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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan | ||
| NYT's Roger Cohen: Gaza Is Nowhere | ||
| 2015-01-02 | ||
| Much shortened Op-Ed piece. You trudge into Gaza from a high-tech Israeli facility through a caged walkway that brings you, after about 15 minutes, to a ramshackle Palestinian border post; and then, formalities completed, on you go, through dust and the reek of sewage, past the crumpled buildings and the donkey carts, to arrive at last in the middle of nowhere. Gaza is nowhere. Very few people go in or out of the 140-square-mile enclave. Most people want to forget about it. The border with Egypt was closed in October. A handful of travelers negotiate the labyrinth of inspections at the Israeli border and proceed into the Jewish state. I watched a young man passing sand through a sieve as the surface of a road was laid beside the sea in Gaza City. He’d shake the sieve, watch the sand drop through and, finally, tip out the remnants. Again and again he did it, in the dust. He is among the more productively employed of Gaza’s 1.8 million citizens. There is another war waiting to happen in Gaza. The last one changed nothing. Hamas rockets are being test-fired. Tensions simmer. The draft Security Council resolution at the United Nations, championed by the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, seeking a withdrawal of Israeli forces from the West Bank by 2017, amounts to an elaborate sideshow. The real matter of diplomatic urgency going into 2015, for the Palestinian people and the world, is to end the lockdown of Gaza. Nobody wants to talk about Gaza because it reeks of failure — the failure of Israeli withdrawal; the failure of a long-ago election that ushered Hamas to power; the failure to achieve the Palestinian unity necessary for serious peace talks; the failure to prevent repetitive war; the failure of the Arab Spring that led to that sealed Egyptian border; the failure to be coherent about Hamas (negotiated with by Israel to end the war and to secure the release of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit but otherwise viewed as a terrorist group with which negotiation is impossible); the failure to offer decency to 1.8 million trapped human beings. The enclave is a thorny quandary. Hamas has a vile Charter, a goal of destroying Israel, and it fires rockets on Israeli civilians from among Palestinian civilians. But it is not monolithic. Putting Gaza first would have several merits: forcing Palestinians to unify their national movement and hold long-delayed elections; averting yet another war with its heavy toll in human life and negative impact on Israel’s international standing; ushering a large group of Palestinians out of radicalizing misery; obliging the peacemakers, so-called, to get real or go home; stopping the distraction at the United Nations. Israelis, Palestinians, Egyptians, Europeans and Americans can — if they choose to locate the nowhere named Gaza and turn it into somewhere. The alternative is war without end.
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| Posted by:Pappy |
| #8 While #6 sounds all reasoned and diplomatic and stuff, Ricardo's Theory of Comparative Advantage (basically, play to your strengths) says we go with Shipman's concept in #7 since the Paleos have pretty much cornered the market on the ME's version of low-rent, trailer park asshattery. Come on, kids. Let's put on a show! |
| Posted by: SteveS 2015-01-02 21:28 |
| #7 Gaza Park Boys I see high concept with Sheik Julian, Abu Randy and Bubbles the man with one name. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2015-01-02 17:39 |
| #6 The solution for Gaza is: step 1: arrange for an orderly termination of UNRWA. step 2: arrange for an orderly removal of HAMAS and similar terrorists and their supporters (like the past removal of the PLO to Tunisia) step 3: opening of the borders of Gaza, free elections, rebuilding,etc. |
| Posted by: djk 2015-01-02 16:28 |
| #5 You give them prime, ocean front real estate and they turn it into a hell hole. It's like giving a brand new Mercedes Benz to a hopeless, homeless drunk. |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2015-01-02 15:56 |
| #4 Time for Israel to get serious -- ship 'em all to Sweden. |
| Posted by: DLR 2015-01-02 12:47 |
| #3 Not a failure... A choice. A choice the residents chose of their own free will. Perhaps it's time to stop the rebuilding and the 'humanitarian relief' and simply let them have what they want. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2015-01-02 08:50 |
| #2 Seems to me that it's the responsibility of the "trapped" to provide for themselves. Maybe if they stopped thinking those old Russian keys they're wearing were ever for a home in Israel... or gave up the "religion" that tells them killing Jews is a holy duty... |
| Posted by: Rob Crawford 2015-01-02 08:03 |
| #1 "Anti-Zionist" Jew is not an ideology, it's a profession. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2015-01-02 03:01 |