Commentary :: Middle East

What’s Next for the Palestinians - Starvation?

Author

William Hughes

Date Created

24 Jun 2006

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Since 01/06, when the Palestinians elected a Hamas-dominated government, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have accelerated their brutal treatment. After Israeli PM, Ehud Olmert, appeared before the lapdog U.S. Congress on May 31, 2006, the IOF also slaughtered 32 Palestinians, including 10 children. On 06/23/06, Tim Rothermel and Laila El-Haddad, at a Capitol Hill forum, warned that the Palestinians may, eventually, face starvation, too.

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Washington, D.C. - The topic under discussion was grim - “The Politics of Starvation: The Humanitarian Crisis in Palestine.” In Room SC-6 of the U.S. Capitol, the Council for the National Interest (CNI) authored a public forum, the 18th in a series over the last few years, dealing with Middle East issues, and in particular, the Israel-Palestine Question. (1) The two presenters at the standing-room- only event on June 23, 2006, were Tim Rothermel, a former UN chief of its Development Program to the Palestinian people (UNDP); and Ms. Laila El-Haddad, a Palestinian journalist and mother from Gaza. She is a graduate of the Kennedy School of Government at both Harvard and Duke U. Ms. El-Haddad has reported for Aljazeera Satellite Network, Pacifica Radio, UK Guardian Unlimited and also BBC World Service. She also maintains a popular blog. (2)

Since January, 2006, the Israelis have been tightening the screws on the Palestinians, because they dared to elect a government dominated by members of Hamas. (3) Beside additional border closings and constant harassment of civilians at check points, the Israelis’ targeted killings of victims has also greatly accelerated. After May 31, 2006, when Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert spoke to a mostly servile U.S. Congress, the Israeli Occupation Army (IOF) slaughtered 32 Palestinians, including 10 children. (1) Olmert said he has “deep regrets” about the operations of the IOF, but that the lives of Israeli citizens were “even more important,” which sounded like a line out of George Orwell’s “Animal Farm.” (4) As a result of some of the arbitrary IOF’s border closings, essential food items for “765,000 Gazans” have been seriously “delayed” and even put in jeopardy. (1)

“The humanitarian outlook for the occupied Palestinian territory has become extremely bleak. It is expected to worsen dramatically in the coming months,” said Rothermel. He underscored that since the Hamas victory at the polls in January, Israel has halted its “transfer of the Value Added Taxes and custom taxes it is obligated to pay, amounting to half of the Palestinian Authority’s budget.” Along with this measure, “Western donor funding for Palestinians,” has been suspended as well. “With the fall in revenue to the Palestine Authority (PA), the salaries of over 150,000 civil servants have for the most part not been paid since March. And these civil servants, in turn, directly support some one million other Palestinians or a quarter of the population in the West Bank and Gaza. And the majority of these civil servants are the doctors and nurses, school teachers, police officials and municipal employees whose services provide the backbone of a functioning civil society,” Rothermel emphasized.

The affable Eugene H. Bird, CNI’s President, since 1994, opened the proceedings by saying the Israel-Palestine Question “was central to resolving the U.S. war on terrorism.” He said that over “60 percent” of the American people want Israel to be held “more accountable” for its reckless actions and that the present federal administration has “no idea what they are doing.” As for the U.S. Congress, he said, “It should be ashamed of itself.” Rafi Dajani, executive director of the American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP), served as moderator for the nearly two-hour program.

“Numbers reflect the deepening crisis,” Rothermel continued. “Seventy percent of the population in the occupied Palestinian territory is now living below the poverty line, up from sixty-eight percent in 2005, and thirty percent five years earlier. Unemployment, currently at thirty-eighty percent of the workforce, is expected to double by the end of this year, according to World Bank estimates. The lack of socioeconomic improvement and a rise in violence, attributable to living conditions, has led to increased levels of insecurity throughout the population and food insecurity, i.e. people unable to rely on the purchase of food, has reached over half the population as a result of the PA’s fiscal crisis, extended closures (of borders) and market disruptions.”

Rothermel also referred to a recent UN report, whose compelling statistics revealed that the “Gross Domestic Product (in the Occupied Territories) is estimated to fall by 27% by the end of 2006, and poverty [is] expected to rise sharply. Around 70% of Gaza’s potential workforce, for example, will be out of work or go without pay. [They] made up 40% [of the] current unemployed. The loss of PA salaries and further job cuts through the contraction of the economy and the loss of work in Israel (sic)...Palestinians and their goods are no longer able to move freely within the West Bank and are banned from entering many areas, such as the Jordan Valley. Imports into Gaza from Israel are functioning at minimal levels and exports in the past two months have dropped to just six trucks a day...”

The other speaker at this event was Ms. El-Haddad. Her comments were mostly restricted to the present desperate human rights situation in Gaza, where close to 1.4 million people reside. She said Gaza is “sealed off” and that “90 percent of the population are under a total travel ban.” She also told the audience that “over 16,000 homes” in the southern border town of Rafah were razed by the IOF, prior to their so-called “disengagement,” and that “20,000 fruit-filled trees were uprooted” by the occupiers. (5) She added that Gaza is “so enclosed, that it feels like a prison.” To reinforce that opinion, she told how one of the children of Rafah had asked her: “Have you ever seen an Egyptian?” Many of the children of that area, she related, “have never left Rafah, let alone Gaza.” Ms. El-Haddad showed photos of “Green Houses” in Gaza, that were funded by U.S. taxpayers and were destroyed by the IOF, which she labeled, “a completely unaccountable” entity.

Ms. El-Haddad said that since the “disengagement” by the IOF, in March, 2006, (citing UN statistics), that “over 8,000" artillery shells have fallen on Gaza, about "a hundred shells a day," fired by IOF’s air strikes, ground forces or from their naval gunboats. “The only commercial crossing,” she continued, “into Gaza has been closed more than 50 percent of the year. And as a result, the wheat stocks, at one point, were completely depleted and there were bread shortages. People had to line up and get their rations-two bags of bread a day. The problem is that those stocks (wheat stocks) have never been replenished, are unreliable, and also a thousands of tons of fruits and vegetables actually rotted. Millions of dollars were lost. More importantly, exports couldn’t get outside to Europe...”

Summing up, Ms. El-Haddad said, “there are 9,000 Palestinians" languishing in Israeli jails. The overwhelming majority of them, "without charges. Twenty percent of all Palestinians have been detained or imprisoned at one point in their lives-40 percent of men. Gaza,” she concluded, “is very dangerous. It is really at the brink of an implosion, that I can’t emphasize enough. Everything is so unstable right now from a humanitarian perspective...”

Finally, as a result of the authoritative and scholarly Harvard Study, many in this country have come to the shocking realization, that the Israeli Lobby has been exercising "unmatched power" over our foreign policy for more than 40 years, which hasn't been in the national interest. (6) Whether that will make any difference in how the American people reply to this latest outrage, (read collective punishment), by the Israelis over the Palestinians, remains an open question. Nevertheless, the Israelis, and their Hard Right Zionist supporters in the U.S., should be put on notice that a day of justice is coming. The brilliant Scottish historian, Thomas Caryle, put it this way: “Foolish men imagine that because judgment for an evil thing is delayed, there is no justice...Judgment for an evil thing is many times delayed...but it is sure as life, it is sure as death.”

Notes:

1. www.cnionline.org/; along with “Fact Sheets” handed out at the event by the sponsoring CNI. See also, www.pchrgaza.org/ and www.ameu.org/index.asp
2. a-mother-from-gaza.blogspot.com/
3. wrmea.org
4. news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1095841.ece
5. hrw.org/reports/2004/rafah1004/
6. ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP06-011/%24File/rwp_06_011_walt.pdf

© William Hughes 2006.

William Hughes is the author of “Saying ‘No’ to the War Party” (IUniverse, Inc.). He can be reached at liamhughes-AT-comcast.net.

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Comments

Re: What’s Next for the Palestinians - Starvation?

Current rating: 0
24 Jun 2006

by TheTroll

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According to the red cross, it was allied bombing of german railroads and bridges that prevented Nazis from getting food and medicines to the concentration camps. For the Palestinian victims of Zionist invadors concentrated in bantustans, it is another story all together. Zionists are doing what Zionists vacantly clamed Nazis did.

Re: Starvation? They deserve it

Current rating: 0
24 Jun 2006

by Soberminded

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Why do I care? They danced in the streets after 9/11. They are a bunch of violent islamic thugs who are unable to feed themselves and are completely dependant on US and European handouts which their leadrs mostly steal. Worthless raghead camel jockeys

Re: What’s Next for the Palestinians - Starvation?

Current rating: 0
24 Jun 2006

by TheTroll

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The video of palestinians shown dancing on TV after the 911 attacks showed a noon time sun, with shadows going straight down. Since it was mid-afternoon in ZIonist occupied Palestine when the 911 attacks took place, the video couldn't have been taken on 911 and still show up on TV. You have been duped. Congradulations on being used and made a fool by media. How does it feel to be so totaly manipulated by the lies of the TV set god??? Do you like being a tool of people who would openly lie to you?

"Unable to feed themselves", yes after Zionists stole the palestinian's farms and orchards, Palestinians became unable to feed themselves. Duh. In 1948, there were 950000 palestinians. What do you think they ate before Zionists stole thier homeland? Sand???

your pointing out how Palestinians are unable to feed themselves now is an admittion that the Zionist's war of conquest is destructive to palestinian lives. And by extension, Democrap and Repubublitrash support of the Zionist's offensive war of conquest helps Zionists destroy palestinian lives and is an offense against our palestinian neighbors.

In the year before 911, Zionists killed over 800 palestinians, over 180 BEFORE Palestinian suicide bombers started to strike back. And all that time, and for decades before the latest intifada started, Democraps and Republitrash have been using US taxes to reload the ZIonist crusader's guns (US taxes supplied guns) as fast as ZIonists unloaded them into palestinians. Just last week, Zionists shelled a beach in gaza wipping out a Palestinian family. Zionists say they didn't kill the family, but still had US taxpayers resupply the shells they fired on the beach. And in the decades before the 911 attacks, those people killed in the 911 attacks kept electing the Democraps and Republitrash who were openly supplying Zionist crusaders with the means to destroy Palestinian lives and lifes.

"Little Eikmans"??? No, Eikman lived in a dictatorship. He had NO say in his government's offensive actions. Those killed on 911 were a part of democratic rule. "Little Hitlers" would be more on the mark as a descriptor. they chose to vote for people supplying ZIonists with the means to destroy our Palestinian neighbors. They chose thier offenses by voting for whore politicians who sold out America's peace and have been sacrificing thier fellow American's lives for decades. Those killed in the 911 attacks didn't seem to mind when thier decades long offensive support of murderous thieving Zionist crusaders created hatred that found its way back at OTHER Americans in the form of terrorism. Why would they mind thier offenses getting them killed too?

Imagine this: look out your window at your neighbor's house accross the street. If you are like me, you don't know them any better than you know your palestinian neighbors thousands of miles away. If you do know them better than you know your palestinian neighbors thousands of miles away, then look at your other neighbor's house. NOW, is there ANYTHING in the world that would get you to give your very best friend a gun and ammo to kill your neighbor and drive his widow and kids into the streets? ANYTHING AT ALL??? What if your very best friend were to get a gun on his own, killed your neighbor, and routed his widow and kids into the street. Would you reload your friend's gun so he could keep what he murdered your neighbor to steel??? Would it matter in the slightest if it was your VERY BEST FRIEND and neighbors your hardly know at all??? Would that change your offensive support into something a little more benign??? Or, would your offensive support of your very best friend's offenses against your neighbor still be an offensive action

And what of the kids who ended up in the street??? If they found out you aided your friend's offenses against them, you would be lucky if all they did was slash your tires. They would probably burn down your house with you in it. they might even dance in the street listening to the sounds of your screams. And you would only have yourself to blame.

Soberminded? "Sober"??? Since you obviously live in a delusional dream world, I gotta ask: Do you even know the meaning of the word sober???

Re: Re: What’s Next for the Palestinians

Current rating: 0
25 Jun 2006

by Anonymous Poster

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"The video of palestinians shown dancing on TV after the 911 attacks showed a noon time sun, with shadows going straight down."

Ok- put your money where your mouth is- show me a link that illustrates this-there were ample photos showing the Plaestinians dancing and throwing candy. Show me this "impossible" video. Just cause you say its so don't mean a thing.

When Daniel Wultz, the Frloida teenager was killed in the most recent suicide bombing in Israel- the reaction from Islamic authorities was "Wow. Gee. Two for one. An American AND a Jew" (I'm paraphrasing.....)

Re: Re: What’s Next for the Palestinians - Starvation?

Current rating: 0
25 Jun 2006

by Starving?

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I bet the Palestinians are sorry they destroyed the extensive greenhouse system that was given to them after the disengagemnt from gaza. Those greenhouses managed to feed the settlers of Gaza for years. Choices have consequences. The Palestinians did not chose wisely

Re: What’s Next for the Palestinians - Starvation?

Current rating: 0
25 Jun 2006

by TheTroll

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I bet the Palestinians are also sorry that Zionists chose to become murderous thieves of Palestinian lands. The Zionist's chosen war of conquest also has consequences for the Zionist's chosen victims.

Zionists pulled out of Gaza, and occupied other parts of Zionisty occupied palestine, evwen stealing more and more Palestinian lands in the west bank. Wow. Isn't that like a rapist pulling out of his chosen victim's pussy to rape her in the ass?

I don't post links, ever. In this age of information, anyone who really gives a damn can find it easy enough. And in searching, they would find much more than I could ever tell them about.

Zionists are murderous thieves of palestinian lands. Just because a Zionists was born in the US will never change that fact. What, Americans jews were kept out of the country club golf corse? So Americans jews have a birthright of murderous theft of Palestinian lands???

Zionists from florida know where the exits from Zionist occupied Palestine are located. If they don't want to be a part of the ZIonist's offensive war of conquest and sacrifice thier lives and thier children's lives for conquest(something Abraham chose not to do), then they can pack up, get out of ZIonist occupied Palestine and never torment the Palestinians again. They wouldn't even be facing a fireing squad for desertion like nazi deserters would have faced.

Obviously, I tell it like you never heard it before. google search TheTroll (no space) + IMC it will blow your mind how much I trash the offensive rationalizations Zionists use to gain your support for thier offensive war of conquest.