|
The
cuts in fuel deliveries to Gaza ordered by the Israeli army on Oct. 28
marked a new escalation of the Zionist siege of the ruined territory. They
also demonstrate a new height of Israeli hypocrisy. The Zionist
authorities had announced earlier that they intended to cut electricity
supply in retaliation for the firing of home-made rockets across the
Israeli border.
The
Los Angeles Times reported Oct. 29: "Deputy Defense Minister Matan
Vilnai said Saturday [Oct. 28] that these measures were not punishment
for the rocket fire but rather a step toward Israel's disengagement as an
occupying power." Vilnai claimed that the Israel
wanted
to encourage the Gazans to become self-sufficient in electricity
production.
But
the territory has no local resources for the production of electric
power, other than generators that are powered by diesel fuel brought in
from Israel and which supply about 40 percent of the territory's
electricity. Deliveries of this fuel were reduced by 40 percent on Oct.
28, according to Mujahed Salameh, head of the Palestinian Authority's
petrol agency. He also said that supplies of gasoline had been reduced by
50 percent. Obviously these cuts are designed to cause the maximum pain
to the Palestinian population.
An
article in the Oct. 29 Los Angeles Times noted: "Israeli
commentators said the government was moving gradually, testing how thoroughly
it could isolate Gaza without widespread international protest. As an
occupying power, Israel would be obligated under
international
law to provide essential services to Gaza and restricted in its use of
sanctions."
This
fiction underlies Vilnai's hypocritical claim that the Israeli squeeze on
Gaza is only intended to promote the self-sufficiency of the enclave. In
fact, although Israeli troops have been withdrawn from Gaza, the Zionist
state continues to hold the territory in a vise and use it as an open-air
shooting gallery.
Fortunately,
Israelis with a conscience are helping to expose their government's
self-serving propaganda. The Oct. 29 Los Angeles Times article continued:
"'The measures Israel seeks to implement are based on the legal assumption
that Gaza is no longer under occupation since the Israeli troop pullout,'
Yuval Shani, an international law expert, told Israel Radio.
'That
position is not shared by most countries or even most legal experts. …
Even if some of the measures will be legally defensible, there will be a
diplomatic price.'"
Associated
Press reported Oct. 29 that 10 Israeli human rights groups filed a legal
appeal against the Israeli government's reprisals against the Gaza
population: “In their appeal, the 10 human rights groups contended,
'Deliberately obstructing the civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip
is illegal.' They say Israel controls Gaza land, sea and air corridors
and should be considered responsible for the fate of the people there,
though Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005."
In
fact, the Israeli officials had good reason to fear a reaction to their
draconian measures. To forestall this, the Isaeli attorney general,
Menachem Mazouz, ordered suspension of the electricity cuts on Oct. 29,
pending an investigation of their humanitarian effects. But he
demonstrated the hypocrisy of the measure by approving the fuel delivery
cuts, which amount to the same thing.
Even
before the latest measures, the Israeli closure of the border crossings
with Gaza and the cutting off of income to the Palestinian Authority had
destroyed the local economy and made the population almost totally
dependent in meager aid from international agencies.
An
article in the Oct. 29 Los Angeles Times summarized the effects of the
Israeli squeeze: "... Gaza's economy, normally powered by civil
service salaries, income from jobs in Israel and overseas remittances,
has been pushed into uncharted territory by the border closures.
“In
recent years, Gaza had built up the beginnings of an agricultural export
industry, sending vegetables and flowers to Israel and to Europe. But
that market has been decimated in the last year. In addition, hundreds of
factories, producing mostly textiles and
furniture,
have shut down, with estimates of up to 70,000 newly jobless private
sector workers.
A
large segment of the population already depended on international aid
relief before June; those numbers have dramatically increased, aid
workers say. "Dominique Sbardella, child protection coordinator in
Gaza with the international aid group Save the Children, said
malnutrition in children, once found mostly in impoverished refugee
camps, is spreading through the general population."
The
view of "Israeli commentators" cited in the Oct. 29 Los Angeles
Times that the Israeli government is testing the reaction of
international public opinion to its siege of Gaza highlights the
responsibility of all who hold democratic and humanitarian principles to
protest these outrages.
Only
world public opinion can avert a humanitarian disaster in Gaza. The
"diplomatic price" the Israeli rulers will have to pay for the
squeeze on the Palestinians in Gaza will be directly proportional to the
pressure brought on Western governments by people of conscience in their
own countries.
|