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- "End the occupation !" PAJU Vigil # 490, July 2, 2010: Let them eat coriander!
"End the occupation !" PAJU Vigil # 490, July 2, 2010: Let them eat coriander!
Publication date : 2010-07-03
Blockade ‘eased’ as Gaza starves more slowly.
Israel’s severe and apparently arbitrary restrictions on foodstuffs entering Gaza – coriander is ‘bad’, cinnamon is ‘good’ – will finally end, we are told. Gaza’s 1.5 million inhabitants will soon have all the coriander they want. But the permitted items still have to find their way into the enclave and Israel controls the crossing points and determines how many trucks are allowed in daily. Currently, only a quarter of the number of trucks once permitted are able to deliver their cargo, and that is unlikely to change to any significant degree. Moreover, as part of the "security" blockade, the ban is expected to remain on items such as cement and steel desperately needed to build and repair the thousands of homes devastated by Israel’s attack 18 months ago.
Blockade 'eased' as Gaza starves more slowly
Israel’s severe and apparently arbitrary restrictions on foodstuffs entering Gaza – coriander is ‘bad’, cinnamon is ‘good’ – will finally end, we are told. Gaza’s 1.5 million inhabitants will soon have all the coriander they want. But the permitted items still have to find their way into the enclave and Israel controls the crossing points and determines how many trucks are allowed in daily. Currently, only a quarter of the number of trucks once permitted are able to deliver their cargo, and that is unlikely to change to any significant degree. Moreover, as part of the "security" blockade, the ban is expected to remain on items such as cement and steel desperately needed to build and repair the thousands of homes devastated by Israel’s attack 18 months ago.
By concentrating our attention on the supposed ending of the "civilian" blockade, Israel hopes we will forget to ask a more pertinent question: what is the purpose of this refashioned "security" blockade?
Over the years Israelis have variously been told that the blockade was imposed to isolate Gaza’s "terrorist" rulers, Hamas; to serve as leverage to stop rocket attacks on nearby Israeli communities; to prevent arms smuggling into Gaza; and to force the return of the captured soldier Gilad Shalit.
None of these reasons stands up to minimal scrutiny. Hamas is more powerful than ever; the rocket attacks all but ceased long ago; arms smugglers use the plentiful tunnels under the Egyptian border, not the Israeli border crossing points of Erez or Karni; and Sgt Shalit would already be home had Israel seriously wanted to trade him for an end to the siege.
In reality, the aim of the blockade, according to Dov Weisglass when he was the Israeli government’s chief adviser, was to punish ordinary Gazans in the hope that they would overthrow Hamas. This strategy amounts to the collective punishment of the people of Gaza.
And - Israelis should take note - collective punishment is condemned and punishable as a war crime under the terms of the IVth Geneva Convention.
Adapted from "Let them eat coriander!", written by Jonathon Cook and published in the newspaper The National in Abu Dhabi on June 26, 2010. See full text on line at: http://original.antiwar.com/cook/2010/06/25/let-them-eat-coriander/
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