Monday, June 17, 2024
Elder of ZiyonHe writes about Israeli restrictions on exports from Gaza:
Imagine you’re a citrus farmer. You have spent months making sure your orange trees get just the right amount of water and nutrients. You have harvested your oranges, packed them carefully into crates and sent them off to be shipped abroad. But instead of reaching international markets, your oranges are held up by authorities unaccountable to you for seemingly arbitrary “security inspections.” Days, sometimes weeks, pass as your crates sit in the blazing sun, their contents wasting away. By the time the oranges pass the checkpoints, they are rotten and unsellable.This was life for Palestinian citrus farmers for decades under Israel’s occupation. And their story proves one thing: Israel is and has always been the biggest obstacle to Gaza’s prosperity.
He goes on to claim that Israel is maliciously trying to destroy Gaza's agriculture, with arbitrary rules and restrictions on exports.
Here's what Kenney-Shawa doesn't mention.
Hamas routinely used to use citrus groves to hide its rocket launchers. That's why so many groves have been bulldozed.
Israel has been encouraging Gaza farmers to switch to more lucrative crops, like strawberries, spices and flowers. Israel's COGAT unit used to hold meetings with Gaza farmers on the latest agricultural methods and would even provide them with seeds.
That isn't exactly how a country hell bent on destroying an economy would act.
But the biggest crime of omission in the article is that it doesn't mention how much Gaza was exporting before October 7.
Israel has been coordinating with Gaza to increase the number of exports of crops and other goods for ten years.
The only reason for the drop in 2023 was the shutdown after October 7.
Which is the big story that the media refuses to cover. Israel believed that Hamas was acting pragmatically and working against groups who wanted to attack Israel, and as a result it worked hard to boost Gaza's economy to encourage more moderation and fewer attacks. The statistics disprove Kenny-Shawa's main point, that Israel acts capriciously to hurt Gaza farmers and trade. On the contrary, when the attacks from Gaza were reduced, the trade flourished, and was only getting better.
Israel had every reason to encourage Gaza's economy to grow, without knowing that Hamas was going to use all that economic boon to fund a genocidal attack on Jews.
The op-ed only mentoons Hamas once, offhandedly, as if Israel's treatment of Gaza is divorced from what Hamas has been doing. He doesn't even consider that the reason exports have gone to zero now is because Hamas started a war.
But the facts show otherwise, no matter how many tear-jerking articles about the plight of Gaza farmers are written. Israel has nothing against the innocent civilians of Gaza and would like to see them thrive - in a territory where they are not controlled by an antisemitic Islamist group that treats its own people like cannon fodder.
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