The sustained blockade that has been enforced in and around the Gaza Strip has had significant repercussions for the people of Gaza. They have been deprived of adequate supplies of essentials such as food and fuel. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) says that a large proportion of families lack the means to purchase even the most basic items, including food, soap, school materials and clean drinking water. According to Amnesty International, the overall blockade on Gaza has led to mass unemployment, extreme poverty and food price rises caused by shortages. Eighty percent of the population remains dependent on humanitarian aid, but the UN says that as a result of the blockade, only one quarter of the necessary aid is able to reach those who need it. [1]
After reviewing the "law of armed conflict" into which fit Israel's operations to maintain its sea blockade of Gaza, researcher Katherine Iliopoulos moves on to the effects of the blockade on Gaza's residents. The above paragraph, as with much rhetoric on the subject on the web, bears close reading. In fact, take it sentence by sentence:
1. The sustained blockade that has been enforced in and around the Gaza Strip has had significant repercussions for the people of Gaza.
A fair topic sentence, it includes the possibility of forestalling the development of Gaza as a forward operating base for Iran and the strip's transformation again into an active combat zone.
2. They have been deprived of adequate supplies of essentials such as food and fuel.
Israel's overland throughput of constructive goods and consumer supplies has been as substantial as it has been relentless.
Factual data reported out by Israel include a 2009- 2010 shipping report -- http://www.scribd.com/doc/32598706/Gaza-Strip-Merchandise-and-Humanitarian-Aid-2009-2010 -- and a weekly update, e.g., http://www.scribd.com/doc/32650677/Gaza-Strip-Merchandise-and-Humanitarian-Aid-May-30th-June-5th-2010
In addition, one may find on the web photographs of swelling market stalls and productive agricultural business as well as the lively and modern "Roots Nighclub" video. [3]
By the numbers, Gaza would seem awash in food and fuel aplenty.
3. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) says that a large proportion of families lack the means to purchase even the most basic items, including food, soap, school materials and clean drinking water.
" . . . lack the means to purchase . . . ." -- that should signal the presence within Gaza of a distributive economic issue. No less than in, say, Somalia, aid may flow into a country by the thousands of tons, but once in may not reach its intended recipients or reach them in optimal ways.
4. According to Amnesty International, the overall blockade on Gaza has led to mass unemployment, extreme poverty and food price rises caused by shortages.
It's understood that with the exception of fishing, the seaport cannot operate, but the emphasis on missing imaginary port operations and jobs as a panacea for what ails Gaza obscures economic potential elsewhere in the society, both in terms of gross earnings as well as in the social structure undergirding the distribution of proceeds.
Focusing on the sea blockade scratches a certain itch, usually anti-Semitic or knee-jerk monkey-see-and-do, but the body would seem larger than the one irritant and worth separate independent study within the discipline or practice of economic development.
5. Eighty percent of the population remains dependent on humanitarian aid, but the UN says that as a result of the blockade, only one quarter of the necessary aid is able to reach those who need it.
The UN has been saying a lot of things about Israel for years, much of it similarly unreasoned.
I've mentioned this to Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and others in the information trade: I want "clear, accurate, and complete" factual data--photographs, reports, videos--on such as Gaza, scrupulously authenticated and captioned, so that it may be seen through other than the prismatic slits of Internationalist and Islamist ideology as well as state interest.
Moreoever, I wish to see--to obtain and collect--multiply sourced and redundant primary information, so that one's impression, which may when relayed contribute to public impression, becomes corroborated, tested, and increasingly valid and reliable as well as properly interpreted, by which I mean empirically grounded and thoughtful and reasoned in every aspect.
That life may well be uncomfortable for most in Gaza--I don't doubt it: however, what part of domestic economic and social discomfort lies with Hamas and its administration would seem an as yet unasked, unanswered, and particularly unexamined question.
What we know is Israel's sea blockade helps minimize the presence of war materiel in Gaza and consequently forestalls its progress as a platform from which to attack Israel:
This past week intermittent rocket fire from the Gaza Strip continued targeting the western Negev. Six rocket hits were identified in Israeli territory, three on May 31 and three on June 1. All the rockets fell in open areas. There were no casualties and no damage was done. The Popular Resistance Committees and Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the rocket fire, claiming they were in response to the events surrounding the flotilla.
On June 1 an anti-tank missile was fired at an IDF force engaged in routine security activity near the border fence in the southern Gaza Strip. The force returned fire (IDF Spokesman, June 1, 2010). The military wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the missile (PIJ website, June 1, 2010. [2]
The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center report, from which the above has been copied, includes charts illustrating both the quantity of material lobbed into Israel from Gaza and its distrubtion across time in the post-Cast Lead period.
My appeal to my fellows is general: we know the lingo pertaining to standards in journalism and social science research--may we with greater curiosity, diligence, honesty, and integrity look into claims made in passing.
Cited Reference
1. Iliopoulos, Katherine. "The Legality of Israel's Naval Blockade of Gaza." Crimes of War Project, June 8, 2010: http://www.crimesofwar.org/onnews/news-gaza9.html
2. Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center. "Rocket Fire Continues." June 2-8, 2010: http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/html/ipc_e089.htm
3. OA&L. "Israel - Gaza: Basics." June 9, 2010: http://commart.typepad.com/oppenheim_arts_letters/page/2/
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