Gaza is alive

[ProgressiveMuslim]

My group got into Gaza two days ago, and it feels like a month already. I think the most significant impression I can convey is my surprise at how vibrant and alive the place is. I'd steeled myself to see endless destruction. Certainly every image of physical destruction that we saw last December and January can be found; but the shock is the realization that Palestinian life goes forward with incredible perseverance and charm and dignity. Downtown Gaza city is vibrant, full of street life, and the traffic is now and then interrupted by a flatbed truck going by with a wedding band banging drums on it, and a Mercedes carrying the bride and groom in tow.

It is not that the world's blockade of Gaza is not evident. It is evident at almost every turn. Most buildings downtown are dark at night. Generators go in the street. Store shelves are thin, and the sense of high unemployment is everywhere at hand. The commerce feels like that of a dusty Caribbean island.

But the essential spirit of the place seems unaltered by recent events. In fact, people tell you that they insist on being engaged with life so as to be able to imagine a different future than what is right in front of them. And that includes the university student whose father was dragged away to an Israeli prison three years ago for no good reason and the young graduate who chokes tears as she tells you that four times she saw scholarships abroad evaporate because she could not get out of the country.

read on...
http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/05/gaza-is-alive.html

[shira]

1. isn't it against forum rules to post an OP from some blog?

[Vegasaurus]

2. Only if it is a pro-Israeli blog nt

[shira]

14. yes, it appears that way....only anti-Israel blogs allowed for OP's.

I tried posting this absolutely terrible article twice and it got deleted both times within hours:

Therapists to the Jews
http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2009/05/therapists-to-the-jews-psychologizing-the-jewish-question-by-shalom-lappin.html

Seems whoever reported my verbotin OP has a double-standard and "Mondoweiss" >>> "Shalom Lappin".

:eyes:

Gee, what else is new?

[bemildred]

3. The rules are right up there at the top of the page.

Blogs stuff is posted here all the time. I would wager I could find blog stuff that you have posted, but I'm too lazy to fight about it.

[shira]

4. talking aboug the OP......not within any thread

I posted an article twice last week from a blog, as an OP, and it was removed each time.

[bemildred]

5. Me too.

You can put anything you like in responses, as long as it is not "offensive" in some way. (Offensive to whom? is a always a good question.) I'm just pointing out that the rules do not appear to forbid blog entries as such, though they would likely forbid talkbacks. I've seen Mr Weiss here a good deal.

[LeftishBrit]

16. I've seen quite a few OPs from blogs

I don't know if there are strict rules. On the whole, OPs from explicitly RW sources on either side of the IP debate tend to be deleted, unless they are from mainstream journals/newspapers. E.g. OPs from antiwar.com get deleted. But I don't think it's universal to all blogs.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

6. If mainstream media were regularly reporting from within Gaza....

[rateyes]

7. This is why the caged bird sings, to borrow a phrase from Maya Angelou:

"In fact, people tell you that they insist on being engaged with life so as to be able to imagine a different future than what is right in front of them."

[Fozzledick]

8. But, but... weren't all the Gazans starved to death, and then bombed to pieces, and then burnt up?

And I should add that no one seems to be starving. No one we have seen yet. The markets are not crowded but they're not empty either. We see piles of watermelons by the side of the road and trucks filled with potatoes, and donkeys going by hauling wagons of tomatoes. Now and then you see a gleaming motorcycle. The tunnels are in fine fettle along the border with Egypt. There are so many of them, and they are so obvious, that there must be some complicity on the part of Israel in their continued existence: they serve to lessen the horror of Gaza's condition, in the eyes of the world, and so they serve Israel too.

[Vegasaurus]

9. The people have been starving for years

(except that they can purchase wide screen televisions, new motorcycles, trips to amusement parks).

Photographs do not reveal starving people, contrary to elsewhere in the world.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

10. 1400+ dead and 60,000 without homes is pretty hard to minimize.

Imagine if they were of a different religion. I'm sure you'd be the first in line to bemoan their suffering.

[Fozzledick]

11. It's not about religion, it's about duplicity and malice

The Palestinians, or at least their "democratically elected leadership", chose to bring this catastrophe on themselves as part of an insane genocidal plan to exterminate their neighbors through endless years of terrorist aggression and "martyrdom".

Of course one could argue that they're being used and manipulated by their Iranian "supporters", but the effect is the same.

[shira]

12. hey PM, what are your thoughts on Iran's influence in Gaza? You like how that's shaping up?

[varelse]

13. Thank you for a link to some hopeful news

And I should add that no one seems to be starving. No one we have seen yet. The markets are not crowded but they're not empty either. We see piles of watermelons by the side of the road and trucks filled with potatoes, and donkeys going by hauling wagons of tomatoes. Now and then you see a gleaming motorcycle.

[LeftishBrit]

15. Interesting and hopeful post

'Palestinian life goes forward with incredible perseverance and charm and dignity'

And good for them.

If only the leaders, on both sides, were as persevering and dignified as the people, how different things might be.

Hoping that Obama can indeed help to get things moving toward peace.

[Taitertots]

17. The NYT says that....

The people of Gaza live better than the vast majority of Africans and most of Asia.

The is from the NYT I believe last weeks cover story about Gaza. I'm looking for a link, I read the paper version.

[shira]

18. before the Intifadas, Gazans and W.Bankers lived better than any Arabs in that region, EVER,

even with IDF forces among them.

Too bad Arafat was let back in to screw everything up.

[bemildred]

19. Misery Hangs Over Gaza Despite Pledges of Help

GAZA — Dozens of families still live in tents amid collapsed buildings and rusting pipes. With construction materials barred, a few are building mud-brick homes. Everything but food and medicine has to be smuggled through desert tunnels from Egypt. Among the items that people seek is an addictive pain reliever used to fight depression.

Four months after Israel waged a war here to stop Hamas rocket fire and two years after Hamas took full control of this coastal strip, Gaza is like an island adrift. Squeezed from without by an Israeli and Egyptian boycott and from within by their Islamist rulers, the 1.5 million people here are cut off from any productivity or hope.

“Right after the war, everybody came — journalists, foreign governments and charities promising to help,” said Hashem Dardona, 47, who is unemployed. “Now, nobody comes.”

But with the Obama administration pressing Israel to allow in reconstruction materials, and with attention increasingly focused on internal Palestinian divisions, Gaza will soon be back at the center of Middle East peace negotiations. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, met with President Obama on Thursday in Washington.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/29/world/middleeast/29gaza.html?ref=global-home

It is amazing how easy Google is to use, if you are so inclined.

[Taitertots]

20. Thats it

"It is, of course, crowded and poor, but it is better off than nearly all of Africa as well as parts of Asia. There is no acute malnutrition, and infant mortality rates compare with those in Egypt and Jordan, according to Mahmoud Daher of the World Health Organization here."

Latter in the article it explains how Israel lets in enough food to ensure they don't starve. Also how they have clean and efficient UN run hospitals and schools.

[bemildred]

21. Glad I could help. nt

[Vegasaurus]

22. But, I thought there was a genocide in Gaza

perpetrated by Israel?

How things were no better than the Warsaw ghetto?

:shrug:

[Taitertots]

23. Its the only kind of genocide where....

the population grows exponentially, has food, and medicine.


They must not be that deprived if they can build thousands of rockets.

[azurnoir]

24. UNRWA chief: Palestinian people not defeated

Gaza – Ma’an – The UN’s director of relief operations in Gaza told Palestinians in Gaza that they had not been defeated by the Israeli military on Sunday.

“The Palestinians were not defeated by Israeli army in its latest offensive against the Gaza Strip, and they proved to be capable of resuming their life anew despite all their hardships,” said John Ging, the director of the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA), which serves hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees in Gaza.

Ging’s comment came during a ceremony in Gaza City for honoring retiring teachers and teachers receiving promotions. The celebration was organized under the auspices of the Islamic Bank in the Gaza Strip.

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=38213