I've seen this one repeated several times just today. I'm referring to the claim that Israel "withdrew completely" from the Gaza strip in 2005. In a message posted by Jason Cherniak that I don't think I can link to directly at the main Liblogs site, Cherniak wrote:
It was everything the world had ever asked from Israel as far as the Gaza strip was concerned.
Not hardly. Everything the world has ever asked wouldn't look anything like the current state of affairs.
In fact, Israel withdrew Israeli citizens from Gaza and dismantled settlements but maintained complete control over all borders, including the border with Egypt, the coast line and the air space. Israel also reserved the right to send its armed forces into Gaza at will. The use of control of the border to create an effective blockade, limiting supplies of food, medical supplies and fuel oil for generators among other things is at the heart of the recent conflict between Israel and the Hamas government.
Anyone who claims that Israel "withdrew completely" from Gaza is either woefully misinformed or lying.
All the border controls have worked to produce a ghetto (and yes, that could have been and was predicted), but the interdiction of the freedom of the coastline seems to me most heart-breaking of all for a people trapped in misery. Right there on their beaches they can look out on beauty and liberty of a kind that should lift any human heart, and yet families who dare to enjoy it are subject at any time to shelling from what seem to be bored Israeli patrols.
What has been done to the Palestinians is a world-historical crime, and it's not good enough to use Hamas as an excuse. Getting the Palestinian people in their numbers out of the Israeli polis was the whole point in the first place, and it is still the whole point.
Regarding this issue, it is not entirely clear to me that the two possibilities are necessarily actually mutually exclusive.
Being woefully misinformed and/or being a liar, I mean.
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You have a point, sir. It could be all of the above.
Thank-you.
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