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January 29, 2008
Collective Punishment in Gaza
Gaza was sealed off from receiving any humanitarian aid in an egregious form of collective punishment.
Over the weekend, Gazans were able to break through the Rafah border with Egypt and streamed into that country to do heinous things...like buying groceries and petrol.
Egypt is now sealing that border and residents of the Egyptian town of Rafah have been quoted as worried that Egyptians will starve because the Palestinians are buying all of their food.
In the meantime, the Israeli and US governments continue to justify this collective punishment - illegal under international law - by reminding people of militant rocket fire into the Israeli city Sderot.
For an Israeli historian's perspective on "the genocide" of Gaza, see "The Israeli Recipe For 2008: Genocide in Gaza, Ethnic Cleansing in the West Bank," by Ilan Pappe in the Indypendent of NY
Israeli humanitarian organizations tried to get aid into Gaza and were stopped by the Israeli government. Read about their interaction with their Palestinian neighbors on Al Jazeera.
The Chinese news service Xinhua reports that Egypt is sealing its border with Gaza.
UN Relief and Works Agency, the UN agency tasked with helping Palestine
UN News Centre, a roundup of official UN body discussions related to the Middle East
To be clear: I do not support violence. There is no justification for rocket attacks on Sderot. Just as importantly, the racist attitudes of the US and Israeli governments has justified inhumane and illegal treatment of the Palestinian people. Palestinians are not subhumans bent on killing every Jew. Palestinians are human beings who deserve the ability to make their own democratic choices and deserve freedom of movement, freedom from collective punishment, and freedom from the land and water grabs of their Israeli neighbors.
Posted by cj at January 29, 2008 5:49 AM
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