[Marxism] Christmas 2008: Hell in the Holy Land

[Dbachmozart@xxxxxxx]

Empire Burlesque - Chris Floyd
 
 
Posted:  24 Dec 2008 01:16 PM PST 
clip --
 
What is happening in the Holy Land during this holiest of  seasons? Sara Roy 
reports _in the London Review of Books_ (mip://036ed5e0/ 
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n01/roy_01_.html) :





Israelâs siege of Gaza began on 5 November, the day  after an Israeli attack 
inside the strip, no doubt designed finally to  undermine the truce between 
Israel and Hamas established last June. Although  both sides had violated the 
agreement before, this incursion was on a  different scale. Hamas responded by 
firing rockets into Israel and the  violence has not abated since then....

On 5 November the Israeli government sealed all the ways  into and out of 
Gaza. Food, medicine, fuel, parts for water and sanitation  systems, 
fertiliser, 
plastic sheeting, phones, paper, glue, shoes and even  teacups are no longer 
getting through in sufficient quantities or at all.  According to Oxfam only 
137 trucks of food were allowed into Gaza in November.  This means that an 
average of 4.6 trucks per day entered the strip compared to  an average of 123 
in 
October this year and 564 in December 2005. The two main  food providers in 
Gaza are the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine  Refugees in the Near 
East 
(UNRWA) and the World Food Programme (WFP). UNRWA  alone feeds approximately 
750,000 people in Gaza, and requires 15 trucks of  food daily to do so. Between 
5 November and 30 November, only 23 trucks  arrived, around 6 per cent of the 
total needed; during the week of 30 November  it received 12 trucks, or 11 
per cent of what was required. There were three  days in November when UNRWA 
ran 
out of food, with the result that on each of  these days 20,000 people were 
unable to receive their scheduled supply.  According to John Ging, the director 
of UNRWA in Gaza, most of the people who  get food aid are entirely dependent 
on it. On 18 December UNRWA suspended all  food distribution for both 
emergency and regular programmes because of the  blockade.

The WFP has had similar  problems, sending only 35 trucks out of the 190 it 
had scheduled to cover  Gazansâ needs until the start of February (six more 
were allowed in between 30  November and 6 December). Not only that: the WFP 
has 
to pay to store food that  isnât being sent to Gaza. This cost $215,000 in 
November alone. If the siege  continues, the WFP will have to pay an extra 
$150,000 for storage in December,  money that will be used not to support 
Palestinians but to benefit Israeli  business.

The majority of commercial  bakeries in Gaza â 30 out of 47 â have had to 
close because they have run out  of cooking gas. People are using any fuel they 
can find to cook with. As the  UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has 
made clear, cooking-gas  canisters are necessary for generating the warmth to 
incubate broiler chicks.  Shortages of gas and animal feed have forced 
commercial producers to smother  hundreds of thousands of chicks. By April, 
according 
to the FAO, there will be  no poultry there at all: 70 per cent of Gazans 
rely on chicken as a major  source of protein.

Banks, suffering  from Israeli restrictions on the transfer of banknotes into 
the territory were  forced to close on 4 December. A sign on the door of one 
read: âDue to the  decision of the Palestinian Finance Authority, the bank 
will be closed today  Thursday, 4.12.2008, because of the unavailability of 
cash 
money, and the bank  will be reopened once the cash money is available.â...

During the week of 30 November, 394,000 litres of  industrial diesel were 
allowed in for the power plant: approximately 18 per  cent of the weekly 
minimum 
that Israel is legally obliged to allow in. It was  enough for one turbine to 
run for two days before the plant was shut down  again. The Gaza Electricity 
Distribution Company said that most of the Gaza  Strip will be without 
electricity for between four and 12 hours a day. At any  given time during 
these 
outages, over 65,000 people have no  electricity.

No other diesel fuel  (for standby generators and transport) was delivered 
during that week, no  petrol (which has been kept out since early November) or 
cooking gas. Gazaâs  hospitals are apparently relying on diesel and gas 
smuggled from Egypt via the  tunnels; these supplies are said to be 
administered and 
taxed by Hamas. Even  so, two of Gazaâs hospitals have been out of cooking 
gas 
since the week of 23  November.

The breakdown of an entire  society is happening in front of us, but there is 
little international  response beyond UN warnings which are ignored. The 
European Union announced  recently that it wanted to strengthen its 
relationship 
with Israel while the  Israeli leadership openly calls for a large-scale 
invasion of the Gaza Strip  and continues its economic stranglehold over the 
territory with, it appears,  the not-so-tacit support of the Palestinian 
Authority in 
Ramallah â which has  been co-operating with Israel on a number of measures. 
On 19 December Hamas  officially ended its truce with Israel, which Israel 
said it wanted to renew,  because of Israelâs failure to ease the blockade.


<_http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1665-christmas-2008-hel
l-in-the-holy-land.html_ 
(http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1665-christmas-2008-hell-in-the-holy-land.html)
 >
 
 

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