I’ve just returned from Palestine-Israel having spent most of my time traveling with a friend in the West Bank and some time in Gaza. Yes, Gaza! Almost everyone we spoke to on both sides of the Eretz Barrier (crossing) was amazed that we got in. Well, we did get in so let’s start with that.
Under the auspices of the Palestine Bible Society, through my friend Dr. Salim Munayer, Director of the Jerusalem based reconciliation ministry Musalaha, we were given permission to enter Gaza until September 10, 2010. We didn’t need all that time but were glad to be able to get into Gaza to visit old friends and to see with our own eyes the condition of Gaza and its people. It wasn’t a pretty picture or very encouraging. It’s amazing how people make a dire situation work.
On Memorial Day weekend, 2010 a flotilla of ships made an attempt to bring humanitarian and building supplies into Gaza via the sea. The Israelis have stopped them. We now know that Israel killed many aboard – in the name of Israeli security. It is against Israeli policy (and by proxy, the policy of the United States) to give the people of Gaza much needed humanitarian supplies and a scant amount of building supplies to try to rebuild homes, buildings and infrastructure, all of which were devastated during the Israeli Cast Lead invasion of December 2008 and January 2010. An Israeli spokesperson, in an apparent attempt to downplay the needs of the Gazan people, suggested that there are very nice restaurants in Gaza with plenty of good food and drink. Really? And where are these restaurants? I wish every Israeli could live in Gaza since they have such nice restaurants and don’t really need anything else. How many Israelis stand in line for UNRWA flour?
To be sure, we were able to stay at a hotel that did have decent food, but only because they had their own generator and got their goods through the tunnels. Not so for the Shifa Hospital nearby where we interviewed on camera several doctors and staff members. They told us that over 150 necessary medications are at zero supply. They told us that during the Cast Lead invasion they had only12 beds and had to do surgery on the hospital floors. They also said that quite often the electricity goes out unexpectedly, even during surgery.
At the hotel where we were staying we met a group of American doctors, including surgeons and psychiatrists. They were there to do surgeries and assist in the much needed medical treatment of the Gazan people. One orthopedic surgeon told us that in his hospital in America (and one he worked at in Israel) he might have dozens of different metal plates with which to fix a broken limb and if he needed one that wasn’t in supply he’d have it within minutes. In Gaza the doctors may have two (or maybe none) of these plates and it could take them months to get one if they could get it at all.
But Israel would like to prevent this sort of thing coming into Gaza – because they perceive it as a security threat. So the Gazan society has been reduced to a tunnel society. Almost everything comes through the tunnels from Egypt at Rafah at the Egyptian boarder. This is the main way Gazans get their necessary living supplies. It is said that weapons also come through these tunnels. Ask yourself how the Gazans are doing with all those weapons they get through these tunnels. How many M-1 tanks, how many F16 fighter jets, how many Apache helicopters, and, oh yes, how many cluster bombs and white phosphorus bombs? How many innocent, non-combatant Gazans were killed during Cast Lead operations and how many were children? How many Israelis were killed during Cast Lead and how many were children?
B’Tselem, the Israeli Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, reported these facts:
Palestinians Killed | 1,385 | Israelis Killed | 13 * | |
Combatants Killed | 300 | Combatants Killed | 10 * | |
Non-Combatants Killed | 762 | Non-Combatants Killed | 3 | |
Women Killed | 107 | 0 | 0 | |
Minors/Children | 318 | 0 | 0 |
* 4 by friendly fire
It is amazing to me that Israelis still spout that their army is the most moral in the world. We interviewed on camera Combatants for Peace, former members of the Israel Army, and in those interviews they stoutly challenged that myth. Israel alleges that they never target children and civilians, yet in a militarism that brags of surgical strikes it’s amazing that Israel misses so much. If the Israeli military were a software program or a pharmaceutical drug, they’d never make it to market
International observers confirmed the complete fairness of the Palestinian legislative election of 2006, (when the Palestinian people “threw the bums out” - the corrupt Fattah). Yet the United States and Israel will not honor this democracy but rather choke an entire people to death, all 1.5 million of them because they voted for the wrong party. It is not a matter that Hamas is considered a “terrorist” organization because Israel’s governments are constantly made up of people who are considered “terrorists” by the same definition. It is, rather, a matter of Might makes right. My “terrorists” can run a country but yours cannot, because I say so and I can back it up with my might, which is greater than yours. Got Tunnels?
After several days touring Gaza, I remember the day we left. Our Palestinian guide and driver took us to the Eretz Barrier. As they helped us get our bags out of the car and directed us to the Palestinian side checkpoint, we stopped and all looked at each other. Then we shook hands. Then we hugged and kissed each other on the cheeks and the devastating realization landed on my head like a U.S. 1,000 pound bomb from an Israeli piloted U.S. jet – these young men will never get out of this open air prison. For the rest of their lives they will be forced to live in Gaza, never able even to visit the outside world. These young men, who are unfortunately between the ages of 16 and 35, will be constant targets of the Israeli military.
I often ask Palestinians, if they could live anywhere in the world, where would they want to live? I get some pretty interesting answers. As we left Gaza my guide gave one of the best I’ve ever heard, “A place where there are no guns!”
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