblivion after the last Palestinean is dead?
Because we can...
A lot of is vicious harassment and chicanery to the point of sadism. Today, macaroni are importable; tomorrow not. Pencils and sage this week - oops, not anymore! we changed our minds. The point is to demoralize and discourage, to increase the misery. That's another reason there are 4 documents - probably more- Israeli officials can haul out the one that irritates most, this week - perhaps next week, another can be used to justifiy bogus "security concerns". It's all covered, that's why parts seem to contradict each other. I bet if you combined all the documents into one, nothing would be permitted...but then they'd risk the ire of the world. (for a minute or two.)
Some people like to flaunt their superiority and power by engaging in petty sadistic acts of capricious control. We have all met them in various contexts, perhaps at the Post Office or while trying to correct errors by bureaucracies. This can be infuriating because it is irrational and just plain mean. The choices are fruitless resistance or submission. Suppressed anger leads to depression, which is the goal.
Such policies are encouraged by the Israeli state in order to discourage and fatigue the Palestinians. The Palestinians are damaged, but not defeated. Here is some peaceful resistance and fightback by Palestinians against the gratuitous bulldozing of trees.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Bknk8DEjO0
The recent movie "Lemon Tree" shows the sad effects of these malicious policies on Palestinians and also on Israelis who retain any generousity of spirit.
By the way - have you noticed that the Israeli newspaper Haaretz has more informative and sympathetic coverage of the Palestinian situation than almost anything here. You can read Haaretz online.
Joe
Plus a lot of money is being thrown away when previously acceptable goods are tossed out at the crossing. It's about impoverishing the Palestinians.
"It apparently determines the minimum nutritional needs of Gaza's population, according to caloric intake and grams of food, parsed by age and gender"
Does anyone else find this chilling? Does it sound like a concentration camp to anybody?
Talk about things going full circle.
Can we expect a "Work makes you free" sign over the border gate or is that already there?
It is chilling. They control and determine the number of grams (grams!) of each food that the Palestinians can have.
"Procedure for Permitting the Entry of Goods into Gaza".
"Procedure for Tracking and Estimating Inventories in Gaza."
"List of Critical Humanitarian Goods for the Population"
"Foodstuffs Consumption in Gaza - Red Lines"
I know the Nazi analogy is worn out, but how is this not like the level of technocratic control devised by Eichmann or the superior coldness of a Mengele. It is just slower and more drawn out. But the essential assumption of control over life and death is there.
Joe
It is a fact that serious people calculated the amount of calories an inmate/slave in the camps needed to keep going as long as possible while being as productive as he or she could be, before being killed. As for the Palestinians: according to some Israeli politicians they would be on a diet until they learned to behave. I wonder what it must be like to be a Jew, maybe a desendant of people who survived the KZ, who implements these sadistic ideas: what do they see when they look into a mirror?
I would like to know where a person can volunteer to provide these essentials to these poor captives--is this where the USI has learned how to control the masses through deprivation and violence?
There is a group called "Viva Palestina" that gathers normal living supplies for Gaza and the rest of Palestine. They have trouble getting things through the border. The Egyptian leadership colludes with Israel on what is allowed in, despite the fact that 95% of the Egyptian people sympathize with the Palestinians. But they do succeed in delivering goods.
They will be making another trip soon. They have an informative website.
Joe
Thanks for the tip. I just watched a clip on Democracy Now where Amy Goodman speaks to George Galloway about the successful if bloody convoy of medical supplies they managed to get in despite brutal Egyptian police/military. I get mad and then I donate :-)
I've donated to FreeGaza.org. They are about to send some boat with relief aid to Gaza soon to try and break the Israeli blockade.
http://www.freegaza.org/
Israel has become a psychopathic country (and, yes, like the Nazis were psychopathic and sadistic). There are still some 'human beings' there, struggling to keep their humanity, but the country as a whole has lost any sense of proportion and human values it might have had. It has also lost the core values of Judaism, becoming an insane cult.
We can see something similar in the US with right wing neocons and right wing 'Christians'. Much of the industrial world has gone nuts: mass insanity -- and they are trying to drag the rest of the wolrd down into the abyss with them.
"Those whom the gods would destroy, they first drive mad."
And what about the left-wing nutters too? Let's forget all this left-right march into the abyss. Both have proven to be disastrous and only serve to divide everyone and keep the nutters in power. The real enemy is the bankers and their puppets, who occupy the left, the right and the middle. Only fools vote for any of them.
Depends on which "left wing nutters" you have in mind. As a whole the left wing is much more sane than those on the right.
I would include both the left and the right, both tied into a party that they identify with. They are nuts with arrogance!
Where is independent thought? Think for ourselves! That's what's missing.
Don't label me. Don't even try!
I have NO respect for Israel.
The siege of Gaza has nothing to do with security for Israel, it has to do with ethnically cleansing Gaza of Arabs so politically well connected developers can get their hands on some really valuable beach front property, Gaza. That's why IDF agents have to keep launching flying pipebombs from Gaza into empty farmers fields across the fence in the rest of occupied Palestine so Israel can keep the siege up trying to drive the entire Gazan population out.. Pretty simple really
This is a demonstration of power, it's intended to break a people down and submit to their power. Palestinians know that.