Israeli Officials And American Conservatives Claim ‘There Is No Humanitarian Crisis In Gaza’

thinkprogress.org...

On Sunday, Israeli forces raided an aid flotilla trying to break a blockade of Gaza to deliver much-needed humanitarian supplies, killing nine activists, including four Turkish citizens. The incident has received “widespread condemnation” from the international community. Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan called the raid a “bloody massacre by Israel.”

In a damage control effort, Israeli officials and their right-wing American supporters are now trying to deflect blame onto the activists, saying that there was no reason for them to be trying to breach the blockade to deliver supplies because there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza:

ISRAELI FOREIGN MINISTER AVIGDOR LIEBERMAN: “There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza. … The flotilla is an attempt at violent propaganda against Israel, and Israel will not allow the violation of its sovereignty at sea, in the air, or on land.”

MICHAEL OREN, ISRAELI AMBASSADOR TO THE U.S.: “Over one hundred trucks, every day, laden with food and medicine go into Gaza. There’s no shortage of food. There is no shortage of medicine.”

NEWT GINGRICH: “There was no humanitarian crisis; this was a deliberate political effort on the part of people who want to try to undermine the survival of Israel.”

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: “What exactly is the humanitarian crisis that the flotilla was actually addressing? There is none. No one is starving in Gaza.”

“They can get plenty of humanitarian aid in Gaza,” said the Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol. “If they want more aid, airlift in five million tons of nice goods and the Israelis will just take a look and make sure they’re not arms.”

A U.N. fact-finding mission described the Israeli blockade, which Israel claims is aimed at Hamas, as “collective punishment.” A U.N. official said last week that the formal economy in Gaza has “collapsed,” and 60 percent of households there were short on food. The Guardian notes that according to UN statistics, “around 70% of Gazans live on less than $1 a day, 75% rely on food aid and 60% have no daily access to water.”

Amnesty International reported recently on the plight of Gazans as a result of the blockade:

The blockade [has] continued to cut off almost 1.5 million Palestinians from the rest of the world, isolating them in Gaza’s cramped confines, and greatly limiting the import of essential goods and supplies. This gratuitous exacerbation of the privations already suffered by the inhabitants of Gaza seriously hampered their access to health care and education and destroyed industries and livelihoods.

A U.N. spokesperson last year called Gaza “a prison.” “Eighty percent of Gaza’s population are refugees and non-refugees who rely on the UN aid,” he said, adding, “What is happening in Gaza now surpasses the capacities of any humanitarian organization.”

I wonder what these lunatics would have said if Germany was the holy land. They would have said, "Well Hitler has to protect the Germans, these Jews were terrorizing Germany and Europe. There is no crisis there at all, it's all good."

I give you a big middle finger you scumbag pieces of #! I'm sick of these right-wing lunatics foaming at the mouth to condone any activity set forth by the Israeli regime.

Gaza is an internment camp, and the last time I checked internment camps are humanitarian crisises.

The zionist propaganda machine is not effective as it used to be.



from wikipedia

The number of people living in absolute poverty in Gaza has increased sharply since the blockade. Today, 80% of families in Gaza currently rely on humanitarian aid compared to 63% in 2006. In 2007, households were spending approximately 62% of their total income on food compared with 37% in 2004. As a result, food aid increased dramatically to meet the needs of the population. In 2008, there were over 1.1 million people—some three-quarters of Gaza's population—who are dependent on food aid. Since 1997, the number of families depending on UNRWA food aid has increased ten-fold.

other source

UNRWA gives aid to 850,000 people, while 106,000 families receive financial help from the organisation, which employs 15,000 workers in special temporary employment programs, he said. There are 1.1 million refugees in the Strip, 320,000 of whom are living beneath the poverty line. According to UNRWA, 7,000 of those families are among the poorest in the world. Unemployment is 45 per cent.

reply to post by RizeorDie


Thank you for providing the facts. It's sad really when ordinary people with hidden identities on a non-professional website offers more intelligence and information than professional television personel.

Star.

I started a thread here on ATS several years back about the Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza, was going to post a link to it on another thread and it's not showing up in the ATS search function. I asked the staff about my missing thread and have not received a reply. That got me to wondering about some of my other threads so I did a search for "West Bank" and it looks like that isn't the only one that is missing either.

Im a zionist... That means to believe in Israel for good... Which says these have Never had good intentions for Gaza... These wankers need getting rid of for the sake of everyone... They believe their own BS too much... I Know...

Cant wait to see them face judgement.....

I've been thinking about this for the past few days...

I was listening to coast to coast AM and on one of their regular ABC newsbreak commercials it postulated exactly this.

The very last fragment of the newsbreak/commercial was the commentator sternly saying "There is. no. humanitarian crisis. in gaza"

It hurts to think that people actually believe this crap.

I was watching a little cnn today and on the program ricks list they had someone filling in for the anchor of that program and they had a congressman on who claimed there was no humanitarian crisis in gaza. I was shocked to hear him say that and was suprised to see this thread I'm glad it was posted! Good post!

reply to post by Misoir


Political packs (as in Wolfs), follow the leader, support positions they may view as outrageous, and often say little to nothing so not to rock the all powerful "party" A party is a party, USSR era communists, Mao's insane teenagers (you think WE were bad in the sixties), and the Republicans and Democrats. If any one has any remaining brain matter and free will, USE IT, dump all the parties, use your #$%^& brain and do something, start by becoming a non-affiliated Independent. And when you bitch and moan when you yell in the Congress say something because its the right thing to say for EVERYONE. Because its right? for Israel and Palestine working with the rational members of the middle east community. The people of the middle east have acted like their on crack since the 1940's! It's been driving me insane, the whole time and I'm only 52 years old! All parties acting like their the center of the universe has been driving me to a greater degree of dissociation and babbling! And believe me I'm scary enough sane! Thank you for your attention... Before I leave...

I propose for the people of the middle east they consider for a year in the region a "religion free zone". Don't outlaw prayers, but if they break out be polite, and just ignore them. In time they'll go away. Look at it the way a Doctor would check compounds to see if someones allergic to them. With draw them, then carefully reintroduce. If you break out, or want to be aggressive it usual means you need to avoid it, like some people avoid figs. Did you know we often crave the thing were most allergic to? I swear to God that's a medical fact. Yes I am a man of faith, but it seems unlike many mine is a God with a sense of humor. He did make us after after. With religion no longer impinging on the frontal lobe of so many, for a time, you might notice your mind starts to clear and real nuts and bolts life supporting issues will become suddenly apparent. Those real human issues that can not be represented by any national flag will be so obvious and universally understood when you stop screaming at each other. You can't hear a flute when drowned out by cannon fire and obscenities which never need a translation. I was in Isreal and Egypt, and Jordan in 1993. I got the impression after seeing a couple of fortunetly small public confrontations I wanted to shout to angry people who seemed on automatic pilot from hell, "how can you hate so much? The anger seemed self sustaining, and staying really angry and worked up a long time takes a lot of effort and a lot of calories. I was around all these angry people, who in one of the most errie moments of my life seemed just not to see me. It was like I was TOTALLY invisible. Even in a riot, people won't often run into someone unless they want to. People ran into me and seemed generally surprised, but to many it was like I just wasen't there.

I'm not a loud dresser, and I wasn't wearing my sound absorbing rain coat. Yes, I designed one to test a couple of accoustic programs,in a mobile non-motorized system, and it seems to suck certain sounds in and not reflect them as much. Its not 100% of course but it has been a hit at parties. For some reason, I can't take it out around the cat, it scares the hell out of him. I have no idea why. It's not like it bit him or something. They Vet knows I'm weird so I'll ask him next time I'm in.

Last, I had to mention when in the middle east, Isreal and Jordan, and briefly in an apartment in Cairo, I was invited to the home of a Jewish couple, Moslem couple and Christian, couple as well. For their safety I won't give their names or locations. I really wish I could. Because their respective governments should hire them as ambassadores. I had heard of the legendary hospitality of people through out the middle east. A "legend" implies a distant memory almost gone filled in with myth and cultural artifacts. There usually impossible to substantiate and for the most part not true, usually. Well this one was better then the press. So much so these couples were the difference that I reversed my decision of not investing in the area because I figured based on my view of how the universe worked with kind, generous people like this, good like hate spreads like an infection and good usually wins because people try to keep things alive around that make them feel good.



[edit on 2/6/10 by arbiture]

[edit on 2/6/10 by arbiture]

Hamas refuses cargo from flotilla ships
www.newsmeat.com...

Hamas steals aid supplies and sell to the highest bidder.
www.meforum.org...
www.terrorism-info.org.il...
newsblaze.com...

Hamas destroys dozens of homes in Gaza town
seattletimes.nwsource.com...

'Illegal' Gaza tunnel owners suffer as Hamas economy grows
www.haaretz.com...

reply to post by Misoir


Guess it won't be wrong to claim to these Israeli officials and American conservatives there was no Holocaust and Adolf Hitler was working for good of Jewish people.

[edit on 2-6-2010 by Crimson_King]

reply to post by ANNED


Good Hamas needs to and should grow more powerfull to protect Gaza people from Israeli nazism policies. They are freedom fighters and rightly so.

Of course theyre going to deny it.. Otherwise theyd be admitting guilt to the crimes against humanity they committed and continue to commit..