Slices of life from 'the World's largest concentration camp'
The international media and the 'human rights' group would have you believe that Gaza is impoverished, overcrowded, densely populated, has no recreation and has people who live in constant fear of an Israeli attack. In short, they refer to it as 'the World's largest concentration camp.'
That's a lie.
Here's what Gaza is really like.
Let's go to the videotape - made by Hamas.
And for those of you who doubt that this is Gaza or that the video was made by Hamas....
Gaza residents hold up signs "Shukran Hamas -- Thank You Hamas"
But don't worry - that won't stop the Europeans from organizing 'flotillas' to Gaza while ignoring the thousands dying by barrel bombs in Assad's Syria because... priorities.
For years, Hamas has been trying to blame Israel for a 'water crisis' in Gaza. Now, they admit that the crisis was caused by overpumping by 'Palestinians' using the towns from which Jews were expelled ten years ago.
The Hamas paper Al-Risalah conducted an investigation into
the subject of Jewish agricultural land in Gaza that was evacuated in
the 2005 Disengagement plan, and found that despite Arab claims that
Israel has caused a water crisis in Gaza, local residents are in fact to
blame.
In its investigation, which relied on figures from the Hamas
agricultural ministry, the paper found that excessive use of water for
agriculture by local farmers was behind the shortage of water.
In particular the raising of vegetables that require vast amounts of
water, digging wells without supervision, and pumping water excessively
was found to be the culprit of Gaza's water woes.
The paper of the Hamas terror organization noted that prior to the
2005 expulsion of all Jews from Gaza, no more than 20 wells were being
used by Israelis in Gush Katif, and they were dug around a kilometer
from the coast so as to trap rain water.
The average pumping from these wells was around 20-30 cubic meters per hour.
Today, the number of wells in the area has tripled, and the Arab
agricultural unions working in the evacuated Jewish communities dug
close to 30 more wells - in addition to the 16 dug by the municipality.
In 2012, of about 17,000 marriages were registered in the courts of the
Gaza Strip, 35% were cases in which the brides were under 17 years old.
These marriages are concluded without the courts knowing the girls’
real ages. Meanwhile, about 2,700 divorce cases were registered in the
same year, and in 25% of these the wives were underage, Bakr Azzam, a
lawyer specializing in Sharia issues, told Al-Monitor.
Mariam explained that due to her young age she wasn’t capable of meeting the demands of married life.
“I was taken away from my small toys, taken out of my school forcibly
and delivered to my husband whom I had only seen once, in front of the
judge who officiated my marriage contract,” she added.
Mariam recently ran away from her husband’s house and returned to her
father's, after concluding that she could not bear to stay with her
husband. He dates other women under the excuse that his wife is young
and thinks like a child, not living up to the intellect of a man of his
age. Mariam’s husband also beats her whenever they have an argument.
“When I told my father about this, he told me, ‘This is normal and most young people are facing such a situation these days,’ but I did not accept it,” she said.
Mariam, who now wants a divorce, is not the only underage girl who was
forced to marry despite her physical and mental unreadiness for marital
life.
Sarah had a similar experience, but for different reasons.
As she spoke to Al-Monitor, Sarah looked at a photo of herself
when she was still single. She had a bright face and childlike
features. Today, however, she has become a girl with a scrawny body, a
slim face and caved-in eyes that look very tired.
“I got married when I was 16 years old. My father and my brothers
forced me to marry a 17-year-old boy so that they would not have to pay
my living expenses and could get rid of my father’s accumulated debt,”
she said, her face somber.
She pointed out that marital problems began only one week into the
marriage due to the demands, made by both her husband and his family,
that a girl of her age could not meet. “My family did not take into
account the fact that I was still a child,” she said.
But I'm sure that if we give them a 'state' they will stop treating their daughters as property to be bought and sold.
Cairo Airport refuses inbound flight from Syria, 'Palestinians' deported
The new Egyptian government knows how to do one thing right. Actually, make it two. On Monday, they sent an arriving flight from Syria back to its origin because the passengers didn't have visas, and 'Palestinians' arriving from all over the world were sent back to their departure points.
Officials at Cairo International Airport on Monday have refused an
inbound Syrian Airlines plane and requested it fly back to Latakia with
all its passengers on board, according to new regulations which state
that Syrian nationals must obtain a visa and security approval before
arriving in Cairo.
Syrian Airlines flight number 203, flying from Latakia with 95
passengers, had arrived in Cairo without foreknowledge of the new
procedures.
Fifty-five other Syrians arriving on a Middle East Airlines flight
from Beirut, and 39 others arriving on other airlines, were also denied
entry into Egypt.
Syrian nationals did not previously require visas to enter Egypt.
Electronic Intifada co-founder Ali Abunimah meanwhile reported that
Palestinians attempting to return home to the Gaza Strip via Cairo
airport have been deported by Egyptian authorities.
Palestinians have been deported to countries they arrived in Egypt from, reportedly at their own expense.
Palestinian writer Yousef M. Aljamal was forced to return to Kuala
Lumpur airport in Malaysia, after flying there from Auckland, New
Zealand, to obtain an Egyptian visa.
"All Palestinians who arrived yesterday were sent back to the
countries they came from," Aljamal tweeted on Monday, reporting that he
had also seen Palestinians being forced to travel back to Algeria,
Jordan, Tunisia and Canada.
And you thought the 'Palestinians' couldn't afford anything. Boo. Hoo.
Taking a cue from their Egyptian cousins, Gazans are starting to rally against Hamas on Facebook.
"Don't use my real name and if you record the interview you've got to disguise my voice," were almost the first words he said.
"I've been losing sleep over this," he adds firmly.
Khaled (not his real name) has become something of an online sensation in Gaza, but is now effectively living in hiding.
He is one of the authors of the Gaza Youth Manifesto for Change, a 450-word tirade against the frustrations of life in the Strip.
Posted online in December, the manifesto now has over 19,000 followers on the group's Facebook page under the name Gaza Youth Breaks Out.
...
The manifesto's opening salvo is a series of expletives directed at Hamas, Israel, Fatah, the UN, and the US.
"We, the youth in Gaza, are so fed up with Israel, Hamas, the occupation, the violations of human rights and the indifference of the international community!" it says.
It is an angry, sometimes abusive, but overall articulate and heartfelt tirade about growing up in Gaza.
"WE SAY STOP! This is not the future we want! We want to be free. We want to be able to live a normal life. We want peace. Is that too much to ask?"
The manifesto was written by a group of eight friends - most of them students or former students in their 20s.
...
But Khaled feels that in some ways the group's message has been misinterpreted. He has been receiving e-mails from Israeli groups praising the manifesto for criticising Hamas.
'We don't want their support," Khaled says. "Our main grievance is with Israel and the occupation, not with Hamas."
Because of this, Khaled says they will soon change the manifesto to refocus criticism on Israel and away from Hamas.
Despite the fact he believes Hamas are looking to arrest him, he denies that the changes to the text are coming because he is scared. He says it is rather because he does not want to be misunderstood.
It sounds they don't want a 'Palestinian state' run by Hamas or Fatah, but they do want to expel all the Jews.
Immigration officers have been instructed to bar Palestinians from entering Egypt, an official at Cairo airport said on Wednesday after 12 travellers were sent back.
"There are instructions to stop Palestinians entering Egypt. Twelve Palestinians were sent back to the places they came from on Wednesday," the official told AFP, on condition of anonymity.
A second airport-based official told AFP that airlines had been told not to bring Palestinian passengers to Egypt.
An official at the Palestinian embassy in Cairo confirmed the ban but said he had been told it was a temporary step and would not apply to Palestinians with Egyptian residency or who are married to Egyptians.
I had a good laugh from this Maan report on the visit of French Foreign Minister Michele Alliot-Marie.
During the evening, she met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before dinner with Defence Minister Ehud Barak in Tel Aviv.
Netanyahu told her Israel will work to end Gaza's dependency on his country.
"During their conversation ... Netanyahu said that Israel would strive to disengage from the Gaza Strip with regard to infrastructure utilities like electricity and water," a statement said, providing no further details.
Israel withdrew troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005, but still supplies some 70 percent of the strip's electricity, with the rest being provided by Egypt and local power plants.
It was not immediately clear where Gaza would get its electricity if Israel cuts supplies.
Come on folks - we all know where Gaza will get its electricity if Israel cuts supplies: The 'international community' will pay for it. Your tax dollars will pay for it.
Here's a video showing Gaza as it really is, and not as the 'impoverished enclave' Hamas wants you to think it is so that they can continue to collect international aid money.
Let's go to the videotape.
Heh.
The comments are quite a mix too if you're interested in looking at them on the YouTube site.
Great news (really): 45% of Gaza 'Palestinians' want to leave
The numbers of 'Palestinians' who want to leave Gaza should only continue to grow. 45% of Gaza 'Palestinians' want to leave.
Findings of the fourth quarter of 2010 indicate an increase in the level of pessimism regarding the chances for reconciliation and restoration of unity between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. They also indicate an overwhelming rejection of alternative forms of relations between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip such as a confederation or separate elections in each region. Findings also show widespread distrust in the authorities in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip regarding Fateh-Hamas relationship. For example, only a quarter or less believe as true the news about a Hamas plot to assassinate the governor of Nablus or that the three Fateh members sentenced to death in Gaza have received a fair trial.
Findings also point out to a significant and continued deterioration in public perception of the level of freedoms enjoyed by citizens in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip since the split between these two areas in June 2007. For example, belief that citizens can criticize the authorities in the West Bank without fear retreated from 56% in September 2007 to 27% in this poll. Similarly a retreat occurred in the belief that citizens can criticize the authorities in the Gaza Strip without fear from 52% to 19% during the same period.
Finally, findings show that the balance of power between Fateh and Hamas has remained almost unchanged compared to the situation during the third quarter of the year. The same is true regarding the popularity of president Mahmud Abbas and Ismail Haniyeh. Moreover, findings regarding the balance of power in the fourth quarter of this year are very similar to those of the final quarter of 2009 which means that the internal and external developments throughout 2010 has left no impact on this critical issue of internal balance between Fateh and Hamas and Abbas and Haniyeh.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
