3) How bad are things in Gaza?
Backspin publishes some
impressive figures taken from Ethan Bronner's article on Gaza.
Still I'm a bit put off by the way
Bronner presents his observations.
The Israeli government and its defenders use such data to portray Gaza as doing just fine and Israeli policy as humane and appropriate: no flotillas need set sail.
Israel’s critics say the fact that the conditions in Gaza do not rival the problems in sub-Saharan Africa only makes the political and human rights crisis here all the more tragic — and solvable. Israel, they note, still controls access to sea, air and most land routes, and its security policies have consciously strangled development opportunities for an educated and potentially high-achieving population that is trapped with no horizon. Pressure needs to be maintained to end the siege entirely, they say, and talk of improvement is counterproductive.
The views, of Israel's critics are provided with no qualification. Are these critics objective observers? But here's the really awful part: "...security policies have consciously strangled development opportunities..."
Why is the word "consciously" included? And in a later paragraph we learn:
For the past year, Israel has allowed most everything into Gaza but cement, steel and other construction material — other than for internationally supervised projects — because they are worried that such supplies can be used by Hamas for bunkers and bombs. A number of international projects are proceeding, but there is an urgent need for housing, street paving, schools, factories and public works projects, all under Hamas or the private sector, and Israel’s policy bans access to the goods to move those forward.
"[T]hey are worried?" Given the efforts Bronner goes to show how bad things are in Gaza, it's disappointing that he can't make the effort to back up Israeli worries. After all if
a tenth of Israeli's population is under threat of a rocket attack by Hamas, which rules Gaza, that's pretty significant. Bronner accuses Israel of implementing a security policy that is at best, arbitrary, at worst spiteful; he has a responsibility to demonstrate the reasons for Israel's policy instead of leaving Israel's enemies (or "critics" as he so diplomatically puts it) to define the narrative.
And when Bronner writes:
Efforts by fringe Islamist groups to challenge Hamas have had little effect.
He is effectively casting Hamas as a mainstream organization. Nowhere in the article does Bronner mention that Hamas is devoted to Israel's destruction.
4) Re-reading Kuttab
The other day
I commented on an article by Daoud Kuttab.
I made an inference and concluded that he was advocating violence against Israel.
Reader Lynn pointed out that he had quite
explicitly called for violence.
A plan must be designed to "liberate" zones listed as Area C, over which Israel now has direct administrative and security control.
A
recent op-ed in the International Herald Tribune co-written by Yossi Alpher, Colette Avital, Shlomo Gazit and Mark Heller concludes:
A creative and courageous approach to leveraging the Palestinian initiative will not end the conflict. But it could make it far more manageable.
If Kuttab's vision of what should happen after a UN declaration of Palestine takes place, the conflict will be far less manageable.
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