___
Haaretz February 4, 2016
Israelis Ignore the Gaza Ghetto Until the War Drums Are Heard
Two million human beings, some of whom worked here for years, some of them even
have friends here, live in abject poverty and petrifying despair, mainly
because of Israel's blockade.
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.701213
Gideon Levy |
Most Israelis cannot imagine the daily lives of Gazans.Credit: AFP
●
Even Gandhi would understand the Palestinians' violence
●
The real blackout throughout Israel can't be blamed on Israel Electric
●
Before the Israeli right rejoices over Paris
The latest news from the ghetto comes, as usual, from the outside. The
addiction to fear and the eternal wallowing in terror in Israel suddenly
reminded one of the existence of the neighboring ghetto. Only thus are we here
reminded of Gaza. When it shoots, or at least digs. Residents of the
communities surrounding Gaza hear sounds, perhaps the sounds of digging, and
the ghetto is no longer abandoned. We recall its existence. Iran dropped off
the agenda. Sweden isn’t scary enough. Hezbollah is busy. So we return to Gaza.
If the Ayelet Zurer affair loses steam heaven forbid, or the Moshe Ivgy affair
doesn’t take off – the things that are really interesting – because then some
bored commentators and editors and politicians and bloodthirsty generals are
liable to drag Israel into another “war” in Gaza. And “war” in Gaza is always
another controlled massacre, whose achievements are measured in the number of
corpses and amount of destroyed buildings that it leaves behind. Isaac Herzog
has already promised as much.
But the real news from Gaza doesn’t reach Israelis. Who here heard that jets of
the most moral air force in the world poisoned in recent weeks the fields of a
“buffer zone,” which Israel declared unilaterally, at a distance of 300 meters
from the fence? Farmers in Gaza report that the dusters spread the poison up to
500 meters, and that 1,187 dunams (293 acres) were damaged in the last
poisoning in December. The pilots, convinced that they are doing a good thing,
reported hitting their targets accurately.
Pay attention to the sterile wording of the IDF spokesman: “Aerial spraying of
herbicidal germination preventing material next to the security fence was
carried out in order to allow optimal implementation of ongoing security
missions in the area,” he stated.
Fishermen are forbidden from venturing more than six nautical miles out from
shore. Sometimes they catch a fisherman or shoot him. Farmers are forbidden
from going within 300 meters. Everything is done to serve Israel’s security,
and its security alone – and the occupation of the Gaza Strip ended a long time
ago.
Just an hour’s drive from Tel Aviv, there is a ghetto. Even without supplying
“germination preventing materials,” almost nothing grows in it. Up-to-date data
from Gisha-Legal Center for Freedom of Movement indicate 43 percent
unemployment, 70 percent in need of humanitarian assistance and 57 percent
suffering from nutrition insecurity.
And then there is the spine-chilling report that the United Nations Relief and
Works Agency issued in August under the headline “Gaza 2020: A livable place?”
By then the damage to the water infrastructure will be irreversible. The water
today is already not potable. The GDP per capita, $1,273, is less than it was
25 years ago, perhaps the only one that declined. Another 1,000 doctors and
2,000 nurses will be needed in the besieged, collapsing health system. From
where will they come, out the faculty of medicine in Nuseirat or from the
students who left to study medicine at Harvard? Egypt tightened its grasp, the
world shirked its commitments and Israel exploits this to continue the
blockade.
They get three hours of electricity, sometimes six, in the cold and rain. After
that, there is no electricity for 12 hours, and then again for three or six
hours, day in, day out. There are about two million people, a million of them
refugees and their families, made refugees directly or indirectly by Israel.
About a million of them are children. No Israeli can imagine it. Few Israelis
feel guilty about it. There are few Israelis who care at all. Hamas, you know.
When the next catastrophe in the world hits, be it an earthquake or flood,
we’ll be there with a delegation from the Israel Defense Forces, the same IDF
in the same fatigues in which they spray the fields in Gaza. We are always the
first.
And meanwhile in the ghetto, two million human beings, some of whom worked here
for years, some of them even have friends here, live in abject poverty and
petrifying despair, mainly because of Israel’s blockade.
The “We left Gaza” operation is complete. Now we only need to wait for the
tunnels to start bombing again.
$m.stack.teaserArticleAuthorImage.content.a11yDescription.value
Gideon Levy
Haaretz Correspondent
