Two flimsy excuses are being bandied about in the mainstream media for the ongoing displays of hostility at the Gaza border.
Both portray the inhabitants of Gaza as victims – either (a) as victims of their leadership and/or (b) as victims of Israel’s repressive blockade of the hapless enclave.
With regard to the former, the Gazans are not the blameless victims of their leadership.
Quite the opposite!
They are the very crucible in which that leadership was formed, and from which it emerged.
To underscore this, a
poll, conducted less than a year ago by a leading Palestinian survey institute, found that 85% of Gazans supported maintaining payments to “security prisoners” (read “jailed terrorists”), who have murdered countless Israelis in cold blood.
Israeli sympathies for the Gazans should, therefore, be tailored to these sentiments.
Confounding cause with consequence
Indeed, an up-to-date
poll, conducted this month by the same Palestinian institute, showed that the Gazans display little remorse for their election of Hamas. Thus, according to its findings, in a future presidential election, Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh would trounce incumbent Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah by almost two-to-one!
These revealed preferences of the Gazan public bring us to the other purported “victimhood” claim regarding Israel’s security quarantine.
The refrain currently being aired is that the violence manifested at the border is the result of pent up frustration of the public over the dire socio-economic conditions that prevail in the Gaza Strip: Largely undrinkable water, perennial power outages, raw sewage overflows and polluted beaches. The blame for this dismal condition is being laid at Israel’s doorstep for the alleged restrictions it imposes on the Gazan economy. Thus, according to this so-called “reasoning”, the only solution is the lifting, or at least the loosening, of the quarantine to alleviate the despair and desperation of the impoverished and suffering populace.
However, it is demonstrably and indisputably clear that the imposition of the quarantine on Gaza is the consequence—not the cause—of Arab enmity towards Israel.
(full article online)
INTO THE FRAY: Swastikas over Gaza!