Clueless in Gaza
The Observer’s report today on recent events in Gaza was an object lesson in how group-think creates reporting which is as demonstrably absurd as it is egregiously offensive. Reporter Peter Beaumont, describing the breaching of the wall separating Egypt from Gaza, nevertheless represented this as a means of escaping a blockade imposed solely by Israel. Despite recording the undoubted fact that the breach of the Egyptian barrier had created
a seismic and unstoppable reordering of the facts of the Middle Eastalong with a brief reference to
the attempt by Egyptian riot police who moved later in the week to try to reseal the borderthe flow of Gazans into Egypt through the breached barrier was represented as an escape from the stranglehold imposed by Israel — with no acknowledgement at all that the breached barrier represented Egypt’s own ‘stranglehold’. This fact was totally ignored. Instead the ‘wall in the mind’ that had come down belonged to Israel, not to Egypt; the breach had resulted in
a holiday from the oppressive conditions of Gaza under Israeli siegenot ‘Egyptian’ siege; despite the Egyptian barrier it was Israel alone that had ‘declared Hamas a hostile entity’, thus
further strangling a sealed off Gaza Strip and leading to severe shortages of cement, cigarettes and other basic goodsand tightening the noose on the innocent Gazans causing them to suffer every ill from economic ruin to domestic violence, divorce and child abuse.
At least, however, Beaumont recognised not only Egypt’s undoubted consternation at having Hamas pouring across its border but the naivety of those Israeli politicians, for whom the wish is father to the thought, who have proposed that Egypt should now be forced to assume responsibility for Gaza altogether. Not so Ahdaf Soueif who, in a sidebar to Beaumont’s piece, claimed that Israel was deliberately pushing Egypt to open its Rafah border with Gaza so that it could itself finally separate from Gaza and thus destroy the peace process.
Uh, wait a minute… isn’t the complaint against Israel that it is supposed not to have separated from Gaza? Hmmn, bit of a problem, that complaint, when Israel continues to supply Gaza with electricity, food fuel and other necessities of life (thus enabling Gazans to continue to try to kill Israelis through war by rockets and terror). As for the idea that Israel actually wants the border between Egypt and Hamastan to be open, this is grotesque.Such an opening means a free flow of explosives, rockets and other weapons into Gaza to be used against Israel -- not to mention a free flow of terrorists who can then enter Israel through Egypt’s porous border in Sinai.
Meanwhile I searched the British media in vain for any reference to the terror attacks carried out against Israelis in the last few days. As Haaretz reports:
A knife-wielding Palestinian stabbed a Border Police officer on duty near the Atarot industrial area in northern Jerusalem, Israel Radio reported on Saturday. Policemen nearby opened fire at the Palestinian, who was seriously wounded.The stabbed policeman, who suffered light to moderate wounds, and the Palestinian are currently receiving treatment at Hadassah University Hospital, Ein Karem… The attack is the third to take place in the Jerusalem area within the last 48 hours. On Thursday night, two armed Palestinians infiltrated a yeshiva in the nearby settlement of Kfar Etzion, wounding three civilians.
In a separate incident that occurred around the same time Thursday, Palestinian gunmen opened fire on the Border Police officers stationed at the Ras Hamis checkpoint near the Shuafat refugee camp in East Jerusalem, killing a Border Police officer and wounding another. The two armed Palestinians who infiltrated the Kfar Etzion yeshiva were recently released from an Israeli prison after serving time for criminal violations, Palestinian and Israeli security officials said Friday.
The yeshiva attackers were Hamas; the others were terrorists affiliated to Fatah. You know, Fatah — yes, those same good-hearted guys who America tells us are committed to making peace with Israel.
I think this is called wilful blindness.