[R-G] Inquiry about gaza

[Gregory Meyerson]

when israel "effectively broke the truce" on nov. 4, was this thru  
the blockade or bombing and blockade?


I don't recall and would like the info.


g
On Jan 3, 2009, at 2:30 PM, Sid Shniad wrote:

>
>    http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0102/p09s01-coop.html
>    Christian Science Monitor January 2, 2009
>    Israel's 'victories' in Gaza come at a steep price
>    The Jewish ethical tradition means embracing Palestinians, too.
>    By Sara Roy
>    Cambridge, Mass. - I hear the voices of my friends in Gaza as  
> clearly
>    as if we were still on the phone; their agony echoes inside me.  
> They
>    weep and moan over the death of their children, some, little girls
>    like mine, taken, their bodies burned and destroyed so senselessly.
>    One Palestinian friend asked me, "Why did Israel attack when the
>    children were leaving school and the women were in the markets?"  
> There
>    are reports that some parents cannot find their dead children  
> and are
>    desperately roaming overflowing hospitals.
>    As Jews celebrated the last night of Hanukkah, the Jewish  
> festival of
>    lights commemorating our resurgence as a people, I asked myself:  
> How
>    am I to celebrate my Jewishness while Palestinians are being  
> killed?
>    The religious scholar Marc Ellis challenges us further by asking
>    whether the Jewish covenant with God is present or absent in the  
> face
>    of Jewish oppression of Palestinians? Is the Jewish ethical  
> tradition
>    still available to us? Is the promise of holiness â so central  
> to our
>    existence â now beyond our ability to reclaim?
>    The lucky ones in Gaza are locked in their homes living lives that
>    have long been suspended â hungry, thirsty, and without light but
>    their children are alive.
>    Since Nov. 4, when Israel effectively broke the truce with Hamas by
>    attacking Gaza on a scale then unprecedented â a fact now buried  
> with
>    Gaza's dead â the violence has escalated as Hamas responded by  
> sending
>    hundreds of rockets into Israel to kill Israeli civilians. It is
>    reported that Israel's strategy is to hit Hamas military  
> targets, but
>    explain that difference to my Palestinian friends who must bury  
> their
>    children.
>    On Nov. 5, Israel sealed all crossing points into Gaza, vastly
>    reducing and at times denying food supplies, medicines, fuel,  
> cooking
>    gas, and parts for water and sanitation systems. A colleague of  
> mine
>    in Jerusalem said, "this siege is in a league of its own. The  
> Israelis
>    have not done something like this before."
>    During November, an average of 4.6 trucks of food per day  
> entered Gaza
>    from Israel compared with an average of 123 trucks per day in  
> October.
>    Spare parts for the repair and maintenance of water-related  
> equipment
>    have been denied entry for over a year. The World Health  
> Organization
>    just reported that half of Gaza's ambulances are now out of order.
>    According to the Associated Press, the three-day death toll rose  
> to at
>    least 370 by Tuesday morning, with some 1,400 wounded. The UN  
> said at
>    least 62 of the dead were civilians. A Palestinian health official
>    said that at least 22 children under age 16 were killed and more  
> than
>    235 children have been wounded.
>    In nearly 25 years of involvement with Gaza and Palestinians, I  
> have
>    not had to confront the horrific image of burned children â until
>    today.
>    Yet for Palestinians it is more than an image, it is a reality, and
>    because of that I fear something profound has changed that will not
>    easily be undone. For how, in the context of Gaza today, does one
>    speak of reconciliation as a path to liberation, of sympathy as a
>    source of understanding? Where does one find or even begin to  
> create a
>    common field of human undertaking (to borrow from the late,  
> acclaimed
>    Palestinian scholar, Edward Said) so essential to coexistence?
>    It is one thing to take an individual's land, his home, his
>    livelihood, to denigrate his claims, or ignore his emotions. It is
>    another to destroy his child. What happens to a society where  
> renewal
>    is denied and all possibility has ended?
>    And what will happen to Jews as a people whether we live in  
> Israel or
>    not? Why have we been unable to accept the fundamental humanity of
>    Palestinians and include them within our moral boundaries?  
> Rather, we
>    reject any human connection with the people we are oppressing.
>    Ultimately, our goal is to tribalize pain, narrowing the scope of
>    human suffering to ourselves alone.
>    Our rejection of "the other" will undo us. We must incorporate
>    Palestinians and other Arab peoples into the Jewish  
> understanding of
>    history, because they are a part of that history. We must  
> question our
>    own narrative and the one we have given others, rather than  
> continue
>    to cherish beliefs and sentiments that betray the Jewish ethical
>    tradition.
>    Jewish intellectuals oppose racism, repression, and injustice  
> almost
>    everywhere in the world and yet it is still unacceptable â  
> indeed, for
>    some, it's an act of heresy â to oppose it when Israel is the
>    oppressor. This double standard must end.
>    Israel's victories are pyrrhic and reveal the limits of Israeli  
> power
>    and our own limitations as a people: our inability to live a life
>    without barriers. Are these the boundaries of our rebirth after the
>    Holocaust?
>    As Jews in a post-Holocaust world empowered by a Jewish state,  
> how do
>    we as a people emerge from atrocity and abjection, empowered and  
> also
>    humane? How do we move beyond fear to envision something different,
>    even if uncertain?
>    The answers will determine who we are and what, in the end, we  
> become.
>    Sara Roy is a senior research scholar at the Center for Middle  
> Eastern
>    Studies, Harvard University, and the author, most recently, of
>    "Failing Peace: Gaza and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict."
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