Palestinian Chutzpah in Gaza?
By Henk Kamsteeg

The news coming out of Gaza depicts a population plunged into darkness, living in a humanitarian crisis, and blaming Israel. The BBC reported “Israel’s closure of border crossings amid continued rocket fire from Gaza has brought the delivery of almost all supplies, including electricity and fuel, to a halt. The UN says Gaza’s 1.5 million inhabitants face serious hardship. Reports from Gaza say people are trying to stock up on candles and batteries, as well as basic foodstuffs.”
The media war between Israel and Hamas has been heating up in recent weeks. The al-Jazeera news network has been continuously broadcasting scenes of ‘Besieged Gaza’ to Arab households across the Middle East and beyond to depict the alleged Israeli aggression in Gaza. Al-Quds al-Arabi, an Arabic newspaper published in London, featured a caricature that seemed to sum up the degree to which things have escalated in the communications battle: an illustration of an Israeli bulldozer plowing into the Auschwitz death camp with a caption that read “the Gaza Strip or the Israeli extermination camp.”
But is it the truth? The truth is that in January 2008, Israel reduced fuel and electricity supplies to Gaza following Kassam rocket attacks aimed at Sderot, Ashkelon and other cities close to the borders of Gaza. An Israeli move to halt the rocket attacks by non-violent means, implementing a limited embargo on the entry of industrial fuel into Gaza – designed to force an end to the missile attacks without resorting to a full scale military operation – backfired, resulting in a major Hamas propaganda victory by creating an image of widespread “Palestinian suffering” and “collective punishment”.
PA Foreign Minister Mahmoud Abbas supported an Arab League call for an “urgent” United Nations resolution to condemn Israel (a draft Security Council statement was later vetoed by Washington, supported by several European countries, who noted that it did not even mention that unprovoked Palestinian rocket attacks had prompted the Israeli action).
As in the past, a number of international NGOs, including Amnesty International, use the politicized rhetoric of human rights, such as “collective punishment” and “crimes against humanity,” in selective and one-sided condemnations.
They demonize Israel by claiming (against all evidence) that Israel’s border closure “appears calculated to make an already dire humanitarian situation worse”, one in which “the most vulnerable – the sick, the elderly, women and children – will bear the brunt, not those responsible for the attacks against Israel…” The Amnesty statement also incongruously claims that “the Israeli authorities cite unspecified ‘security’ reasons” to justify closures, erasing the use of “civil” materials for Palestinian rocket bombardment, and the incidents, including one recently in which tons of potassium nitrate used for explosives were found in humanitarian shipments from the EU to Gaza.
US Ambassador to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad, said that Hamas “must bear responsibility for the current situation“ in Gaza. An official with the Israeli Mission to the UN tried to explain to the council that the situation in Gaza would immediately and significantly improve if only Palestinian force based there would stop firing rockets and mortar shells at communities in southern Israel. An Israeli Foreign Ministry official quoted by The Jerusalem Post expressed frustration that the UN is quick to take action every time Israel is allegedly harming the Palestinians, but on a daily basis turns a blind eye to Palestinian attacks against Israeli civilians (Between June and December 2007, 475 missiles and 631 mortar bombs were launched; in January 2008 these attacks intensified).
The IDF has accused Gaza of creating a phony humanitarian crisis to serve its propaganda needs. Israeli sources say this kind of media coverage is exactly what the Gaza leadership wants. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel suggested Hamas Islamists had a political interest in exaggerating the impact of the Israeli measures.
Israel rejected the claim that there was a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. A security official in Jerusalem said “apparently Hamas, out of its own considerations, decided not to transfer fuel to the power station.” David Dolan reported from Jerusalem that “Hamas staged its most dazzling media coup when it quickly shut off all electric power supplies to the estimated 1.5 million Gaza Palestinians under its control, claiming this was due to the Israeli fuel blockade. Israeli officials pointed out that only one internal Palestinian power plant uses the Israeli supplied fuel, while over half of the Gaza Strip’s electricity comes from Israel’s Ashkelon facility, which was not at all affected by the border crossing closures.
Sensing that they were on a propaganda roll, Hamas operatives then blew up the Israeli built Gaza border fence with Egypt.
Up to half of all Gaza residents poured into Egyptian territory to take advantage of lower price and more abundant goods.”
Prime Minister Olmert said recently that he would not allow a humanitarian crisis to develop. But he said Gaza’s residents won’t be able to live a “pleasant and comfortable life” as long as southern Israel is under rocket attack. “As far as I am concerned, Gaza residents will walk, without gas for their cars, because they have a murderous, terrorist regime that doesn’t let people in southern Israel live in peace.” Olmert said.
Gaza relies on Israel for almost all its fuel and petrol. Mickey Tsarfati, head of the union of electrical workers, was quoted in YNet: “Israel continues to supply Gaza with its power. It is unbelievable chutzpah for them to complain. We have not stopped supplying them with electricity for a minute. And they have not stopped logging bombs at us for a minute.
Not only that, but Israeli electric company employees are risking their lives to do so. Kassam missiles launched from Gaza into Israel are a daily menace. To live in an Israeli community bordering Gaza is to live with the constant threat of a missile falling on your head, on your home, on your child’s school. Many of the workers who fix the lines to Gaza daily are residents of Sderot. It happened more than once that bombs fell next to their homes as they were fixing the lines to supply electricity to the bomber.”
Many say Israel would break basic international humanitarian law by cutting off electricity to Gaza. It would affect thousands of civilians and hospitals. But there is another basic international humanitarian law - its called not getting blown up by missiles. Israel has not only got the right, but the responsibility to protect its citizens from individuals and groups who would see them dead.
There is no international law requiring Israel to give power to Gaza. It’s no longer under their control. Israel owes the people of Gaza nothing more and could even consider to take their electricity elsewhere. That too, is a legitimate right.
A top Israeli defense official said that Israel wants to relinquish all responsibility for the Gaza Strip, including the supply
of electricity and water, now that the territory’s southern border with Egypt has been taken over by Hamas, under the cover of thousands of men, women and children flooding Egypt under the pretext of a “humanitarian crisis” in Gaza, and the Hamas army seems to have taken control of Egypt’s strategic sea port of Rafah.
For several years we have heard that Israel should withdraw from Gaza. Israel did withdraw from Gaza and still the missiles fly endangering Israeli men, women and children. But the world seems quite content to see the Palestinians lob missiles into Sderot and other Israeli communities.
It begs the question: “What other country would be supplying electricity to people who are bombing their children on a daily basis, and risking their lives to do so?”
“Behold, He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep” (Psalm 121:4).

Palestinian Chutzpah in Gaza?By Henk Kamsteeg

Palestinian Chutzpah in Gaza?
By Henk Kamsteeg