Yet Another Outrageous Congressional Pander to AIPAC

Please call your Congressional representatives now and tell them to vote against H.RES. 867 that directs the President to do whatever is necessary to deep-six Judge Goldstone's UN report documenting the war crimes committed in Gaza. Congress expects to pass this "bi-partisan" legislation by Halloween. (How appropriate!).

The entire bill is here below, for your education and amazement.

111TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSION H. RES. 867

Calling on the President and the Secretary of State to oppose unequivocally
any endorsement or further consideration of the ‘‘Report of the United
Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict’’ in multilateral
fora.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
OCTOBER 23, 2009
Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN (for herself, Mr. BERMAN, Mr. BURTON of Indiana, and
Mr. ACKERMAN) submitted the following resolution; which was referred
to the Committee on Foreign Affairs

RESOLUTION
Calling on the President and the Secretary of State to oppose
unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration
of the ‘‘Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission
on the Gaza Conflict’’ in multilateral fora.
Whereas, on January 12, 2009, the United Nations Human
Rights Council passed Resolution A/HRC/S–9/L.1, which
authorized a ‘‘fact-finding mission’’ regarding Israel’s
conduct of Operation Cast Lead against violent militants
in the Gaza Strip between December 27, 2008, and January
18, 2009;
Whereas the resolution pre-judged the outcome of its investigation,
by one-sidedly mandating the ‘‘fact-finding mission’’
to ‘‘investigate all violations of international human
rights law and International Humanitarian Law by . . .
Israel, against the Palestinian people . . . particularly in
the occupied Gaza Strip, due to the current aggression’’;
Whereas the mandate of the ‘‘fact-finding mission’’ makes no
mention of the relentless rocket and mortar attacks,
which numbered in the thousands and spanned a period
of eight years, by Hamas and other violent militant
groups in Gaza against civilian targets in Israel, that necessitated
Israel’s defensive measures;
Whereas the ‘‘fact-finding mission’’ included a member who,
before joining the mission, had already declared Israel
guilty of committing atrocities in Operation Cast Lead by
signing a public letter on January 11, 2009, published in
the Sunday Times, that called Israel’s actions ‘‘war
crimes’’;
Whereas the mission’s flawed and biased mandate gave serious
concern to many United Nations Human Rights
Council Member States which refused to support it, including
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cameroon, Canada,
France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, the Republic
of Korea, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Ukraine,
and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland;
Whereas the mission’s flawed and biased mandate troubled
many distinguished individuals who refused invitations to
head the mission;
Whereas, on September 15, 2009, the ‘‘United Nations Fact
Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict’’ released its report;

Whereas the report repeatedly made sweeping and unsubstantiated
determinations that the Israeli military had deliberately
attacked civilians during Operation Cast Lead;
Whereas the authors of the report, in the body of the report
itself, admit that ‘‘we did not deal with the issues . . .
regarding the problems of conducting military operations
in civilian areas and second-guessing decisions made by
soldiers and their commanding officers ‘in the fog of
war.’ ’’;
Whereas in the October 16th edition of the Jewish Daily Forward,
Richard Goldstone, the head of the ‘‘United Nations
Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict’’, is
quoted as saying, with respect to the mission’s evidencecollection
methods, ‘‘If this was a court of law, there
would have been nothing proven.’’;
Whereas the report, in effect, denied the State of Israel the
right to self-defense, and never noted the fact that Israel
had the right to defend its citizens from the repeated violent
attacks committed against civilian targets in southern
Israel by Hamas and other Foreign Terrorist Organizations
operating from Gaza;
Whereas the report largely ignored the culpability of the Government
of Iran and the Government of Syria, both of
whom sponsor Hamas and other Foreign Terrorist Organizations;
Whereas the report usually considered public statements
made by Israeli officials not to be credible, while frequently
giving uncritical credence to statements taken
from what it called the ‘‘Gaza authorities’’, i.e. the Gaza
leadership of Hamas;


Whereas, notwithstanding a great body of evidence that
Hamas and other violent Islamist groups committed war
crimes by using civilians and civilian institutions, such as
mosques, schools, and hospitals, as shields, the report repeatedly
downplayed or cast doubt upon that claim;
Whereas in one notable instance, the report stated that it did
not consider the admission of a Hamas official that
Hamas often ‘‘created a human shield of women, children,
the elderly and the mujahideen, against [the Israeli
military]’’ specifically to ‘‘constitute evidence that Hamas
forced Palestinian civilians to shield military objectives
against attack.’’;
Whereas Hamas was able to significantly shape the findings
of the investigation mission’s report by selecting and
prescreening some of the witnesses and intimidating others,
as the report acknowledges when it notes that ‘‘those
interviewed in Gaza appeared reluctant to speak about
the presence of or conduct of hostilities by the Palestinian
armed groups . . . from a fear of reprisals’’;
Whereas even though Israel is a vibrant democracy with a
vigorous and free press, the report of the ‘‘fact-finding
mission’’ erroneously asserts that ‘‘actions of the Israeli
government . . . have contributed significantly to a political
climate in which dissent with the government and its
actions . . . is not tolerated’’;
Whereas the report recommended that the United Nations
Human Rights Council endorse its recommendations, implement
them, review their implementation, and refer the
report to the United Nations Security Council, the Prosecutor
of the International Criminal Court, and the
United Nations General Assembly for further action;

Whereas the report recommended that the United Nations
Security Council—
(1) require the Government of Israel to launch further
investigations of its conduct during Operation Cast
Lead and report back to the Security Council within six
months;
(2) simultaneously appoint an ‘‘independent committee
of experts’’ to monitor and report on any domestic
legal or other proceedings undertaken by the Government
of Israel within that six-month period; and
(3) refer the case to the Prosecutor of the International
Criminal Court after that six-month period;
Whereas the report recommended that the United Nations
General Assembly consider further action on the report
and establish an escrow fund, to be funded entirely by
the State of Israel, to ‘‘pay adequate compensation to
Palestinians who have suffered loss and damage’’ during
Operation Cast Lead;
Whereas the report ignored the issue of compensation to
Israelis who have been killed or wounded, or suffered
other loss and damage, as a result of years of past and
continuing rocket and mortar attacks by Hamas and
other violent militant groups in Gaza against civilian targets
in southern Israel;
Whereas the report recommended ‘‘that States Parties to the
Geneva Conventions of 1949 start criminal investigations
[of Operation Cast Lead] in national courts, using universal
jurisdiction’’ and that ‘‘following investigation, alleged
perpetrators should be arrested and prosecuted’’;
Whereas the concept of ‘‘universal jurisdiction’’ has frequently
been used in attempts to detain, charge, and
prosecute Israeli and United States officials and former
officials in connection with unfounded allegations of war
crimes and has often unfairly impeded the travel of those
individuals;
Whereas the State of Israel, like many other free democracies,
has an independent judicial system with a robust
investigatory capacity and has already launched numerous
investigations, many of which remain ongoing, of Operation
Cast Lead and individual incidents therein;
Whereas Libya and others have indicated that they intend to
further pursue consideration of the report and implementation
of its recommendations by the United Nations Security
Council, the United Nations General Assembly, the
United Nations Human Rights Council, and other multilateral
fora;
Whereas the President instructed the United States Mission
to the United Nations and other international organizations
in Geneva to vote against resolution A–HRC–S–12–
1, which endorsed the report and condemned Israel, at
the special session of the Human Rights Council held on
October 15–16, 2009;
Whereas, on September 30, 2009, Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton described the mandate for the report as ‘‘onesided’’;
Whereas, on September 17, 2009, Ambassador Susan Rice,
United States Permanent Representative to the United
Nations, expressed the United States’ ‘‘very serious concern
with the mandate’’ and noted that the United States
views the mandate ‘‘as unbalanced, one-sided and basically
unacceptable’’;
Whereas the ‘‘Report of the United Nations Fact Finding
Mission on the Gaza Conflict’’ reflects the longstanding,
historic bias at the United Nations against the democratic,
Jewish State of Israel;
Whereas the ‘‘Report of the United Nations Fact Finding
Mission on the Gaza Conflict’’ is being exploited by
Israel’s enemies to excuse the actions of violent militant
groups and their state sponsors, and to justify isolation
of and punitive measures against the democratic, Jewish
State of Israel;
Whereas, on October 16, 2009, the United Nations Human
Rights Council voted 25–6 (with 11 states abstaining and
5 not voting) to adopt resolution A–HRC–S–12–1, which
endorsed the ‘‘Report of the United Nations Fact Finding
Mission on the Gaza Conflict’’ and condemned Israel,
without mentioning Hamas, other such violent militant
groups, or their state sponsors; and
Whereas efforts to delegitimize the democratic State of Israel
and deny it the right to defend its citizens and its existence
can be used to delegitimize other democracies and
deny them the same right: Now, therefore, be it
1 Resolved, That the House of Representatives—
2 (1) considers the ‘‘Report of the United Nations
3 Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict’’ to be
4 irredeemably biased and unworthy of further consid5
eration or legitimacy;
6 (2) supports the Administration’s efforts to
7 combat anti-Israel bias at the United Nations, its
8 characterization of the ‘‘Report of the United Na9
tions Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict’’ as
1 ‘‘unbalanced, one-sided and basically unacceptable’’,
2 and its opposition to the resolution on the report;
3 (3) calls on the President and the Secretary of
4 State to continue to strongly and unequivocally op5
pose any endorsement of the ‘‘Report of the United
6 Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict’’
7 in multilateral fora;
8 (4) calls on the President and the Secretary of
9 State to strongly and unequivocally oppose any fur10
ther consideration of the ‘‘Report of the United Na11
tions Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict’’
12 and any other measures stemming from this report
13 in multilateral fora; and
14 (5) reaffirms its support for the democratic,
15 Jewish State of Israel, for Israel’s security and right
16 to self-defense, and, specifically, for Israel’s right to
17 defend its citizens from violent militant groups and
18 their state sponsors.

Green Survival Strategies and the Brownfield Consequences of Military Attacks

A meeting with the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees, an umbrella group for grassroots farmers’ organizations, and centers for women and children, gave us some insight into the survival strategies of Palestinians under siege. Many of these involve green strategies like water conservation, community gardens, eating local. [As much as I admire the ingenuity, and appreciate the green strategies, I certainly would prefer to see them adopted voluntarily and not under the duress of a siege.]

PARC includes 15 local organizations and hundreds of volunteers. It works on the rehabilitation of agricultural land, on microfinance, on water and environmental protection, and on capacity building and advocacy.

The need to rehabilitate agricultural land is pressing. Years of occupation and armed incursion have destroyed much of Gaza’s arable land. In the most recent invasion, the Israeli army almost completely destroyed the agricultural land east of Rafah. Not only were the irrigation pipelines destroyed, as happens everywhere the Israeli army invades with land forces, but tanks and bulldozers were used to plow up substantial swaths of land – destroying the soil, animal herds were slaughtered and wells were destroyed.

In addition, the Israeli settlements, which were evacuated and destroyed in 2005, plundered the agricultural land. The acquifers were drained and became saline. The soil was exhausted by intensive farming. Of the 60,000 dunams occupied by Israeli settlements only 20,000-25,000 are now cultivatable. These are farmed with 4,000 greenhouses, and use intensive agricultural techniques. This has increased the number of greenhouses in Gaza by about 1/3.

PARC’s larger rehabilitation programs were disrupted by the invasion, but it continues to rehabilitate house gardens – helping families add drip irrigation and compost to improve the productivity of the land around their homes. It encourages the purchase of locally grown products – giving some of the 80% of Gazans who are unemployed a source of income, and distributes excess production free to displaced families. PARC microfinance projects focus in part on food processing.

Of course, the blockade has prevented the importation of seeds. Farmers are now producing their own seeds.

Israeli policies have also affected the water supply. Gaza depends on rainfall and the run off from the heights of Hebron to provide water and fill its acquifers. Israel has built reservoirs to capture the run off from the heights of Hebron before it reaches Gazan acquifers. PARC has projects to capture and reuse gray water and to increase the collection of rainwater.

The War on Gaza Isn’t Over – The Fishermen

Gaza’s fishing fleet has hundreds of boats.. The blockade has whittled it down to hundreds, but most of those boats are beached or remain at anchor in the harbor. Maritime law dictates a minimum legal boundary of 12 miles offshore for every country. The Oslo agreements, signed by Israel and the Palestinian Authority, gave Gazan fishermen the right to fish up to 20 miles from shore. By 2000, Israel, as part of was attacking fishermen who ventured beyond a 6 mile limit. More recently, as part of the response to Hamas' election, Israel announced a 3 mile limit. This, in itself, is enough to crush the fishing industry. Much of the fishing industry depends on migrations of fish that are at least 6 miles offshore. So, for example, between March and May, the height of the fishing season, is when huge schools of sardines pass offshore. The sardine catch within the 3 mile limit is less than 30% of what the fishing fleet would take if it could fish within Gaza’s internationally recognized 12 mile limit. In addition, the high price of diesel fuel – which must come in through the tunnels – makes fishing marginally economic. Nonetheless, the fishermen have not entirely given up their trade. They must pay for their boats and feed their families. Each day, a few fishing boats go out to try to fish. In mid May there was a demonstration of 25 boats, demanding their right to fish.

Here is what they meet. Israel has six gunboats patrolling the 25 mile Gaza coastline. According to the both the head of the fishermen’s union and to a fishing boat captain, Hassan, with whom we talked at length, fishing boats are targeted with both water cannons and live ammunition. Since 2000 15 fishermen have been killed and more than 200 wounded. Since the Israeli attack on Gaza, attacks on unarmed fishermen have been stepped up.

Even more common is piracy. The Israelis abduct the fishermen and steal their boats. The Israeli Supreme Court has ruled these boat thefts illegal. In November, the court ordered the release of two impounded boats, and the release of imprisoned fishermen and internationals. Despite this, in March, 16 fishermen were abducted and boats were impounded. In one case, fishermen were abducted leaving a child alone in a boat at sea. In another, two children were abducted. Typically, the Israelis attack the boat, force the fishermen to strip and to jump into the sea to swim to the gunboat. Then they are handcuffed and blindfolded. If the boats are returned after being impounded, typically they are heavily damaged, with the engines removed. If the fishermen refuse to follow the orders of the Israeli Navy pirates, their boat may be rammed. In one case, the side of a trawler was ripped off. In the case of the Free Gaza movement boat Dignity, the boat was rammed and damaged so badly it had to be evacuated. Since 2005, six fishermen have been killed, 30 injured, and over 300 abducted.

The Israeli Navy is not attacking to enforce its arbitrarily declared 3 mile limit. All the actions described above have taken place inside the 3 mile limit. In one case, a fishermen was kidnapped only 50 meters from the beach. The Israelis also fire on the beach and at swimmers. We heard that someone was killed on the beach not long after we left.

For a good look at what life is like for fishermen in Gaza, see Fishing under Fire at www.vivagaza.org. It is almost incomprehensible to me that any nation’s army can be given orders to fire at unarmed civilians pursuing their normal occupations. It is even more incomprehensible that this is not news. I cannot find any mention in searches of the press of the pirate acts of the Israeli Navy.

What the UN people on the ground say about Gaza

A meeting with John Ging, who is the chief of operations for UNRWA in Gaza, was illuminating. He simply stepped outside the propaganda spawned by the history of failed diplomacy, and spoke directly from his own experience. His starting point: Palestinians have the same international right to protection as anyone else. The standard for Israelis and Palestinians should be the same. That’s a simple idea, and one that is hard to argue with. The only way to get around it is to argue that the entire population is engaged in hostilities towards Israel. This we know is not true. As Ging put it, “The people are not hostile, the conditions are. Hostile conditions are creating hostility.”

Neither, he said, can you argue that the Palestinians are defeated and can therefore be treated as a conquered people. People are not defeated until they give up. Palestinians have not given up, they have not abjured their international rights, nor have international bodies said they should. (UN resolutions all refer to the 1967 borders and preserve the right of return.).

Ging talked about how counterproductive many US and EU policy measures have been – separated from reality. (He calls this “the deficit of truth.) The blockade is forcing Palestinian society into dependency, causing Hamas to gain power while the rest of civil society atrophies, cut off from its ability to provide for itself. The Palestinian Authority, which instructed its officials in Gaza to refuse to work after the Hamas takeover, has also contributed to civil society’s collapse. Hamas was forced to replace government workers – bureaucrats, teachers, planners, engineers, etc. – with its own, inexperienced people. They have worked hard, but their competency is more religion than government. The result is a drift into conservatism, (and I might add, bitterness and depression among the more highly educated population).

U.S. Congressional visitors, Ging said, who are focused on humanitarian issues, have largely missed the point. In fact, focusing on humanitarian aid simply prolongs the situation. [It fails to acknowledge the fundamental issue -- Israel has no legal right to besiege, bomb, and blockade Gaza.]It is about justice, human dignity, and people’s right to protection from military force. Those are the issues which must be addressed to make any progress.

To do so, national reconciliation is an imperative, but it is not possible to insist Hamas agree to a series of political preconditions to achieve unity. Hamas’ logic is simple: Why repeat the mistake of Fatah, which recognized Israel and got nothing in return? In my opinion, there are several other flaws with the demand to "recognize" Israel. Israel has not "recognized" Hamas, or even the right to a sovereign Palestinian state at all. Israel also has not defined its own borders, so what exactly is being recognized. Finally, Israel demands it be recognized as a Jewish state, a demand which leaves out about 25% of its population.

A Detailed Account of the Impact of Israel's Attack

Our meeting with the Palestinian Center for Human Rights is the best orientation to the impact of the Israeli attack. PCHR meticulously documents everything, and deals quite fearlessly with both internal and external violations of human rights.

PCHR estimates that, during the Israeli attacks, 2,500 tons of explosives were dropped on Gaza. That equals 3 kilos of explosives per meter. (They have a massive display of weapons fragments in their office, with all too many bearing indications that they were made in the USA).

The hostilities began during the change between the morning and afternoon shifts in Gazan schools. That means that more than 500,000 students were in the streets when the bombs began to fall.

The bombing targeted the civilian infrastructure of Gaza – Al Quds hospital was bombed with white phosphorus, 4 schools were bombed, 5 kindergartens were bombed, the Ministry of Finance, and Ministry of Ex-Prisoners [of Israel] were bombed. Virtually every police station and many fire stations were demolished. The central police station and police academy were bombed just as the most recent graduating class were receiving their diplomas. 200+ new policemen were killed here alone. The Parliament building was destroyed. The industrial zones of Khan Yunis and Al Foukheiry were flatted – first by bombs, then with D-9 bulldozers (sold to Israel by Caterpillar). Some of UNRWA’s shelters for refugees were bombed. The vast majority of those killed were unarmed. Israel targeted police stations as part of “the infrastructure of terror” despite the fact that, under the Oslo agreements, police are explicitly identified as civilians.

There has been no change since March, when I was in Gaza last, in the availability of construction materials. Nothing is coming through the border crossings, and what comes through the tunnels is way to expensive for any extensive reconstruction. The government has begun, in a few places to remove rubble, but very little heavy equipment is functioning. A lot was destroyed by the Israelis during the invasion. PCHR estimates that 55,000 people remain homeless from the most recent Israeli invasion and another 20,000 are still waiting for the government to help them reconstruct homes demolished in previous incursions and the occupation. Certainly our trip organizer, Faten Qishta, is a case in point. Her family’s home in southern Rafah, near the border, was demolished by the Israelis in 2004. The entire family worked nonstop until they were able to get enough money to build a new, smaller home elsewhere in Rafah. However, they still are waiting for the assistance they are owed by the government to rebuild their demolished home. When they finally get it, they will build a second house so that Faten’s brother can marry. The enormous destruction of homes, in addition to all the other misery it brings, has delayed many marriages because there is no place for a new couple to live. `

The borders have also effectively have been closed for patients needing any advanced medical care. I spoke to my friend Douhaa, a doctor at Shifa hospital, who told me that, before the siege, standard cardiac operations like implanting stents were available in Gaza to patients. Now, however, the equipment cannot be maintained and the medical supplies are unavailable, so patients needing cardiac stents are sent to Egypt. Once they arrive in Egypt, they wait up to four weeks for treatment. This makes it highly likely that a cardiac blockage will deteriorate into a complete stoppage and the patient will die while awaiting treatment. But the chances are the patient will never be allowed into Egypt at all. Less than 15% of the patients in Gaza that the World Health Organization estimates would need treatment were allowed into Egypt last month. Care for renal failure faces exactly the same problems. Gaza has plenty of qualified doctors. They just have no equipment. Medical equipment like portable x-ray machines has been held at the border for almost a year. Gaza is also very short of supplies to treat malnutrition, while the incidence of malnutrition is increasing with the intensification of the siege.

Before the border closures, 9,000 separate items were imported into Gaza. Now, the “easing” of the siege has increased the number imported from 9 to 40.

PCHR is now preparing a legal fight against the siege. They have dozens of volunteers working with them, both in Europe and the US, using the extensive documentation they have developed on patients being denied care, students denied scholarships and education abroad, and people denied work. In September 2005, The Palestinian Authority and Israel signed a Terminals Agreement that codified how the border should operate and established a European monitoring group to report on its effectiveness. After 5 months of handling 450 incoming shipments/day and 500 outgoing shipments/day with positive reports from the European monitors, Israel abrogated the agreement and destroyed the monitoring system.

Israel Annexes More of Gaza

Last week Israel dropped leaflets warning people living along the eastern border that Israel decided the 300 meters next to the border (on the Gazan side naturally) should be a no man’s land. During the invasion, they had already added automated watch towers along the border fence. These are gold domes that, when activated, open up like a flower and fire machine guns. They are remotely controlled, fired by soldiers watching a computer screen. Just another step in turning war into a video game. It makes it so much easier to kill people.

We learned that, although Israel states the "buffer zone" of annexed land is 300 meters, it depends on the topography and acquifers. In some areas, it is as much as 1500 meters (about a mile). Farmers tending their fields outside, but near, the "buffer zone" are also being shot at.

We visited with a farming family, the Abu Rijelas, living near the border. Their house is about 350 meters from the border. 300 meters from the border is a road which all the schoolchildren must use when they walk to or from school. In addition to worrying about their children being shot on the way home from school, the Abu Rijelas have other things to worry about. Two years ago, the husband was kidnapped by the Israelis, and sentenced to 6 years in jail. His wife has only spoken with him twice since then. This was a family of tough, smart women. The oldest daughter is at the university, studying communications, and the mother has returned to the university to study psychology. Their house had been damaged by a missile strike during the Israeli attacks, and they said, the fields were full of fragments of white phosphorus. When we walked around outside, we quickly found one, scraped it with a stick and it burst into flame. This kind of debris should make plowing and planting a scary exercise even if automated machine gun towers weren’t shooting at you. The Abu Rijelas also lost their wheat crop when the Israelis fired incendiary shells onto their land, setting the fields on fire. They felt lucky their house wasn't burned as well.

Israel also used the invasion of Gaza as an opportunity to demolish forty homes near the border and plow under all the orchards in front of them. Forty demolished homes equals about 400 homeless people, I would guess about 10% of the population of the little farming village. It’s difficult to imagine how this wanton destruction could possibly be justified.


The farmers association, the Center for Rural Improvement, has made a videotape document the conditions entitled "Eye on the Border. ISM has been accompanying farmers as they attempt to farm their fields. This deters, to some extent, the wanton firing on farmers. The farmers have been trying to plant wheat or very quick growing crops like peas or spinach, hoping to harvest them before even more land is annexed. A farmer was killed at the end of January. Further information can be found at "Farming Under Fire".

Although Gaza appears to be intensively farmed, with almost every open space planted with something, the farmers' association we met with, the Agricultural Development Association (PARC) estimates that a60% of the agricultural land in Gaza is unusable -- either polluted by chemicals like white phosphorus, bulldozed, or in areas where farmers will be shot by Israelis if they farm.

Rafah - Destruction Continues

Next we visited the border areas of Rafah. It is absolutely impossible to imagine or believe what is going on there without seeing it. Foremost is the massive scale of the destruction of residential housing by the Israelis. By 2004, more than 4,000 homes were demolished by Israel to create a corridor between the Egyptian city of Rafah and the Gazan city of Rafah. Faten showed us where her home had been before it was destroyed in 2004.. She said this was the first time she had returned --- it was too painful for her to see the rubble. If you stop to think about it, the destruction of 4,000 homes (Palestinians have large multistory dwellings for their extended family) is equivalent, I think, to the destruction of perhaps two hundred city blocks in New York City. As you walk by the rubble, you can still see half buried possessions, people living in ruined homes with their facings ripped off, children fearlessly playing everywhere in the rubble. The destruction did not end in 2004. As Israel has continued almost daily bombing of the tunnels, it has also bombed more homes at the border,

We stopped to talk to one man who said, “The war is not over. We are waiting for World War III.” I’m not sure exactly what he meant. It certainly was not that he was expecting Palestinians to attack. He was expecting and waiting for some apocalyptic event.

The other sight that has to be seen to be believed is the tunnels. These tunnels are not secret. They are not hidden. The openings are right in the open – perhaps covered by a tent or a shed. And they are not scattered here and there. The border is simply one tunnel next to the other. Fuel trucks rumble up and down the dirt road that runs by the tunnels, picking up smuggled gasoline to take to gas stations. (Gasoline, other than for the main power plant in Gaza, has not been permitted across the legal border since November).

You have to stop to ask yourself, “What is going on here? Why is Israel bombing tunnels in a desultory fashion (two or three a day), when they can easily see them and could eliminate them with carpet bombing? If they really believe the tunnels are smuggling weapons into Gaza, wouldn’t they eliminate them?”

Something else is going on here. First, the tunnels are Gaza’s lifeline. Without them the entire place would grind to a halt - -no cars, no cooking gas, no cement, no paper, etc., etc. because all these items and many more are banned by Israel from crossing legally. In fact, only 40 items on a constantly changing list are permitted.
Second, Israel would like to force Egypt to take full responsibility for Gaza. So they prefer that Gaza’s needs be supplied from Egypt, not through the Israeli crossings. Meanwhile, Egypt is already flooded with refugees from Darfur, from Somalia, from Eritrea, from Iraq, etc. etc. The prospect of adding another 1.5 Palestinians to the mix is not appealing.
The tunnel economy is undermining Gaza’s civil institutions. The 80% of the population that is unemployed and dependent on UNRWA relief coupons cannot buy at the highly inflated prices of smuggled goods. The tunnel owners are becoming a new Mafia with shiny motorbikes, etc. It would be hard for them to quit smuggling and take low wage jobs if the borders were opened and the tunnels were no longer needed. What activity will they turn to to maintain their lifestyle? The tunnel economy is also robbing Gaza of its educated youth. It is estimated that 20,000 students are working in the tunnels to support themselves while in school. Hamas taxes the tunnel traffic, earning revenue. Will they be able to replace it? Finally, a report in The Guardian indicates that the tunnel economy has spawned shady investment scams, bankrupting desperate people seeking to invest in any money making scheme. That is probably the ultimate proof of the tunnel economy's destruction of the real economy.