An open letter to Gideon Levy

[pelsar]

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1055977.html

(the writer is a known israeli leftest)
-------


And even though the crossings were in fact opened many times, and were closed in the wake of the missile attacks, regrettably I still did not see you standing firmly behind a moral position which says: Now, people of Gaza, after you expelled the Israeli occupation from your land, and justly so, you must hold your fire.

All we are trying to do is get their leaders to stop this senseless and wicked aggression, and it is only because of the tragic and deliberate mingling between Hamas fighters and the civilian population that children, too, are unfortunately being killed. The fact is that since the disengagement, Hamas has fired only at civilians. Even in this war, to my astonishment, I see that they are not aiming at the army concentrations along the border but time and again at civilian communities.

[pelsar]

1. to halo experiment

seems we've been lock out...so i'll try again here: you wrote:

weren't allowed to export anything..

As several authors noted at the time, Gaza was not allowed to export anything. The relatively small number of farmers who had yet to lose their lands to Israeli annexation could not get paid for their products. I am sorry that the West Bank is irrelevant to you, but to Palestinians (and several human rights groups) it is just as important as Gaza.

Potential employers would be nice, but most Palestinians are barred from working in Israel. Couple that with the fact that the IDF has seized farmlands while cutting industrial diesel supplies and thus their power, the unemployment is unbearable.

The pullout of Gaza was an excuse to box the region in and saddle them with unreachable goals. They would have liked to see Gaza become self-sufficient, Sharon said at the time, yet they greatly limited foreign assistance, blockaded ports, didn't allow exports, etc.

The rockets were not the first weapon used against Israel. The Second Intifada started out with throwing rocks, as close to non-violent protest as you can get in the Middle-East. The rocks were met by IDF bullets and dissenters being thrown in jail. Today, Israel has 10,756 Palestinian political prisoners. Neither side is innocent in this. I can understand your nationalism, but you seem to want to brush off the illegal settlements on Palestinian land, the oppression these people have lived under for decades, and those losing their homes to IDF-manned Catepillar bulldozers (or in Ms. Corrie's story, her life to them). No one talks about that side of Israel, because they want to focus on the rockets that hurt them. As one Israeli author noted, history did not begin with the Qassams.

______________
again your going for the "all or nothing" thats why you keep mentioning the westbank....its not that the westbank isnt important...its just that without a successful gaza, the westbank is not going to be freed of israeli occupation: kassams on sederot and its environs was bad enough, can you imagine the reaction to kassams on the airport, jerusalem, and the other cities?...similar to gaza today.

and all of your comments about gaza being boxed in goes back to the those damn kassams. They never even tried NOT to shoot for the first two years, there was no way israel was going to help them any more than the minimum.

do you know why 6000 Palestinians lost their jobs at the erez industrial area just north of gaza? israeli businessmen, Palestinians manpower paid at israeli wages....too many mortars, kassams, and other attacks....the whole placed was closed down.

btw your confusing a lot of your facts: no farmland seized in gaza, the first intifada was mainly rocks and molotov cocktails and the occasional fridge tossed down a building on a patrol and was limited to the westbank/gaza...., intifada II had the Palestinians shooting from from day 1 and soon attacked behind the green line. Intifada I was limited and brought in oslo and partial self rule..intifada II was violent and not limited to the territories and resulted in major losses to the Palestinians)

[shira]

2. from the article

"When I asked you after the disengagement from Gaza, Gideon, explain to me why they are firing missiles at us, you replied that they want us to open the crossings. I asked you whether you truly believe that if they fire missiles the crossings will be opened, or the opposite. And whether you truly believe that it is right and just to open crossings into Israel for those who declare openly and sincerely that they want to destroy our country. I did not get an answer from you. "

Gee, I wonder why Gideon didn't answer that one?