The world's first gourmet starvation experience

leor klier

As I understand it, the 'humanitarian' flotilla contains 10,000 tons of supplies. The majority of it is apparently cement and concrete screed for building, but lets for a moment assume that it is food. That equates to 10,000,000kg which given the population of gaza would amount to about 2 days worth of food (and bear in mind that given the majority of the supplies are building materials and you can therefore probably divide this by a factor of 10 which would mean about 5 hours worth of food).

Strikes me as a pretty pointless gesture.

ahad ha'amoratsim

Melannie, very off thread, but see Khaled Abu Toameh's May 25 article at Hudson Institute about former PLO "ambassador" to Australia, Ali Kazak calling Mr. Toameh a traitor and calling for Mr. Toameh to be killed.

Among Mr. Toameh's observations: "Kazak's threat does not come as a surprise to those who are familiar with the methods used by Arab dictatorships to silence anyone who dares to demand reforms and transparency.

The threat reminds journalists like me how lucky we are that we live in Israel and not under the jurisdiction of the PLO or Hamas." http://www.hudsonny.org/2010/05/the-palestinians-the-real-traitors.php

Drakken

Looks like a target rich environment to me. Useful idiots in search of the Darwin Award.

Terry, Eilat - Israel

After you look at the video clips of the ''starving Gazans'' - please remember that you & other suckers from the West are paying for it out of your taxes.

GaryO

The best Israel can do is ignore these fools. Don't give them what they crave the most – confrontation with IDF.

Mailman

I guess its too much to ask for a true leader of the free world to demand changes from within Arab society so as to root out extremism...and then they can have some money. You know, sort of like what the allies did to Germany and Japan after world war two, FORCED them to change!

Sadly though, the loudest voice calling for change are those useful fools who believe Israel should be forced to change (ie. change from existing to not existing!)!!!

Meh

CIA factbook.

Population below poverty line- 70%
Unemployment- 40%

So do be quiet.

Adam B.

Meh,

Perhaps the Hamas authorities could spend some of the millions of aid money (more than any sub-Saharan African country - where the need is greater) on building an infrastructure, an economy and jobs, rather than spending it on weaponry, antisemitic propaganda and luxury lifestyles for those at the top.

Just a suggestion.

Thomas

I am now seriously intrigued. The points I wish to make are at least as germane as anyone else's so far. I do not understand what the objection to publishing them can be.

My comments on what Mr. Gross has written:

Bigwigs eat in fancy restaurants, so there is no malnutrition in Gaza. - This is clearly a non sequitur.

There are thriving markets, so there is no malnutrition in Gaza. - See Amartya Sen's work on famine. It is quite usual to find thriving markets within reach of those starving, who lack the money to pay the inflated prices. The price mechanism works similarly when there is a shortage, as Gaza illustrates. So what is the point in reporting thriving markets?

Either the blockade is not working and Gaza is thriving, in which case why persist with the blockade? Or the blockade is working, in which case why report that it is not? The purpose of a blockade is to cause shortages. Why deny it?

The article relies on anecdote and ignores comprehensive statistics that provide an accurate picture. Is this good journalistic practice?

On the basis of this, we are told that Gaza is enjoying the world’s first gourmet starvation experience. When is it inappropriate to attempt to be witty denying others' misfortune?

I note also that it is suggested on this thread that if Hamas were less corrupt and used the money donated to Gaza properly all would be well. Where are the markets for Hamas to buy the requisite food, clothing, building materials for homes, schools and hospitals, heavy engineering equipment to rebuild waterworks and sewage works and electricity generators, and flour mills etc. etc. etc.?

JDVL

Meh -- you wouldn't mind me verifying your source/facts would you? Please supply details. Otherwise one can make up anything......

Rob-NY

Thanks for the Roots advert. I think I will book a Bar Mitzvah there this summer.

Rob-NY

Looks like any socialist gangster kleptocracy. How old is this video since Abu Mazen is featured? Is it before the 2007 civil war in Gaza? Nevertheless, still quite striking indictment.

Raymond in DC

Meh writes, "CIA factbook.
Population below poverty line- 70%
Unemployment- 40%"

These figures do NOT reflect the "in kind" payments those in Gaza receive through the UNRWA, nor the payments received via the PA from import taxes or foreign aid. The FACT is that the average Gazan lives better than the average Egyptian. As to that new olympic-size swimming pool, most Israeli cities have no such facility.

Adam B.

Scroll down for more pictures of a Western useful idiot. Note the starvation all around, especially in a very well stocked shop. (You won't see this on the BBC or in the Guardian).

http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/000973.html

Osred

Thomas,

If there was any malnutrition or starvation you can be sure that the BBC and every other mainstream media would headline it. In fact, the media sometimes have to invent massacres (Jenin) to highlight the 'plight' of the Palestinians.

There is no blockade. Gaza has a border with Egypt which Israel does not control. Food and medical aid, along with much else is allowed across both Israeli and Egytptian borders.

There is an ongoing attempt to blockade weapons. Is this the blockade you refer to?

Hamas/Fatah/PLO have never been prevented from buying food or medecine although it is not their top priority. With the amount of bilateral and multilateral aid that pours into the strip though they have little need to buy anything.

Unfortunately even Hamas/Fatah/PLO's best friends would admit that their accounting procedures are right down there with the EU's allowing plenty of 'leakage' into more favoured 'blockaded' goods.

Derek BLADES

Adam B. writes "Perhaps the Hamas authorities could spend some of the millions of aid money.... on building an infrastructure,..."

Perhaps the Gazans would indeed like to repair some of the colossal damage wrought by Israel to their civilian infrastructure, but building materials are explicitly and maliciously denied entry by the Israelis.

Hmmm? Makes you think! Or not as the case may be.

Thomas

Osred
May 28th, 2010 4:47pm
"There is no blockade..." "Hamas/Fatah/PLO have never been prevented from buying food or medecine ..."

Here is blind faith revealing a willingness to believe in the face of evidence even beyond the demands of orthodoxy.

The Israeli authorities do not pretend that there is no blockade. One of their spokesmen even famously explained that the intention was to put the people of Gaza on a diet.

Your zeal may impress among the faithful, but in the cold light of reality and reason your denials verge on the unethical.

Adam B.

No Blades, but nice try. Hamas came to power (staged a bloody coup) long before Cast Lead. In that time, it spent next to nothing on infrastructure, preferring to consolidate its iron grip on the population and expending huge amounts of energy on launching rockets at Israeli towns. There was no blockade on building materials at the time. Since Cast Lead, Israel does not want to run the risk of such materials being used for terror purposes. I know of no other situation in the world where the victim of aggression sends materials to its aggressor who would commit genocide against its citizens. Yet that is precisely what Israel does, as thousands of tonnes of humanitarian aid flow through, as do services like electricity (despite Hamas rocketing the power station inside Israel which provides Gaza with its electicity supply). Thousands of Gazans have also received free medical care in Israel, including the daughter of a high ranking Hamas official just last week.

It may have escaped your notice that Egypt operates a blockade against Gaza, in circumstances where no rockets are being fired into Egypt. What's Egypt's excuse - and do we hear people like you ranting on about it? No. Wonder why.

Thomas

Adam B.
May 28th, 2010 7:02pm
"No Blades, but nice try. Hamas came to power (staged a bloody coup) long before Cast Lead. In that time, it spent next to nothing on infrastructure..."

When was it Hamas should have invested in infrastructure?

Hamas won an election insisted on by the US. The US and Israel immediately set about aiding and abetting Fatah in mounting a coup to topple Hamas - because the wrong people won the election - which is not how democracy is meant to work - (it has in any case long been an objective to keep Palestinians fighting amongst themselves). Hamas mounted a counter-coup to assume the power it had won in the election. Israel and the "international community" (the US and its allies) immediately imposed a blockade on Gaza. Israel then launched one of its periodic illegal assaults and did a significant amount of damage (on top of the damage done in its regular "retaliatory" rampages). The Palestinians of Gaza have long been short of essentials. The blockade made things worse. The courageous dropping of ordnance on cities, towns, and villages, power plants, sewage works, water works, pipes, roads, hospitals, schools... etc....etc....etc. increased the shortage of building materials (among other things)...

When was Hamas to invest in infrastructure and where was it to get the materials?

Your account of Israel's nobility in providing for Gaza's 1.5m genocidal aggressors is moving. I had not understood that Israel was putting the people of Gaza "on a diet" to "make them thinner" out of a genuine concern for their health and well-being. I had not understood that Israel took so seriously the duties as occupier that it has for so long been seeking to shake off with one spurious excuse after another. You paint for us a picture of Israel as truly humanitarian in its treatment of the Palestinians. And yet its avowed aim has been for decades to make them "live like dogs" (to quote Moshe Dayan).

(By the way, Egypt has reasons similar to Israel's for its barbarity. It is a client...ally...of the US, somewhat lower down the pecking order. It does what it is told. And it has no reason to love the Muslim Brotherhood. If there were elections in Egypt rather than "elections" the Brotherhood would likely win.)

...I'm sorry, what was your point in reply to Mr. Blades?

Thomas

As a response to the propaganda of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, read Living it up in Gaza, Jerusalem Post 27/5/10 - yes, the Jerusalem Post has more integrity than those who faithfully parrot the hypocrisies.

Harold

That the Jerusalem Post should publish such an article is yet further confirmation that the facts are readily available. Those who wish to deny the facts have to rely on a curious rule for the admission of evidence: anything adverse to Israel does not count as admissable. Such a rule, and the hypocrisies indulged in by the MFA and its faithful echoes here, indicate a lack of faith in the strength of the argument for Israel's behaviour towards the Palestinians.

Sergey

"Those who wish to deny the facts have to rely on a curious rule for the admission of evidence: anything adverse to Israel does not count as admissable."
Harold, you are dangerously naive if you accept anything told by an Arab - any Arab - as a fact. It is common knowledge that Arabs are compulsive liars: the whole their social behavior is based on who will outfox whom. Just as Western culture is based on trust, Arab culture is based on everybody cheating on everybody. So actual rule should be: never believe anything Arab tell you without checking on some trustworthy source. Western supporters of Palestinians do not qualify as such: they are simply usefull idiots. Like you.

Derek BLADES

Thank you Thomas for your detailed reply of 28 May to Adam B. You have more patience than I. The poor fellow has difficulty in understanding the most obvious truths about the Middle East and I find it best to just ignore him. He recently had the impertinence to describe me as a useful idiot. Adam B. is not even useful.

Harold

Sergey
May 29th, 2010 9:27pm
Your parody of an ignorant racist is a joy. Also, your touching faith in Western culture which is "based on trust". Wonderful!

Thank you also for making my point for me with greater clarity than I managed: "... never believe anything Arab tell you without checking on some trustworthy source. Western supporters of Palestinians do not qualify as such..." Some trustworthy source would be the Israeli government...

Thank you again.

Sergey

Harold, do you really believe that there is no difference between an advanced culture and a backward one? What then is the meaning of social progress? "Racism" has nothing to do with understanding this difference: both Jews and Arabs belong to the same semitic race. It is culture which makes all the difference.

Harold

Sergey
May 30th, 2010 6:08pm
You said nothing about advanced versus backward. Your comments were framed in terms of the West versus the Arabs,not semites versus semites. You give us no guidance on who to trust for information about the doings o the Israeli government other than the Israeli government.

Trumpeldor

from Sergey,
"Racism" has nothing to do with understanding this difference: both Jews and Arabs belong to the same semitic race

There is NO race.
Go one day to Israel and you will notice this plain fact with your own eyes...

Rip Van Winkle

Adam B

Adam, There's something for you near the end of "The death-bed confession of the EU elite" thread.

Sergey

Harold, if you are not inclined to trust Israeli government (why not? It is democratically controlled and accountable), this means you should not trust anybody about ME. This is just so simple.

Harold

Sergey
May 31st, 2010 2:36pm
If anyone here is naive, it has to be you. Who else thinks that governments, however democratic, however accountable (hollow laughter), do not lie and lie habitually. The evidence is all against you.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold
May 31st, 2010 3:15pm
Sergey
May 31st, 2010 2:36pm
If anyone here is naive, it has to be you. Who else thinks that governments, however democratic, however accountable (hollow laughter), do not lie and lie habitually. The evidence is all against you."

Are there no governments in the Middle east - Hamas, Fatah, Syria, Iran..which you would consider an exception to the rule which you have so perspicaciously identified?

If not, where on earth do we go from here, Dear harold?

David Marks

I have watched these anti-Semitic lies being pumped out for years, and the reason they continue is that Jews and Israelis have a self-limitation even on the truth when our enemies have no such qualms about their lies. Although we are a small group compared to our enemies we can fight back if we prepare first for the fight. All Israels embassies and spokesmen and Anglo-Jewish supporters should be fully briefed with the news about the real situation in Gaza. Then: KICK THE BBC OUT OF ISRAEL on the basis of their lies and the Champagne lifestyle they are leading at the expense of the BBC License Fee (Tax on the British people. After all, if Britain can be wrongly concerned about "Champagne Gaza" why should Israel not be concerned about the suffering people of Britain!