foto vorige week gemaakt in Gaza

Laila El-Haddad, who recently visited Gaza, comes to the same conclusions I do. The siege is only partly about food. There is food in Gaza, even a new shoppingmall, the question is who can buy those goods that either come in through Israel or through Egypt.The real problem is much larger.

It is about the artificial, man-made lack of work, about the impossibility to develop Gaza without the freedom to export, import goods that are needed to produce, and most of all about the freedom for Gazans to leave their country and come back. When Gaza is called an open air prison camp, as I have done many times, it is only partly true, says Haddad.

“Using the phrase “prison camp” to describe Gaza is not vile rhetoric. It is an understatement and even a misnomer. Prisoners are guilty of a crime, yet they are guaranteed access to certain things — electricity and water, even education — where Gazans are not. What crime did Gazans commit, except, to quote my late grandmother, “being born Palestinian?”

For Haddad’s complete article: here.