"The humanitarian situation here in Gaza continues to deteriorate at an alarming rate for the ordinary poor citizens," John Ging told the press a few days ago.
I used to live just a few minutes walk from where John Ging works. I saw his Toyota 4Runner riddled with bullets after an assassination attempt in March of 2007. I can understand his drive to speak out on behalf of Palestinians in Gaza, I can understand his passion to try and increase UNRWA's funding to feed more people across the Gaza Strip... but sometimes I wonder if he should just get out of Gaza. UNRWA should close their offices, stop the food distribution, stop rebuilding homes that the Israeli F16s bombed, stop running schools for thousands of children under siege, stop running summer camps for children with PTSD syndrome from ongoing incursions, aerial extra-judicial assassinations, sonic booms, bombings and an illegal embargo on travel in and out of Gaza. Actually along with UNRWA, Care International, World Vision and Oxfam should leave, the ICRC and Dfid, USAID and the EU should stop funding projects and just get out. Just get out. Out of the prison in which their staff serve as wardons- maybe well-intentioned at times, philanthropic, empathetic- but wardons non-the-less. For Gaza is a prison and if you are not part of the Israeli administration running the siege on Gaza, but you are feeding those that go hungry day in and day out, that are psychological tormented by the rat-like conditions they live due to that siege, then you are serving their ends.
If we would all get out then it would not be so easy to turn down a report that calls on Israel to be tried for war crimes of which the military onslaught in January was no exception- for it goes on day after day after. In the Gaza Strip crimes against humanity are a daily occurance and by feeding workers and their families that are made jobless and dignity-less we are serving the occupation and its goals.
Ariel Sharon said it so succinctly in May 2003, "Today there are 1.8 million Palestinians fed by international organizations," addressing his cabinet he asked, "[w]ould you like to take this upon yourselves? Where will we get the money?"
The Zionist project created the closed enclave that is called the Gaza Strip, through their violent attacks on villages across Palestine trippling the inhabitants of that area within a matter of weeks. Thus, according to international law they alone ought to take responsibility to provide for the people living in these occupied spaces. Instead, we not only stand by and sanction them as they incarcerate and torment the very ones they drove out of their homes just over 60 years ago... but we subsidize theie actions.
Meanwhile, the EU states and the usa are "searching for consensus."
Showing posts with label prisoner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prisoner. Show all posts
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Monday, January 8, 2007
The Secret War of Words
On Friday the 29th of December Noam Shalit published a letter to his son in the Palestinian newspaper Al-Quds.
"We in the family, your mother, your father, Hadas and Yoel, hope you feel well and are managing despite the tough conditions, the winter and the difficult situation you have been in for over six months. My Gilad, we miss you very, very much and want to see you with us and hug you tight, and so does the whole family and all your friends from school. We hope it will be very soon."
The letter is addressed to his son Gilad, a soldier in the Israeli army who was captured by gun-wielding Palestinians on June 26th. Two fellow soldiers were killed during the attack on the military base at the borders of Gaza, which serves to seal the borders of Gaza from the outside world.
Thousands of Palestinians, men, women and children are imprisoned in Israeli prisons and the Shalit family’s concerns are paralleled by thousands of unknown Palestinian mothers, fathers and brothers and sisters. The difference is that these Palestinians do not have a voice. This voice that Noam has to speak out on behalf of his son, a voice that is heard, is a luxury unknown to the common woman and man on the streets of Palestine.
"The fact that we don't know how you are, how you feel, how you are making it through the winter, and how the Palestinian organizations holding you are treating you, is very hard for us. They declare that you are a prisoner of war, but unfortunately, they are preventing you from receiving the rights to which you are entitled as a prisoner of war according to international law."
On December 31st the Israeli National News (Arutz Sheva) reported the following,
“Bracing for improved Qassam rockets with a firing range of 20 km the IDF is expanding the danger zone surrounding Gaza by a further 13 km, nearly three times wider than currently. The plan includes the fortification of schools and strategic sites in cities including Ashkelon, Netivot and Ofakim that lie within the new boundaries at the cost of NIS 1.4 billion (US $331.8 million).”
To the world’s eye, no mention is made of the Israeli artillery used freely at the borders of Gaza. The same fathers, mothers and children that do not have the stage on which to raise their voice to place the spotlight on their imprisoned loved ones, do not have the right to set up a security zone to protect them from the adversary firing at them and their homes with U.S.-made tanks and F-16s. In the latest Israeli incursion into Beit Hanoun in Northern Gaza, not one journalist was allowed into the area to witness the truth of the carnage taking place there. Within days humanitarian agencies began the process of making livable again this city of rubble. Two weeks later the remaining ruins and the minaret of a 15th Century mosque were removed and the massacre of 17 members of one family was swept under the carpet of history by way of a proclaimed technical error.
What is taking place is a secret war of words.
"We in the family, your mother, your father, Hadas and Yoel, hope you feel well and are managing despite the tough conditions, the winter and the difficult situation you have been in for over six months. My Gilad, we miss you very, very much and want to see you with us and hug you tight, and so does the whole family and all your friends from school. We hope it will be very soon."
The letter is addressed to his son Gilad, a soldier in the Israeli army who was captured by gun-wielding Palestinians on June 26th. Two fellow soldiers were killed during the attack on the military base at the borders of Gaza, which serves to seal the borders of Gaza from the outside world.
Thousands of Palestinians, men, women and children are imprisoned in Israeli prisons and the Shalit family’s concerns are paralleled by thousands of unknown Palestinian mothers, fathers and brothers and sisters. The difference is that these Palestinians do not have a voice. This voice that Noam has to speak out on behalf of his son, a voice that is heard, is a luxury unknown to the common woman and man on the streets of Palestine.
"The fact that we don't know how you are, how you feel, how you are making it through the winter, and how the Palestinian organizations holding you are treating you, is very hard for us. They declare that you are a prisoner of war, but unfortunately, they are preventing you from receiving the rights to which you are entitled as a prisoner of war according to international law."
On December 31st the Israeli National News (Arutz Sheva) reported the following,
“Bracing for improved Qassam rockets with a firing range of 20 km the IDF is expanding the danger zone surrounding Gaza by a further 13 km, nearly three times wider than currently. The plan includes the fortification of schools and strategic sites in cities including Ashkelon, Netivot and Ofakim that lie within the new boundaries at the cost of NIS 1.4 billion (US $331.8 million).”
To the world’s eye, no mention is made of the Israeli artillery used freely at the borders of Gaza. The same fathers, mothers and children that do not have the stage on which to raise their voice to place the spotlight on their imprisoned loved ones, do not have the right to set up a security zone to protect them from the adversary firing at them and their homes with U.S.-made tanks and F-16s. In the latest Israeli incursion into Beit Hanoun in Northern Gaza, not one journalist was allowed into the area to witness the truth of the carnage taking place there. Within days humanitarian agencies began the process of making livable again this city of rubble. Two weeks later the remaining ruins and the minaret of a 15th Century mosque were removed and the massacre of 17 members of one family was swept under the carpet of history by way of a proclaimed technical error.
What is taking place is a secret war of words.
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