The 1,000 Day Siege of Gaza

This week marked 1,000 days of an Israeli and
international siege on Gaza - 1,000 days of an open air prison where
"inmates," the civilian Palestinian population of 1.5 million, cannot
leave or enter at will - by land, sea or air, the tiny area known as the
Gaza Strip.

60 years after the World War II Nazi military siege of
Leningrad that lasted for 900 days and caused the greatest destruction
and largest loss of life ever known in a modern city, the Israeli
military has imprisoned Gaza for 1,000 days. The blockade
has caused incredible physical and emotional suffering those crowded
into an incredibly small space-25 miles long and 5 miles wide-one of the
most densely populated areas in the world.

The siege means that the Israeli government controls
the entry of food, medicines, and gasoline and construction materials
for the Palestinians. The purpose of the blockade is to
force by blatantly violating international law, a change in the
government represented by Hamas, the political organization the people
elected. The siege began in June, 2007, following Hamas' takeover of governmental functions
in Gaza.

Hamas is named by the Israeli and American governments a
"terrorist" organization because its militant wing and other militant
groups in Gaza, have fired homemade unguided rockets at border villages
of Israel which have killed 30 Israelis over the years.

Compounding the siege, a year ago, in a
disproportionate use of force that violated international law, the
Israeli military, the largest and most powerful in the region, attacked
the people of Gaza with U.S. provided F-16 jet fighters, Apache attack
helicopters, rocket firing unmanned drones, white phosphorus and dense
inert metal explosive bombs. The attack killed 1,440
persons, wounded 5,000, left 50,000 homeless and destroyed schools,
hospitals, and civil infrastructure including the water facility and the
sewage plant for the entire area.

As one could predict, the siege and the attack have
caused the people of Gaza to suffer from long term low levels of
nutrition and lack of appropriate medical treatment and care. Most
children and many adults have the symptoms of post traumatic stress
from the indiscriminate violence waged on them by the Israeli military.

In June, 2009, Obama called for an end to the
"continuing humanitarian crisis" in Gaza

U.S. government officials acknowledge the damage the
siege is doing to the people of Gaza. On June 4, 2009,
U.S. President Barak Obama in Cairo said to the world that the
"continuing humanitarian crisis" in Gaza must end.
But, for the next nine months, no one in the United States government
has done anything to end the siege or challenge the Israeli attack on
Gaza. Instead, the U.S. Congress lambasted the United
Nations report that documented Israeli (and Hamas) violations of
international and humanitarian law
during the Israeli attack on Gaza.

Finally, 54 members of the US Congress say stop the
collective punishment of the people of Gaza

Finally one month ago, 54 members of Congress called
for the end of the collective punishment of the people of Gaza, but this
call was largely unreported in U.S. media. It took the
Israeli newspaper Haaretz on January 29, 2010, to carry the story that 54 members of the U.S. Congress wrote to President Obama asking
for "immediate relief for the citizens of Gaza...in the collective
punishment of the Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip." The
January 21, 2010 letter also urged Obama to press Israel
to allow people to move in and out of Gaza, especially students, sick
and injured, aid workers and journalists, and also to allow building
materials to enter Gaza to rebuild houses destroyed by the 2008-2009
Israeli military attack.

A second letter, signed by 33 members of the US
Congress, called on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to raise
the issue of students from Gaza who are denied the opportunity to study
at universities in the West Bank due to the lack of free passage between
the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The letter stated that "Ensuring that
students from Gaza have access to higher education in the West Bank
promotes U.S. foreign policy interests by investing in the future of the
region."

Congressman Baird calls for the U.S. to "circumvent"
the blockade of Gaza with U.S. ships

US Congressman Brian Baird
(D-WA), who has announced that he will not seek re-election in the 2010
elections, has gone a step further by calling for the U.S. to
"circumvent" its own the blockade of Gaza by using U.S. roll-on,
roll-off ships that would bring supplies for Palestinians to rebuild
housing for 50,000 whose homes were destroyed a year ago in the Israeli
attack.

Baird is one of only 10 U.S.
members of Congress who have gone to Gaza since the attack, while
hundreds of members of the U.S. Congress and their staffers have gone to
Israel during the same year. He went to Gaza three times in 2009 and
observed from his visits, "The Palestinian people have little hope for
the future. This lack of hope will eventually foment into
radicalization. Radicalization will breed terrorists which will threaten
the security of not only Israel but also the United States. We need to
reverse this spiral of despair."

Israeli government continues siege and illegal
settlement building-thumbs nose at Obama Administration and US
Congress-the hands that feed it

The Israeli government continues to strangle Gaza with
its siege and has increased building its illegal settlements in the West
Bank and in East Jerusalem. This week, nine months after
President Obama's Cairo speech that also called for an end to the
expansion of illegal settlements, Vice-President Joe Biden was given a
nose-thumbing during his visit to Israel when the Israeli government
announced it would build 1,600
new homes in the ultra-Orthodox settlement of Ramat Shlomo. Israeli
government plans have now been made public that call for a total of
8,253 new homes in settlements in East
Jerusalem,
according to the March 11 issue of the UK Guardian.

The Israeli government's dismissal of U.S. "concerns"
about its siege and settlement policies included not only swipes taken
at Obama and Biden, but also at members of the U.S. Congress. In
mid-February, Israel refused to allow a 5 person congressional
delegation lead by Representative William Delahunt (D-MA) to enter Gaza
on a fact-finding mission. Additionally, Deputy Foreign
Minister of Israel Danny Ayalon refused to meet with the delegation.

U.S. military says that U.S. weakness in influencing
change in Israeli policies is jeopardizing safety of U.S. troops

In January, 2010, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM)
military officers told the Joint Chiefs of Staff that there "was a
growing perception among Arab leaders that the U.S. was incapable of
standing up to Israel, that CENTCOM's mostly Arab constituency was
losing faith in American promises and that Israeli intransigence on the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict was jeopardizing U.S. standing in the
region."

The Israeli daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported
that Vice President Biden told Prime Minister Nethanyahu last week that
"what you're doing here undermines the security of our troops who are
fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan...since many people in the
Muslim world perceive a connection between Israel's actions and U.S.
policy, any decision about construction that undermines Palestinian
rights in East Jerusalem could have an impact on the personal safety of
American troops fighting against Islamic terrorism."

But citizens take action

While the U.S. government remains impotent in the face
of Israeli actions, this past week also marked an unprecedented
challenge by U.S. citizens to Israeli politicians and government
officials who travel with impunity to the United States.

Although the commercial media refused to cover it, on
March 10, 2010, 600 citizen activists formed a human chain encircling
the four sides around the prestigious Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York
City to protest the $1,000 a plate fundraiser for the Israeli Defense
Forces (IDF) and its chief Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi. Carrying
signs that read War Crimes, End the Siege of Gaza and Palestinians
Hunger for Justice, the marchers, representing 20 organizations, walked in solemn,
silent, non-violent protest of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians. The silent marchers were met by approximately 100
aggressive, in-your-face, illegal settler-type confrontations by
supporters of the IDF and Israeli policies.

This week also marked a milestone in the seven year
search for justice in the murder of Rachel Corrie, an American activist
who was run over on March 16, 2003 by an American made D-9 Caterpillar
bulldozer driven by an Israeli military soldier who was destroying homes
of Palestinians in the southern Gaza town of Rafah. This
week Rachel's parents and sister travelled to Haifa, Israel to attend
the first Israeli legal proceeding in Rachel's death-a civil suit, as
the Israeli courts has refused to accept a criminal suit. An
Israeli court allowed four members of the International Solidarity
Movement (ISM) who saw the IDF bulldozer run over Rachel to enter Israel
to testify during the court proceedings.

Also this week, hundreds of American activists were in
the US Congress with the Interfaith Peace Builders and the US Campaign to End the Occupation to
lobby members of Congress to take a stand to the end of the siege of
Gaza and illegal settlements.

Additionally, in the first two weeks of March,
activists around the world focused attention on Israeli apartheid
policies through worldwide actions during Apartheid Week
by encouraging boycott, divestment and sanctions of Israeli products.
Actions continue against Israeli products made illegally from
resources from the occupied territories, such as AHAVA Dead Sea salts
cosmetics. The merchandise giant COSTCO now deleted AHAVA
products from its inventory although it sells other Israeli products. Actions continue in grocery stores in Europe against
the import of Israeli food products.

Ending the Siege with Patience and Persistence and
Appeal for Citizens to Keep up the Pressure

At a vigil in Gaza City on March 11, Jamal Al-Khudari,
the President of the Popular Committee Against the Siege, lit the first
candle of many that became the number "1000" and spoke to those
attending the vigil: "On this day we have reached a
thousand days of the siege and we have endured a thousand days of
patience and persistence; we light a candle to remember the darkness of
each of those one thousand days." He pleaded for citizens
of the world to keep pressure on their governments to end the siege.

And we will!