Mideast Media Sampler 06/26/2011

From DG:

1) A letter to Joseph Dana; what you will see in Gaza

Dear Joe,

Since you are headed to Gaza you might like to know what you will see when you arrive.


Well first, here's what you won't see.

Gaza isn't one of the most densely populated areas in the world.

If you don't believe me, you can see it in pictures.

Despite the claims of poverty in Gaza; you should be able to find plenty of shopping.

This is something Lauren Booth - Tony Blair's wacky sister-in-law - discovered shortly after she called Gaza a "concentration camp."

You could go to the mall, too.

There is even a luxury hotel for you to stay in.

Perhaps rumors of the poverty in Gaza have been greatly exaggerated.

Of course, we need to rewrite that first line of our letter. You will not see Gaza.

Gaza is under a legal blockade. Israel, will not and cannot allow your ship to pass through.

The Israeli navy will stop your boat. Despite your incomplete account of last year's blockade running episode, you fail to mention that as Sefic Dinc reported:

“When the soldiers came on helicopters and started landing on the ship, they did not fire. It wasn’t until the soldiers were met with resistance and realized that some of their friends’ lives were in danger that they began using live ammunition” 

If the Israeli sailors are not attacked; they will not attack you. Unless they are attacked like they were last year. 

I find it amusing that you are practicing nonviolence in a karate studio. I really don't know how you practice nonviolence. But if you don't attack the Israelis you are safe.

But don't worry; you won't need to deliver those supplies to Gaza. Israel is already doing your job for you.

Sincerely,

DG

PS Midway through, I found that someone already published a complete tourists' guide for last year's flotilla.
PPS Here's a handy dandy guide for identifying your shipmates.

2) Why Gaza instead of Syria?

Tom Carew tweeted a link to International activists should take the road to Damascus, not Gaza

Towards the end, the author Stephen King writes:

Yes, Israel is maintaining a sea blockade to prevent the smuggling of Iranian weaponry into Gaza. But can we really blame them? Ireland has special reason to understand the need to prevent the entry of weapons by sea for terrorist purposes, having had the experience of the IRA’s attempts to import arms and explosives on ships from Libya in 1973 (the Claudia) and 1987 (the Eksund), and — with Martin Ferris’ help — on the Marita Ann from the US in 1984.

As the deputy director of the Red Cross in Gaza stated in April this year: "There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza." But there most certainly is a humanitarian crisis in Syria. The Gazan economy is clipping along and tonnes of consumer goods and food arrive daily. For sure, life is probably not very pleasant there by our standards but the oppression comes from the ruling Hamas regime, not Israel which pulled out every last settler and soldier years ago.

"[N]o humanitarian crisis." Good to know.

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.

Technorati Tag: Middle+East and Gaza and Israel.