This report
just released from the UN Conference on Trade and Development on the
situation in Gaza show just what our insane foreign policy can buy. The innocuous
title belies the provocative material inside it. Although the brouhaha over
the concerns with the pending Iran nuclear agreement will pretty much guarantee this report will be largely ignored by our mass media. I for one am frustrated at the vivid hypocrisy of those in the U.S. Congress that harp on the awful Iranian government while we ignore, for
example, our good pals the Saudi Arabian dynasty which funds lots of horror in the world and who treats its own women as second-class citizens.
But all this pales in my mind from yet another pile of
evidence of what our blind allegiance to the government of Israel has
most recently purchased. I’ve seen a few photos and
little videos of the destruction in Gaza but the 18 page report from the UN released this week, if you can stomach reading it
all, makes pretty clear that you would need a lot of pictures to describe what
Israel, and by proxy, the U.S. has inflicted on the people of this ancient
land. There is in my mind, NO legitimate moral or legal justification for the
situation in the Palestinian Territories, most acutely in Gaza as delineated by
this report. The targeted destruction of 15,000
fruit trees is hardly a defensive action. The report suggests that current trends would
make Gaza unlivable in five years. Based on what I read it seems that way now. Let
the report speak for itself.
“The Palestinian economy is the economy
of an occupied territory, and
therefore – contrary to the claims
of some observers – the efficacy of donor support has been undermined by
occupation, not by the inadequacy of Palestinian National Authority policies or
poor donor coordination. The fiscal burden of the humanitarian crises and the occupation-related
fiscal losses have diverted donor aid from development to humanitarian interventions
and budget support. No amount of aid would have been sufficient to put any economy
on a path of sustainable development under conditions of frequent military strikes
and destruction of infrastructure, isolation from global markets, fragmentation
of domestic markets and confiscation and denial of access to national natural
resources.” (pp.2-3)
The contraction of the Palestinian
per capita GDP by 3.3 per cent and the extremely high unemployment rates subject
large sections of the Palestinian population to poverty and food insecurity. Before
the military operation in Gaza and the economic contraction in 2014, food
insecurity in the Occupied Palestinian Territory was already very high, with
one in three households food insecure, according to 2013 data. Conditions were
worse in Gaza, where nearly 6 in 10 households were food insecure compared to 1
in 5 households in the West Bank (Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics et
al , 2014). (p.4)
Israeli settlements in the West Bank
continued to expand, and the number of settlers has quadrupled since the Oslo
Accords. Today, settlers outnumber Palestinians in Area C (61 per cent of West
Bank area), which includes the most valuable Palestinian natural resources. Overall,
341,000 Israeli settlers live in 235 settlements and outposts in Area C, compared
to 300,000 Palestinians (United Nations, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs (OCHA), 2014a). Settlers’ violence against Palestinians and their productive
assets continued, with 9,333 productive trees destroyed or vandalized in 2014. The
violence escalated in 2015; in January
alone, another 5,600 trees across
the West Bank were uprooted or vandalized (
OCHA, 2015). (p.4)
Towards the end of 2014 the movement
of Palestinian people and goods in the
West Bank was hindered by 490
barriers installed by Israel, including checkpoints, roadblocks, trenches and
the Separation Barrier, which runs into the Occupied Palestinian Territory and unilaterally
redefines the borders away from the internationally recognized Green Line (OCHA,
2014b). Gaza remained under a blockade that isolates it from the world and its
traditional markets in the West Bank and Israel, which absorbed some 85 per
cent of its exports before the blockade. (p.4)
The latest military operation has effectively
eliminated what was left of the middle class, sending almost all of the
population into destitution and dependence on international humanitarian aid.
With the destruction of the economy and its capacity to create jobs, food insecurity
now affects 72 per cent of households (Office of the Quartet Representative (OQR),
2014). Consequently, the majority of the population is forced into dependency
on humanitarian aid to meet basic needs. The number of Palestinian refugees solely
reliant on food distribution from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for
Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) increased from 72,000 in 2000 to
868,000 by May 2015, representing half the population of
Gaza and 65 percent of the
registered refugees (UNRWA, 2015b) (p.8)
OQR compiled a partial list of
damages incurred by Gaza during the 2014
operation, which have significant
economic and social effects, and reported the following (OQR, 2014):
(a)
18,000 housing units destroyed or severely damaged
and 44,300 units damaged
(b)
26 schools destroyed and 122 damaged
(c)
15 hospitals and 45 primary health centres
damaged
(d)
Gaza’s sole power plant affected by damage and
lack of fuel and widespread damage to electricity lines
(e)
20–30 per cent of the water and sewage network
damaged
(f)
Water desalination plant in Deiral-Balah
damaged
(g)
Total damage to the agricultural sector at $550
million
(h)
220 agricultural wells destroyed or badly
damaged
(i)
At least 40,000
people employed in the agricultural sector affected through
Damage to agricultural lands and the
loss and/or death of productive animals
(j)
247 factories
and 300 commercial establishments fully or partially destroyed
(k)
Damages to Gaza
Industrial Estate estimated at $5 million
(l)
Widespread
damage to landline, mobile and Internet infrastructure, including destruction of
switches, fixed - line networks, cellular stations, networks, cables and the headquarters
of companies
(m)
Loss of existing
contracts and partially approved future contracts of information and communications
technology (ICT) - related businesses and software outsourcing centres
(n)
A number of
tourist sites destroyed or damaged, including sites being considered for application
for World Heritage status from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization (pp.9-10)
During the last six years, Gaza has endured
severe human losses, with
three military operations claiming
the lives of at least 3,782 Palestinians and 95 Israelis.4 According to OCHA
and UNRWA, in 2014, Gaza witnessed the highest civilian death toll since 1967. By
May 2015, 20 per cent of Gaza’s population, or 360,000 people, needed treatment
for mental health conditions, and there is already a serious shortages of such
services. With regard to children, Gaza’s future human capital, 521 lost their
lives, and about 1,000 were injured and 400,000 are in need of immediate psychosocial
support (OCHA, 2014c, and Save the Children, 2015). (p.11)
There is much more in these 18 pages which come more than
a month after an Amnesty
International report on the Gaza conflict.
You might also consider Richard
Falk’s recent blog and review of Mohammed Omer’s recently published Shell-Shocked:
On the Ground under Israel’s Gaza Assault.
What we do with this is less clear. But adding more arms to the equation is the last thing we should be doing.
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