Israel Matzav

Yet another New York Times puff piece on Gaza

The New York Times publishes yet another puff piece on 'poor Gaza' as if the people there who voted for Hamas - and Hamas itself - bear no responsibility for their predicament:

After the Israelis pulled out in 2005, Gazans complained that they lived in a big prison, since Israel still controlled their airspace, sea coasts and principal border crossings. Such claims had an element of propaganda, but now, with the crossing into Egypt for people also shut, by Egypt, the accusation is much closer to reality.

A trickle of the 1.5 million inhabitants of Gaza can now leave their tiny coastal strip for any reason whatsoever. The streets are ghostly, with little traffic, and the private economy is dying, lacking needed imports and unable to export.

Gaza is a deeply conservative society, but Hamas’s growth has been reflected in the increasing number of women not only covering their hair, but also their faces. Israel says that it will ensure that no one starves in Gaza, and that the essentials of life will be provided.

But Israel also wants to see that Hamas suffers, by making Gazans suffer, to impress on them that the best path lies in accommodation and negotiation with Israel for a Palestinian state. Fatah backs that strategy, not the violent, religious and national struggle against Israel that Hamas advocates and practices.

Raji Sourani, director of Gaza’s Palestinian Center for Human Rights, is himself stuck in Gaza. No friend to Hamas, he has a new metaphor.

“At least in prison, and I’ve been in prison, there are rules,” he said. “But now we live in a kind of animal farm. We live in a pen, and they dump in food and medicine.”

These photographs show today’s diminished Gaza, more isolated and more religious, where people try, as they must, to go on with the everyday epics of ordinary life.

The Times blames Israel and - surprisingly - Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah for Gaza's predicament. But Egypt, which could open its border to something other than terrorists and weapons (headed into Gaza only) rates barely a mention. And the fact that Gazans are terrorizing the surrounding Israeli communities in the Negev with daily rocket fire that disrupts any chance they have at a normal life rates no mention at all.

I won't cry if 'life' in Gaza shrinks some more. As long as they keep terrorizing Israelis, I wish the Israeli government would stop giving them anything. Leave them to their own devices.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:51 PM