Ah poor little rich Israelis are concerned that they could get influenza from
Gaza... Maybe they should have thought about that before they bombed out the
children's hospitals.
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Miriam Vieni
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2018 10:00 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Why is the Israeli army finally worried that Gaza is
on the brink of collapse?
Mondoweiss
Why is the Israeli army finally worried that Gaza is on the brink of collapse?
Jonathan Cook on January 22, 2018
A Palestinian youth plays on his phone during the power outage on winter
season in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern of Gaza Strip on January 11,
2017. (Photo: Yasser Qudih/ APA Images)
Last week Israeli military officials for the first time echoed what human
rights groups and the United Nations have been saying for some time: that
Gaza's economy and infrastructure stand on the brink of collapse.
They should know.
More than 10 years ago the Israeli army tightened its grip on Gaza, enforcing a
blockade on goods coming in and out of the tiny coastal enclave that left much
of the 2 million-strong population there unemployed, impoverished and hopeless.
Since then, Israel has launched three separate major military assaults that
have destroyed Gaza's infrastructure, killed many thousands and left tens of
thousands more homeless and traumatised.
Gaza is effectively an open-air prison, an extremely overcrowded one, with only
a few hours of electricity a day and its ground water polluted by seawater and
sewage.
After a decade of this horrifying experiment in human endurance, the Israeli
army finally appears to be concerned about whether Gaza can cope much longer.
In recent days it has begun handing out forms, with more than a dozen
questions, to the small number of Palestinians allowed briefly out of Gaza -
mainly business people trading with Israel, those needing emergency medical
treatment and family members accompanying them.
One question asks bluntly whether they are happy, another whom they blame for
their economic troubles. A statistician might wonder whether the answers can be
trusted, given that the sample group is so heavily dependent on Israel's good
will for their physical and financial survival.
But the survey does at least suggest that Israel's top brass may be open to new
thinking, after decades of treating Palestinians only as target practice, lab
rats or sheep to be herded into cities, freeing up land for Jewish settlers.
Has the army finally understood that Palestinians are human beings too, with
limits to the suffering they can soak up?
According to the local media, the army is in part responding to practical
concerns. It is reportedly worried that, if epidemics break out, the diseases
will quickly spread into Israel.
And if Gaza's economy collapses too, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians
could be banging on Israel's door - or rather storming its hi-tech
incarceration fence - to be allowed in. The army has no realistic contingency
plans for either scenario.
It may be considering too its image - and defence case - if its commanders ever
find themselves in the dock at the International Criminal Court in the Hague
accused of war crimes.
Nonetheless, neither Israeli politicians nor Washington appear to be taking the
army's warnings to heart. In fact, things look set to get worse.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week there could be no
improvements, no reconstruction in Gaza until Hamas agrees to give up its
weapons - the only thing, in Hamas's view, that serves as a deterrent against
future Israeli attack.
Figures show Israel's policy towards Gaza has been actually growing harsher.
In 2017 exit permits issued by Israel dwindled to a third of the number two
years earlier - and a hundredfold fewer than in early 2000. A few hundred
Palestinian businesspeople receive visas, stifling any chance of economic
revival.
The number of trucks bringing goods into Gaza has been cut in half - not
because Israel is putting the inmates on a "diet", as it once did, but because
the enclave's Palestinians lack "purchasing power". That is, they are too poor
to buy Israeli goods.
Netanyahu has resolutely ignored a plan by his transport minister to build an
artificial island off Gaza to accommodate a sea port under Israeli or
international supervision. And no one is considering allowing the Palestinians
to exploit Gaza's natural gas fields, just off the coast.
In fact, the only thing holding Gaza together is the international aid it
receives. And that is now in jeopardy too.
The Trump administration announced last week it is to slash by half the aid it
sends to Palestinian refugees via the UN agency UNRWA. Trump has proposed
further cuts to punish Mahmoud Abbas, the increasingly exasperated Palestinian
leader, for refusing to pretend any longer that the US is an honest broker
capable of overseeing peace talks.
The White House's difficuties are only being underscored as Mike Pence, the US
vice-president, visits Israel as part of Trump's supposed push for peace.
He is being boycotted by Palestinian officials.
Palestinians in Gaza will feel the loss of aid severely. A majority live in
miserable refugee camps set up after their families were expelled in 1948 from
homes in what is now Israel. They depend on the UN for food handouts, health
and education.
Backed by the PLO's legislative body, the central council, Abbas has begun
retaliating - at least rhetorically. He desperately needs to shore up the
credibility of his diplomatic strategy in pursuit of a two-state solution after
Trump recently hived off Palestine's future capital, Jerusalem, to Israel.
Abbas threatened, if not very credibly, to end a security coordination with
Israel he once termed "sacred" and declared as finished the Oslo accords that
created the Palestinian Authority he now heads.
The lack of visible concern in Israel and Washington suggests neither believes
he will make good on those threats.
But it is not Abbas's posturing that Netanyahu and Trump need to worry about.
They should be listening to Israel's generals, who understand that there will
be no defence against the fallout from the catastrophe looming in Gaza.
