Blockade Ends, Gazans Enter Egypt With New Hopes
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK 12:48 PM ET
Hundreds of residents of the Gaza Strip arrived by the busload on Saturday to make the crossing, taking the first tangible steps out of Israeli occupation [italics added] after years of deadlocked peace talks.
Now go to the article itself (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/world/middleeast/29egypt.html?hp), which begins:
May 28, 2011
After Blockade, Gazans Enter Egypt With New Hopes
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
RAFAH BORDER CROSSING, Egypt — Hundreds of Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip arrived here by the busload on Saturday to pass through the reopened border into Egypt, taking a tangible step out of a four-year Israeli blockade [italics added].
The New York Times is unaware that Gaza was unilaterally evacuated by Israel in 2005? The New York Times is incapable of distinguishing between "occupation" and "blockade"?
Coming after yesterday's horrifying editorials (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/05/new-york-times-editorial-mideast-peace.html), I suppose we shouldn't be surprised.
Is it any less an occupation because settlers haven't been transferred into Gaza itself? Until Egypt just now opened its borders, the entire population of Gaza was stuck inside what amounts to an open-air prison, guarded on the one side by Egyptian border control and on the other by the Israeli military.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, Israel controlled all materials going into and out of the area and has the power to enforce its will on Gazans on a whim. How is that not an occupation?
Thanks for your comment, Jay, which is accepted as de rigueur in certain circles.
ReplyDeleteWhen West Berlin was blockaded by the Soviet Union, was it "blockaded" or "occupied"? There is a difference.
There is also a difference between West Berlin and Gaza: West Berliners did not elect a government whose charter called for the killing of all East Germans or Russians (the Hamas charter calls for the death of all Jews - not just Israelis). West Berliners did not send suicide bombers across the border to murder civilians living outside their city. West Berliners did not target civilians outside their city with thousands of mortar rounds, rockets and missiles.
"Open-air prison"? You've obviously never been to Gaza and never eaten the fine cuisine at Roots Restaurant. You never visited Crazy Water Park in Gaza, i.e. before it was burned down by masked men in September 2010, after being closed by Hamas for allowing men and women to mingle. You never visited the new shopping mall opened in Gaza in July last year. You also are unaware of the new three-story retail complex to be opened later this year.
Apparently you are unaware that life expectancy at birth in Gaza (73.4) is higher than in Turkey (71.8) or Egypt (71.3).
And now correct me if I'm wrong: You don't speak Arabic or Hebrew. You've never witnessed a suicide bombing. You've never experienced a rocket or missile attack.
Thank you, anyway, for your thoughts.
Jeffrey