Danish Reporter On The Gaza The #Flotilla Came To Help

Elder of Ziyon provides a translation of what Danish reporter Steffen Jensen finds when he visits Gaza--and finds that conditions are not what he expects:

This time, I had expected to see real suffering, because with all the fuss in recent days to bring some ton humanitarian relief in - so much that people actually sacrificed their lives for it - so had to really be a deep, desperate situation in the Gaza Strip. No food. Long queues in front of UN food stocks. Hungry children with food bowls. But it was not the picture that greeted me.

When I yesterday morning drove through Gaza City, I was immediately surprised that there are almost as many traffic jams, as there always has been. Is there not a shortage of fuel? Apparently not. Saved at least not on it. Gasoline is not even rationed.


Many shops were closed yesterday, Hamas has declared a general strike in protest against Israel's brutal and deadly attack on the Turkish flotilla with pro-Palestinian activists on board. So it was difficult to estimate how many products on the shelves. Therefore I took over in Shati refugee camp, also known as Beach Camp, which has become entirely surrounded by Gaza City and immersed in it. Here is one of Gaza's many vegetable markets that sell much more than just fruits and vegetables.

I will not say whether, in better times has been a larger product range than there were yesterday. But there was certainly no shortage of vegetables, fruits or any other ordinary, basic foods. Tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, watermelons, potatoes - all in the mountains at the many stalls.

I must admit I was a little surprised. I must admit. Because when I call down here to my Palestinian friends, so they tell me about all the problems and deficiencies, so I expected that the crisis was a little more clear.

And the first woman we interviewed in the market confirms this strange, contradictory, negative outlook:

"We have nothing," she said. We need everything! Food, drinks ... everything! "

It disturbed her not at least that she stood between the mountains of vegetables, fruit, eggs, poultry and fish, while she held his doomsday prophecy solid.

...This story I have written to postulate that there are problems in the Gaza Strip, because that would be untrue. There are problems. Many problems indeed. But it is not lack of food, which primarily concern people down here. The biggest problem is the lack of jobs and a sustainable domestic economy.

There is a shortage of building materials, cement and everything within the construction industry. This lack, however, sparked a whole new industry. Poor Palestinians dig through the many empty and the ruins of destroyed houses and factory buildings from the war. Here are all kinds of things that can be reused. Although many of the stones and concrete can be utilized.

But the lack of real work and a genuine Palestinian economic development, as their brethren in the West Bank currently enjoys with help from the West, it could make much the situation in the Gaza Strip. And this economic development must come from within. There will never again be a situation where up to 150,000 workers from the Gaza Strip can take into Israel every day, and bring money back to help the local economy. (Someone actually once Israel was also criticized for). It gave a wave of terrorism and suicide bombings in the 90s and beginning of 2000 year end.[emphasis added]

But just as the world refuses to hold Turkey responsible for the one ship in the flotilla that ambushed the IDF, so too it will not occur to the media at large to hold Hamas for the situation that its terror attacks on Israel have created.

Technorati Tag: Gaza and Hamas.