Israel, which earlier prevented Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Jimmy Carter from entering Gaza, detained and then deported Richard Falk, the UN special rapporteur, when he arrived at the airport in Tel Aviv on Dec. 15.
What is Israel trying to hide? US taxpayers, who subsidize its actions at about $3 billion a year, should demand to know, and call for an immediate end to this inhuman collective punishment.
A couple of weeks ago a Dutch TV crew was also denied access to the Gaza strip by the IDF. Secretly, they went into Gaza and witnessed themselves what is happening. They filmed a hospital in which newly born babies are dying as a consequence of power fall outs. The Gaza power plant does not receive enough fuel to provide Gaza, and thus the hospital, with constant power supply.
Some on this forum have said ''It is Hamas that broke the truce'' and they are to blame, not Israel.
Although there cannot be a reason to justify violence against innocent civilians like Hamas has done, I do understand their desperation. Before Hamas broke the truce, the Gaza strip had already been sealed for months. Fruits and other kind of foods which were cultivated for export are forcefully sold on local markets against a loss. Most of the corporations in Gaza have filed bankruptcy long time ago. (Food) prices have skyrocketed and food stocks are extremely low.
Consequently, 80% of the Gazans is dependent on food and medical aid and the average income is $2,- a day way too little to pay a family's meal.
Some on this forum have said: they are smuggling in weapons, so I don't feel sorry for them. You must be seriously retarded to think that people spend their $2,- on weapons rather than on food for their children. Every person with an average IQ could understand that these people spend their $2 on smuggled food and in some cases medicines. Of course, weapons are smuggled into Gaza, but it is Hamas and other terrorist network which smuggle weapons.
We, the world, are not allowed to see what is happening. And if Israel is really so honest as they pretend to be, they should allow reporters to go in there and let them witness themselves what is happening, rather than censoring the news.
One more thing. The US strongly advocated free elections in Palestine. The Palestinians elected Hamas, which made the US decide to immediately cut off all aid. Hamas proposed a new peace deal in which Israel would return to the borders of 1967 , but Israel immediately turned down that idea. In other words, Israel did not even give peace a chance.
Once again, I do not advocate their use of violence, but with no freedom to move, no fair chance to build a country, there will never be peace.
Consensus is the key. We have seen what 8 years Bush and no talking to ''enemies'' has done, like Iran. It further isolated them, increasing the risk of terrorist attacks.
Although I would once again like to stress I condemn the use of violence against innocent civilians, one Israeli has died so far while over 200 Palestinians have died. That response is, like Sarkozy said, disproportionate, or like one ex prime minister of the Netherlands said: a war crime.
Could someone distinguish the difference between a concentration camp and Gaza? Could someone explain me why refusing people foreign aid and starve them to death is any better than what the Nazi's did to the Jews in Europe?
The whole world sees what is going, yet America is turning a blind eye to Israel's disproportionate response. During the Lebanon - Israel war, thousands of innocent civilians died because two soldiers were kidnapped by Hezbollah not by the Lebanese government. What makes them, the Israeli government, less terroristic than Hamas?
www.boston.com
(visit the link for the full news article)
[edit on 28-12-2008 by Mdv2]
