Today’s CSM column on Gaza

Here’s my column in today’s CSM. (Also here.)
I should just tell you one thing about the donkey carts mentioned in the story (and featured, I see, in the subhead they gave it.). In the late 1980s, that traditional form of trasnportation had just about disappeared from Gaza. But the strict regime of collective punishments the IOF imposed on the Palestinians during the first intifada included– along with weeks-long lockdowns, mass arrests, public humiliations of local elders, etc etc etc– the imposition of ever more complex and bizarre regulations on the owners of motor vehicles. At that point, many car-owners in Gaza, which is much flatter and much poorer than the West Bank, simply gave up the attempt to keep a car on the road, and switched back to donkey- or horse-drawn carts. It was a very vivid example of the de-development trend that Israel’s lengthy occupation imposed on the Gazans.
So I’m interested to see that– even after the short, alleged honeymoon period of post-Oslo, then the second intifada, and the Israeli disengagement– the donkey-carts have persisted, They comprise probably about 20% of the vehicles I saw on the roads in Gaza. Every morning I would wake to the clip-clop of their metal-shoed hoofs on the road by the fishing-port, and the intermittent braying of some donkey, somewhere. Hey, I’m starting to miss Gaza already– though I realize that what I regard as a funky and distinctive feature of the local scene probably represents for most Gazans yet another reminder of the economic de-development into which they’ve been forced.

13 thoughts on “Today’s CSM column on Gaza”

  1. So I’m interested to see that– even after the short, alleged honeymoon period of post-Oslo, then the second intifada, and the Israeli disengagement-
    Helena, if you think for one second there is a peace and solutions to the Palestine problem I think you are wrong.
    55 years the prove that Israeli not interested in any peace process.
    Please read this resent AIPAC Parley
    “Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who, like the two other candidates for prime minister in Israel’s coming election, spoke on a video link from Jerusalem, was cheered enthusiastically when he called for building “an iron wall” around Hamas. Labor leader Amir Peretz and Kadima’s candidate, Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, were not as warmly received, as they talked about a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Olmert spoke about unilaterally redrawing Israel’s border in the West Bank through further pullouts, and received polite applause. Former premier Netanyahu, however, was cheered enthusiastically when he spoke about the need to push the West Bank security fence eastward, deeper into the Palestinian territory, to create a broader buffer against Palestinian terrorism.”
    http://www.forward.com/articles/7458

  2. Frankly, I don’t think that opposing the Israeli lattes to the Palestinian donkeys makes much sense. It is not that simple, there is crude children’s hunger in Israel.

  5. Joshua, for all your preaching to us, have you ever actually spent time in territory under military occupation? If you have, do tell us about it.
    When the Israeli forces are in their own homeland, they could be described as “Defense Forces”. When they’re busy running an extsntive and brutal person-control system in someone else’s land, then “Occupation Forces” is exactly what they are… For nearly 39 years now.
    Henry, I know there is poverty in Israel. I’m not sure if it goes to the level of “crude children’s hunger.” Still the fact of the huge disparity in per-capita GDP between there and the OPTs remains. That’s what I was trying to highlight.

  6. Nope, never served under military occupation. Never advocated driving people into the sea either.
    “IOF” is just childish name calling on your part Helena. You would think a mature person who fancies herself a journalist could avoid that.
    I’m not sure how pointing this out is “preaching.”

  7. What a strange response. I didn’t ask if if you’d ever served in an occupation army.
    But my, you seem so defensive about your position! Oh well, takes all sorts to make a world.

  8. Not at all defensive. I gave you the benefit of the doubt and assumed you made a typographical error. When you admitted that it was intentional, I had to conclude that it was childish name calling.
    It seems that when anyone disagrees with your position, you start making personal attacks and claiming that they are being defensive. How sad.

  9. [I know there is poverty in Israel. I’m not sure if it goes to the level of “crude children’s hunger.” Still the fact of the huge disparity in per-capita GDP between there and the OPTs remains. That’s what I was trying to highlight.]
    Sure, situation in Israel is incomparably better than in WBG. But… there is significant food shortage. I know it sounds strange to send info like this from the US to Israel, but I look at the Israeli media pretty attentivly 🙂
    Sina Gross. Putting food on the table http://www.tabletotable.org.il/articles/sina.htm
    — 22 percent of Israeli citizens – over 1 million people – live in poverty
    — More than 400,000 Israeli families suffer from “nutritional insecurity,” a euphemistic term for hunger
    — One in five children in Israel go to bed without having had one hot meal

  11. So are we supposed to sympathize with the hungry little Jews? If the zionist project did not spend so much on arming its IOF to the teeth, building colonies, subsidizing the colonists on occupied land, subsidizing the 600 000 super-orthodox who seemingly do nothing, constructing apartheid fences, bulldozing homes, tearing up olive trees, etc., etc., I’m sure there would be more than enough funds to go around to feed all the little hungry Jews.

  12. So are we supposed to sympathize with the hungry little Jews?
    kassandra, whatever Henry James like to achieves by telling us there is poverty in Israeli I think he miss compare his records with Palestinians side and he will see the difference, beside the disastrous living for 48 years and recent Israeli/US collective punishment on them. Did any one asked him self what the people live when loosing their lands and homes jobs and all belonging and live in refugees camp?
    BTW, there are poverty around the world even in US can some one give us indication how many kids sleep without food there.

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