Archive
Odd assortment of barred goods to Gaza
“Newspapers, tea, A4 paper and chocolate are among the items that have at one point been barred,” from entry into the Gaza strip, writes the Economist. Gisha, an Israeli human rights organization has a recent partial list of barred and permitted goods into Gaza.
Gisha’s site provides helpful answers to frequently questions regarding the blockade.
The long siege of Gaza
The Gaza Strip has been under siege for a long time. As a result, people are out of jobs, have trouble finding adequate housing, healthcare has suffered, unemployment risen, and the economy taken a lethal beating.
Gaza is densely packed with some 1.5 million people. The Majority of Gazans are refugees who fled or were expelled from the land that is today Israel following the Arab-Israeli War of 1948. Over 3/4 of residents are registered refugees. Most Gazans live in refugee camps.
Over half of these refugees live in eight large camps. These camps depend on UN deliveries of aid for food, health, and education.
The UN states that:
The refugee camps in the Gaza Strip have among the highest population densities in the world. For example, over 80,688 refugees live in Beach camp whose area is less than one square kilometer. This high population density is reflected in the overcrowded UNRWA schools and classrooms.
In February 2009 The Word Health Organization assessed the damage following the 2008-2009 Israeli invasion of Gaza, and found that nearly half of health facilities assessed were damaged or destroyed during the attack. The same report indicated that during the war, over 430 children and 112 women were killed, while nearly 1900 children and about 800 women were injured.
The siege and suffering of the people of Gaza has been long lasting.
The BMJ medical journal published a survey in 2002 indicating that, in the Gaza Strip, “13% of children under 5 years old were suffering from short term malnutrition and almost 18% had long term malnutrition—compared with a level of about 2% in countries that the World Health Organization defines as having moderate malnutrition.” Things are bad when almost a third of children under 5 suffer from malnutrition.
Since the 2007 Hamas takeover of Gaza, Israel has greatly intensified the blockade of the Gaza Strip, cutting off the region from the outside world, and reducing to a trickle access to essential supplies.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) released a report in May 2010 that found “46% of agricultural lands were assessed to be inaccessible or out of production in Gaza.“
The FAO report further states that:
The Agriculture Sector in the Gaza Strip has the potential to export 2300 tons of strawberries, 55 million carnation flowers, and 714 tons of cherry tomatoes per annum in addition to locally consumed products. There has been close to zero export activity due to restrictions since the blockade. Exceptions to these export restrictions during the last winter season presented little change with only 2% of strawberries and 25% of cut flowers of the total pre‐blockade potential for export.
[...]Since January 2009, fishers’ access to fishing grounds has been further restricted to 3 nautical miles (nm) from the shore. This has resulted in a depletion of catches and revenues.
In Gaza, the majority of profits from fishing come from sardines, however, schools of sardine pass beyond the 3 nm mark and sardine catches are down 72%.
Adult fish are mostly found beyond the 3 nm limit and therefore fishing within the current zone rapidly depletes new generations of fish, with severe implications for fish life‐cycles and therefore long‐term fishing livelihoods. (The previous fishing zone was 6‐9 nm before ‘Cast Lead’, 12 nm from Bertini Commitments, and 20 nm under the Oslo Accords.
A World Bank report from 2008 indicates that “according to business associations in Gaza, the current restrictions have led to the suspension of 96% of Gaza’s industrial operations.”
Most Gazan industries are export-oriented and have purchase and supply contracts with Israeli and other firms. Gazan manufacturers rely almost entirely on imports for their inputs and until recently, about 76% of their furniture products, 90% of their garments and 20% of their food products were exported to Israel, and some to the West Bank.
Israeli forces kill civilians carrying aid shipments to Gaza
At least 10 civilians were killed, and many more injured, by Israeli commandos boarding a flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza on Monday, May 31.
The Gaza Strip is under an Israeli blockade, with all its points of entry monitored and controlled by Israeli officials. The siege has stiffened following the 2007 takeover of Gaza by Hamas and the Israeli war on the Strip that killed some 1,500 people in 2008-2009.
The aid ships carried over 600 activists and 10,000 tonnes of supplies. Among the activists were some members of parliament (MPs). After leaving Turkey, the flotilla was to pick up more passengers in Cyprus, including 30 MPs from nine European countries, but traffic to and from the flotilla was denied by authorities in Cyprus.
Turkey has recalled its ambassador to Israel and has called for a session of the UN Security Council. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was on a state visit to Canada at the time and was scheduled to visit the US next. He has canceled his foreign trip and returned to Israel to face the political crisis that has resulted from the deaths of so many international civilians under the Israeli Defense Force.
Greece has ended its joint war games with Israel, while ambassadors are being recalled or questioned in multiple countries, such as Sweden recalling its ambassador to Israel as protest.
Prime minister Erdogan of Turkey has responded to today’s attack, saying that “This attack made by Israel is a state terror. Actual Israeli government demonstrated that it does not want peace in the region. It should be known that we will not keep silent and unreactive facing this state terror.”
Turkey has been one of Israel’s few regional allies, though relations have become increasingly strained following the 2008-2009 war against Gaza.
Israel claims that upon boarding the ships they were attacked by activists wielding clubs and knives and fired live rounds in response, as a form of self-defence. Eight members of the military are said to be wounded.
It is being alleged by members of Free Gaza that the aid ships were boarded in international waters and that Israel contravened the UN international convention on freedom of navigation on the high seas. Although the Israeli press refers to the waters off Gaza as “Israeli territorial waters,” in fact Israel has no legal claim to the Gaza coast. It is the Occupying power in Gaza since 1967, but is in severe contravention of the 1949 Geneva Convention on the treatment of occupied populations.
Thousands of people are protesting the incident around the world, outside Israeli and sometimes US consulates. On Monday, some 300 protesters in Turkey tried to storm the Israeli consulate but were repelled by security forces. The number of protesters has since grown.
Amnesty International’s response:
For nearly three years, Israel, which is the occupying power in the Gaza Strip, has implemented a policy of banning all movement of goods and people, except for the most basic humanitarian necessities, which are imported by international aid agencies. Only a fraction of patients in need of treatment outside Gaza are allowed out, and dozens have died waiting for Israeli permission to travel.
“The blockade does not target armed groups but rather punishes Gaza’s entire population by restricting the entry of food, medical supplies, educational equipment and building materials,” said Malcolm Smart.
“Unsurprisingly, its impact falls most heavily on those most vulnerable among Gaza ’s 1.5 million people: children, the elderly and the sick. The blockade constitutes collective punishment under international law and must be lifted immediately.”
Emerging US war policy, Israeli drones, and Iran on NATO, Iraq, and elections
According to an article by Marc Ambinder, published by the Atlantic, US president Barack Obama will likely support a senate bill to provide funds to Pakistan tied to that country’s efforts against Taliban and Al-Qaeda insurgents.
These reports are coming from US government insiders prior to president Obama’s formal release of his Afghanistan and Pakistan policy.
Such aid will likely be used to pressure Pakistan’s government to reduce it’s long-standing and often covert cooperation with the Taliban. This method is not new, and was carried out quite under both presidents Bush and Clinton. The Pakistani government, at that time under the leadership of Pervez Musharraf, proved adept at playing both sides, receiving money from the U.S. and using its military and secret intelligence to support Taliban assets it had cultivated over many years.
Pakistan had previously used its ties to the Taliban to exert influence within Afghanistan, such as undermining the Northern Alliance (which had greater understanding with Iran), establishing trade routes and smuggling rings, keeping Indian influence to a minimum in Afghanistan, and using Taliban allied training grounds and people as fighters against India in Kashmir in order to avoid the full fallout from a formal government directed attack.
According to the Atlantic article, president Obama plans to send “4,000 additional troops … tasked with training Afghan soldiers and the national police; the administration hopes to have more than 130,000 [Afghan] soldiers and 82,000 [Afghan] police officers trained by 2011.”
The Nation has an informative article on the use of Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, by Israel in the latest major assault on the Gaza Strip. Israel is a leader in the development of drone technology, modifying U.S. designs as it has done with many of its other military hardware.
The AFP reports that Iran has attended a meeting at NATO headquarters, the first time direct talks were held between these two groups since the Iranian revolution some 30 years ago. According to a chief NATO spokesman, “the Iranians are interested in possible cooperation on Afghanistan.” AFP reports that Iran is interested in mitigating the smuggling of drugs from Afghanistan into Iran.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that between 1.5 and 2 million Afghan refugees reside in Iran. Iran is keen on reducing the numbers of these refugees and reducing the flow of new refugees. Also, Iran has had quite bad relations with the Taliban. The Sunni Taliban sees Iran’s Shia government as apostate and relations between the two are anywhere between strained to hostile.
In 2001, Iran proved supportive of the US invasion of Afghanistan and, importantly, was instrumental in convincing its allies in the Northern Alliance to work with the US.
Juan Cole reports on an Al-Zaman article claiming “that Iranian speaker of the House Ali Larijani is on a secret mission in Iraq to mediate between the Islamic Mission (Da’wa) Party of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and his sometime coalition partner, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI). The two parties are seeking to form coalitions in several southern Shiite provincial councils, and Iran is said impatient for the deal to be concluded.”
The lead-up to Iran’s June presidential elections has been somewhat tumultuous for all candidates involved, including current president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He faced stiff resistance, and finally parliamentary defeat of his budget plans in March. Despite this body blow, EurasiaNet reports that president Ahmadinejad remains the front runner in the race. Ahmadinejad’s power base is heavily tied to his alliance with the military, counter to traditional politics in the Islamic Republic of Iran. His past and current election campaigns indicate greater military influence over Iranian politics, undermining some of the power of clerics and their financiers (the bazaaris).
War in Gaza and a Rift Between Turkey and Israel at the World Economic Forum
This is the complete video of a now much discussed panel from the 29 January 2009 meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos. The heated debate signals some of Turkey’s growing frustration toward Israel. Turkey has effectively been a key ally to Israel, providing political and military support, and helping legitimise Israeli policy in the region. Recently, Turkey has tried to mediate a formal peace between Syria and Israel, a further attempt to normalise relations between Israel and its neighbours.
The topic of the panel is the Israeli invasion of Gaza and the prospects for peace between Israel and Palestine. The panelists in attendance were Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Israeli President Shimon Peres, UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon, and General Secretary of the Arab League Amr Moussa, with Washington Post journalist David Ignatius as moderator.
The panel resulted in Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan leaving in protest to Israeli action in Gaza, as well as in protest to what he described as a discrepancy in time allotted for him to speak. As the Prime Minister was leaving, General Secretary Amr Moussa shakes hands with him and is then seen standing with what appears to be indecision on whether he should also walk out. However, Amr Moussa appears convinced to sit after the UN General Secretary signals for him to rejoin the group.
Erdoğan seemed softened, not directly ruling out coming back to Davos. He said that his reaction had been not to Israel or Davos, but to the unfair moderation of the panel. He added that Peres’ style of speaking had been incompatible with an international panel.
On Friday early morning, Shimon Peres called Erdoğan and apologised for his raised voice, explaining that he was hard of hearing. The two agreed that cooperation between the two countries would continue.
Erdoğan’s reaction has to be seen not only in the light of the panel, but also in the context of failed negotiations between Israel, Syria, Lebanon and Hamas. Turkey had taken a leading role in talks prior to the Gaza attacks.
Below is a video of a press conference given by Prime Minster Erdoğan following the panel, downplaying his walking out of the meeting. It is both in Turkish and English.
An update on Gaza
Laila El-Haddad, a journalist, writes the following on her blog “Raising Yousuf and Noor: diary of a Palestinian mother“, about her family and others trapped in Gaza during the ongoing Israeli attacks:
My father and I made simultaneous back to back appearances on CNN domestic and CNN international last night. My father spoke calmly, eloquently, in the pitch dark of besieged Gaza, with only the the fire of Israeli bombs illuminating his world: “they are destroying everything that is beautiful and living” he told the anchor.
…My father last night tried to communicate a single message: We keep hearing that Israel is after Hamas; but WE are the targets here; Civilians are the targets here, not Hamas.
An entire refugee family in one fell swoop was killed this morning as they took cover in their home, which took a direct hit from Israeli shells. Their deaths do not make Israeli more secure. Their deaths will not stop rocket fire.
6 paramedics and a doctor were also killed as they tried to rescue wounded Palestinians in northern Gaza.
And now, AP reports that the Gaza phone network is on the brink of collapse. I do not know how much longer I will be able to communicate with my parents.
You can watch CNN’s interview of Laila El-Haddad here.
Gaza’s People and Economy in Peril
Palestinians sit on the rubble of their destroyed home in Jabalia, Gaza Strip. Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/04/israelandthepalestinians
This short report review’s The Gaza Strip’s human and economic conditions. The World Bank and the United Nations are the main sources for all information and statistics compiled here.
For more information on the blockade of the Gaza Strip, read an earlier post titled ‘Siege of Gaza‘.
The People
Over 1.4 million Palestinian Arabs live in the the Gaza Strip, an area that is only 360 km2 in area (139 sq. miles). The Gaza Strip is about 40 km long and on average 10 km wide. This makes Gaza one of the most densely populated regions on earth. The problem of overcrowding is compounded by it having one of the fastest growth rates globally.
Gaza City is the largest urban centre, with 400,000 residents, followed by Khan Younis (200,000), and Rafah (150,000).
The Majority of Gazans are refugees which fled or were expelled from the land that is today Israel following the Arab-Israeli War of 1948. Over 3/4 of residents are registered refugees. Most Gazans live in refugee camps.
Over half of these refugees live in eight large camps. These camps depend on UN deliveries of aid for food, health, and education.
The UN states that:
The refugee camps in the Gaza Strip have among the highest population densities in the world. For example, over 80,688 refugees live in Beach camp whose area is less than one square kilometer. This high population density is reflected in the overcrowded UNRWA schools and classrooms.
Over 20% of refugee homes are not connected to a sewage system.
UN estimates the population of the eight camps to be:
o Jabalia 106,846
o Rafah 97,412
o Beach 80,567
o Nuseirat 58,727
o Khan Younis 61,539
o Bureij 29,805
o Maghazi 23,161
o Deir el-Balah 20,215
There are 18 primary healthcare facilities, overstretched, underfunded, and short on supplies. 187 overcrowded schools service the region. There is one vocational and technical training centre in the Gaza Strip, with room for 1,044 to enroll in the program.
The BMJ medical journal published a survey in 2002 indicating that, in the Gaza Strip, “13% of children under 5 years old were suffering from short term malnutrition and almost 18% had long term malnutrition—compared with a level of about 2% in countries that the World Health Organization defines as having moderate malnutrition.” Things are bad when almost a third of children under 5 suffer from malnutrition.
Since 2007, Israel has greatly intensified the blockade of the Gaza Strip, cutting off the region from the outside world, and reducing to a trickle access to essential supplies.
The Economy
According to the World Bank, since the intensification of the Israeli blockade of Gaza in June 2007:
According to the Palestinian Federation of Industries, the restrictions have led to the suspension of 95% of Gaza’s industrial operations. They can access neither the inputs for production nor the crossings to export what they produce, transforming Gaza into a consumer economy driven by public sector salaries and humanitarian assistance only. The agriculture sector has also been badly hit. Nearly 40,000 workers depend on the agriculture sector in Gaza.
Gaza’s economy has nearly hit rock bottom and is struck there. The World Bank has announced that in 2007 the economy did not grow at all.
Gazans depend on Israeli controlled terminals located on the border of the Strip as the only regular means of access for essential goods to their health and economy.
The Israeli blockade and closure of access to the Gaza Strip has hit the region hard. A World Bank supervised report indicates that the:
AlMontar/Karni terminal is the main crossing for the import and export of commercial goods for the Gaza Strip. Most of the terminal’s operations were halted on the 12th of June, 2007, and since then, only one single-lane conveyor belt continued to operate at an average of two days per week for the imports of wheat, grain and animal feeds.
After June 12, 2007, with intensification of the blockade, the terminal was operational only 27.5% of the time. So, on most days it was closed. From January 1 2007 to June 12 2007, 53,141 truckloads of imports went through the terminal, but after June 12 until the end of 2007 only 2,944 made it through.
The collapse of the economy is evident by looking at the types of imports that went through the main terminal of AlMontar/Karni. Below is a chart replicated from a UN supervised annual report by the Palestinian Trade Center.
These charts show the desperate situation in the Gaza Strip as almost all imports become dedicated to the provision of food to a people suffering from malnutrition.
Poverty is common to the residents of Gaza. The World Bank states that “the percentage of Gazans who live in deep poverty has risen to nearly 35% in 2006, and is expected to have increased further in 2007 and 2008. If revised to exclude remittances and food aid, this poverty rate is closer to 67%.”
The World Bank has reported that, “according to business associations in Gaza, the current restrictions have led to the suspension of 96% of Gaza’s industrial operations.”
Most Gazan industries are export-oriented and have purchase and supply contracts with Israeli and other firms. Gazan manufacturers rely almost entirely on imports for their inputs and until recently, about 76% of their furniture products, 90% of their garments and 20% of their food products were exported to Israel, and some to the West Bank.
##
References:
Guardian: ‘Gaza’s economic growth has halted, World Bank says’
PalTrade: ‘Annual Report 2007′
World Bank: ‘West Bank and Gaza: Economic Developments and Prospects – March 2008′
Malnutrition Stalks Gaza, Peace Eroded and Israeli Soldiers Talk About the Occupied Territories
The Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip continues, delivery of aid has again been choked off to the region, and Hamas has warned it may drop the 5 month long truce following the latest blockade and Israeli attacks within Gaza.
Economic collapse and malnutrition are two heads of the monster stalking Gaza. These problems are not new to the region.
The BMJ medical journal published a survey in 2002 indicating that, in the Gaza Strip, “13% of children under 5 years old were suffering from short term malnutrition and almost 18% had long term malnutrition—compared with a level of about 2% in countries that the World Health Organization defines as having moderate malnutrition.” Things are bad when almost a third of children under 5 suffer from malnutrition.
For more information on the history of malnutrition in Gaza, the military history of sieges, codes of war regarding civilians and their relation to the blockade of Gaza you can read an earlier post from this site titled the ‘Siege of Gaza’.
Meanwhile the continued expansion of Israeli settlements threatens the very foundation of a possible peace by eroding the viability of a sustainable Palestinian state. Haaretz carries an interview with Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad, who warns that:
Israel’s refusal to cease construction in the settlements immediately would spell the end of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s negotiations with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. He said he was amazed that instead of working toward halting the construction, Livni on Sunday protested to her British counterpart, David Miliband, about London’s decision to tighten restrictions on importing goods produced in the settlements.
Three days ago I posted a short video documentary made by a retired Israeli soldier who was active in the Palestinian Occupied Territories. This video interviewed Israeli soldiers who were active during the First Intifada.
I’d like to provide more context to the Occupation, this time with a snapshot from the Second Intifada. Veteran Israeli soldiers have set up an organization and website that displays videos and written testimonies from Israeli soldiers as well as news regarding the Occupied Territories. The site is called Breaking the Silence.
Here is an excerpt from the site:
Breaking the Silence is an organization of veteran Israeli soldiers that collects testimonies of soldiers who served in the Occupied Territories during the Second Intifadah. Soldiers who serve in the Territories are witness to, and participate in military actions which change them immensely. Cases of abuse towards Palestinians, looting, and destruction of property have been the norm for years, but are still excused as military necessities, or explained as extreme and unique cases. Our testimonies portray a different and grim picture of questionable orders in many areas regardind Palestinian civilians. These demonstrate the depth of corruption which is spreading in the Israeli military. While this reality which is known to Israeli soldiers and commanders exists in Israel’s back yard, Israeli society continues to turn a blind eye, and to deny that which happens in its name. Discharged soldiers who return to civilian life discover the gap between the reality which they encountered in the Territories, and the silence which they encounter at home. In order to become a civilian again, soldiers are forced to ignore their past experiences. Breaking the Silence voices the experiences of those soldiers, in order to force Israeli society to address the reality which it created.
Siege of Gaza
The Gaza Strip right now is straining under a siege that denies even the entry of food to the point of pushing a besieged people into a state of malnutrition. A recent statement by the UN warns of food running out in the Gaza Strip and that UN deliveries of food to civilians are being denied entry. Israel has recently tightened sanctions on Gaza because of rocket attacks by Palestinians. Palestinian militants meanwhile claim that the rockets were in response to an Israeli raid.
There’s nothing new in today’s siege of Gaza
“The total blockade of the West Bank and Gaza Strip has paralyzed the Palestinian economy, which is so vulnerably dependent on Israel and already severely weakened by frequent border closures, to such an extent that it is now in a deep recession, with millions of people severely impoverished and extremely food insecure.”
This is a statement from UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), from 16 April 2002. The same report informs us that: “malnutrition is on the increase, reflected in recent estimates of a 10.4 per cent increase in the incidence of low birth weights and a 52 per cent increase in the stillbirth rate in the West Bank.”
Also: “The United Nations food agency voiced ‘serious concern’ about the ongoing large-scale destruction of important Palestinian infrastructure, including farm assets such as stores, irrigation systems, greenhouses, water facilities, orchards, and even removal of topsoil from an estimated 8,000 hectares of land.”
And: “confiscation of agricultural land and water resources by Israel and estimates that freshwater resources available to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip amount to 112 cubic metres per person a year, compared to 377 cubic metres for Israel.”
Now, to something more recent; Israeli border closures of the Gaza Strip in January resulted in a backlog of 224 UN relief trucks by 29 January. These trucks were held back by Israel from entering the Gaza Strip and delivering food or general aid supplies.
The UN, EU, and international aid agencies have also been concerned that cutting off shipments of oil to Gaza, a repeated tactic, affects health facilities, refrigeration (needed for keeping already scarce foods and some medication), and harms an already crippled economy.
The BMJ medical journal published a survey in 2002 indicating that, in the Gaza Strip, “13% of children under 5 years old were suffering from short term malnutrition and almost 18% had long term malnutrition—compared with a level of about 2% in countries that the World Health Organization defines as having moderate malnutrition.” Things are bad when almost a third of children under 5 suffer from malnutrition.
I give only these few examples out of many available to indicate that the latest threat of malnutrition, power outages, health risks, and economic collapse resulting from an Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip is only the latest such incident in a long series.
Codes of war and the history of sieges
The history of sieges and blockades, over the millennia of warfare, is riddled with stories of human tragedy, starvation, and economic hardship. That, in fact, is the very point. A city or region is surrounded by a military force in order to deprive it of free transit (restricting the movement of enemy fighters, supplies and also civilians), to hobble communications, deprive it of an economy that could support resistance, and deprive it of food and water in order to erode or break the morale and body of the enemy. I agree with the political philosopher, Michael Walzer, that “siege is the oldest form of total war.”(1)
During the long history of sieges non-combatants have always been the first to suffer or die. This is because the defending military forces will always reserve the most secure position for themselves, and have first access to necessary supplies including food. This is simple military logic.
Therefore no attacking force can legitimately claim they expected any outcome other than the civilian population and infrastructure collapsing before a defending force would see substantial deterioration of its combat capabilities. As Walzer puts it, when besieging, expectation is not that fighters fall or suffer before civilians:
“Death and suffering of ordinary inhabitants… is expected to force the hand of the civilian or military leadership. The goal is surrender; the means is not the defeat of the enemy army, but the fearful spectacle of the civilian dead.” (2)
Military strategists, political leaders, and intellectuals who have attempted to establish an ethical code to sieges have often suggested the right to free exit by the civilian population. Without going into the pitfalls of this flawed and mostly ignored solution, it is an entirely different story when a siege is over an entire region as opposed to a single city. When a country or region is under siege, the right to free exit becomes a moot point since it would require the mass migration of civilians and the emptying of lands of non-combatants. This obviously is not a viable or just solution to ‘humanize’ a siege of the Gaza Strip.
Attackers during a siege often argue their innocence by claiming that enemy fighters have forced civilians into the front lines by taking defensive positions in urban centres. This assumes that the attacking force did not intend to gain from the slow starvation and economic strangulation that provides military and psychological benefits in war. Walzer references the British military historian B.H. Liddell Hart’s assertion that in the First World War the British blockade was a decisive factor in Germany’s defeat. Hart argues that “the spectre of slow enfeeblement ending in eventual collapse,” drove the enemy military to make desperate and disastrous military decisions. (3)
In the case of the Israeli siege of the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian combatants live within the densely populated region and could not leave it without en mass entering Israel, Egypt, or simply diving into the sea. These are obviously not viable options. It’s also not true to say that civilians were placed between the attackers and defenders in the case of this siege since the civilians were there already. The combatants and non-combatants are together trapped within Gaza. So in the case of an Israeli siege of the Gaza Strip it’s impossible to honestly assert that Palestinian fighters have pushed civilians into the zone of a siege and that therefore they must bear full responsibility. Both the Palestinian civilians and the fighters are restricted to their existing territory of Gaza and neither has the option to leave it.
Even if the systematic destruction of civilians is not part of a plan, then it’s obvious that the plan does nothing to safeguard or prevent their deaths.
A snake eating its own tail: reprisals do not work in this long conflict
In this latest tightening of the siege of the Gaza strip Israel says it is responding to Palestinian rocket attacks while Palestinian fighters claim they fired rockets in response to an Israeli raid.
Walzer quotes a critic of the rules of war as saying, “reprisals mean doing what you think wrong on the plea that someone else did it first.” (4)
In long wars all parties can argue that the other side committed a hostile act to deserve reprisal. Then each reprisal can be an excuse for one side or another to commit to their own act of reprisal. In this fashion, reprisal follows reprisal, wrong follows wrong, and moral constrains are eroded by the attacker’s claim that their extreme measures deserve exemption because their crimes are in response to another’s crimes. There’s something insidious in this, since the attackers committing an immoral act of war in the form of a reprisal often claim that their enemy is in fact responsible for the immoral outcomes of the reprisal itself. Essentially the attacker says, I know what I did is reprehensible but he made me do it.
In military history and the rules of war, reprisals have been used to dissuade an enemy from repeating an action that is seen to break the norms or codes of warfare. Sometimes this works, usually it does not.
Reprisals have been used from the beginning of the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis going back to the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Yet, peace has not been the result, nor have atrocities decreased. You cannot today seriously argue that peace is around the corner; there’s a lot of work ahead before that can happen and political solutions not military reprisals will help achieve this. Also, no one can seriously argue that the suffering of civilians has been reduced over the past 60 years as a result of reprisals. The often cited excuse that each reprisal is in response to another side’s reprisal is a clear indication that this strategy will not bring peace to Israel and Palestine. Therefore the recent Israeli implication that they be given an exemption from the suffering caused by the siege of Gaza because this is a response to an earlier Palestinian attack in which no damages or injuries were reported would be laughable if it were not so tragic.
References:
1. Michael Walzer, 2000. ‘Just and Unjust Wars’, Basic Books, p. 160.
2. Ibid, p. 161.
3. Ibid, p. 172.
4. Ibid, p. 207.
Roundup of Analysis and Investigative Articles: Assassins, Revolts, and Health Care
‘A matter of life and death’. Egypt’s largest workers’ action in 20 years began on Sunday. On Sunday, workers at the state run textile and weaving company Ghazl Al-Mahala began one of the largest industrial protests of the past two decades, with 27,000 workers downing tools. The strike, say the workers, is a continuation of the action taken in December, when production at the plant was halted. On Saturday night, police forces had surrounded the factory only to withdraw, fearing direct confrontation with the workers. Meanwhile , Minister of Manpower Aisha Abdel-Hady said that action can only be taken once the strike is ended. (Karim El-Khashab, Al-Ahram)
Burma More or Less Needs Help. Burma needs help, desperately, but with a “friend” like Bush trying to capitalize on his “freedom” agenda, they might do well to look elsewhere. ASEAN is a good place to start, Burma is a member country and informal personal, cultural and trade links provide intelligence and potential leverage. Surin Pitsuwan, ASEAN’s new Secretary General is a veteran diplomat who as foreign minister under Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai, chose not lend support to the dictators of Burma, in sharp contrast to the devil-may-care profiteering in Rangoon and elsewhere on the part of the successor government led by Thaksin Shinawatra. And Japan, the largest aid donor and home to a community of Burmese exiles has a modest role to play. But the real wild card in the Burma conundrum, with immense leverage for better or worse, is China. (Phillip J. Cunningham, re-published in Informed Comment: Global Affairs)
Pakistan’s plan is coming together. With President General Pervez Musharraf naming his successor as head of the army, the United States-backed stage is set for Musharraf to be re-elected as president on Saturday and for Pakistan to move towards a civilian-based consensus government. The army will not be left out, though. A select team of “war on terror” veterans will work closely with the US in its military and trade objectives in the region. (Syed Saleem Shahzad, Asia Times)
Islamabad’s grip on tribal areas is slipping. Taliban forces and their sympathizers are becoming entrenched in the seven tribal agencies in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas. A lethal combination of President General Pervez Musharraf’s declining public support, a significant rise in suicide attacks targeting the army, and the reluctance of soldiers in the area to engage tribal gangs militarily, further exacerbates the problem. (Hassan Abbas, Asia Times)
Gaza’s darkness. Gaza has been reoccupied. The world must know this and Israelis must know it, too. It is in its worst condition, ever. Since the abduction of Gilad Shalit, and more so since the outbreak of the Lebanon war, the Israel Defense Forces has been rampaging through Gaza – there’s no other word to describe it – killing and demolishing, bombing and shelling, indiscriminately. (Gideon Levy, Haaretz)
Playing loose with law. Israel’s declaring Gaza “hostile” is but a way to justify its unwarrantable starvation of Palestinians under occupation. While some Palestinians are able to cope with temporary electricity outages, there is no dispute that Gaza’s residents will not be able to weather other means of collective punishment approved by the Israeli government. Israel provides the Gaza Strip with 150 megawatts of electricity per month, which constitutes 45 per cent of Gaza’s electricity needs. According to the first stage of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s plan, if locally manufactured missiles continue to be fired at Israeli settlements in the Negev, Israel will significantly cut back electricity supplies. The plan clearly states that supplies will only suffice hospitals and health facilities. (Saleh Al-Naami, Al-Ahram)
Healthcare in Africa: Lesotho’s Youth Struggle to Survive. in the small African nation of Lesotho, there are only six pediatricians to care for the country’s 800,000 children. HIV/AIDS has been declared a national emergency in the country: one in four people have contracted the virus. Why are physicians in such short supply in a nation with such a dire need for healthcare? Lesotho is yet another victim of an expanding skills drain in Sub-Saharan Africa. Promising students often leave the country and once educated, flee to surrounding nations to work in a more stable, higher-paying environment. (Nash Riggins, Toward Freedom)
Lebanon and Syria: The Politics of Assassination. The assassination of Lebanese politician Antoine Ghanem on September 19 is likely to be used, predictably, to further US and Israeli interests in the region. Most Western and some Arab media have industriously argued that Syria is the greatest beneficiary from the death of Ghanem, a member of the Phalange party responsible for much of Lebanon’s bloodshed during the civil war years between 1975 and 1990. The reasoning provided is that Syria needs to maintain a measure of political control over Lebanon after being pressured to withdraw its troops. This political clout could only be maintained through the purging of anti-Syrian critics in Lebanon, and by ensuring a Lebanese parliament friendly to Syria. And indeed, with the elimination of Ghanem, the anti-Syrian coalition at the fractious Lebanese parliament is now left with an even slimmer majority – 68 MPs in a 128-member assembly. Case solved. Or is it? (Ramzy Baroud, ZNet)
Who shot Mohammed al Dura? It was a shooting that became a powerful rallying cry for Palestinians resisting Israeli occupation at the start of the second intifada. On Sept. 30, 2000, almost seven years ago to this day, Mohammed al Dura was shot and killed in Gaza while cowering behind his father during a clash between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants. Israel immediately apologized for the shooting and said the bullets had “apparently” come from their soldiers. But, very quickly, Israel and its supporters began challenging the video and the story. The controversy has been resurrected because of a pending court case in France in which the French television journalist who aired the dramatic footage in 2000 sued a media watchdog who accused the reporter of staging the shooting. (Dion Nissenbaum, Checkpoint Jerusalem)
