Hamas shut off the power to Palestine

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

The darkness of the west

When Gaza was plunged into darkness, the western media knew who was to blame.

The Guardian:

Besieged civilians pay the price for Israel's hardline response to rocket attacks.

The Independent:

Israeli blockade forces Gaza's only power plant to shut.

The Times:

Darkness falls on Gaza as Israel takes revenge for rocket attacks.

One small problem with this version of events. It wasn’t Israel that shut down Gaza’s electricity supply. It was Hamas. What Israel did was close its border crossings to all goods (eased yesterday) in response to intensive Qassam rocket attacks on the western Negev – 220 rockets fired in four days. Hamas promptly plunged Gaza into darkness, knowing that the west would uncritically swallow its claim that Israel was to blame for the distressing accounts that would follow of a humanitarian crisis. Naturally they did -- just as they continue to pretend that Hamas has only the one border with Israel through which it can obtain supplies, and therefore it is Israel which always 'blockades' it; whereas of course Gaza has a second border with Egypt through which it could certainly receive a flow of goods and fuel – especially since it continues to receive through it an uninterrupted flow of weapons with which to attack and kill innocent Israelis. Indeed, the border with Egypt means that the idea that Israel can ever 'cut off' Gaza or that it has turned it into a sealed 'prison' is entirely false.

Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, normally so slow to defend its own actions, is on this occasion clearly incandescent at the gross unfairness of the coverage and has issued this furious statement:

"The supply of electricity to Gaza from the Israel and the Egyptian power grids (124 Megawatts and 17 Megawatts respectively) has continued uninterrupted. These 141 Megawatts of power represents about three quarters of Gaza's electricity needs. While the fuel supply from Israel into Gaza has indeed been reduced, due to the Hamas rocket attacks, the diversion of this fuel from domestic power generators to other uses is wholly a Hamas decision - apparently taken due to media and propaganda considerations. Noteworthy is the fact that while the Gaza population remains in the dark, the fuel generating power to the Hamas rocket manufacturing industry continues to flow unabated. The Hamas claim of humanitarian crisis in Gaza is also greatly exaggerated. There is no shortage of basic foodstuffs, and Gaza patients who need treatment in Israeli hospitals continue to travel into Israel for care."

Far from Israel imposing ‘collective punishment’ or taking ‘revenge’ upon Gaza, as the EU, UNWRA and the media have claimed, it is almost certainly the only country on the planet which continues to provide fuel and other supplies to people who use them to continue to wage war upon it.

But then, people in the west don’t know about those 220 rocket attacks in four days because the western media simply refuse to report them. Instead they only report Israel’s attempts to defend itself which are thus represented as ‘revenge’, ‘punishment’ or simple aggression. Vile. As usual.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips...-the-west.thtml

[Empress of Groovy 373]

Why do you suppose this appeared nowhere but in a conservative British publication?

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Why do you suppose this appeared nowhere but in a conservative British publication?

Media bias and an underlying hatred of Israel. Any other questions?

[Dr. A ♥ O 203]

Again I am worried about this situation.

[Empress of Groovy 373]

Why do you suppose this appeared nowhere but in a conservative British publication?

Media bias and an underlying hatred of Israel. Any other questions?

Why do you suppose Haaretz hasn't reported on this? Or do you consider it an Israeli liberal rag?

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Why do you suppose this appeared nowhere but in a conservative British publication?

Media bias and an underlying hatred of Israel. Any other questions?

Why do you suppose Haaretz hasn't reported on this? Or do you consider it an Israeli liberal rag?

I don't have all the answers.

[sandinista! 1,816]

from the guardian:

Rafik Maliha, the director of the power plant, said the last fuel shipment had arrived on Thursday. The plant was built to provide 140 megawatts of electricity but has never operated at that level. At best, officials at the plant say it could produce 80MW. But early last week, before the closure was imposed, it was down to 45MW, enough to provide less than a fifth of the demand from Gaza's 1.5 million people. The rest of the electricity is bought from Israel and Egypt.

it seems kinda funny that israel's ministry of foreign affairs wouldn't know that.

the guardian again:

There was swift condemnation of Israel yesterday from Israeli and western human rights groups and from the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

those darn anti-semitic israeli human rights groups. must be that media bias and underlying hatred of israel getting to them. oh, and i'm sure they were completely in the dark about all those rockets. someone needs to sic melanie phillips and her big "anyone who disagrees with me is an anti-semite" stick on them.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

You saw the pics in the other thread:

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=106538

Perhaps two hundred thousand (maybe more) Gazans -- old people, men, women, children, patients on crutches and in wheelchairs -- managing to break free of the Israeli concentration camp.

You saw whole families, young men, matrons, grandfathers helping grandmothers gingerly step across -- throngs of some of the poorest and most miserable people on this earth -- all joyously scrambling over the fallen walls of their prison and rushing to freedom -------------

------------ and to do what ????

Why, to buy food for their families, supplies for their homes, precious goods to sell in an economy that is completely shattered by years of occupation, closure, siege. To simply walk to a town just a kilometer or two away -- rush there, as they didn't know how long before the opportunity would close -- to buy food and necessities and carry it home on their backs and on their heads -- from a town that for the last 7 years might have well been on the moon, for all they could do to reach it.

A mass of civilians dare to somehow escape, even temporarily, from the illegal siege that has imprisoned them for more than a year -- and dare to go SHOPPING for FOOD and NECESSITIES. And they do it in as peacefully and even in as orderly a fashion as you could possibly imagine -- considering they are a teeming crowd of people who have been herded into an open-air cage, subjected to the most draconian of collective punishments, and generally treated as subhumans for years by the Israelis, undeserving of the most basic of human rights and protections of international law.

The pics tell the real story -- Israel has held an entire population captive in order to torture it. Gaza has 1.5 million people crammed into a tiny enclosed scrap of land -- it's the most crowded place on earth, the world's largest open-air prison. And everyone unlucky enough to be there -- man, woman and child -- has been prevented by Israel from leaving, yet has no place to take refuge.

So one day the prisoners -- innocent civilians -- got out of their cage.

And it seems some other people are just furious about this.

These cheerleaders-for-all-things-Israel will stop at nothing, grasping at even the most ridiculous of fabrications, in their ever-more-desperate attempts to shield Israel from growing international outrage at its own increasingly hideous policies.

These nut jobs even go so far as to argue that 1.5 million people would willingly collaborate with their own leaders to allow themselves and their families to be subjected to continuing misery and great physical danger -- voluntarily live in the dark and the cold of winter, voluntarily do without enough power for hospitals and refrigeration and everything else, voluntarily bring their community to the brink of collapse -- and it's all part of some inherent compulsion and conspiracy to "make Israel look bad"..... no matter what the staggering cost to themselves. Uh huh.

How can a "normal" brain reason like this ? I think Zionists must be criminally insane.

Edited January 24, 2008 by wife_of_mahmoud

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Why do you suppose Haaretz hasn't reported on this? Or do you consider it an Israeli liberal rag?

Haaretz has some excellent coverage

[Ban Hammer 13,443]

You saw the pics in the other thread:

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=106538

Perhaps two hundred thousand (maybe more) Gazans -- old people, men, women, children, patients on crutches and in wheelchairs -- managing to break free of the Israeli concentration camp.

You saw whole families, young men, matrons, grandfathers helping grandmothers gingerly step across -- throngs of some of the poorest and most miserable people on this earth -- all joyously scrambling over the fallen walls of their prison and rushing to freedom -------------

------------ and to do what ????

Why, to buy food for their families, supplies for their homes, precious goods to sell in an economy that is completely shattered by years of occupation, closure, siege. To simply walk to a town just a kilometer or two away -- rush there, as they didn't know how long before the opportunity would close -- to buy food and necessities and carry it home on their backs and on their heads -- from a town that for the last 7 years might have well been on the moon, for all they could do to reach it.

A mass of civilians dare to somehow escape, even temporarily, from the illegal siege that has imprisoned them for more than a year -- and dare to go SHOPPING for FOOD and NECESSITIES. And they do it in as peacefully and even in as orderly a fashion as you could possibly imagine -- considering they are a teeming crowd of people who have been herded into an open-air cage, subjected to the most draconian of collective punishments, and generally treated as subhumans for years by the Israelis, undeserving of the most basic of human rights and protections of international law.

The pics tell the real story -- Israel has held an entire population captive in order to torture it. Gaza has 1.5 million people crammed into a tiny enclosed scrap of land -- it's the most crowded place on earth, the world's largest open-air prison. And everyone unlucky enough to be there -- man, woman and child -- has been prevented by Israel from leaving, yet has no place to take refuge.

So one day the prisoners -- innocent civilians -- got out of their cage.

And it seems some other people are just furious about this.

These cheerleaders-for-all-things-Israel will stop at nothing, grasping at even the most ridiculous of fabrications, in their ever-more-desperate attempts to shield Israel from growing international outrage at its own increasingly hideous policies.

These nut jobs even go so far as to argue that 1.5 million people would willingly collaborate with their own leaders to allow themselves and their families to be subjected to continuing misery and great physical danger -- voluntarily live in the dark and the cold of winter, voluntarily do without enough power for hospitals and refrigeration and everything else, voluntarily bring their community to the brink of collapse -- and it's all part of some inherent compulsion and conspiracy to "make Israel look bad"..... no matter what the staggering cost to themselves. Uh huh.

How can a "normal" brain reason like this ? I think Zionists must be criminally insane.

[sandinista! 1,816]

british cartoon, 1946. in retrospect, it was pretty naive.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

british cartoon, 1946. in retrospect, it was pretty naive.

Ohhh the irony -- Bush stayed at that very hotel on his recent visit -- he was even welcomed by the daughter of the very same terrorist who led the gang responsible for blowing it up.

[♥JP♥ 5]

You saw the pics in the other thread:

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=106538

Perhaps two hundred thousand (maybe more) Gazans -- old people, men, women, children, patients on crutches and in wheelchairs -- managing to break free of the Israeli concentration camp.

You saw whole families, young men, matrons, grandfathers helping grandmothers gingerly step across -- throngs of some of the poorest and most miserable people on this earth -- all joyously scrambling over the fallen walls of their prison and rushing to freedom -------------

------------ and to do what ????

Why, to buy food for their families, supplies for their homes, precious goods to sell in an economy that is completely shattered by years of occupation, closure, siege. To simply walk to a town just a kilometer or two away -- rush there, as they didn't know how long before the opportunity would close -- to buy food and necessities and carry it home on their backs and on their heads -- from a town that for the last 7 years might have well been on the moon, for all they could do to reach it.

A mass of civilians dare to somehow escape, even temporarily, from the illegal siege that has imprisoned them for more than a year -- and dare to go SHOPPING for FOOD and NECESSITIES. And they do it in as peacefully and even in as orderly a fashion as you could possibly imagine -- considering they are a teeming crowd of people who have been herded into an open-air cage, subjected to the most draconian of collective punishments, and generally treated as subhumans for years by the Israelis, undeserving of the most basic of human rights and protections of international law.

The pics tell the real story -- Israel has held an entire population captive in order to torture it. Gaza has 1.5 million people crammed into a tiny enclosed scrap of land -- it's the most crowded place on earth, the world's largest open-air prison. And everyone unlucky enough to be there -- man, woman and child -- has been prevented by Israel from leaving, yet has no place to take refuge.

So one day the prisoners -- innocent civilians -- got out of their cage.

And it seems some other people are just furious about this.

These cheerleaders-for-all-things-Israel will stop at nothing, grasping at even the most ridiculous of fabrications, in their ever-more-desperate attempts to shield Israel from growing international outrage at its own increasingly hideous policies.

These nut jobs even go so far as to argue that 1.5 million people would willingly collaborate with their own leaders to allow themselves and their families to be subjected to continuing misery and great physical danger -- voluntarily live in the dark and the cold of winter, voluntarily do without enough power for hospitals and refrigeration and everything else, voluntarily bring their community to the brink of collapse -- and it's all part of some inherent compulsion and conspiracy to "make Israel look bad"..... no matter what the staggering cost to themselves. Uh huh.

How can a "normal" brain reason like this ? I think Zionists must be criminally insane.

Excellent Post

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Hamas = terrorist organization launching rockets at civilians

Israel = sovereign nation defending themselves

Who here has the nerve to defend Hamas?..... that's what I thought.

[sandinista! 1,816]

beg pardon? what part of bombing the king david hotel, sending mail bombs to british politicians, bombing the british embassy in rome, murdering folke bernadotte, killing 2 british policemen in a train bomb, killing a british bomb expert who tried to defuse bombs placed in a jerusalem post office, and murdering hundreds of arab civilians ISN'T terrorism? irgun proclaimed that "political violence and terrorism were legitimate tools in the Jewish national struggle for the Land of Israel". they always admitted to it, even though it was always unapologetic. why are you in so much denial about it?