Behind the headlines: The myth of an Israeli siege on Gaza

Received the following excellent article from the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

Behind the headlines: The myth of an Israeli siege on Gaza
Hamas would like the world to believe that it launched its rockets at Israeli cities and towns in an attempt to "end the siege." Nothing could be farther from the truth.



Medical supplies enter Gaza, July 19, 2014
Copyright: IDF Spokesperson
There is no Israeli "siege" on the Gaza Strip. First of all, Gaza shares borders not only with Israel, but with Egypt as well. There is a 13 kilometer (8 mile) frontier between Gaza and Egypt. That country, and not Israel, controls the Rafah crossing into Gaza which has been used primarily by people travelling to and from Egypt, and from there to the rest of the world.

Most importantly, for the past four years all goods are allowed to enter Gaza from Israel, except for weapons and a short list of dual-use items which can be exploited by terrorists. The ban on weapons and the restrictions on dual-use items stem from the fact that since 2007, Gaza has been ruled by a terrorist organization, namely Hamas, whose declared aim is the destruction of Israel. They are in place solely to protect Israel's citizens from Hamas' ongoing terrorist attacks.

Not only do food, medicine, fuel and aid enter freely at all times, but in peacetime, commodities and consumer goods of every type are transferred daily from Israel to Gaza through the land crossing. The types and amounts of consumer goods are determined by Palestinian merchants and depend primarily on market forces in Gaza. For the more affluent, Gaza offers a variety of consumer opportunities, from a modestly-sized mall to upscale restaurants. Even during the latest hostilities in Gaza, an international journalist reported on shopping at one of Gaza's supermarkets, which offered "all kinds of goods."

Given the free entry of almost all goods, it is impossible to legitimately claim that the Gaza Strip is under siege. For example, in the first five months of 2014, over 18,000 trucks carrying nearly 228,000 tons of supplies entered Gaza. Included in the deliveries were construction materials: since January, over 4,680 trucks carrying 181,000 tons of cement, wood, gravel, iron and other building supplies passed through the Kerem Shalom land crossing into Gaza.

In addition to facilitating the transfer of goods, humanitarian aid and fuels, Israel also supplies the Gaza Strip with 10 million cubic meters (2.6 billion US gallons) of water annually and more than half of its electricity.

While Israel faces a serious threat from terrorists in Gaza, it still allows the supervised movement of people into Israel. In the first five months of 2014, approximately 60,000 individuals entered Israel from the Gaza Strip. Many of these were patients and their escorts who received medical treatment in Israel and elsewhere, while large numbers of Gazan businessmen and merchants also visited Israel. 

In light of all these facts, not only is it obvious that there is no siege on Gaza, but it is also not reasonable to say that as a whole the Gaza Strip is under an Israeli blockade.

Anti-Israeli activists often cite the maritime blockade as proof of a general blockade on Gaza itself, but that is deliberately misleading.

In modern times, Gaza has relied almost exclusively on land crossings for the import of goods: it has never had the type of port capable of handling shipping containers (and only had a functioning airport for approximately three years).

The maritime blockade is legal under international law. In 2011, a special panel convened by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon examined the maritime blockade. The UN Panel found both the naval blockade and its enforcement, including in international waters, to be legal. This panel of experts emphasized that all assistance to Gaza should be transferred only through the designated land crossings.

The panel also found that Israel had legitimate security concerns regarding violence by Hamas and that weapons trafficking to Gaza permitted Israel to enforce a naval blockade. Repeated attempts to smuggle dangerous weapons via the sea - including powerful long-range rockets from Iran - attest to the fact that the maritime blockade is an essential security measure.

Indeed, the dangers posed by Hamas are well-documented. It is internationally recognized as a terrorist organization, including by the European Union, Australia, Japan, Egypt and the US.

The economic plight of the Gaza Strip does not stem from a mythical siege, but from its rule by a recognized terrorist organization dedicated not to the welfare of its people, but to violence and destruction. When Israel left Gaza in 2005, its aspiration was that the Gaza Strip would become a prosperous and peaceful territory. These hopes, and concrete plans for developing Gaza, were dashed by the incessant cross-border terrorist and rocket attacks, particularly after Hamas seized control in 2007.

Furthermore, Gaza's existing resources are systematically abused by Hamas for its own nefarious goals. Enormous amounts of money are used for procuring and producing weapons, training and funding terrorists, building terror infrastructures and for the enrichment of Hamas' leaders. Almost unimaginable quantities of cement were diverted from the construction of housing, schools and hospitals to building an underground city of terror tunnels and bunkers for Hamas members.

Hamas would like the world to believe that it launched its rockets at Israeli cities and towns in an attempt to "end the siege." It would like the international community to think it is acting in the interests of residents of Gaza. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

If Hamas cared about the welfare of the civilians in Gaza, it would not have started the current hostilities with its rocket barrages. It would have agreed to the Egyptian-proposed ceasefire already on 15 July (before the ground operation began), saving many lives on both sides. It would have respected the numerous humanitarian ceasefires Israel initiated for the benefit of the residents of Gaza. Most tellingly, it wouldn't have launched frequent rocket and mortar attacks on the Kerem Shalom border crossing, the main entry point into Gaza for goods and humanitarian aid.    

What Hamas truly cares about is advancing its agenda to destroy Israel. This terrorist organization seeks to end any control or supervision over what enters and exits Gaza so that it can freely import offensive weapons, including long-range rockets, explosives, military technologies, terrorist trainers, funds and supplies for its terrorist infrastructures. None of these things will help the residents of Gaza; rather, they will only serve to ignite future conflict.

For a short video summary, click here. 

Who cares?

From: Jack Cohen <jcohen2@bezeqint.net>
Sent: Sat, Aug 9, 2014
Subject: Who cares?

Africans are killing Africans - who cares?

Asians are killing Asians - who cares?

Arabs are killing Arabs in huge numbers - who cares?

Jews are killing Arabs - what, this can't be allowed!

 

USAF jets dropped high explosive bombs on the forces of the Islamic State approaching Irbil in the Autonomous Kurdish Region of northern Iraq.  But, was it proportionate?  Who cares?  Proportionality only applies to the forces of the IDF.

 

Tens of thousands of Christians and Yazidis were ousted and fled from their ancestral cities in northern Iraq when forces of the Islamic State (formerly the terrorist group known as ISIS) attacked their homes and began a systematic genocide.  How many were killed?  Who cares?  There are no Jews involved.

 

The Ukrainian Army has bombarded the cities of Lukhansk and Donetsk in eastern Ukraine to try to overcome the pro-Russian insurgents.  Many thousands of innocent civilians were caught in the bombing.  Does anyone know how many children were killed? No, who cares? It doesn't matter, there were no Jews involved.

 

During the civil war in Syria, that has taken ca. 170,000 lives (!), the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad has attacked the Palestinian concentration camps and killed thousands of people, including women and children.  But, who cares?  There are no Jews involved.

 

A smart UN official (in the intelligence branch no doubt) has proposed that in order to equalize the death toll on both sides, Israel should provide Iron Dome batteries to protect the Palestinian population against its own projectiles.  Whatever happened to fighting to win?

 

Alternative ideas are that the Iron Dome be automatically turned off in response to Hamas missiles to ensure that there are more Israeli deaths, so that the death count should be more proportionate. 

 

An Israeli came up with the idea that the Iron Dome system be modified so that the missiles from Gaza should be turned back to land in Gaza.  That would be more proportionate.

 

Boko Haram have kidnapped 52 Nigerian girls from their school and turned them into slaves, and this has generated an international campaign.  Boko Haram is a terrible Islamist organization.  Hamas has killed 162 Gazan children forced to dig tunnels for them to attack Israel.  Hamas is a benevolent social welfare organization assisting the poor Palestinian people.

 

Israel is a terrible anti-humanitarian state that keeps a blockade on Gaza, making it into a big prison.  Although Israel does allow the importation into Gaza of food, medical supplies, electicity, water, oil and building supplies.  The building supplies were approved for UN use to build schools and mosques, although they were actually used to build a network of tunnels with which to strike at Israel and kill Israeli civilians.  Who cares? 

 

Videos have surfaced (after the ceasefire when reporters left Gaza) of Hamas operatives (in civilian clothes) staging incidents of deaths from IDF shelling of UN schools and elsewhere.  Other videos show Hamas firing missiles from locations adjacent to UN facilities, hotels containing journalists and within densely populated areas.  Who cares?  Hamas are a humanitarian Palestinian organization fighting Israel.  Now if Israel did those things, that would be a war crime.

 

The Jerusalem Post has reported that there were two kinds of journalists covering the war from inside Gaza, those who don't want to go back and who testifed that their reporting was censored by Hamas, and those that do want to go back and who are not prepared to answer the question.  Who cares, as long as we get the news.

 

Hamas are indebted to editors around the world because they know that they believe the basic notion of TV journalism, "if it bleeds, it leads."  Hamas's aim is to satisfy the needs of the editors and the public for children's blood.  It can be guaranteed that every IDF shell will cause at least one bloody child.  Hamas will soon produce a full-length feature film entitled: "Bloody children's hour,"  that will consist of a repeated showing of bloodied children being rushed into the emergency room for public entertainment.

 

What, cynical, me?

After the ceasefire

by Jack Cohen <jcohen2@bezeqint.net>

Notwithstanding all the criticism and the enmity, it is amazing that Israel repaired the water and the electricity supply (damaged by Hamas missiles) into Gaza within the 3 day period of the ceasefire.   What other country would do this?  Note that also within these days some 3,000 truckloads of food, medical supplies and even building materials were shipped into Gaza through the two crossings, Kerem Shalom and Erez.  So much for a "Humanitarian crisis." Most people do not realize that apart from days when Hamas directly fired at the crossings and they had to be closed, trucks were taking food and other humanitarian supplies into Gaza throughout the nearly 4 week period of Operation Protective Edge, at the rate of ca. 800 trucks per day!

 

Why does Israel do this, something that no country on earth would do for an enemy population in time of war?  The fact is that Israel does not want to be held responsible for a truly humanitarian disaster, when pictures of starving people and children will be on the TV screens all around the world, as well as the pictures of children killed or injured in the actual fighting.  Note that Israel is the only country that can in fact provide this kind of material for the population of Gaza, since Egypt will not do so, and the supplies from other countries, that go through Israel, are miniscule.  But, we also do this because we are not cruel, because we do not want to be responsible for such human suffering.  And we do this for ourselves, not for anyone else.  Israel is believed to be deliberate "baby-killers" throughout most of the Muslim world, they believe this of us because they are anti-Semitic.  What is worse is that most people in the West, who are supposed to have free access to information, also believe this, partly due to their own anti-Semitic prejudices and partly due to media bias.   

 

It is known that the Sunni extremist forces, including Hamas and the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, show no compunction about deliberately killing children, yet this is what they accuse the IDF of doing, when it is certainly not true.  There is always this paradox, that the enemy projects their own evil onto us, the Jews.  Thus, Hitler accused the Jews of having plans to take over the world, while he certainly had these intentions and the Jews were entirely innocent.  Similarly with the Islamists, they are terribly cruel, in Nigeria Boko Haram kidnap girls because they are against them being educated and then turn them into slaves.   In northern Iraq the forces of the Islamic State decapitate people regularly when they are alive, this is a common barbaric practice of the Islamists, they did this to Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, yet they accuse Israel of being cruel!  

 

In Cairo, Israel agreed to extend the 3-day truce but Hamas did not agree. Hamas's main condition is that Israel open borders, that there be no blockade and the crossings be open.  Israel has surprisingly agreed to this demand, but in exchange Israel's condition is that Gaza be demilitarized, i.e. no going back to the status quo ante, where Hamas builds up a cache of missiles and weapons and rebuilds its tunnels and in a year or three starts another round of fighting, in which the innocent people on both sides suffer.  To avoid this PM Netanyahu has agreed to swap "open borders for demilitarization," and this formula is supported by Pres Obama and the USA.  It could be accomplished if the Palestine Authority under Pres. Abbas retakes responsibility for dealing with the reconstruction of Gaza, while Hamas is somewhat sidelined. 

 

But, Hamas would never agree to this, since it would mean a loss of their control of Gaza, and yet in effect this was the reason for their starting the war in the first place, their inability to cope with Gaza with both Israeli and Egyptian blockades and no access to other sources of funds and weapons.  They "shot their wad" so to speak and are now in dire straits.  They started hostilities again, and Israel is continuing to blast them and the pressure is great for them to renew the ceasefire and the negotiations.  Since there is now supposedly a Unity Govt. in Gaza and the West Bank, a mechanism could be worked out, such that open borders are exchanged for assurances that Israel can accept of no weapons and no tunnels.  Unfortunately, Hamas could not accept Israel's conditions and has gone back to firing missiles into Israel.  They will pay for their aggression and eventually will be forced to cave.

Think about the children

Editor of the Reformer:

There are some points in your editorial ("Blood on our hands," Aug. 2) with which we can agree. Hamas is despicable for hiding behind children while lobbing rockets at Israel and it is time for this to end.

Iran, Qatar and Turkey are the only countries actively supporting Hamas in this conflict. Egypt, the Arab League and most of the other Arab countries have kept a low profile. They acknowledge that the loss of Palestinian civilian life is largely due to Hamas and its tactics.

The deaths of children are firmly in the spotlight -- and rightly so. It pains all reasonable people to hear of children dying as the consequence of war. Hamas and its supporters display gruesome pictures of dead and wounded children in order to gain sympathy for their portrait of Israel as the villain intent on killing Palestinians.

Israel cites the need to stop Hamas from firing thousands of rockets at its own children, who are being forced to live in bomb shelters, as well as the need to eliminate the tunnels that Hamas dug into Israel in order to carry out terror attacks against Israelis. Hamas built these tunnels using some of the same children who are now trapped under fire in Gaza. In 2012, the Institute forPalestine Studies reported that at least 160 children have been killed in the tunnels, according to Hamas officials. The author, Nicolas Pelham, explains that Hamas uses child laborers to build their terror tunnels because, "much as in Victorian coal mines, they are prized for their nimble bodies."

Not only has Hamas misappropriated much of the humanitarian aid supplied to Gaza -- 800,000 tons of cement that could have been used for building homes, shopping malls, parks, schools, hospitals and libraries were used to construct the terror tunnels into Israel -- they are also directly exploiting and endangering Gaza’s youth in their construction and operation.

Hamas, while digging bunkers for their leaders and tunnels to attack Israel at a huge cost, gave their civilian population no shelters. And, Hamas fires missiles from populated areas and stores their missiles in schools (including UNRWA schools) and mosques. The network of tunnels indicates that Hamas had been preparing for an ongoing conflict for at least a year.

Professor Alan Dershowitz wrote in a recent opinion piece, "When Israel ended its occupation of Gaza in 2005, it left behind farm equipment and other material capable of feeding the population. But instead the leaders of Gaza enriched themselves and used the remaining resources to build rockets instead of plowshares."

According to British Colonel Richard Kemp, "Hamas’ sickening exploitation of their own people’s suffering, and media’s complicity in it, is demonstrated in the operating theaters of the Gaza Strip. Without the slightest regard for life-saving hygiene, or for the care, privacy or dignity of the wounded, Palestinian officials enthusiastically hustle camera crews in to the emergency room as desperate surgeons battle for a bleeding and broken child’s life."

Only after Hamas recognizes Israel can there be peace.

Keep things in perspective

According to Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to the United States from 2009 to 2013, “…The war against Israel has passed through three phases. The first was the attempt to annihilate Israel by conventional means. It began with Israel's birth in 1948, when Arab armies nearly captured Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and ended in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when Israeli forces came within artillery range of Cairo and Damascus. The next stage, starting in the early 1970s, sought to cripple Israel through terror. Suicide bombers nearly paralyzed the country, but by 2005 they too were defeated. That is when Israel's enemies launched the third, and potentially most devastating, campaign: to isolate, delegitimize and sanction Israel into extinction…”

Oren notes that the West Bank represents a complex historical, humanitarian and security situation. Unfortunately, Palestinian leaders turned down Israeli offers of statehood in 2000 and 2008, and have now abandoned peace talks in favor of reunification with Hamas. They aspire to create a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza from which all Jews have been expelled. 

Outside of the West Bank, in Jerusalem and elsewhere in Israel, Jews and Arabs mix freely and increasingly live in the same neighborhoods. Arabs serve in Israel's parliament, in its army and on its Supreme Court. And though discrimination in Israel , as in America, remains a scourge, there is no imposed segregation. Go to any Israeli mall, any restaurant or hospital, and you will see Arabs and Jews interacting.

But, this is not the perspective of the information about the current crisis between Israel and Gaza.

Instead we get a daily, unverified casualty count in Gaza from the Gazan Ministry of Health, which is controlled by Hamas. The Ministry of Health counts everyone not in uniform as a civilian. However, most Hamas fighters don’t wear uniforms.  It strains credulity to believe that 80% of the casualties are civilian but just-so-happened to be overwhelmingly fighting-age men.  Also,  given that there are about 1.6 million people densely crowded into Gaza and that the IAF has flown over 2000 sorties, the number of casualties is incredibly low.

If the civilian casualty count is anything to go by, Israel deserves to be commended in Gaza, since the IDF warns civilians with leaflets, phone calls and SMS messages of the pending attack on a specific area.  Hamas, while digging bunkers for their leaders and tunnels to attack Israel at a huge cost, gave their civilian population NO shelters.  By contrast Israel not only has civilian shelters everywhere, but spent a huge amount with US support for the Iron Dome system that is very effective at protecting civilians as well as giving a Red Alert alarm to warn civilians to take cover. Perhaps the worst thing is that Hamas fires missiles from populated areas and stores their missiles in schools (including UNRWA schools) and mosques.  

Israel has reportedly discovered at least 30 tunnels, and has destroyed several of them by employing bulldozers. IDF excavation of the tunnels has resulted in the seizure of tons of Hamas supplies, as well as the discovery of plans for future operations. Clearly, the network of tunnels -- using hundreds of tons of concrete that might otherwise have been used by the Palestinians for building homes, shopping malls, parks, schools, hospitals and libraries -- indicates that Hamas had been preparing for an ongoing conflict for at least a year. According to the reports, each tunnel has arteries, veins, offshoots, and offshoots of the offshoots in intricate and complex arrangements.

As the death toll rises, the deaths of children are firmly in the spotlight—and rightly so. It pains all reasonable people to hear of children dying as the consequence of war. Hamas and its supporters display gruesome pictures of dead and wounded children in order to gain sympathy for their portrait of Israel as the villain intent on killing Palestinians

In response, Israel cites the need to stop Hamas from firing thousands of rockets at its own children, who are being forced to live in bomb shelters, as well as the need to eliminate the tunnels that Hamas dug into Israel in order to carry out terror attacks against Israelis. One tunnel opening was found underneath an Israeli kindergarten.

But who built those tunnels? The answer is Hamas, of course—using some of the same children who are now trapped under fire in Gaza. The Institute for Palestine Studies published a detailed report on Gaza’s Tunnel Phenomenon in the summer of 2012. It reported that tunnel construction in Gaza has resulted in a large number of child deaths. “At least 160 children have been killed in the tunnels, according to Hamas officials.” The author, Nicolas Pelham, explains that Hamas uses child laborers to build their terror tunnels because, “much as in Victorian coal mines, they are prized for their nimble bodies”.

It should be noted that Pres. Abbas has journeyed to Qatar, the only country, apart from Turkey, that is actively supporting Hamas in this conflict.  The only other people who actually are supporting Hamas are the western liberal intelligentsia and the Muslim rabble. Egypt has proposed a ceasefire, that Israel accepted and Hamas rejected, but Egypt is not supporting Hamas and the Arab League and most of the other Arab countries have kept a low profile.  They acknowledge that the loss of Palestinian civilian life is largely due to Hamas and its tactics. 

So, not only has Hamas misappropriated much of the humanitarian aid supplied to Gaza—800,000 tons of cement were used to construct the terror tunnels into Israel—they are also directly exploiting and endangering Gaza’s youth in their construction and operation.

Can there be a ceasefire acceptable by both sides?  At present not!  To save face Hamas is insisting that Israel must stop the naval blockade of Gaza (that Israel cannot do because they would import weapons and missiles), Egypt should open the Rafah crossing, (that al-Sisi will not do for the same reason), and Israel should release arrested Hamas operatives and allow free transfer of people between Gaza and the West Bank (something that Israel will certainly not allow).  While Israel's conditions for a ceasefire have not been spelled out, it accepted the Egyptian proposal that is without conditions.  But, its conditions must be the destruction of all offensive tunnels and the destruction of all missiles in Gaza.  Hamas will not agree to this and they continue to fire missiles over Israel all the time.  So the fighting will continue until the IDF has done sufficient damage to Hamas that it will be forced to sue for a ceasefire to avoid further damage and the loss of its control of Gaza.  When that may happen cannot be predicted, but it will take some time. 

So, before taking a position on Israel, please keep things in perspective.