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Israeli Document: Gaza Blockade Isn't About Security
JERUSALEM — As Israel ordered a slight easing of its blockade of the Gaza Strip Wednesday, McClatchy obtained an Israeli government document that describes the blockade not as a security measure but as "economic warfare" against the Islamist group Hamas, which rules the Palestinian territory.
Palestinian children from the Al-Qarawi family eat lunch in a tent in the northern Gaza Strip June 9, 2010. The tent was erected after their family's house was destroyed during Israel's three-week offensive in Gaza last year. McClatchy obtained an Israeli government document that describes the blockade not as a security measure but as "economic warfare" against the Islamist group Hamas, which rules the Palestinian territory. (REUTERS/Mohammed Salem)
Israel imposed severe restrictions on Gaza in June 2007, after Hamas
won elections and took control of the coastal enclave after winning
elections there the previous year, and the government has long said
that the aim of the blockade is to stem the flow of weapons to
militants in Gaza.
Last week, after Israeli commandos killed nine volunteers on a Turkish-organized Gaza aid flotilla, Israel again said its aim was to stop the flow of terrorist arms into Gaza.
However, in response to a lawsuit by Gisha, an Israeli human rights group, the Israeli government explained the blockade as an exercise of the right of economic warfare.
"A country has the right to decide that it chooses not to engage in economic relations or to give economic assistance to the other party to the conflict, or that it wishes to operate using 'economic warfare,'" the government said.
McClatchy obtained the government's written statement from Gisha, the Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, which sued the government for information about the blockade. The Israeli high court upheld the suit, and the government delivered its statement earlier this year.
Sari Bashi, the director of Gisha, said the documents prove that Israel isn't imposing its blockade for its stated reasons, but rather as collective punishment for the Palestinian population of Gaza. Gisha focuses on Palestinian rights.
(A State Department spokesman, who wasn't authorized to speak for the record, said he hadn't seen the documents in question.)
The Israeli government took an additional step Wednesday and said the economic warfare is intended to achieve a political goal. A government spokesman, who couldn't be named as a matter of policy, told McClatchy that authorities will continue to ease the blockade but "could not lift the embargo altogether as long as Hamas remains in control" of Gaza.
President Barack Obama, after receiving Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority, said the situation in Gaza is "unsustainable." He pledged an additional $400 million in aid for housing, school construction and roads to improve daily life for Palestinians — of which at least $30 million is earmarked for Gaza.
Israel's blockade of Gaza includes a complex and ever-changing list of goods that are allowed in. Items such as cement or metal are barred because they can be used for military purposes, Israeli officials say.
According to figures published by Gisha in coordination with the United Nations, Israel allows in 25 percent of the goods it had permitted into Gaza before the Hamas takeover. In the years prior to the closure, Israel allowed an average of 10,400 trucks to enter Gaza with goods each month. Israel now allows approximately 2,500 trucks a month.
The figures show that Israel also has limited the goods allowed to enter Gaza to 40 types of items, while before June 2007 approximately 4,000 types of goods were listed as entering Gaza.
Israel expanded its list slightly Wednesday to include soda, juice, jam, spices, shaving cream, potato chips, cookies and candy, said Palestinian liaison official Raed Fattouh, who coordinates the flow of goods into Gaza with Israel.
"I think Israel wants to defuse international pressure," said Fattouh. "They want to show people that they are allowing things into Gaza."
It was the first tangible step taken by Israel in the wake of the unprecedented international criticism it's faced over the blockade following last week's Israeli raid on the high seas.
While there have been mounting calls for an investigation into the manner in which Israel intercepted the flotilla, world leaders have also called for Israel to lift its blockade on Gaza.
At his meeting with Abbas, Obama said the Security Council had called for a "credible, transparent investigation that met international standards." He added: "And we meant what we said. That's what we expect."
He also called for an easing of Israel's blockade. "It seems to us that there should be ways of focusing narrowly on arms shipments, rather than focusing in a blanket way on stopping everything and then, in a piecemeal way, allowing things into Gaza," he told reporters.
Egypt, which controls much of Gaza's southern border, reopened the Rafah crossing this week in response to international pressure to lift the blockade.
Egypt has long been considered Israel's partner in enforcing the blockade, but Egyptian Foreign Minister Hossam Zaki said the Rafah crossing will remain open indefinitely for Gazans with special permits. In the past, the border has been opened sporadically.
Maxwell Gaylard, the U.N.'s humanitarian coordinator in the Palestinian territories, said the international community is seeking an "urgent and fundamental change" in Israel's policy regarding Gaza rather than a piecemeal approach.
"A modest expansion of the restrictive list of goods allowed into Gaza falls well short of what is needed. We need a fundamental change and an opening of crossings for commercial goods," he said.
Hamas officials said that they were "disappointed" by Israel's announcement, and that the goods fell far short of what was actually needed.
"They will send the first course. We are waiting for the main course," Palestinian Economy Minister Hassan Abu Libdeh said in Ramallah, specifying that construction materials were the item that Gazans need most. Many Palestinians have been unable to build their homes in the wake of Operation Cast Lead, Israel's punishing offensive in the Gaza Strip in December 2008 and January 2009.
Israel said the cement and other construction goods could be used to build bunkers and other military installations.
Some of those goods already come into Gaza via the smuggling tunnels that connect it to Egypt.
(Frenkel, a McClatchy special correspondent, reported from Jerusalem. Warren P. Strobel and Steven Thomma contributed to this article from Washington.)
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69 Comments so far
Show AllSo, ummm Israel, I'm still waiting to see the goods which you took from the flotilla aid ships. I would like to see your list together with the aid ships' list and a reconciling of both lists.
It would be nice too, Israel, if the goods actually got there before they were covered with mold, as in the past.
Oh yeah, Mr. Obama, how exactly are you going to get that monetary aid to GAZA? You're not going to give it to the Israelis to pass it along are you?
Oh yes, and you know how Israel doesn't want to send certain items to GAZA, because those items might be potential bombs? Why don't you, Mr. Obama, stop exporting military supplies and secrets to Israel; they kill people you know.
Oh yes, and another thing, please stop exporting soldiers to places like Afghanistan. The Afghan people really need building supplies more than being DRONED upon. They really need lumber, cement, you know building supplies too, just like GAZA. Stop exporting guns, drones, mercenary forces, and soldiers; DEMOCRACY? We kill people, you know.
Oh, one more thing, Mr. Obama, forget about that pipeline. Concentrate on those green jobs and a clean economy, that you PROMISED, because, right now, with this economy, well, you're killing people, you know.
Right on!
Thank You:-)
You have made my Evening.
Peace Out!
RR
While I appreciate the reporter's point of view, there's really nothing new in this article.
Many of us on this forum have pointed out that Israel's violence has been used to suppress the economies of surrounding areas by destroying the infrastructure. The IDF attacks on Lebanon in 2006 were the clearest example of this policy.
Most of the article is just a recap of recent events concerning the blockade.
q
No news? When in the past has the Israeli gov't admitted in an official statement that the purpose of the blockade was "economic warfare" as opposed to "security"?
They may not have used the term "warfare" but Israel has used the term "economic sanctions" in the past.
q
I wonder what the demographics of this board are?
RR
"soda, juice, jam, spices, shaving cream, potato chips, cookies and candy"
The list of allowed items is proof enough that the blockade is collective punishment. What else could the reason be that these items weren't allowed until now?
Also, fresh vegetables and meat are conspicuously missing from the list, but yet unhealthy food such as soda, cookies, candy, potato chips are included? Israel is one sick country for using malnutrition against the entire civilian population as a weapon.
If confirmed to be true, the Israeli government's admission that the purpose of the blockade is actually economic warfare for political gain, then for the first time they have admitted that they are terrorists. The use of violence or threat of violence ( a blockade is an act of war) on a civilian population for the purpose of political, religious or ideological reasons is the classic definition of terrorism.
"The use of violence or threat of violence ( a blockade is an act of war) on a civilian population for the purpose of political, religious or ideological reasons is the classic definition of terrorism."
Did you mean to include "economic" in your list of reasons?
q
q,
The blockade itself is "simply" an understood act of war- and if was truly for security reasons may be acceptable. Admitting the blockade's purpose was economic warfare for political reasons shifts the action from straight warfare into a terrorist act.
R
Well it is good to realize who the terrorist are! Call Homeland Security Quick!
lol
Missed.
q
Collective punishment of a civilian population is a war crime.
No ifs and or buts!
Anyone aiding or abetting such a policy is also guilty - think U.S., who finances Israel.
Israel lied about their motives? I am shocked!
Well, Obama should be happy now. The Israelis have "eased" the blockade---they're letting shaving cream in now. Maybe if Obama keeps the pressure up the Israelis will let them get razors to use with the cream. Keep up the good work Obama!
When the 9-11 commission asked the FBI what motivated the 9-11 hijackers to do what they did, the number one reason given was the Palestinian plight. Why doesn't America want to end the war on terror? Why do we accept this cruel treatment of Palestinians and put our own children at risk? Israel was created as a secular state, but the whole "God's Chosen People" thing has made them crazy. Americans back it up because of "Christianity." This works just fine for the oil and defense industries, not to mention their mouthpiece, the War Network (Fox). I, for one, do not want to die in a terrorist attack to sustain a concentration camp.
Israel has admitted economic warfare for political purposes. Oh my! What are all the talking heads going to do now that not even Israel claims these actions are taken in the name of "the right to defend itself"?
Shucks, now is when we meed Helen Thomas more than ever, no one else will ask the admin about this obvious admission as tantamount to admitting ethnic cleansing ....
Oh well, at least the Gazans can now get $30 million worth of cookies with some jam ... How diabolical, the Israelis can now kill them with diabetes, instead of bullets, as I am sure there will be no insulin. I know this sounds facetious, but the situation is now so absurd that it amounts to the surreal ......
Everything is text...Ali Flecther or whatever Bush's Press man was named once said "we are speaking truth to power" can you beleive that? So much for Post et al social theory hey!
RR
Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949) forbids collective punishment and states that "a person shall not be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed." This article explicitly relates to administrative punishment imposed on persons or groups because of acts that they did not personally commit. Article 50 of the Hague Regulations states a comparable prohibition. Collective punishment is a war crime.
The 1949 Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention results very much from the practice of collective punishment used by the Nazis as retaliation against Jews in particular and any partisans (resistance fighters and insurgents) in general in occupied towns the Nazis tried to control. Innocent civilians were murdered, often in a 10 to one ratio to the Nazis killed or injured by resistance fighters.
How ironic and tragic that Israel is now using collective punishment on people in the 21st century. Israel refuses to learn from the Holocaust and World War II, the horrific events which furthered the establishment of the state of Israel as a refuge for persecuted Jews worldwide.
So we in the U.S. now have a President who not only continues to commit his own war crimes (drone bombings of civilians; illegal wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan; torture in Bagram, Guantanamo, and secret "black sites") and refuses to obey the Constitution and International Law by not prosecuting the Bush/Cheney regime for its many war crimes; but gives at least three BILLION dollars per year (Obama promised Israel $30 BILLION over the next 10 years) to a nation which also commits war crimes as a matter of national policy.
It's too late to impeach Bush & Cheney (but not to prosecute them for war crimes and crimes against humanity!), but we can certainly impeach Obama and Biden and all the others currently supporting war crimes and crimes against humanity, and funding nations such as Israel (certainly not the only U.S. ally in violation of international human rights laws) which also commits war crimes and crimes against humanity.
As Noam Chomsky told us: "Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it."
ED:
"Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949) forbids collective punishment and states that "a person shall not be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed." This article explicitly relates to administrative punishment imposed on persons or groups because of acts that they did not personally commit. Article 50 of the Hague Regulations states a comparable prohibition. Collective punishment is a war crime."
What then separates the UN-imposed sanctions on Iraq during the '90's that collectively punished the Iraqi people? What about current sanctions against DPR Korea? Does this mean the UN is guilty of war crimes?
To answer your questions: Nothing. Nothing. Yes.
Sabocat already answered.
Denis Halliday, who was on board the Gaza aide ship Rachel Corrie at the end of last week when the Israeli navy commandeered it to Israel, resigned as U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq in 1998 when he saw how the U.N./U.S. sanctions were killing innocent people, especially children.
See http://www.reformwatch.net/fitxers/62.pdf
Economic warfare as a response to 10,000+ missiles aimed at civilian targets seems a pretty restrained response.
If economic blockade is terrorism and genocide, what is rocketing schools and homes?
What if Mexico was constantly rocketing Texas? Would we want to do business with them? And Mexico has the same grievance the Palestinians have. We stole Texas from them in a war of pure aggression. (So defined by Mark Twain, U.S. Grant, A. Lincoln.)
It should be remembered that Israel turned the Gaza strip over to the Palestinians as a first step towards reconciliation. It is now governed by Hamas, which is committed to the destruction of Israel. And Israel is supposed to support their economy? Get real!
If economic blockade is terrorism and genocide, what is rocketing schools and homes?
_________________________________
Self-defense.
You're not very good at this. Where are all the regulars-- divvying up the loot stolen from the flotilla?
The residents of Gaza gave a majority to Hamas (around 6% margin) in clean local elections. Egged on by Israel, Fatah resorted to arms to prevent Hamas from taking office. The MSM keep referring to this as a coup by Hamas: wrong.
A majority of Gaza's population was tired of the corruption of Fatah officials' and flunkies and they were not convinced that they should imitate the servile attitude of the Fatah leadership, beaten down again and again into subservience by the Israeli siege of Ramallah (and, as most Palestinians believe, the poisoning of Arafat), the attacks on West Bank communities and the torture and blackmail of Palestinians into collaborating. Hamas was organized and their organization was transparent; they provided much-needed aid and social assistance to the poorest segments of society as well as security.
Hamas had declared a one-year ceasefire (no more rockets) which was broken by Israel's attack shortly before the devastating invasion of 2008-09.
Israel's embargo against the citizens of Gaza IS collective punishment of the civilian population for having voted for Hamas or at least to exert pressure to turn the population against Hamas. It is illegal and inhumane. Israel maintains that they are allowing Gazans an adequate caloric intake, which is a baldfaced lie, as 65% of children in Gaza are suffering from some degree of malnutrition. Medicines, wheelchairs, cement to rebuild homes and at least some of the 400+ schools and clinics blasted to hell by the end-timers in IDF uniform, etc etc:
it is a violation of the basic human rights of Gazans to keep Gazans from obtaining these items and in a way forcing them to resort to the tunnels to Egypt, which Egypt is now sealing off with an underground steel wall. Gazans are being refused permission to take sick relatives for urgently needed treatment in Egypt or Israel and they are forced to watch their loved ones die.
Smarba is being disingenuous, like a good zionist troll.
They should...maybe that is in the cards to. We have to give up this national chauvinism and sappy patriotism and all work together. The ONLY philosophy that I have ever read about and one that is practiced is socialism. Now you know our leader's are murderers and our state is corrupt as hell and did I mention Wall Street? We are in the BELLY OF THE BEAST and have to appropriate all of this countries resources and put them to the use that we know that they have to be put to...solar energy, environment, all the civil rights....but it will take a revolution to do it. Ya ready?
RR
Welcome to CD Mr. Hasbara. Are you totally insane? Israel didn't "turn over" anything as they never had the right to it. Your analogy is strictly absurd. We have not yet put up a total blockade around MX, although if people such as you and the other members of the whacked out Right Wing have your way, that will happen soon; just look at the border "fence". Will a blockade of the oceans be next?
Those 10,000 missiles are nothing compared to the carpet bombings by Israel. Please go back under the rock from whence you came.
Excellent article. But just to make it clear -- Hamas won the elections in all of Palestine in 2006 -- not just in Gaza, where Hamas was forced to put down a Fatah coup attempt sponsored by the U.S. and Israel.
And furthermore -- all of Palestine is under Israeli blockade. Israel and the U.S. restrict more severely what can enter Gaza, and the people there, most of them refugees created by Israel's sixty-plus years of war on the non-Jewish people, are poorer and more desperate. But Israel also restricts movement of people and goods in the West Bank, in some cases completely imprisoning entire towns. Israel wants to separate Gaza and the West Bank and pit them against each other. But all the Palestinians are suffering horribly, and are slowly being starved and strangled in an attempt to force them to give up, or just die.
I wonder...
Does the blockade say anything about literature?
If I were to sponsor a drive to send, say, 1000 copies of Thoreau's Civil Disobedience or the works of Gandhi on nonviolent resistance, would the Israeli government object?
the first thing that america and israel can do to stop terrorism is to quit naming their airports after terrorists. tel aviv's david ben gurion airport and washington's ronald reagan international airport come to mind.
The Palestinians do not need to be lectured about non-violent resistance. This struggle has been going on for more than 70 years. Maybe if fewer people were as ignorant and condescending as you and Bono -- and more people made an effort to educate themselves and understand their own moral obligation to join with people struggling for survival against murderous oppression -- non-violent resistance would be more successful.
Here are some sites that might help you open your eyes and mind to the Palestinians' long, bloody, and continuing experience with non-violent resistance:
Some history and overview:
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9036.shtml
http://www.britannica.com/bps/additionalcontent/18/28601150/A-Quiet-Revolution-The-First-Palestinian-Intifada-and-Nonviolent-Resistance
http://stopapartheid.org/history
http://www.jmcc.org/readmore.aspx?tagname=non-violent%20resistance
http://www.holylandtrust.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=462&Itemid=307
Accounts of ongoing non-violent actions in Bil’in and other villages in the West Bank and Gaza.
http://www.bilin-village.org/english/discover-bilin/
http://palestinesolidarityproject.org/2010/03/20/arrests-injuries-and-a-broken-barrier-in-friday-demonstrations/
http://palsolidarity.org/2010/05/12497/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDiaBGtpTRo – Demonstrations against the wall in Ni’lin
Israel clamps down on non-violent protest :
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=37182
Palestinian resistance has strong roots:
http://blog.amnestyusa.org/middle-east/palestinian-nonviolent-resistance-has-strong-roots/
Calling Bono: Your Palestinian Ghandis Exist in Graves and Prisons:
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/cur_sit/bono.html
Gaza is to Israel what American Indian reservations are to USA.
The right of economic warfare sounds like regular warfare to me, considering the fact that Israel, like the US, thinks that it's above the law. Preventing kids from getting proper food and an education, producers to export their stuff, stopping people from getting medical care: it sounds like there are very mean-spirited people behind all this. And in way, the countries that support Israel are complicit.
Although one would never know it, killing civillian's during warfare is supposed to be a war crime. Why do you think we do not hear about the million of innocent peope that we have already killed in Iraq, over a million innocent men, women and children, but hey that is not on the news is it? So by definition economic warfare is illegal. Nice to have nukes against sticks and stones eh?
RR
I support Israel's right to exist as an independent, sovereign Jewish nation-state, with an independent, sovereign Palestinian nation-state ALONGSIDE Israel in West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. Ending Israel's seige on Gaza is imperative, but ending Israel's occupation of Gaza, West Bank, and East Jerusalem is more of an imperative, because the occupation has nothing what. so. ever to do with national security. Imho, if anything, Israel has made her longstanding security problems far worse by the occupation and collective punishment for the Palestinians residing in the Occupied Territories.
"I support Israel's right to exist as an independent, sovereign Jewish nation-state, with an independent, sovereign Palestinian nation-state ALONGSIDE Israel"
I do not support the right of Israel to exist, because of her actions and policies. I support the right of people to exist, but not necessarily as a sovereign state; to use the classic example, I support the right of German people to exist but not the right of a Nazi state, and the same goes for Fascist Italy, or even the Mafia or the KKK -- no regularly lawless organizational entity has the right to exist.
Further, I do not support the right of a theocracy to exist unless *everyone* within that theocracy has full human rights -- and that's very problematic since a theocracy by definition means anti-democratic and authoritarian. A state is much more than a religious organization or even a parcel of land owned by a religious organization: if I am on the land of a seminary or retreat I can be ejected if I reject their rules, but I can't legally be be executed or imprisoned, or otherwise subject to the violence or authrotity that a state claims the right to inflict on people.
Palestinians within Israel have already long owned the land they are/were on, and the ethnic cleansing through the use of state power or religious belief can not override thier fundamental human rights. Israel as a theocratic (Jewish) state is necessarily a tyrannical state, or at best an oligarchy, and that violates fundamental human rights anymore than the mob taking over a neighborhood gives the mob the right to extract extortion from the residents or violate them. When Israel was first formed the resident Palestinians did not give their consent -- the land was just stolen from them; 'a mob took over the neighborhood' through the use of force and violence.
There are various areas in other places where Jews, and other religious people, have settled, forming neighborhoods which are predominantly relgious, and various ethnic neighbor hoods (like 'Chinatown' or 'Little Italy') but everyone must still abide by the laws of the state they live in. That sort of thing can happen in a 'one-state solution' too, and 'Israel' could exist as a 'neighborhood' within a democratic state ("holyland", "Israel-Palestine", or whatever it might be called) but the basic human rights, law, and justice must be held up for everyone or there will never be peace: people will just not tolerate being second-class citizens over the long term.
I totally disagree with you, bluepilgrim. Here's why:
First of all, the State of Israel came into being due to thousands of years of horrific persecution of the Jews worldwide that took the form of pogroms, incursions, and many other methods that ultimately led to the "Final Solution", or the Holocaust and destruction of European Jewry. In addition to that, many Sephardic Jews were kicked out of the Arab countries or left those countries because they felt harassed in those nations. Also, unlike the Irish, Italians, Greeks, and most other groups who came to the United States who fled from countries where they were the majority, the Jews were a tiny minority in every country that they fled from. Therefore, the Jews also need an independent, sovereign nation-state where they're the majority, in order to normalize them and protect them against a repeat of the horrific persecution and pograms that they had to endure in every country that those who survived fled from.
At the same time, the Palestinians, who were also exploited as a political football by the Arab countries for the first 40 years of Israel's existence in order to make war on the then-fledgling Jewish nation-state, in addition to not being wanted or welcome by anybody, also need their own independent, sovereign nation-state in order to normalize and protect the Palestinians against a repeat of the exploitation and oppression that they've suffered, not only by Israel, but by the Arab countries as well.
So it's not good enough to live in a country where everyone has equal rights -- the zionists have to have on where they have more rights than anyone else. Well -- we'll have to see if that works any better than in the past, but so far it isn't looking good, and so far the Palestinians sure aren't avoiding being oppressed, or having their rights ground underfoot.
It seems to me that those groups from other countries who fled persecution didn't do so because they had the majority there -- or else why would they have needed to flee. It seems to me that minorities of all sorts have long been persecuted -- which is exactly why the world needs to adhere to fundamental human rihts for everyone, regardless of religion, ethnicity, sex, skin color, and so forth. I don't think two wrongs make a right or that stealing land and inflicting genocide or ethnic cleansing on one group, even if done by another group which has been persecuted in the past, is going to help the situation any. Heck -- that hasn't even been helpful for the Jews in the area that aren't the 'right kind' of Jews -- aren't the 'right kind' of orthodox, even, who are also persecuted, such as not being allowed to buried in Israel.
I'm afraid that as far as hearing zionists try to justify the atrocities they inflict on people by saying that they were persecuted once just [doesn't] impress me very much. I think everyone having equal rights should be good enough for everyone, and that no people are 'more equal' than others.
yes and that was sixty years ago and we burnt the place to the ground. Hitler thought the German people were the chosen one's and the result was? Duh....
Let's get with the 21'st century already.
RR
Which would mean a secular society...Yes, welcome to the 21st century. As Stevie said it, "Superstition is not the way..."
RR
Israel won't stop until they have all the land or that everyone is dead. Heart warming to think that they have nuclear weapons...and lots of them.
The only way to stop this bs is to completely dismantle the Israeli society and integrate them back into a single state with land going back to its rightful owners. But that won't happen because it is a theocracy, which I don't believe can work, because organized religion is at the root of all the evil in the world.
In the meantime, I'm going to crawl back under my rock and try to eke out an existence where I can be healthy and happy and love my friends and family.
Maybe yogic flying isn't such a ridiculous concept after all.
The purpose of the 12 years of collective punishment enforced by the US sponsored UN sanctions & embargo against Iraq after Gulf War I was to cause the civilian population to suffer to the extent that they would sacrifice their lives and the lives of their families in an effort to overthrow Saddam Hussein, Regime change was the US political objective; collective punisment was the tactic. One result calculated by the UN in 2006, after only 5 years of sanctions, was the deaths of at least 500,000 infants and small children caused by unclean water. The water could not be purified because the US determined that chlorine, the chemical necessary for purification, was a "dual use" item and was prohibited. US Secretary of State Madeline Albright on being told of these deaths said the sacrifices are acceptable.
The method of collective punishment is exactly the same currently being employed against the people of Iran. Regime change is the goal. In the second Iraq war the US killed possibly a million Iraqi civilians to change the regime; that's a lot of collective punishment. Modern warfare is designed for attacking civilian targets. Israel's "Cast Lead" invasion of Gaza in Dec. 2009 is a perfect example.
http://www.quixote-quest.org/resources/israel_palestine/Gaza_rockets_during_truce.html
Regime change in Gaza is no different. Hamas was elected democratically but they are designated as unacceptable to the US and Israel so they must go. For now, Abbas and Fatah are acceptable becaust they are agreeing to be coopted - but only until Hamas is subdued. Then the collective punishment against the West Bank will increase to replace Abbas with another leader who will be even more compliant.
It is no wonder that Obama and the rest of the worlds' leaders are unwilling to get tough with Israel over the blockade of Gaza. All these most powerful regimes have enemies and they very much want regime changes among their enemies and they all use the criminal methods of collective punishment to accomplish that goal.
None of this is new. It has been going on for a very long time and will continue no matter how much we scream and protest.
Good points Carl, Thanks.
America until After the Second World War pretty well stayed to her self with few Imperialist adventures with exceptions of course, especially in South America, it all heated up during the us/we cold war...all those years we couldn't see the Russian people and interact....what a collassal waste. Those people have toughed it out forever...Russian people are to me a very admirable people they have toughed out so much. China to those poor people being worked to death for our cheap computers. This Foxxcom is really something. I would not be surprised if China doesn't pull the Rug out from under the US and put an end to the capitalist economic free zones, that may be one of their strategies. How's the nuclear clock these days...getting any closer?
RR
Good evening from Prague! I hope this is the best place to bring up this issue. I was talking to my sister from San Diego via SKYPE last Sunday, and she brought up something that I find rather upsetting, and I truly hope to God that there is not any truth to any of this.
I don’t know whether she got this from Fox News or CNN (she herself is normally quite sympathetic to the Palestinians, by the way), but she was telling me that she had heard that now that all the goods that were to be delivered to the Palestinians by the Peace Flotilla were “sidetracked” by the Israelis and sent to the port of Ashdod, that Hamas is having a childish fit of “pique” and is refusing to touch them, almost as if to say that now that the Zionists have gotten their “filthy paws” all over these supplies, that they are now somehow “tainted”, and Hamas wants to have nothing to do with them!
Also, just the other day, I was reading the Spanish language newspaper, El País, and they were featuring an op-ed article translated from the French by the disgusting Hasbarist, Bernard-Henri Lévy, and, lo and behold, he brings up the exact same point, and claims that now that the rest of the world has scored its “propaganda points” against Israel, that all these items of food, medicine, building supplies, toys, and so on are rotting in the port of Ashdod precisely because Hamas is refusing to distribute them “as a matter of principle”!
Is there any truth to this? Or is this just another item in a string of “disinformation points” that the Israeli propaganda machine just keeps spewing out! (I mean, I could sort of understand the feeling: You are badly beaten up by the local school bully, and then he feels “sorry” for you after seeing how badly he roughed you up, and so he tosses you a candy bar after leaving you bloodied and in the gutter, but you feel much too insulted to take the candy bar…or maybe you are a young woman who has just been horribly gang raped after a drunken frat party that went horribly wrong, and one member of the gang feels so much “remorse” for what he has done that he goes out to a thrift shop and buys some clean underwear for you, so that you don’t have to put your torn, bloodied underpants back on again, but the gesture just makes you even more enraged, and so you insist on putting your old shredded panties back on again when the police arrive… but I really think this situation is somewhat different. After all, there really is a serious humanitarian crisis in the Gaza strip, and already nine people have given their lives to deliver this badly needed aid, so I sincerely hope that Hamas “swallows its pride” just this once and allows the food and medicine to be sent to where it needs to go. True, I know that the illegal blockade of the Gaza strip really does need to be stopped once and for all, but I would surely hate to think that Hamas was playing “political football” with humanitarian aid!)
Once again, has there been any news at all as to the fate of the aid that got waylaid at the port of Ashdod? Thanks in advance! The Peace Gecko.
Anything that your sister heard on a mainstream US news organ was spoon fed directly from Israel.
However, The Guardian reported that the Hamas government had refused to accept the aid until all of the activists had been freed and Israel had agreed to deliver the construction material as well.
I also read on Doc's Talk - a pro-Israel site - that Hamas had refused to accept truckloads of wheelchairs because the Israelis had removed the batteries, making the wheelchairs useless.
Among other sources, the number of trucks of aid which Israel tried to deleiver varied from eight to twenty.
q
The point of the Flotilla, as I understand it, was not just to deliver humanitarian supplies, but more importantly to break the illegal blockade and restore some sense of self-determination to the Gazan people. By accepting the goods processed through Israeli authorities, they would be ceding control and setting a precedent which Israel could then cite this as proof that there was no crisis and no need to lift the blockade.
It could be true but so what? There shouldn't be a need for them in the first place and secondly, they could be easily replaced-if they lifted the sanctions. I know it sucks. I don't blame them. Dying with one's dignity and integrity is a rare sight these days isn't it?
RR
looks like the israelis want gazans to stock up on junk food. send ronald mcdonald over on the next flotilla, and he'll get through for sure. junk food means diabetes and heart issues will proliferate, making life in gaza even more misrerable and medical care even more scarce. beware of israelis bearing gifts!
Is there no end to the hypocrisy? What's next - Monsanto stepping in and offering GMO seeds?