- Dec 6, 2009
- 77,845
- 4,176
- 1,815
So, is there a humanitarian crisis or not? That seems to be the question of the hour. But it is the wrong one to be asking.
The message I've been hearing over and over again since I returned to Gaza is this: the siege is not a siege on foods; it is a siege on freedoms -- freedom to move in and out of Gaza, freedom to fish more than three miles out at sea, freedom to learn, to work, to farm, to build, to live, to prosper.
Gaza was never a place with a quantitative food shortage; it is a place where many people lack the means to buy food and other goods because of a closure policy whose tenets are "no development, no prosperity, and no humanitarian crisis," Gisha, the Legal Centre for the Freedom of Movement, explained in a press release.
The move from a "white list" of allowable imports to a "black list" might sound in good in theory (ie everything is banned except xyz, to only the following things are banned) but in practice only 40 percent of Gaza's supply needs are being met, according to Gisha. The Palestinian Federation of Industries estimates that only a few hundred of Gaza's 3,900 factories and workshops will be able to start up again under present conditions.
All of the above adds up to the erasure of the market economy and its replacement with a system where everyone is turned into some kind of welfare recipient. But people don't want handouts and uncertainty and despair; they want their dignity and their freedom, employment and prosperity and possibility.
Israel’s siege on freedoms – By Laila El-Haddad | Sabbah Report
The message I've been hearing over and over again since I returned to Gaza is this: the siege is not a siege on foods; it is a siege on freedoms -- freedom to move in and out of Gaza, freedom to fish more than three miles out at sea, freedom to learn, to work, to farm, to build, to live, to prosper.
Gaza was never a place with a quantitative food shortage; it is a place where many people lack the means to buy food and other goods because of a closure policy whose tenets are "no development, no prosperity, and no humanitarian crisis," Gisha, the Legal Centre for the Freedom of Movement, explained in a press release.
The move from a "white list" of allowable imports to a "black list" might sound in good in theory (ie everything is banned except xyz, to only the following things are banned) but in practice only 40 percent of Gaza's supply needs are being met, according to Gisha. The Palestinian Federation of Industries estimates that only a few hundred of Gaza's 3,900 factories and workshops will be able to start up again under present conditions.
All of the above adds up to the erasure of the market economy and its replacement with a system where everyone is turned into some kind of welfare recipient. But people don't want handouts and uncertainty and despair; they want their dignity and their freedom, employment and prosperity and possibility.
Israel’s siege on freedoms – By Laila El-Haddad | Sabbah Report
