A Contrast Of Two Visits To Gaza

In Calling Gaza a prison camp is an understatement, Laila El-Haddad presents a distorted picture--literally.

Her original article, found on Comment Is Free on The Guardian website, contained a picture of an Israeli checkpoint with the caption: A Palestinian worker passes a checkpoint while an Israeli soldier stands guard in the Gush Katif settlement bloc. You can see the original photo here. The picture has since been removed without explanation. Since Gush Katif was taken down as part of the Disengagement 5 years ago--instead of illustrating the prison-like qualities of Gaza, the picture instead is a stark reminder that after completely leaving Gaza, Israeli citizens have been the target of rockets fired from Gaza ever since.

More to the point, El-Haddas also blogs at Gazamom, and Wikipedia notes:

A running theme in El-Haddad's writing is the personalization of the situation of Gazans and Palestinians by writing with humor and introspective humanity about her domestic life and those of other Gazans. By revealing Palestinians neither as terrorists nor as currency in a worldwide market of political opposition to western dominance, but as sympathetic people capable of wit and humor amid violence and the occupation of their territory, she thereby contributes a human voice from Palestine.

Such writing has won El-Haddad's blog awards and recognition--and how can you argue against humanizing the Gazans?
The problem is when it is done out of context, without giving both sides.
That is when it becomes propaganda.

She writes:

Using the phrase “prison camp” to describe Gaza…is an understatement and even a misnomer. Prisoners are guilty of a crime, yet they are guaranteed access to certain things – electricity and water, even education – where Gazans are not. What crime did Gazans commit, except, to quote my late grandmother, “being born Palestinian”?

But one can wonder why the words rockets and Kassam appear nowhere in here piece.

And that is the crux of the matter: El-Haddad should be writing to humanize the Palestinian Arabs living under Hamas rule, but not whitewashing them.

While El-Haddad writes that it has been 3 years since she last visited Gaza, Journalist Ashraf Abu Al-Houl wrote in Al-Ahram recently about visiting Gaza for the first time since February:

Returning three weeks ago, I found it almost unrecognizable... and the greatest surprise was the nature of that change. I would have expected a change for the worse, considering the blockade – but the opposite was the case; it seemed as if it had emerged from the blockade.

"A sense of absolute prosperity prevails, as manifested by the grand resorts along and near Gaza's coast. Further, the sight of the merchandise and luxuries filling the Gaza shops amazed me. Merchandise is sold more cheaply than in Egypt, although most of it is from the Egyptian market, and there are added shipping costs and costs for smuggling it via the tunnels – so that it could be expected to be more expensive.

"Before I judge by appearances, which can be misleading... [I would like to point out that] I toured the new resorts, most of which are quite grand, as well as the commercial markets, to verify my hypothesis. The resorts and markets have come to symbolize prosperity, and prove that the siege is formal or political, not economic. The reality [in Gaza] proves that the siege was broken even before Israel's crime against the ships of the Freedom Flotilla in late May; everything already was coming into the Gaza Strip from Egypt. If this weren't the case, businessmen would not have been able to build so many resorts in under four months."

At the same time Al-Houl  refers to Israel's actions against the flotilla as both a 'crime' and a 'massacre'. He also acknowledges that the number of people who are able to take advantage of these markets and resorts is limited:

"The Gaza resorts paint a picture of prosperity enjoyed by only a few groups, most of which have become rich from the blockade, because they either own tunnels or else work for the many international organizations in Gaza, headed by UNRWA.

"The Gaza resorts are divided into several [categories], each of which has its own price range. This is not like it used to be, when all the tables on the beach were for the use of all the residents... I noticed that most of the resorts set a certain price for the tables near the sea, and a different price for tables farther away. This is in addition to high fees to enter the resort – no less than NIS 20 – and each activity within the [grounds] has its own fee. In short, a family visit, with a sandwich for each child, can cost up to NIS 500.

"Several months ago, Gaza had only one luxury resort, Zahrat Al-Madain. Today, another one opens up every day, such as Crazy Water, Aqua Park, and Al-Bustan. Most of them are owned by members, or associates, of Hamas. In addition, the Hamas municipalities [also] charge high fees, in Gaza terms, for the use of public beaches."

That of course is part of the problem: El-Haddad is whitewashing Hamas as well. Everything she has to say about Hamas she says in the first 2 paragraphs:

It's three years since I've been back to Gaza. Much has happened since my last visit. Fatah waged a failed coup and now rules only the West Bank, while Hamas is in charge of Gaza. Israel launched its deadly Cast Lead assault. Fuel shortages. Electricity crises. And so on.

I needed to regain perspective. So I walked and I talked and I listened. I went to the beach where women – skinny jeans and all – were smoking water pipes, swimming and generally having a good time, irrespective of the purported Hamas ban on women smoking sheesha.

As one of the commenters, Yanpol, points out that, in her defense of Hamas, El-Haddas gets the coup backwards:

It depends on how you look at it. According to the Oslo Accords, the security forces are under the authority of the President of the PNA, so Hamas attempt to control them was de fact a coup. Hamas won the parliamentary elections, not the presidency, so they were in the wrong there.

On Fatah's side, it's true that they were not behaving very nicely (to say the least) towards elected representatives of the opposite party, but to put all the guilt on them is to tell just part of the story.

The fact is that the only understatement is the way El-Haddad whitewashes Hamas and the Gazans who gave them the power to fire thousands of rockets at Israeli cities on their behalf.

Technorati Tag: Laila El-Haddad and Gaza and Hamas.