RR Phantom
Location : Wasted Space
Job/hobbies : Cayman Islands Actuary
 |  Subject: Joining the freedom flotilla to break Gaza blockade is a necessity  Mon Jun 20, 2011 4:33 am | |
| Yesterday, I left for Europe to join the flotilla to break the blockade of Gaza, along with fellow Australians Vivienne Porzsolt, of Jews Against the Occupation, and Michael Coleman, a youth worker.
People ask me why I'm going. I reply by recalling my experiences in Gaza last July when visiting Australian aid projects in the Middle East.
I remember the fetid smell as our bus passed a United Nations camp for children on the beach near Gaza City. It's stinking hot, the height of summer, and effluent lies fermenting in catchment ponds waiting to join the 80 million litres of raw sewage that flow each day from Gaza into the Mediterranean.
I ponder a dilemma that most Australians do not have to face. If my child were traumatised by air strikes and life under military siege, would the dangers of swimming in heavily contaminated seawater outweigh the benefits of a few days at the beach?
The bus takes us on to Rafah and the tunnels connecting Egypt and Gaza. The area is festooned with makeshift tents that obscure the tunnel openings. The tunnel we stop to look at brings in bags of cement, but the first thing I see being carried out is a young man, about 20, with a metal spike protruding 15 centimetres from his foot. While we wait 20 minutes for an ambulance to arrive, I photograph the foot but no faces. The tunnels are illegal and work, even if poorly paid and dangerous, is scarce. No one wants to be identified.
It's the rockets fired from the Rafah area that Israel uses as partial justification for its blockade. But, in a tacit acknowledgement of just how counterproductive the attacks have been, according to The New York Times, Hamas clamped down on them in 2009. The tunnel owners, who profit so handsomely from the siege, are said to adopt a more provocative approach.
Our next stop is what had been a cement works, now destroyed. Amid the ruins of an office building we see scraps of paperwork. Beside them blood stains discolour a wall.
A few kilometres further on we come to Gaza International Airport, opened with much fanfare in 1998, but since 2003 repeatedly bombed and its tarmac bulldozed by the Israelis. It's very hot but the wind is worse. Dust and grit swirl everywhere. Hundreds of people, young and old, individuals and families, are scrabbling in the ruins of the runways, heaping rubble onto donkey carts, salvaging whatever they can to rebuild bullet-ridden or flattened houses. It's work only the poorest and most desperate would undertake.
The day after our visit, the airport, which has zero strategic or military significance, is bombed yet again. To my mind it's an unforgivable war crime whose sole purpose can only be to terrorise and maim civilians desperately trying to survive a prolonged, illegal siege.
So that's what I tell people who ask me why I'm joining Freedom Flotilla 2 to break the blockade of Gaza. I tell them of the schools demolished and still unable to be rebuilt, of malnourished children, of farmers complaining that they can't get anyone to test the white powder deposited on their fields during Operation Cast Lead.
I tell them it's contrary to international law for Israel to punish Gaza's 1.5 million civilians, more than half of whom are children, because they had the temerity to elect a government of which Israel disapproves.
I point to Dashed Hopes, a November 2010 report by Oxfam, Amnesty, Save the Children and 19 other organisations, which reveals that Israel's ''easing'' of the blockade has consisted more of words than actions. I point out that Egypt's recent restricted ''opening'' of the Rafah crossing is doing little to improve conditions in Gaza because the crossing lacks the equipment to handle the shipment of goods, and men aged 18 to 40 are forbidden to cross.
I direct them to the January United Nations online presentation, ''The humanitarian impact of the Blockade and the 'Cast Lead' Israeli offensive on Gaza''. There they can read for themselves how Gaza's economy is being destroyed and lives devastated by unemployment and poverty.
For those who choose to look, they can learn how Israel's refusal to allow exports to leave or spare parts and raw materials to enter Gaza means that the electricity supply is unreliable, medical equipment unrepairable, refrigeration dicey, and the sewerage plant largely inoperable.
I tell them I can't turn my head and pretend that I just didn't see. I say that I endorse the UN Humanitarian Affairs Office's call to Israel to: lift the blockade; lift restrictions on all Gaza crossings; allow the importation of raw materials and exports; allow free access to agricultural and fishing areas; and allow access for goods and people between Gaza and the West Bank.
If, by joining the flotilla, I not only challenge the right of Israel to blockade Gaza but also pressure our government to force Israel to comply with international law, I think the risks are well worth running.
After all, everything I'm doing is entirely legal. I won't be hijacking any Israeli vessels, carrying weapons, or assaulting and detaining unarmed civilians. I will simply be trying, in a peaceful, non-violent and lawful way, to bring to an end the violation of the human rights of 1.5 million people trapped in the world's largest outdoor prison.
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/joining-the-freedom-flotilla-to-break-gaza-blockade-is-a-necessity-20110619-1g9vj.html
_________________
Anarcho Capitalists Retail , OZschwitz Downunder BoutiqueAnarcho-Capitalists,AnCaps Forum,Anti-State,Anti-Statist,Inalienable Rights Defenders,Non-Aggression Principle,Non-Initiation of Force Principle,Rothbardians,Anarchist,Capitalist,objectivism,Ayn Rand,Anarcho-Capitalism,Anarcho-Capitalist,politics,libertarianism,Ancap Forum,Anarchist Forum,Vulgar Libertarians,Hippies of The Right,Forum for Anarcho-Capitalist,Forum for Anarcho-Capitalists,Forum for AnCap,Forum for AnCaps,Libertarian,Anarcho-Objectivist,Freedom, Laissez Faire, Free Trade, Black Market, Randroid, Randroids, Rothbardian, AynArchist, Anarcho-Capitalist Forum, Anarchism, Anarchy, Free Market Anarchism, Free Market Anarchy, Market Anarchy
 |
|
