Starving Gaza

U.S. and Israeli policy over the Gaza Strip has been both brutal and stupid, as Chris Hedges points out. By cutting off essential aid, blockading the Strip and lavishly funding the supporters of Mahmoud Abbas, the Bush administration has guaranteed that Hamas will grow in support and Israel, as usual, has made its position all the more precarious.

Meanwhile, until this karmic realignment works itself out, the people of Gaza are going through hell, with the cessation of electric power only the most recent of several deprivations. The EU has given into pressure to end shipments of fuel, with the lame excuse that Hamas might have taxed the fuel imports to fund its activities.

And the misery just gets worse.

Gaza has become the Sarajevo of the Middle East. Israel, in an action similar to that of the Serbs in Bosnia, has surrounded and cut off nearly a million and a half Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since the Islamic militant group Hamas took control in June. Electric fences and watch towers manned by Israeli soldiers keep the Palestinians trapped inside the strip. The land and sea blockade, the halting of all but minimal humanitarian aid and the refusal to allow Gaza to receive financial support are crushing Gaza’s industry, farming and infrastructure.

The tactic is clear: Israel and the United States will strangle Gaza by cutting off all money and goods, including fuel and most food, to reduce one of the most densely populated places on the planet to an impoverished ghetto.

Posted by Szamko
Just tries to tell the truth.