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Op-Ed
Contributor
What You Don’t Know About
Gaza
By RASHID KHALIDI
Published: January 7, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/opinion/08khalidi.html?_r=2&em
NEARLY everything you’ve been led to
believe about Gaza is wrong. Below are a
few essential points that seem to be
missing from the conversation, much of
which has taken place in the press,
about Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip.
THE GAZANS Most of the people living in
Gaza are not there by choice. The
majority of the 1.5 million people
crammed into the roughly 140 square
miles of the Gaza Strip belong to
families that came from towns and
villages outside Gaza like Ashkelon and
Beersheba. They were driven to Gaza by
the Israeli Army in 1948.
THE OCCUPATION The Gazans have lived
under Israeli occupation since the
Six-Day War in 1967. Israel is still
widely considered to be an occupying
power, even though it removed its troops
and settlers from the strip in 2005.
Israel still controls access to the
area, imports and exports, and the
movement of people in and out. Israel
has control over Gaza’s air space and
sea coast, and its forces enter the area
at will. As the occupying power, Israel
has the responsibility under the Fourth
Geneva Convention to see to the welfare
of the civilian population of the Gaza
Strip.
THE BLOCKADE Israel’s blockade of the
strip, with the support of the United
States and the European Union, has grown
increasingly stringent since Hamas won
the Palestinian Legislative Council
elections in January 2006. Fuel,
electricity, imports, exports and the
movement of people in and out of the
Strip have been slowly choked off,
leading to life-threatening problems of
sanitation, health, water supply and
transportation.
The blockade has subjected many to
unemployment, penury and malnutrition.
This amounts to the collective
punishment — with the tacit support of
the United States — of a civilian
population for exercising its democratic
rights.
THE CEASE-FIRE Lifting the blockade,
along with a cessation of rocket fire,
was one of the key terms of the June
cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.
This accord led to a reduction in
rockets fired from Gaza from hundreds in
May and June to a total of less than 20
in the subsequent four months (according
to Israeli government figures). The
cease-fire broke down when Israeli
forces launched major air and ground
attacks in early November; six Hamas
operatives were reported killed.
WAR CRIMES The targeting of civilians,
whether by Hamas or by Israel, is
potentially a war crime. Every human
life is precious. But the numbers speak
for themselves: Nearly 700 Palestinians,
most of them civilians, have been killed
since the conflict broke out at the end
of last year. In contrast, there have
been around a dozen Israelis killed,
many of them soldiers. Negotiation is a
much more effective way to deal with
rockets and other forms of violence.
This might have been able to happen had
Israel fulfilled the terms of the June
cease-fire and lifted its blockade of
the Gaza Strip.
This war on the people of Gaza isn’t
really about rockets. Nor is it about
“restoring Israel’s deterrence,” as the
Israeli press might have you believe.
Far more revealing are the words of
Moshe Yaalon, then the Israeli Defense
Forces chief of staff, in 2002: “The
Palestinians must be made to understand
in the deepest recesses of their
consciousness that they are a defeated
people.”
Rashid Khalidi, a professor of Arab
studies at Columbia, is the author of
the forthcoming “Sowing Crisis: The Cold
War and American Dominance in the Middle
East." |
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