Gaza and Israel: Some background and current information

After digging online, I found some interesting statistics from the CIA's World Factbook regarding the conditions folks have been living under in Gaza.

• Size: 360 square miles: roughly twice the size of Washington D.C.
• Poulation: 1,500,000
• 0-14 years: 44.7% (male 343,988/female 325,856)
  15-64 years: 52.7% (male 403,855/female 386,681)
  65 years and over: 2.7% (male 16,196/female 23,626) (2008 est.)
• Official poverty rate: 51.8%
• Official Deep Poverty rate: 35%

These poverty rates reflect actual consumption. If remittances and food aid are excluded and poverty is based only on household income, the poverty rate in Gaza would soar to 79.4% and the Deep Poverty rates would increase to 69.9%. This illustrates the high levels of aid dependency in the West Bank and Gaza, especially when you take into account the fact that the majority of the income of government employees is financed with foreign aid.

Industries:
Generally small family businesses that produce textiles, soap, olive-wood carvings, and mother-of-pearl souvenirs; the Israelis had established some small-scale modern industries in an industrial center, but operations ceased prior to Israel's evacuation of Gaza Strip settlements.


The Closure of the Gaza Strip: Key Observations a bit of background

Since June 2007, in response to the Hamas take over of the Gaza Strip and the on-going and indiscriminate firing of rockets into Israel, the Government of Israel (GoI) has increased restrictions on access of goods and people to and from Gaza. These have severe consequences for the day-to-day life of the 1.48 million Gazans.

Since then:

• More Gazans than ever need food and direct assistance
• Fuel shortages have threatened essential services and water supply
• Life-saving treatments are not available in Gaza’s hospitals
• 17 per cent of patients with referrals were refused exit for treatment in Israel, East Jerusalem or overseas
• The on-going isolation of Gaza threatens the local economy
• Baby milk, medicines, and cooking oil are increasingly scarce
• Hundreds of businesses have gone bankrupt due to ban on imports/exports
• Thousands of labourers have lost their jobs due to the collapse of the building industry
• Building projects worth US$370 million are on hold indefinitely

HUMANITARIAN IMPACT

Lack of Food
No goods other than basic foods and medicines are being allowed into the Gaza Strip and supplies of many stocks that are not considered absolutely essential are fast running out. World Food Programme (WFP) estimates that only approximately 41% of humanitarian and commercial food import needs were met between 1 October and 4 November 2007 (statistics for more recent times are less stable). Basic items including wheat grain, vegetable oil, dairy products and baby milk are in extremely short supply.

Prices of many items have increased sharply since July 2007 as a result of shortages, although local fruit and vegetable prices have dropped dramatically due to the export freeze and the ‘dumping’ of export items by producers onto the local markets.

Poverty, unemployment and lack of cash flow have put many prices – even those for local fruit and vegetables which have decreased - out of the reach of a large section of the population. According to WFP, of the 62% of households who stated a drop in spending, 93.5% cut back on food buying overall, leading to a 98% reduction in the purchase of meat and an 86% fall in the purchase of dairy products.

Robin Lodge, spokesman for WFP stated yesterday: "There is very little food commercially available," he said. "Very few stores have any food. There is a widespread shortage of cash so commercial activities have virtually ground to a halt. As far as the bakeries are concerned, they are no longer getting supplied with flour from the mills because the mills have run out of wheat. At present, the latest idea is that only 14 out of 47 bakeries in Gaza are operating and they are operating at very reduced capacity. We are trying to help out by delivering flour to bakeries."

Incomes Down, Unemployment Up
Unemployment is above 50% in the Gaza Strip. Joblessness in the Gaza Strip stood at 37.6 % in the third quarter of 2007, compared to 32.3 % in the second quarter and overall unemployment is 12% higher in the Gaza Strip than in the West Bank.

Latest figures show poverty in the Gaza Strip has already reached unprecedented levels with around eight out of ten households living below the poverty line of 2,300 NIS (US$594) per household per month (a sharp rise compared to the 2005’s rate of 63.1%). Of these, 66.7%of Gazan households are living in deep poverty, i.e. on less than 1,837 NIS or US$474 per month. Poverty levels are 30% higher in the Gaza Strip than the West Bank.

As a consequence, more Gazans than ever are almost entirely dependent on food aid and direct assistance: 80% of Gazan families currently receive humanitarian aid (compared to 63% in 2006).

Despite the 3 hour cease fire, little to no improvement could be made in such a short window of time. The human impact of this crisis is relatively absent from our news. Here's one person's account of what is going on from a daily diary entry.

More to come. The bias toward blind support of Israel must be balanced by understanding the plight of the Gazan people (and West Bank which is another issue altogether). The world is paying attention to how our media is covering this story. And our media is failing--miserably.

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Part One: STOP KILLING EACH OTHER

The following post is the first in an ongoing series I am starting that represent one person's (mine) perspective on what's going on in the Middle East and Southwest Asia conflagrations. I am NO expert, NOR am I claiming to be one. I am going to assume most of my audience is American (although I know folks from Syria, Saudi Arabia, Greece, and the UK are among my international readers).

Also, (and again I am speaking only for myself) I have a hard time confronting what is going on in these regions because I have lived in a country where people don't kill each other over religion (anymore, and if so, rarely). They may shout a lot and file law suits to have "so help me God" taken out of the Inauguration Oath (and occasionally bomb a perfectly legal Planned Parenthood). It's hard for me even to begin to comprehend the hatred and hopelessness created by this never-ending cycle of violence, especially on this scale.

Nor am I going to propose any kind of solution other than: FIRST, STOP KILLING EACH OTHER.

What I write here is cobbled together from years of reading Amero-centric media reports, being raised in a country where we are supposed to support Israel no matter what, and following developments through the international news. I have included a map for reference because it is important first off to be aware of the geographic situation:



If you are unfamiliar with the region I suggest right clicking on the image to open it in a new tab so you may have an enlarged view.

Over the years I have had very contradictory feelings about Israel's foreign policy. I think there does not exist a word to describe the pinnacle of man's inhumanity to man witnessed in the Holocaust. But, the holocaust is not over in terms of the cycle of violence that is still ongoing between Israel, Gaza, and all other countries which have been forced to take sides.

It's an unpopular thing to say anything bad about Israel. Even the New York Times didn't want to get invovled. To do so immediately classifies one as an anti-Semite. The thing is, there is a distinction between Jewish people as a faith and the Israeli aggression/defense toward/against its neighbors. There is a distinction between ideology and theology, no matter how much we try to deny that distinction. Perhaps better put, there should be a distinction. And if the separation of Church and State nay-sayers think this is wrong, pay close attention to what is happening in that part of the world.

The conflicts in the Middle East and Southwest Asia have been brewing for millenia. Fights over resources, land, religion, and power do NOT boil down to ownership as one might think. As time has passed, more and more excuses are given why these people hate each other and are justified in their hate (again, land, religion, power, economics, etc., etc., etc.)

These wars are revenge-driven blood-feuds, and I'm not talking Hatfields and McCoys, either.

In no way do I mean to belittle the scale of these conflicts. This is beyond important for all of us to be paying attention and warming up our keyboards to write our congress-people and get ready to protest.

Now I know I am no expert on Middle East policy; I've only read a couple of books about the US relationship to the Middle East (Power, Faith, and Fantasy is the most recent). In terms of books about the countries' relationships to each other, not read one.

I do read international news papers online and get a pretty good sense that emotion has been winning and will continue to win over logic in these wars.

I'm not saying people don't have a right to be upset, angry, scared of each other in that part of the world.

What I am saying is that I believe that most people want the killing to stop. They want the parties involved to come to a lasting peace agreement. However, I think Zbigniew Brzezinski hit it on the head recently on Morning Joe when he said these countries are obviously incapable of sorting this out for themselves.

The only hope I am proposing here with this first installment is a cease fire to stop the killing.

I would love to read anything anyone has to say on this topic.

Food for thought: Bush 43's first presidential visit to Israel and The West Bank was in January of 2008. Took him seven years to get his own ass over there.

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