Oh, So It's Okay to Blockade Gaza?

I guess it all depends on who does it:-

Egypt shutting economic lifeline for Gaza Strip, 

in move to isolate Hamas

Details:

The ­Egyptian military has launched what appears to be a campaign to shut down, once and for all, the illegal but long-permitted tunnels that provide a vital economic lifeline to the Gaza Strip and supply tax revenue to the Islamist movement Hamas.

The operation seems to be part of an effort to cripple Hamas, which rules the coastal enclave bordered by Egypt and Israel. The group is an offshoot of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, whose ­standard-bearer held that country’s presidency before being ousted from power this summer.

Oh, this too:-

Egyptian security officials this month leaked military plans to create a “buffer zone” hundreds of yards wide between the two sides, replicating the barren no-man’s-land that Israel enforces inside Gaza to keep Palestinians from approaching the Israeli border.

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Look Who Is Blockading Gaza Now

According to this official Iranian site, it's Egypt:-

The Scottish-to-Gaza aid convoy had received legal permission from all venues to enter Gaza but was rejected entrance at the Rafah crossing, says an activist.


In an interview with Press TV, Dr. Hasan Nowarah, a peace activist for Justice for Palestine, and a member of the Scottish aid convoy stuck at the Rafah crossing, gives a detailed account of his travel to the Rafah border, and subsequent rejection to enter Gaza.
Nowarah: We have [received] no excuse or any information for them denying our entry to Rafah.


...we were interviewed by the intelligence of Egypt in Alexandria and even the ordinary police. They took our IDs, they took our vehicles, and they took all our documentation and welcomed us to Egypt and said we can go after a week being stranded in Alexandria. The convoy joined us and we travelled from Alexandria to Rafah border...now they're telling me in the Rafah border that they're not aware of us coming, of our existence, that there was a convoy coming...While he was interviewing me, to my surprise, he opened his folders and I saw with my own eyes, and with Mr. Sharif who was dealing with us at the time, all our details were there...We have two 18 ton trucks and two other vehicles to be used by doctors and nurses between hospitals, and big trucks to be used by mobile hospitals. We have the equipment to refit a mobile hospital.


...Despite me seeing the papers, the official said that he was sorry and that he takes his orders from Cairo, not from us.

So, it that a blockade or bureaucracy?

Or maybe it's Iran?


(k/t = ChallahHuAkbar)

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What Is 'Divisive'?

He is:-

Much as Mr Barenboim is feted by the Palestinians, he is a divisive figure in Israel for his outspoken opposition to Israel's policy in the occupied territories, accusing Israel of "a moral abomination" at the height of the Second Intifada, the mass Palestinian uprising.  The conductor and musical director at the Berlin Staatskapelle...has also courted controversy with his efforts to perform works in Israel by Richard Wagner, Hitler's favourite composer, much to the revulsion of Holocaust survivors and their families.

Actually, if his behavior regarding the Wagner music is of any indication, it is not so much his "diviseness" as his 'spit-in-your-face' attitude he possesses.
So, he is not quite divisive as he is petulant and provocative.


Oh, and this at BBC:-

The impoverished [Gazan] coastal strip has been subjected to a crippling Israeli blockade since 2006.

Not "crippling" at all.  See here.

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The Bloggers Deep Within

Journalism is changing.

Not only has the NYTimes, via Ethan Bronner, finally come around to dealing with the Gaza Mall (see below) but mainstream media is embedding in its website stories links not only to definitions but to other bloggers as well.

Here is an excerpt from the NYT Gaza Mall piece:-

For Hamas, and for the Hamas-linked group of local investors behind the enterprise, the two-story mall, with its central air-conditioning and underground parking, has deep symbolic value. It is proof, they say, that despite the Israeli and Egyptian effort to isolate this Palestinian coastal strip, it can develop and thrive. Let the message go out: We will not be defeated.

But symbols are a risky business, and Israel’s fiercest defenders have seized upon the mall for their own purposes as well. Wielding glossy photographs of the new shops, they ask: Is this the land of deprivation that you have heard about? How did they build a mall if no building materials are permitted into Gaza? How badly off can a place be that has just opened up a luxury mall? Those aid flotillas are sailing to the wrong place, they say.

There's Tom Gross in there.

A Danny Ayalon op-ed.

A Jacob Shrybman collection of photographs.

Bloggers deep within a New York Times story.

And interestingly:

“Gaza is not poor in the way outsiders think,” said Nida Wishah, a 22-year-old information technology student who was at the mall one recent afternoon. “You can’t compare our poverty with that of Africa.”

Modest though it is, the mall is a pleasant and cheerful complex, especially for Gaza. Tens of thousands of people have been passing through it, enjoying the air-conditioning, the window shopping and the recent arrival of many Israeli brands...

“This is for the elite,” Mr. Abu Abdu said. “The money you see here belongs to a very few people.”...“It feels civilized here,” said Othman Turkman, 26, who works in conflict resolution and was comparison shopping. “It’s not for everyone, of course.

So, how many "elite" are there?

And how many civilized?


(Kippah tip: SoccerDad)
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The Gaza Closure? Naw, The Cuba Closure

As I had pointed out during the Flotilla Affair, there was no little hypocrisy going around in the criticism directed against Israel.

Turkey has an almost two-decades old closure and blockade of Armenia (not to mention its occupation of northern Cyprus) and America has one in place against Cuba for almost 60 years.

And now it is reported - and pay attention to what that US blockade means:

The Obama administration is getting ready to relax travel restrictions to Cuba for some Americans, without lifting the trade embargo and a ban on U.S. tourism to the island, a congressional aide said on Tuesday.

The small steps would make it easier for groups of Americans to once again go to the Communist island as part of academic, cultural or religious exchanges, as thousands of them did during the Clinton administration, the aide told Reuters.

Officials are trying to finish regulations...

Some Cuban-American lawmakers are adamantly opposed to improving U.S. ties with Communist Cuba, which have been in the diplomatic deep freeze most of the time since Fidel Castro's revolution in 1959...

Restrictions on money transfers may also be eased, making it easier for Americans to donate cash to Cuban organizations such as churches or community groups, the aide said.

U.S. sanctions against Cuba are aimed at encouraging democratic reform in the one-party state. Critics of the policy say they have failed to do so in almost 50 years in effect.

In other words, what Israel has in place against the Hamastan that is Gaza that actually does fire missiles against Israel - unlike that 1961 threat of Russian missiles in Cuba - can not be compared and yet the US blockade is much worse and harsh.

I so dislike hypocrisy.


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That Blockade

No, not the one on Gaza.

The one with no travel and food restictions?

The one on Cuba.

By the US:-

A congressional panel is poised to take the first step toward ending a decades-old U.S. ban on travel to Cuba and removing other hurdles to food sales to the Caribbean island, a senior lawmaker said on Tuesday.

It's a

nearly 50-year-old U.S. embargo on communist-led Cuba

50 years???

But it seems there'll be strong resistance from conservative lawmakers and Cuban-Americans who oppose any step to ease restrictions on trade and travel with Cuba until a democratic government is in power in Havana.

So I checked:-

The United States embargo against Cuba is a commercial, economic, and financial embargo partially imposed on Cuba in October 1960. Entitled the Cuban Democracy Act, the embargo was codified into law in 1992 with the stated purpose of maintaining sanctions on Cuba so long as the Cuban government continues to refuse to move toward "democratization and greater respect for human rights". In 1996, Congress passed the Helms-Burton Act, which further restricted United States citizens from doing business in or with Cuba, and mandated restrictions on giving public or private assistance to any successor government in Havana unless and until certain claims against the Cuban government are met. In 1999, U.S. President Bill Clinton expanded the trade embargo even further by ending the practice of foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies trading with Cuba. In 2000, Clinton authorized the sale of certain "humanitarian" US products to Cuba...It is the most enduring trade embargo in modern history.

No flotillas, though.

Well, none going in.



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