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Flotillatard Reality Check: International aid not always welcome in Gaza

 
Grizzled Old Goat
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Flotillatard Reality Check: International aid not always welcome in Gaza
06/04/2010

International Donations Not Always Welcome in Gaza

By Ulrike Putz in the Gaza Strip
[link to www.spiegel.de]
The aid shipment that the Palestinian activists' flotilla was hoping to bring to Gaza before they were halted by Israeli commandos is now awaiting delivery. But Hamas will only let the badly needed goods into the territory under certain conditions. In the Gaza Strip, aid is not always greeted with enthusiasm.

Having built a three-storey house in Jabalia, north of Gaza City, Zaed Khadar used to be a proud homeowner. He ran a supermarket from the ground floor and made enough profit there to provide for his seven children. His wife bred chickens on the roof. Then came the Gaza War, a three-week conflict between December 2008 and January 2009, and suddenly Khadar's life was in ruins. His neighborhood, his house and his business were all destroyed. Since then, the 46-year-old has been helpless in every sense of the word. Donations coming to the Gaza Strip from both large and small aid organizations never arrive at the Khadars'.


"People who are not in with Hamas don't see any of the relief goods or the gifts of money," Khadar says. On the sand dune where his house once perched, there is now an emergency shelter. The shelter is made of concrete blocks that Khadar dug from the rubble, and the roof is the canvas of a tent that provided the family with shelter for the first summer after the war. "Hamas supporters get prefabricated housing, furnishings and paid work. We get nothing," Khadar complains.

Hamas Members Take and Distribute 'at Their Own Discretion'

The reason his family receives nothing: Like many of his neighbors, Khadar is a die-hard supporter of the Fatah party, the sworn political enemy of the more radical Islamists in Hamas. That's why Khadar has little hope of seeing any of the 10,000 tons of aid that the activist flotilla heading for the Gaza Strip tried to bring to Gaza's harbor at the start of this week.

"We knew Hamas would take the goods for themselves and distribute them at their own discretion. For us, and for many of our friends, it doesn't make any difference whether the world is trying to help us. Our situation will only improve if the blockade is lifted," Khadar explains.

The mostly Turkish-flagged aid convoy that attempted to break the Israeli blockade never made it to Gaza. Israel stopped the flotilla by boarding the flagship in a bloody commando mission. Nine activists died and more than 30 were injured, along with seven Israeli soldiers.

Humantarian Aid Becomes a Political Game

more at above link

Last Edited by SPUD on 11/17/2011 06:27 PM
Grizzled Old Goat  (OP)

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06/06/2010 10:13 AM
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Re: Flotillatard Reality Check: International aid not always welcome in Gaza
The flotillatards and their trendoid supporters in the west are mindless TOOLS of those that would like to see a major war break out in the ME..
Grizzled Old Goat  (OP)

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06/06/2010 10:33 AM
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bump
Anonymous Coward
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06/06/2010 10:36 AM
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bump
 Quoting: Grizzled Old Goat



You do realize you are losing this PR campaign...even here in the US with the controlled media..


It must be really frustrating....nonetheless, I'm giving you one star.
Anonymous Coward
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06/06/2010 10:40 AM
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Re: Flotillatard Reality Check: International aid not always welcome in Gaza
Shillom GOG!

Nobody believes the utter shite that spews from your mouth anymore.

GO AWAY
Anonymous Coward
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06/06/2010 10:41 AM
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bump
Grizzled Old Goat  (OP)

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06/06/2010 10:41 AM
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Re: Flotillatard Reality Check: International aid not always welcome in Gaza
Shillom GOG!

Nobody believes the utter shite that spews from your mouth anymore.

GO AWAY
 Quoting: Anonymous Coward 892492

The truth is quite offensive to you isn't it?

j1mmy
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06/06/2010 10:45 AM
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Shillom GOG!

Nobody believes the utter shite that spews from your mouth anymore.

GO AWAY

The truth is quite offensive to you isn't it?

:j1mmy:
 Quoting: Grizzled Old Goat



The truth? LOL!! GOG and "truth" shouldn't be in the same vicinity! Weeeeee!!

Your message is as popular as single ply toilet paper....LOL!
Anonymous Coward
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06/06/2010 10:46 AM
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bump



You do realize you are losing this PR campaign...even here in the US with the controlled media..


It must be really frustrating....nonetheless, I'm giving you one star.
 Quoting: Anonymous Coward 991600

I see your 1 star and raise you 5 stars.
Grizzled Old Goat  (OP)

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06/06/2010 10:51 AM
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Re: Flotillatard Reality Check: International aid not always welcome in Gaza
Shillom GOG!

Nobody believes the utter shite that spews from your mouth anymore.

GO AWAY

The truth is quite offensive to you isn't it?

j1mmy



The truth? LOL!! GOG and "truth" shouldn't be in the same vicinity! Weeeeee!!

Your message is as popular as single ply toilet paper....LOL!
 Quoting: Anonymous Coward 991600

rolleyes

Are you happy being a brainless tool of the Globalists?
Love/Light
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06/06/2010 10:52 AM
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Re: Flotillatard Reality Check: International aid not always welcome in Gaza
Shillom GOG!

Nobody believes the utter shite that spews from your mouth anymore.

GO AWAY
 Quoting: Anonymous Coward 892492



lol

gog is a shill, easy to see..


hi gog, i love you, but please, please see that you are not helping Humanity by being untrue...

choose the side of peace for the win
Anonymous Coward
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06/06/2010 10:56 AM
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Re: Flotillatard Reality Check: International aid not always welcome in Gaza
Shillom GOG!

Nobody believes the utter shite that spews from your mouth anymore.

GO AWAY

The truth is quite offensive to you isn't it?

:j1mmy:



The truth? LOL!! GOG and "truth" shouldn't be in the same vicinity! Weeeeee!!

Your message is as popular as single ply toilet paper....LOL!

rolleyes

Are you happy being a brainless tool of the Globalists?
 Quoting: Grizzled Old Goat



Are you trying to paint the picture of the Isreali government being at odds against the "globalist" forces? Now this might be going somewhere after all.


Poor Isreal....siphoning off $3 billion (officially) and billions more unofficially from a nation that is broke...More than broke, in debt, yet you want the aid not in US dollars, but in Euros...

Hmm....

Might ought to fire up the campaign engines a little harder there fool.
Anonymous Coward
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06/06/2010 10:57 AM
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Re: Flotillatard Reality Check: International aid not always welcome in Gaza
06/04/2010

International Donations Not Always Welcome in Gaza

By Ulrike Putz in the Gaza Strip
[link to www.spiegel.de]

The aid shipment that the Palestinian activists' flotilla was hoping to bring to Gaza before they were halted by Israeli commandos is now awaiting delivery. But Hamas will only let the badly needed goods into the territory under certain conditions. In the Gaza Strip, aid is not always greeted with enthusiasm.

Having built a three-storey house in Jabalia, north of Gaza City, Zaed Khadar used to be a proud homeowner. He ran a supermarket from the ground floor and made enough profit there to provide for his seven children. His wife bred chickens on the roof. Then came the Gaza War, a three-week conflict between December 2008 and January 2009, and suddenly Khadar's life was in ruins. His neighborhood, his house and his business were all destroyed. Since then, the 46-year-old has been helpless in every sense of the word. Donations coming to the Gaza Strip from both large and small aid organizations never arrive at the Khadars'.


"People who are not in with Hamas don't see any of the relief goods or the gifts of money," Khadar says. On the sand dune where his house once perched, there is now an emergency shelter. The shelter is made of concrete blocks that Khadar dug from the rubble, and the roof is the canvas of a tent that provided the family with shelter for the first summer after the war. "Hamas supporters get prefabricated housing, furnishings and paid work. We get nothing," Khadar complains.

Hamas Members Take and Distribute 'at Their Own Discretion'

The reason his family receives nothing: Like many of his neighbors, Khadar is a die-hard supporter of the Fatah party, the sworn political enemy of the more radical Islamists in Hamas. That's why Khadar has little hope of seeing any of the 10,000 tons of aid that the activist flotilla heading for the Gaza Strip tried to bring to Gaza's harbor at the start of this week.

"We knew Hamas would take the goods for themselves and distribute them at their own discretion. For us, and for many of our friends, it doesn't make any difference whether the world is trying to help us. Our situation will only improve if the blockade is lifted," Khadar explains.

The mostly Turkish-flagged aid convoy that attempted to break the Israeli blockade never made it to Gaza. Israel stopped the flotilla by boarding the flagship in a bloody commando mission. Nine activists died and more than 30 were injured, along with seven Israeli soldiers.

Humantarian Aid Becomes a Political Game

The bulk of the goods, which were temporarily confiscated, have since been released by Israel and brought to the Gaza border. But now there's another problem: Hamas is playing politics. The autocratic rulers of the Gaza Strip have placed conditions on aid delivery. The goods are not to be brought into the territory piece by piece, but all at once. All or nothing. By making these demands Hamas wants to ensure the building materials are all handed over. Since the end of the war Israel has impeded delivery of cement and steel because these items could be used for military facilities, including tunnels and bunkers.

Aid has become a political football, which is why a sack of cement, smuggled into Gaza through tunnels from Egypt, still costs $50 (around €40). Before the blockade it would have cost $7 (around €6). "I invested my total savings -- $5,000 -- in cement for our emergency shelter," Khadar notes. And he appeals to aid organizations to do everything they can to try and deliver their goods directly to the citizens of Gaza. Hamas should not be allowed to get hold of it. Khadar becomes particularly enraged when he talks about his neighbors behind the dune. The Hamas prime minister of Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, recently gave them a brand new house, complete and ready for them to move in.

'I Just Happened to Be the Winner'

And indeed, Khadar's neighbor, Aderauf al-Batsch's front door boasts a commemorative plaque celebrating that memorable event. The 35-year-old homeowner does not dispute his relationship to Hamas, but he does dispute any accusations of preference. "The construction ministry held a lottery to win a new home. And I just happened to be the winner," Batsch explains. Does he think it's a strange coincidence that he, the neighborhood's only Hamas supporter, should have won the contest? No. "Sometimes in life you get lucky," he says.

Since Israel's retreat from Gaza in the summer of 2005, Israel has enforced economic sanctions on the territory, and gradually tightened them. Whenever something happens -- when Hamas won the Palestinian elections in 2006, when militants captured Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit in 2006, when Hamas took control of the coastal strip in 2007 -- Israel has restricted the flow of goods even further. Egypt, the other nation adjacent to Gaza, keeps its border closed most of the time. (The border did open for humanitarian aid this week, after the naval raid.) The administration in Cairo worries that a perceived Hamas success in Gaza will only inflame Egypt's own radical Islamists' fantasies of political power.

'We Will Not Take Any Gifts That Are Blood Stained'

The United Nations (UN) has called the Israeli blockade of goods and people a form of "collective punishment." According to UN estimates, around 80 percent of the 1.5 million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip are living under the poverty line, and 42 percent are unemployed as the economy has virtually ground to a halt. On Thursday, the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, again called for an end to the blockade.


Hamas has consistently called for Israel and Egypt to open their borders to Gaza, which makes Hamas' obstruction at the border incomprehensible. On Thursday, Israeli newspapers were writing that the situation must not be all that bad if Palestinians are not accepting the aid. Hamas spokesman Ismail Radwan was unimpressed. "We will not take any blood stained aid," he told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "If we accept the delivery of aid then we are legitimizing Israel's violent actions." Yet Radwan did leave a way out, adding that: "If the Turks ask us to let the aid shipments in, we would do it."

Donations Are 'Bad For Business'

There are people in Gaza though who will never be happy about the arrival of the aid. "Everything that arrives here, and is distributed free of charge, is bad for business," says one Palestinian pharmacist, who studied in Germany but preferred not to give his name for fear of reprisals. Every medicine and every toy that well-meaning Westerners donate endanger the few jobs that still remain in Gaza, he explains. A colleague at another pharmacy agrees. "We are being bred into dependency," he says, repeating the universal adage that guides international aid: "If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. But if you give him a fishing rod, you feed him for a lifetime."

Before Gaza can stand on its feet again and take care of itself, however, the Israeli blockade must end. That is the one thing that former homeowner Khadar, the pharmacists, Hamas, and the UN seem to agree upon.
 Quoting: Grizzled Old Goat


They have such a brilliant minds!!

:moron34:
Irdoooomed

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06/06/2010 10:57 AM
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Re: Flotillatard Reality Check: International aid not always welcome in Gaza
Well Grizzled old goatlover the same can be said for any country where those in power bribe their subjects with free stuff. Whether it's in the Gaza concentration camp or America where voters vote for the party that promises them free stuff paid for by their treasury. The supermarket owner just isn't smart enough to vote for the ruling party that's all. The same is true even for your beloved little state Israel where politicians buy off constituents by tada promising them free stuff.

This happens all over the world and it's to be expected. It's the done thing.

Last Edited by Irdoooomed on 06/06/2010 11:00 AM
Twenty grand dood, it's a lot of money!

Recently homosexuals have been making anti christian threads. Think about it.
Grizzled Old Goat  (OP)

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06/06/2010 10:58 AM
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Re: Flotillatard Reality Check: International aid not always welcome in Gaza
Shillom GOG!

Nobody believes the utter shite that spews from your mouth anymore.

GO AWAY



lol

gog is a shill, easy to see..


hi gog, i love you, but please, please see that you are not helping Humanity by being untrue...

choose the side of peace for the win
 Quoting: Love/Light 989512

lmao

Hamas is "the side of peace"?????

Can you really be that stupid?
Grizzled Old Goat  (OP)

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06/06/2010 11:00 AM
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Re: Flotillatard Reality Check: International aid not always welcome in Gaza
They have such a brilliant minds!!

:moron34:
 Quoting: ~GAIA~

lol

The Hamastards, or their supportertards?

Doesn't matter - they are BOTH living in an artificial fantasy land..

Last Edited by Grizzled Old Goat on 06/06/2010 11:00 AM
FubarMan

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06/06/2010 11:02 AM
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Re: Flotillatard Reality Check: International aid not always welcome in Gaza
Great post GOG. Fun to watch all the haters squirm.
TheChinditzofLove

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06/06/2010 11:02 AM
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Re: Flotillatard Reality Check: International aid not always welcome in Gaza
bump& 5 stars for truth.
Raoul Duke: Look, there's two women fucking a polar bear!
Dr. Gonzo: Don't tell me these things. Not now man.

I am Jack's smirking revenge.

Cause I'm a F****** legend, and this is getting ugly.
Grizzled Old Goat  (OP)

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Re: Flotillatard Reality Check: International aid not always welcome in Gaza
Great post GOG. Fun to watch all the haters squirm.
 Quoting: FubarMan


They just lie as if the truth doesn't even exist..
Anonymous Coward
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06/06/2010 11:05 AM
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Re: Flotillatard Reality Check: International aid not always welcome in Gaza
They have such a brilliant minds!!

:moron34:

lol

The Hamastards, or their supportertards?

Doesn't matter - they are BOTH living in an artificial fantasy land..
 Quoting: Grizzled Old Goat



You're going to lecture people about living in fantasy land?


Bwahhahahahaha!!!


You best coat yourself with Blistex, cuz you're going to get slapped around the way a masochist would love!


Hhahahahha!
FubarMan

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Re: Flotillatard Reality Check: International aid not always welcome in Gaza
Great post GOG. Fun to watch all the haters squirm.


They just lie as if the truth doesn't even exist..
 Quoting: Grizzled Old Goat



I have never seen so much self-deception. Around here it is like throwing pears before swine.
Anonymous Coward
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Re: Flotillatard Reality Check: International aid not always welcome in Gaza
Great post GOG. Fun to watch all the haters squirm.
 Quoting: FubarMan



Yea, great post. If you don't love Israel to the detriment and destruction of your own country, you must be a hater..

Israel first, death to the USA....

You are getting what you asked for.
Grizzled Old Goat  (OP)

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Re: Flotillatard Reality Check: International aid not always welcome in Gaza
Great post GOG. Fun to watch all the haters squirm.


They just lie as if the truth doesn't even exist..



I have never seen so much self-deception. Around here it is like throwing pears before swine.
 Quoting: FubarMan


The self-deception goes on whenever the word Israel appears in print - but these flotillatards have taken it to a whole new level.

They seem to be willing to be the useful idiots on an on-call basis..
FubarMan

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Re: Flotillatard Reality Check: International aid not always welcome in Gaza
Great post GOG. Fun to watch all the haters squirm.



Yea, great post. If you don't love Israel to the detriment and destruction of your own country, you must be a hater..

Israel first, death to the USA....

You are getting what you asked for.
 Quoting: Anonymous Coward 991600


Your post has nothing to do with the topic at hand which was Hamas using the Palestinians as propaganda tools and pawns.

Because of Obama's gross weakness and leadership, they smell his incompetence and fear...Obama's weakness attracts this aggression.
IscopeU

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Re: Flotillatard Reality Check: International aid not always welcome in Gaza
Another reason for us(UN/NATO) to take over humanitarian aid in Gaza.
[link to video.godlikeproductions.com] The weird video corner.

“Our Earth is degenerate in these later days; there are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end; bribery and corruption are common; children no longer obey their parents; every man wants to write a book and the end of the world is evidently approaching.” (-Sumerian clay tablet, 2800 BCE)
Grizzled Old Goat  (OP)

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Re: Flotillatard Reality Check: International aid not always welcome in Gaza
Another reason for us(UN/NATO) to take over humanitarian aid in Gaza.
 Quoting: IscopeU


Only if Hamas is excluded from distribution..
FubarMan

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Re: Flotillatard Reality Check: International aid not always welcome in Gaza
Another reason for us(UN/NATO) to take over humanitarian aid in Gaza.
 Quoting: IscopeU


UN/NATO = FAIL if they were to take over they world start of by initiating a vote, to send a memo of the presumed take over.
Ho_Lee_Kao

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Re: Flotillatard Reality Check: International aid not always welcome in Gaza
bump
Hecki hecki pateng
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Re: Flotillatard Reality Check: International aid not always welcome in Gaza
Der Spiegel (The Mirror) is is owned by Bertelsmann, which itself is one of the biggest media conglomerate & spin tanks worldwide.
[link to en.wikipedia.org]

Spiegel Online is the biggest german speaking news site ( Mediadata 2010-04 = PIs 733.529.663 / Visits 124.266.343 )

They have a huge forum, nearly all articles can be commented on. The comment function on Israel related articles was disabled only hours after the event.

Once liberal and investigative , "Der Spiegel" has changed to a loudmouth. Although sometimes a gem is found.


This article is a rather nice piece of selective coverage.
And OP takes it with the greatest pleasure to stir it up a little bit...

I can agree that this whole game is most likely not about the people in strip - but the recent order of events in international waters and this articles content is simply another pair of shoes.


PS.
Apropos selective coverage:

The Financial Times Deutschland argues:

"Who else in the world would get away with it? Seizing a flotilla with humanitarian goods in international waters; killing people onboard, who were possibly defending themselves against the attackers; abducting the rest of the passengers. It's not a story about a pirate gang but about an old ally of the West. Who, though, can seriously describe the current Israel as a democracy that respects the rule of law?"

[link to www.spiegel.de]
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Re: Flotillatard Reality Check: International aid not always welcome in Gaza
06/04/2010

International Donations Not Always Welcome in Gaza

By Ulrike Putz in the Gaza Strip
[link to www.spiegel.de]

The aid shipment that the Palestinian activists' flotilla was hoping to bring to Gaza before they were halted by Israeli commandos is now awaiting delivery. But Hamas will only let the badly needed goods into the territory under certain conditions. In the Gaza Strip, aid is not always greeted with enthusiasm.

Having built a three-storey house in Jabalia, north of Gaza City, Zaed Khadar used to be a proud homeowner. He ran a supermarket from the ground floor and made enough profit there to provide for his seven children. His wife bred chickens on the roof. Then came the Gaza War, a three-week conflict between December 2008 and January 2009, and suddenly Khadar's life was in ruins. His neighborhood, his house and his business were all destroyed. Since then, the 46-year-old has been helpless in every sense of the word. Donations coming to the Gaza Strip from both large and small aid organizations never arrive at the Khadars'.


"People who are not in with Hamas don't see any of the relief goods or the gifts of money," Khadar says. On the sand dune where his house once perched, there is now an emergency shelter. The shelter is made of concrete blocks that Khadar dug from the rubble, and the roof is the canvas of a tent that provided the family with shelter for the first summer after the war. "Hamas supporters get prefabricated housing, furnishings and paid work. We get nothing," Khadar complains.

Hamas Members Take and Distribute 'at Their Own Discretion'

The reason his family receives nothing: Like many of his neighbors, Khadar is a die-hard supporter of the Fatah party, the sworn political enemy of the more radical Islamists in Hamas. That's why Khadar has little hope of seeing any of the 10,000 tons of aid that the activist flotilla heading for the Gaza Strip tried to bring to Gaza's harbor at the start of this week.

"We knew Hamas would take the goods for themselves and distribute them at their own discretion. For us, and for many of our friends, it doesn't make any difference whether the world is trying to help us. Our situation will only improve if the blockade is lifted," Khadar explains.

The mostly Turkish-flagged aid convoy that attempted to break the Israeli blockade never made it to Gaza. Israel stopped the flotilla by boarding the flagship in a bloody commando mission. Nine activists died and more than 30 were injured, along with seven Israeli soldiers.

Humantarian Aid Becomes a Political Game

The bulk of the goods, which were temporarily confiscated, have since been released by Israel and brought to the Gaza border. But now there's another problem: Hamas is playing politics. The autocratic rulers of the Gaza Strip have placed conditions on aid delivery. The goods are not to be brought into the territory piece by piece, but all at once. All or nothing. By making these demands Hamas wants to ensure the building materials are all handed over. Since the end of the war Israel has impeded delivery of cement and steel because these items could be used for military facilities, including tunnels and bunkers.

Aid has become a political football, which is why a sack of cement, smuggled into Gaza through tunnels from Egypt, still costs $50 (around €40). Before the blockade it would have cost $7 (around €6). "I invested my total savings -- $5,000 -- in cement for our emergency shelter," Khadar notes. And he appeals to aid organizations to do everything they can to try and deliver their goods directly to the citizens of Gaza. Hamas should not be allowed to get hold of it. Khadar becomes particularly enraged when he talks about his neighbors behind the dune. The Hamas prime minister of Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, recently gave them a brand new house, complete and ready for them to move in.

'I Just Happened to Be the Winner'

And indeed, Khadar's neighbor, Aderauf al-Batsch's front door boasts a commemorative plaque celebrating that memorable event. The 35-year-old homeowner does not dispute his relationship to Hamas, but he does dispute any accusations of preference. "The construction ministry held a lottery to win a new home. And I just happened to be the winner," Batsch explains. Does he think it's a strange coincidence that he, the neighborhood's only Hamas supporter, should have won the contest? No. "Sometimes in life you get lucky," he says.

Since Israel's retreat from Gaza in the summer of 2005, Israel has enforced economic sanctions on the territory, and gradually tightened them. Whenever something happens -- when Hamas won the Palestinian elections in 2006, when militants captured Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit in 2006, when Hamas took control of the coastal strip in 2007 -- Israel has restricted the flow of goods even further. Egypt, the other nation adjacent to Gaza, keeps its border closed most of the time. (The border did open for humanitarian aid this week, after the naval raid.) The administration in Cairo worries that a perceived Hamas success in Gaza will only inflame Egypt's own radical Islamists' fantasies of political power.

'We Will Not Take Any Gifts That Are Blood Stained'

The United Nations (UN) has called the Israeli blockade of goods and people a form of "collective punishment." According to UN estimates, around 80 percent of the 1.5 million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip are living under the poverty line, and 42 percent are unemployed as the economy has virtually ground to a halt. On Thursday, the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, again called for an end to the blockade.


Hamas has consistently called for Israel and Egypt to open their borders to Gaza, which makes Hamas' obstruction at the border incomprehensible. On Thursday, Israeli newspapers were writing that the situation must not be all that bad if Palestinians are not accepting the aid. Hamas spokesman Ismail Radwan was unimpressed. "We will not take any blood stained aid," he told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "If we accept the delivery of aid then we are legitimizing Israel's violent actions." Yet Radwan did leave a way out, adding that: "If the Turks ask us to let the aid shipments in, we would do it."

Donations Are 'Bad For Business'

There are people in Gaza though who will never be happy about the arrival of the aid. "Everything that arrives here, and is distributed free of charge, is bad for business," says one Palestinian pharmacist, who studied in Germany but preferred not to give his name for fear of reprisals. Every medicine and every toy that well-meaning Westerners donate endanger the few jobs that still remain in Gaza, he explains. A colleague at another pharmacy agrees. "We are being bred into dependency," he says, repeating the universal adage that guides international aid: "If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. But if you give him a fishing rod, you feed him for a lifetime."

Before Gaza can stand on its feet again and take care of itself, however, the Israeli blockade must end. That is the one thing that former homeowner Khadar, the pharmacists, Hamas, and the UN seem to agree upon.
 Quoting: Grizzled Old Goat


Go suck a big one GOG! You cunt! banana2
IscopeU

User ID: 915154
China
06/06/2010 12:49 PM
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Re: Flotillatard Reality Check: International aid not always welcome in Gaza
Another reason for us(UN/NATO) to take over humanitarian aid in Gaza.


Only if Hamas is excluded from distribution..
 Quoting: Grizzled Old Goat


They control the region by democratic majority. So you would rule out the majority of the people, i don't think that falls under the category: humanitarian.

Humanitarian aid does not pick sides. It distributes fairly.

Picking sides would be political involvement. That is how you see aid. But you are mixing up the two things.
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