According to the article 80% of palestinians living in Gaza now depend on foreign aid.
Is thos report accurate? I want a GQ answer but I am posting here because it will quickly degenarate into a debate.
Can’t vouch for those statistics, but the situation in Gaza is in stark contrast to what’s happening in the West Bank, where the economy is set to grow 7% this year.
This column explains some of the reasons why.
Well, it’s certainly not surprising given the economy and the reality of the occupation. I’d wager that the article is pretty accurate in its analysis. There are a multitude of countries that depend on foreign aid to remain solvent, Israel, paradoxically, is one of them.
- Honesty
Unfortunately, the reason can be summed up in one word: “Gazans.”
That may be unfair, but it is nonetheless true. I won’t get into claims that Israel is responsible, or the Us is, or it’s all the West Bank’'s fault, or whatever - it’s irrelevant. if Israel vanished tommorow, Gaza would still be a nightmare. The key problem is that Gazans are generally angry at everything, willing to cut off their noses to spite their faces, supporting aggressive faction; Hamas in particular. I still recall the absurd hilarity of the Gazans triumphantly destroying the Greenhouses loveingly purchased for them by donors from around the world. They support the violent and the murderous, and they reap the harvest from that.
I disagree with this.
I think if Israel didn’t treat its Arab population like the prawns in District 9, the population would be more receptive to diplomacy. I also think that Israel facilitates the problem by (1) requiring compulsory identification cards that identify ethnicity coupled with (2) the legal use of racial and ethnic profiling, (3) not being proactive with U.S or European concerns while (4) insisting that its military situation and societal problems are unique and that the rest of the world is incapable of understanding the grave threat(s) to Israel.
I also think that Israel is incapable of saying, “Gee, we made a mistake.” It’s always Hamas fault, or Hezbellah, or Osama Bin Laden’s, or the Taliban’s. If a missile hits a building, it’s the inhabitants fault for hiding the terrorists. If a child blows off a leg because of a cluster bomb, it’s Hezbellah’s fault for capturing the soldiers at the beginning of the conflict. If world opinions sinks after an attack, it’s because of pervasive anti-semitism in the media. The mirror is never turned around, ever. It’s Israel’s propensity of making excuses that lights the fire of outrage in Arabs. And it should. When I made excuses to my mother, I got popped in the mouth. Hopefully, you did, too.
- Honesty
Honesty you are either confusing or conflating two very different issues.
The issues regarding equality under the law and in practice of Arab Israelis is one subject. That Arab Israelis are subject to some degree of discrimination, some of it state sanctioned and some in practice even if it is illegal, is not very debatable. How much worse it is, or not, than how minority populations are treated in any other location, is very much a subject of debate. That debate is not the subject of this thread however.
The issues regarding how Israel deals with Arabs who are not its citizens, in particular those with a Palestinian identity, and how those populations deal with Israel and with each other, is another subject entirely. Palestinians who support Hamas and even more extremist factions are not doing so out of protest over perceived unfair treatment of Arab Israeli citizens. One can believe that they have fallen for the ploys of leadership that uses Israel as their Orwellian Goldberg, or that they are angry over perceived historic and/or current injustices, or that Israel has designs on a “Greater Israel” and plans to ethnically cleanse all of Judea Samaria … whichever is your stripe, it has little to do with item one.
As to your second point, nothing could be further from the truth. Israel has been one of the most self critical countries in existence. They analyze what went wrong and blame their leadership for less than optimal outcomes. Politicians attempts to spin very often run into a public that will have none of it. Of course the public includes both those who believe that a move was too aggressive and those who believe that it was not aggressive enough; but they all share that they do not think the right thing was done and that mistakes were made.
To the op - economically isolating a regime is a time honored tool of international “diplomacy” utilized by the UN and various member nations time and time again. Israel is merely using that same tool. That said I think that the tool is a lousy one no matter who uses it and against whom. It attempts to force change by causing suffering among a civilian population while the power brokers rarely suffer. I do not approve of its use against Gaza any more than I approved of its use in past years against Saddam’s Iraq, or against Iran, or against Myanmar. I just wish I had some other tool to suggest using …
maybe the OP would like to ask himself why Israel is blockading Gaza?
Using the phrase “humanitarian crisis” without providing any context is misleading. You could change the title of the thread to “Humanitarian crisis caused by terrorism in Gaza”
from the Jerusalem postnewspaper
I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the situation in the Middle East but I do have to say, I think it’s a little bit unfair how the world seems to hold Israel to a double standard. I recently read this quote from philosopher and Presidential Medal of Freedom winner Eric Hoffer and I think there is some truth to it (although it is dated, having been written after the 1967 War, which is obvious from the language of it) :
The part which I bolded is the one that I find most prescient. Israel was attacked in a war. It was attacked by many different countries all at once, most of them far larger and more powerful than Israel itself. It managed to win this war (against the odds), and it captured territory in the process.
Isn’t this how all of the nations of the world have drawn their maps, over the last thousand years of history?
Why is Israel the only country that catches so much shit for it?
Nitpick: Goldstein.
The rest of your post was (IMO) very much on the money.
Regards,
Shodan
Iceberg, Goldberg – what’s the difference?
There are lots of places in the world where minorities are discriminated against and make out fine. So that argument doesn’t flash at all.
Gaza doesn’t have much but lots of small countries like Singapore and Hong Kong (I know it’s not independent) do fine with large populations and small areas.
Plus the Arabs in the rich Gulf States could be helping them with money for investments and for economic developement.
But they are not. The Palestinians are used by their “brother Arabs” as pawns. And even their own leaders are doing a such.
Maybe the couldn’t afford to make Gaza into the Hong Kong or Singapore of the East Mediterranean but no one’s interested in trying, 'cause the Arabs are still fighting a war they lost in 1949.
I hate to sound that way but people lose land all the time. One third of Poland today used to be Germany. Huge sections of Findland are now in Russia, etc etc.
Accept the loss and move on… Of course they won’t because they are more useful as pawns, and the Palestinians while victims too are hardly blameless.
With Arab wealth there is no reason why they can’t build a port and give Tel Aviv, Beiruit or whatever a run for there money, instead of spending billion in Abu Dhabi to build a skyscraper who sole purpsoe is it’s height, not to mention the other projects.
Yes I realize the UAE isn’t Gaza but they are always talking about helping brother Arabs, I guess the help doesn’t extend too far
I think it’s more of an issue of nationalist pride than anything else. They don’t want to accept the fact that they were defeated, especially by the Jews. So they continue to try to chip at Israel through sponsoring terrorism, and the result is that their fellow Arabs are killed in the resulting counter-attacks. That is the real tragedy here.