Our silence and complicity shames us all

The convoy left London on December 6.
Some two hundred trucks carrying food and humanitarian aid provided by the charity group Viva Palestina were bound for Gaza.
Yet, on Tuesday, the five hundred activists accompanying the convoy clashed with Egyptian authorities in the port city of El Arish, forty kilometers from Rafah, when they were notified that some of their aid would have to enter Gaza through Israel, which has imposed a tight embargo on the strip since 2007.
All goods slated to enter the strip must first be screened by the Israelis at the border crossing of Kerem Shalom.
The sole Egyptian gateway to Gaza, Rafah, handles travelers only, not cargo.
It is unacceptable and we have refused this. It is completely unconscionable that 25% of our convoy should go to Israel and never arrive in Gaza. Because nothing that ever goes to Israel ever arrives in Gaza, said George Galloway, a firebrand British MP, and a leader of the convoy. The activists tried to organize a sit-in, but were vigorously shoved aside by the Egyptian police.
In response, the Hamas government of Gaza called for a demonstration to protest Egypt’s meddling with the international aid convoy.
Two hundred or so Palestinian youths angrily denounced the Egyptian government and began hurling stones at the soldiers across the border in Rafah. Hamas police tried to restrain the demonstrators, but to no avail.
The Egyptians responded by firing tear gas.
There are reports that they also then fired into the young Palestinian crowd.
Two Palestinians were instantly wounded from five bullets, a witness told the NYT.
Palestinian police fired back, killing one Egyptian border guard.
Twelve Palestinians were also rushed to the hospital, most suffering from gunshot wounds. Some of the vehicles were allowed to proceed to Gaza on Wednesday. Mr. Galloway himself, after having entered the territory, was subsequently deported by the Egyptian authorities on Friday.
The Gaza Strip has been under siege since 2007 when Israel imposed a blockade on the territory following Hamas’ defeat of Fatah in the Battle of Gaza.
Eighteen months after the beginning of the blockade, Israel’s Operation Cast Lead devastated what was left of the Strip’s economy and infrastructure.
Now, one year later, nothing has been rebuilt, and nothing is likely to be rebuilt in the foreseeable future.
The current state of the Gaza Strip was made plain in a report compiled by some sixteen human rights organizations, called Failing in Gaza: no rebuilding, no recovery, no excuses, and published on December 21, 2009.
Even though the international community pledged to contribute $4 billion to the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the devastated territory at a March 2009 conference, virtually none of it has been spent.
Indeed, in spite of the widespread destruction, Israel, with Egyptian complicity, has refused to lift the blockade.
Consequently, the materials and resources needed to rebuild all that the Israeli Defense Forces destroyed have been prohibited from entering the territory.
Hence, as the report states, much of Gaza lies in ruins.
Before the Israeli siege, 70 trucks left Gaza on a daily basis with local goods meant for export, and an average of 583 entered the Strip filled with goods and humanitarian aid.
After the blockade was imposed, exports were banned, and the importation of goods fell by 80%, as only about 112 trucks were allowed to enter each day, according to the report.
Before June 2007, when the siege began, some 4000 different types of goods were imported. Now, only thirty-five are authorized, though the list varies…There is no published list of permitted items and there appears to be no consistency in what is, and is not, permitted. For instance, particular fruits allowed in one day as ‘essentials’ can easily be branded ‘luxuries’ and turned away on another day, the report stipulates. For some reason, unless it is to deliberately punish children, even toys are banned.
Those goods that are allowed are often blocked for weeks before being released, for no apparent reason, other than to antagonize and demoralize the Gazans, presumably.
Shelter kits take an average 85 days to cross the border.
Such delays are seldom explained.
Last year, Turkey donated 488 prefabricated buildings to the homeless families of Gaza. The Israelis refused to authorize the humanitarian aid, and gave no explanation for the decision, they don't say yes and they don't say no, Kazim Yilmaz, of the Turkish Red Crescent, told The Independent.
The Israelis seem to be sending a message to the world at large, but particularly to the Gazans when they behave in such an arbitrary fashion: «we do what we please, when we please; you are at our mercy, and on a whim we will authorize, or not, humanitarian aid designed to alleviate the misery we created in Gaza…»
Since the end of the war, the Israelis have authorized the entry of only four trucks of construction materials per month. That represents 0.05% of the total allowed before the blockade. As a result, all kinds of construction materials –cement, gravel, wood, pipes, glass, steel bars, aluminum, tar – and spare parts are in desperately short supply or completely unavailable, with little or no capacity to produce them locally given both the destruction of local industry and the lack of raw materials, which were also banned under the blockade, the report indicated.
Even though Gaza lies in ruins (the Israeli onslaught engendered 600,000 tons of rubble), the resources needed to rebuild its infrastructure and homes are prohibited from entering the territory.
The only cement to reach Gaza enters through the smugglers’ tunnels that run between the Gaza and Egyptian borders.
The tunnels, about 1000 of them, are of vital importance, for they allow Gazans to have access to essential products such as consumer goods and food. Recently I took a Western journalist to the supermarket. He was shocked. Food imported from the Israeli side was in the refrigerator corner; yoghurt, cheese, hummus. On the other shelves, 90 per cent had been brought in from Egypt via the tunnels, wrote Fares Akram in The Independent.
Yet, even this vital lifeline to the outside world is under threat. The Egyptians intend to build a wall, designed by the US military, that will run eighteen meters deep into the ground in order to block as many of these tunnels as possible.
Israel, Egypt and the US accuse Hamas of using the tunnels to receive weapons from Iran.
Many in Egypt condemned this Egyptian initiative. Ibrahim Issa, a newspaper editor, referred to the structure as the Wall of Shame.
Egypt does not intend to alleviate the pressure on Hamas, a radical Islamic movement whose ideas, it fears, could contaminate the country, were the borders to open. Hamas is affiliated to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, barely tolerated in the country.
Furthermore, the Egyptians intend Gaza to remain an exclusively Israeli responsibility, and will do nothing to help Israel shoulder it. Egypt’s strategy for Gaza is to make sure it’s Israel’s problem, Yossi Alpher, a former Mossad officer, told Lawrence Wright of The New Yorker.
Residents of Gaza disapprove of Egyptian complicity with Israel, however. Egypt should open the borders and let the people breathe. We are surrounded by the Israelis, and the Arabs are watching us too, a Palestinian told the LAT.
The Israelis killed 1393 Palestinian during the twenty-one-day-operation, 25% of which were children (347). It also destroyed much of the Strip’s infrastructure, 84% of the damage was inflicted on three key sectors: housing, agriculture and the private sector, according to the EU, quoted in the report.
Over 21,000 homes were destroyed, or severely damaged, forcing 100,000 to find shelter elsewhere.
Without construction material, no rebuilding is possible. That is probably precisely why the Israelis refuse to authorize them.
You could say that Israel has bombed Gaza back into the mud age, because that's what they're building their houses out of now — mud, Chris Gunness, of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, told TIME.
The war also destroyed the facilities and equipment of some 700 private businesses. The blockade had already led to the demise of 98% of Gaza’s industry even before the first bomb fell during Operation Cast lead.
As such, it is not surprising that 40% of Gazans are unemployed and that, since the blockade, 70% live on $1 a day…The term «economy» is no longer valid in the Gaza Strip, the economist Omar Shaban told Lawrence Wright of The New Yorker.
Agriculture used to be a thriving sector of the Gazan economy. Tomatoes, flowers and fruit were exported. Local farmers were able to produce 25% of the Strip’s food consumption. The blockade banned all exports. The war destroyed 17% of the area’s farmland. Furthermore, Israel unilaterally decided to extend its buffer zone inside Gaza to 300 meters from the actual border. As a result, between 25 and 33% of Gaza’s farmland is now off limits…Soldiers patrolling the Israeli border shoot those who penetrate inside the buffer zone. Taking direct damage caused by the offensive and the expanded buffer zone together, an estimated 46% of agricultural land has been put out of production, states the report.
Sameh Sawafeary, Gaza’s largest producer of chickens and eggs lost everything in Operation Cast Lead. All his installations were destroyed by the IDF. Yet, he is determined to rebuild. I have no other choice; we have no materials coming into Gaza because of the Israeli blockade. Usually businessmen move one step forward after years of work, but thanks to the Israeli army, my automatic farm has gone and now I have to start from scratch by building a manual farm instead. I am waiting for compensation from the government or any donor so I can rebuild my farm and the lost future of my family. Every time Israel destroys my farm I will rebuild it because this is the only business and life I have, he told the authors of the report.
Fortunately, Gazans are accustomed to hardship, and very determined…
Power lines were destroyed, the Strip’s lone power station is deprived of the necessary fuel to function adequately.
The Strip’s water is now so salty that it is no longer fit to drink.
The water is no longer fit for human consumption, with analysis and international studies showing that just 10 percent of water in the Gaza Strip is usable... threatening the lives of Palestinians, Munzir Shiblak, a Palestinian official, told AFP.
As for the Strip’s health infrastructure, 48% was destroyed by the IDF.
Eighteen schools were destroyed, 280 were damaged. The American International School, offering an American curriculum and the territory‘s finest, was obliterated by the Israeli Air force, because, according to the Israelis, the American college in the area of Beit Lahiya was being used as a rocket-launching site, as well as a munitions storage dump. Therefore, it was a legitimate terrorist target.
The accusations were never substantiated.
One fifth-grader who attended the school told the authors of the report,
I miss my school because it was big and beautiful. We had a library to read books and a yard to play and have activities. Our new schools are small. The classrooms are tight and too small. It is too hot to learn…I want to be a doctor to help Palestinian children – but how? How can I when my school is destroyed?
The Israelis destroyed a school disseminating Western values in its war against terrorism! In this context, does the war on terrorism still make sense?
The most potent antidote to extremism is education, and in particular, a Western, secular one.
The Israelis as well as the entire international community should be funding thousands of these schools in Gaza and across the Middle East, certainly not destroying them.
As such, we cannot help but wonder what Israel’s true goals are here. If it was the least interested in helping foster an educated, moderate Palestinian elite, eager and equipped to design a modern Palestinian state able to live in peace with Israel, would it have destroyed the Strip’s finest educational establishment?
Gaza’s population is very young. 52% are under 18, and, characteristically, 67% are refugees. Its youth is its main asset. It is perhaps not yet too late to educate young Gazans and provide them with opportunities to lead productive, meaningful lives. Destroying their schools and their homes, killing their parents and brothers, all this is unlikely to engender a moderate, thoughtful and productive population. If we wish to spawn a generation of extremists embittered and vowing revenge, considering the wrongs that have been done to them, the Israelis should pursue its current policy of victimizing a helpless population, and we should continue sitting on the sidelines in silence, and doing nothing to help them.
Finally, the Israelis regularly prevent those students who have been able to enroll in a university abroad from doing so. In 2009, some 42% (838) of those who could have studied abroad, among Gaza’s best students, were not authorized to leave their own territory…
The Israelis are bound by international law to lift the blockade.
Victimizing an entire civilian population because Israel cannot tolerate the Hamas government, which, by the way, the people elected in a democratic election in 2006, is collective punishment and illegal under international law.
Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states the following, No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.
UN Security Council Resolution 1860 reminds Israel of the need to ensure sustained and regular flow of goods and people through the Gaza crossings.
Yet, respecting international law is not an Israeli priority, as the Goldstone Report clearly established.
Furthermore, to intensify the Strip’s isolation, the Netanyahu government prevents foreign officials form traveling to Gaza
The Foreign Ministers of France, Ireland and Turkey have all recently been refused access to the territory. Our general policy is not to have visits to Gaza included as part of official visits to Israel. This is out of concern for the safety of our guests visiting an area that is under the rule of a terrorist organization, as well as because of our overall policy of objecting to gestures which give the Hamas regime legitimacy. This legitimacy is created by visiting the area, even if no direct meeting with Hamas officials takes place, an Israeli ambassador told the Jerusalem Post.
Could it be that Israel does not want the world to see the effects of Operation Cast Lead, and the absence of reconstruction since the onslaught ended?
In the end, few Israelis seem genuinely concerned about the consequences of the operation, and the fact that the territory remains in ruins one year later.
The world also saw Israel wrap itself in sick apathy despite what was happening. It saw the town squares almost empty of protesters, the cafes in Tel Aviv full of people having a good time. It even saw Israeli families who went to visit the hills around Gaza to show their children the bomb strikes. Later, it also saw that Israel was not even prepared to investigate what it had done, but rather lashed out at all its detractors, wrote the Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy.
The Israelis are already preparing for the next war, and have no plans to change strategy. The next round will be different, but not in the way people think. The only way to be successful is to take much harsher action, Giora Eiland, former head of Israel’s National Security Council told the NYT.
Apparently, the IDF was not harsh enough during Operation Cast Lead…
The Dahiya Doctrine is now standard policy. Dahiya was a Shiite suburb of Beirut razed to the ground by the Israelis during the Second Lebanon War in 2006.
The aim is to destroy the other, the enemy. Distinctions are no longer made between the innocent and the guilty, because they are all guilty by definition. Hence, there are no innocent victims, only terrorists and their accomplices. What happened in the Dahiya quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on. We will apply disproportionate force on it and cause great damage and destruction there. From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases. This is not a recommendation. This is a plan, declared Gadi Eisenkot, the head of Israel's northern command, in October 2008.
The Israelis have repudiated the distinction between civilian and military. As the Israeli journalist Yaron Alon put it, without saying so explicitly, we reached the conclusion that nations are responsible for their leaders’ acts.
In practical terms, the Palestinians in Gaza are all Khaled Mashaal, the Lebanese are all Nasrallah, and the Iranians are all Ahmadinejad.
Since the Gazans have not overthrown Hamas, the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Iranians the clerical regime, then this implies that they all condone and support the policies of their leaders and are thus their accomplices. As such, in times of war, they are fare game, the facilitators of terrorists, not innocent victims that should be spared.
This explains the high casualty figures of Operation Cast Lead: since, in these conflicts, there is no such thing as a civilian, why not shoot anyone in sight? All Gazans are held responsible for the fact that Hamas won a democratic election, routed Fatah during its failed coup attempt in June 2007, and is still ruling the Strip, in spite of the Israeli onslaught, one of the aims of which was to topple the Hamas regime.
Moreover, we should never expect Israel to second-guess its military, even when much of the international community decries its conduct as morally reprehensible. The Israelis have no plan to launch an independent investigation into the conduct of its forces during the war, regardless of what the Goldstone Report demanded. The IDF launched its own enquiries…
So far, one soldier has been convicted as a consequence of his actions during the conflict. A sergeant was sentenced to seven and a half months in prison for stealing a credit card…
We should not expect the international community to intervene to end the blockade either, for the siege will soon be three years old, and nothing has been done to put an end to it.
And yet, everyone knows what must be done: end the siege; allow the Gazans at last to live like human beings, and start talking with Hamas, because there will be no end to this conflict until all the relevant parties engage in meaningful negotiations.
The only contact Israel currently has with Hamas is through German and Egyptian intermediaries to negotiate the release of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured by Hamas in 2006.
At this juncture, we must ask ourselves the following question: is Israel genuinely interested in finding a peaceful solution to the conflict?
It seems Israel needs enemies so that it can substantiate its claims that it has no one with whom to negotiate. Israel must want peace, no doubt, but on its terms, only if it gets to dictate the terms of any agreement. Negotiations would be dangerous because they entail concessions. Is Israel willing to make them? Would not a significant segment of its population rebel against any agreement that made painful concessions, such as evacuating settlements in the West Bank, and returning East Jerusalem?
Would it not be preferable, from its standpoint, to preserve the status quo, currently favorable to Israel, the region’s military superpower, since a negotiated solution is fraught with political perils?
Last February, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France said that Gaza can’t go on being the world’s biggest open prison! That is exactly what the Strip remains, however, to everyone’s satisfaction, it seems.
Has hope been the latest casualty of the war between Israel and the Palestinians?
We are entering very dark years Slama Bissiso, vice chairman of the Palestinian Bar Association told the NYT.
The Strip is more and more isolated and desolate, and its prospects are bleak.
This is a traumatized nation. Many children we work with are not able to sleep for fear of soldiers returning. Young children in Gaza are surviving under extreme levels of stress, which will pose long-term dangers not only for their mental health, but for the future of the region, Osama Damo, of the British charity Save the Children, told the Telegraph.
All the Gazans desire is to live a decent, dignified existence. Should all Gazans pay for the fact that Hamas is in power?
Israel is saying, ‘Because you elected Hamas, you should have no life. Yet people elected Hamas because of Fatah corruption. I believe in peace with Israel, but I wanted desperately to get away from the corruption. I didn’t expect Hamas to win. Next time, I won’t vote at all, one Gaza resident told the NYT.
Most Gazans in fact, support no one, for they have been disappointed by all their leaders, who have all failed to protect them, let alone improve their lives.
Hamas or Fatah, they are all illusions. Nobody is standing with the people, Ghaleya Al-Samouni told Reuters. She lost twenty-nine members of her family in the war.
Many Palestinians don't give a damn about politics. They want their houses to be rebuilt - they've been living in tents for 11 months, Mkhaimar Abusada, a political scientist in Gaza, told the Telegraph.
And yet the siege continues…
My message to the international community is that our silence and complicity, especially on the situation in Gaza, shames us all, said Archbishop Desmond Tutu, 1984 Nobel Peace Prize recipient, in May 2008...
It is a shame that we have learned to live with and are in no rush to redeem...
(the photograph is by Ashraf Amra Polaris/eyevine)