What You Don’t Know About Gaza
12/01/2009
New York Times
January 8, 2009
Op-Ed Contributor
What You Don’t Know About Gaza
By RASHID KHALIDI
NEARLY everything you’ve been led to believe about Gaza
is wrong. Below are a few essential points that seem to
be missing from the conversation, much of which has
taken place in the press, about Israel’s attack on the
Gaza Strip.
THE GAZANS Most of the people living in Gaza are not
there by choice. The majority of the 1.5 million people
crammed into the roughly 140 square miles of the Gaza
Strip belong to families that came from towns and
villages outside Gaza like Ashkelon and Beersheba. They
were driven to Gaza by the Israeli Army in 1948.
THE OCCUPATION The Gazans have lived under Israeli
occupation since the Six-Day War in 1967. Israel is
still widely considered to be an occupying power, even
though it removed its troops and settlers from the strip
in 2005. Israel still controls access to the area,
imports and exports, and the movement of people in and
out. Israel has control over Gaza’s air space and sea
coast, and its forces enter the area at will. As the
occupying power, Israel has the responsibility under the
Fourth Geneva Convention to see to the welfare of the
civilian population of the Gaza Strip.
THE BLOCKADE Israel’s blockade of the strip, with the
support of the United States and the European Union, has
grown increasingly stringent since Hamas won the
Palestinian Legislative Council elections in January
2006. Fuel, electricity, imports, exports and the
movement of people in and out of the Strip have been
slowly choked off, leading to life-threatening problems
of sanitation, health, water supply and transportation.
The blockade has subjected many to unemployment, penury
and malnutrition. This amounts to the collective
punishment — with the tacit support of the United States
— of a civilian population for exercising its democratic
rights.
THE CEASE-FIRE Lifting the blockade, along with a
cessation of rocket fire, was one of the key terms of
the June cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. This
accord led to a reduction in rockets fired from Gaza
from hundreds in May and June to a total of less than 20
in the subsequent four months (according to Israeli
government figures). The cease-fire broke down when
Israeli forces launched major air and ground attacks in
early November; six Hamas operatives were reported
killed.
WAR CRIMES The targeting of civilians, whether by Hamas
or by Israel, is potentially a war crime. Every human
life is precious. But the numbers speak for themselves:
Nearly 700 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have
been killed since the conflict broke out at the end of
last year. In contrast, there have been around a dozen
Israelis killed, many of them soldiers. Negotiation is a
much more effective way to deal with rockets and other
forms of violence. This might have been able to happen
had Israel fulfilled the terms of the June cease-fire
and lifted its blockade of the Gaza Strip.
This war on the people of Gaza isn’t really about
rockets. Nor is it about “restoring Israel’s
deterrence,” as the Israeli press might have you
believe. Far more revealing are the words of Moshe
Yaalon, then the Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff,
in 2002: “The Palestinians must be made to understand in
the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they
are a defeated people.”
Rashid Khalidi, a professor of Arab studies at Columbia,
is the author of the forthcoming “Sowing Crisis: The
Cold War and American Dominance in the Middle East."
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
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Martin