When the Soviet Union laid siege to West Berlin in 1947, the Western powers mounted a famous airlift to supply the city’s inhabitants for ten months until the siege was broken. At its height, the Berlin Airlift hauled almost 9,000 tons per day. By contrast, the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip remain besieged for two and a half years now, where is the humanitarian effort to save them?
The West’s official abandonment of the Gazans is shameful.
Gaza today has a similar population in number and density, also living in post-war squalor. A chief difference is that instead of a conqueror trying to impose a common currency to force assimilation, Palestine’s occupier wants to purge the people of the lands it want to absorb. The siege of Gaza represents living conditions made so dire that its victims want only to leave.
The recent Viva Palestina aid convoy to Gaza was the third successful effort to supply the people of Gaza. Counting also the attempts to bring supplies by boat, how do these methods compare to the help mobilized for Berlin?
At the close of the latest effort, leader George Galloway was ceremoniously banned from returning to Egypt. Some of the convoy’s participants still await flights out of Cairo, all of them declared persona non grata. Although Venezuelan upstart Hugo Chavez will reportedly be supporting the next Viva Palestina convoy this summer, Egypt has now declared that no aid effort will be allowed through its border crossing to Gaza.
Why will no foreign government support an airlift to Gaza –even if it means parachuting supplies? Or why not a naval convoy to breach the barricade? Israel repeats that Gaza is not occupied. A challenge to Gaza’s maritime sovereignty could settle that matter.
Upon arrival in Gaza, a participant in the aid convoy summarized his motivation to bring relief supplies to the people of Gaza: “because they deserve it.”
The real question is where is your review of Joe Sacco’s new book? Although it is “only” a graphic novel, it seems to me to be worthy of a National Book Award. “Footnotes in Gaza” is a work of genius, so why do I not see mention of it here, when it is probably the most important piece of writing on Gaza to appear in years?
Gaza is under seige because its regime, Hamas, is in an active state of war with Israel. Israel is entirely in compliance with international law in taking all countermeasures to limit Gaza’s threat to Israeli national security.
Obviously you meant NOT IN COMPLIANCE. The siege of Gaza has been declared illegal. Collective Punishment and Disproportionate Use of Force are violations of international law and cannot be justified by Israel’s security claims.
The people helping the Free Gaza Convoys
are great heroes like the people who worked
tirelessly to end support for the Apartheid
regime in South Africa. The Israelis have
devalued palestinian life to the point they
steal their water, food, medicine and even
organs whic the israeili government recently
admitted to. Nazis is too nice of a term to give
the Israeil young soldier mentality. I had a
Israeli girl work for me and she was completely
brainwashed to the point she would convince
Americans palestinians need to be killed.
Unfortunately this is is Eurocentric
machavellian, darwinistic ideology which is the
basis of the western worlds interactions with the rest of humanity.