Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: COGAT Israel

Showing posts with label COGAT Israel. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 23, 2023

Blaming Israel alone for Gaza mental health problems is just another kind of Jew-hatred. Here's why.

The Israeli Gisha NGO concentrates on freedom of movement of people and goods between Israel and the territories, and it issues reports and statistics to that end.

It just released a graphics-heavy online report about the impact of Israel's closure of Gaza on the mental health of Gazans:

In Their Words: Mental Health Professionals in Gaza on Treating the Effects of Closure

“There’s a clear link between the Israeli closure and the grave state of mental health in Gaza. The closure is like a drop of ink in a pool of water, spreading everywhere, touching everything.”
Nedaa Murtaja, psychologist, Gaza

For decades, Israel has enforced restrictions on movement to and from the Gaza Strip, which it tightened to the point of closure in 2007.

....
In late 2021, Gisha and the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (GCMHP) convened a group of mental health professionals and representatives of organizations working in the field in the Strip. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the effects of Israel’s closure on mental health, as well as the challenges therapists and care specialists face as residents living under closure in Gaza themselves.

What follows is a summary of the observations made by participants in the discussion.

The number of Palestinians in need of psychological care or assistance in Gaza has climbed dramatically in recent years. According to various studies, between 15% and 30% of individuals living in Gaza develop post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD).

“This means there are at least 300,000 people in Gaza living with PTSD, and likely many more,” says Qusai Abuodah, director of resource development and public relations at GCMHP.

A central outcome of the closure enforced by Israel has been a high prevalence of poverty and unemployment in the Strip. Economic hardship elevates stress levels among the general population.

Khitam Abu Shwareb, a social worker at GCMHP, emphasizes the inextricable link between people’s economic reality and their mental health. “Restrictions imposed by Israel on entry of goods and raw materials into Gaza not only disrupt entire economic sectors, they also lead to price hikes inside the Strip, with direct impact on our mental stability.”

“Long-term mental stress leads to severe anxiety disorders and further undermines quality of life, which, in Gaza, is already far from meeting accepted international standards,” Osama Frina, a psychologist at GCMHP, explains. “Anxiety sometimes transforms into physical pain and suffering. The physical suffering, added to frustration and despair, often leads people to experience deep depression, which, unfortunately, also manifests in an increasing suicide rate.”

“The depression experienced by residents of Gaza is not depression in its classic, conventional sense,” says Hassan Zeyada, a psychologist at GCMHP.

“Palestinian depression is different. Gaza’s entire society is in a constant state of high level of chronic stress and ongoing trauma. The Israeli closure and travel restrictions on Gaza affect everyone, without exception. The prevailing feeling among Gaza’s population is one of helplessness and hopelessness. This situation did not appear out of thin air: It is the result of a deliberate process designed to induce a state of helplessness to weaken the resilience of both individuals and society in Gaza.”

Where is the bias in this report?

Everywhere.

The "research" was not meant to determine why Gazan mental health is poor. It determined at the outset, before a word was written, that it is all Israel's fault. Then the mental health professionals in Gaza were asked to confirm and support that lie.

Israel doesn't limit goods and travel in Gaza to "induce a state of helplessness to weaken the resilience of both individuals and society in Gaza." It does it to save the lives of Israeli citizens. In any other context, this is called human rights. Israel allows exports; it allows unlimited medicine and food and fuel; it allows thousands of workers to enter Israel every day and is trying to increase that amount.

I'm not saying that bombings and the restrictions on goods and travel do not affect Gazans - of course they do. But the story doesn't come close to ending there.

The Gisha report does not mention Egypt's own strict restrictions on Gazans being able to cross their border, or Egypt's own severe limitations on imports and exports - all of which have nothing to do with Israel.

But that is only a small part of the bias. This report, and hundreds like it, actually hurt Gazans far more than it helps them. And it does it for reasons that can only be described as antisemitic.

By blaming all of Gaza's woes on Israel alone, it gives a free pass to the many other factors that can and do cause severe mental health problems in Gaza - problems that have little or nothing to do with Israel.

By far, the biggest mental health risk in Gaza (and the West Bank) is from men who abuse their wives and children:

In the West Bank and Gaza Strip, one in three women who have ever been married are subjected to physical violence by their husbands and one in seven of never married women by a household member.

UNICEF adds:

Domestic violence levels are also high in 2014 MICSs (PCBS) study, confirming that 93 per cent of children aged 2 to 14 years experienced violent disciplining at home, and 23 per cent of children experienced severe physical punishment. Pervasive and harmful social norms including child marriage, child labour, sexual violence and gender-based violence are issues of great concern.

The Israel-hating crowd loves to claim that the Gaza closure is the reason for these statistics, but the numbers are similar in the West Bank, where there is no closure.

Meaning that domestic violence is widespread among Palestinians and it has nothing to do with Israel. The only people responsible for beating their wives and children are the husbands. Women in Gaza fear for their lives - not from Israeli missiles but from their husbands. The victims have to live with this abuse, with fear and mistrust of the people who should unconditionally love them, every day of their lives.

It is interesting to note that there are lots of articles and academic papers about how the "patriarchy" damages the mental health of women and children in the West - and even about how it damages men's mental health as well.. Yet there are practically no scholarly reports about the psychological effects and dangers of living in the highly patriarchal Palestinian society.

Palestinian laws explicitly discriminate against women. Abortion is illegal except in extreme cases. A high percentage of women are pressured into marrying while still children. Polygamy is allowed. Access to contraception is limited by the husbands in Gaza, and Palestinian women are taught that the should never abort because having children is a form of "resistance."

Palestinian children are also scarred by Gaza social mores. They are indoctrinated at birth into a culture of violence and celebrating death. They are taught to cheer when Israeli civilians are killed - but also to celebrate the "ascension to Paradise" of terrorists killed by Israel. Tens of thousands attend summer camps where they are taught nothing but hate and militancy.

Children in Gaza in particular are taught in their classrooms to seek martyrdom - including in UNRWA schools. The adults in their lives are teaching them that their greatest value to the nation is is to be killed.

Do you think that being told that they are nothing more than cannon fodder might affect the mental health of children?

There are other factors that affect the Palestinian psyche. The registered UNRWA "refugees" have been taught for generations that they deserve to have have free housing and schooling paid for by the world, and even the Palestinian government relies on the EU and Arab world to do the work that they should have been doing in funding and building their own institutions. It is a welfare state and they have convinced themselves - and much of the world - that this is normal, that Palestinians do not have to compromise for peace, that they are eternal victims and should sit back and wait for the world to give them everything they demand.

Put it all together and you have a recipe for a society that is deeply dysfunctional.

But NGOs like Gisha don't want you to know this. They are part of the problem. They want to hide the real problems in Gaza and blame only Israel. This helps their bottom line - funders want them to blame Israel for everything - but these kinds of superficial, one-sided analyses end up hurting the Palestinians they pretend to care about because it solidifies the idea that they are not responsible for any of their own problems. .

In the end, blaming all of the mental health issues of Gazans on Israel alone is not serious analysis. It is whitewashing the real issue because of an overriding desire to blame Jews, and Jews alone, for any and every problem. It is a much more sophisticated form of antisemitism than the Protocols of the Elders of Zion or Mein Kampf or the medieval lie that Jews poison wells - but in the end, just like the classic cases, it is still using Jews as the scapegoat for every problem.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

The hot girls of Gaza

I've been to my share of trade shows, and it is not surprising that exhibitors will try to find attractive women to front their booths and try to being in more men.

Guess what? It happens in Gaza, too.

Even with the women covered up, there was no shortage of makeup as the best looking ones were on display at the Gaza National Products exhibition, held on Tuesday in order to promote Palestinian products.

Here are some of the scenes from the show.

Now, do you think that the hijab stops these women from being harassed in Gaza as much as Western women in less modest clothing are? We know that in neighboring Egypt, the hijab has zero effect on reducing harassment - in 2013, the UN reported that 99.3% of women surveyed in Cairo have experienced sexual harassment and rape is a serious problem.

It is probably not nearly as bad in Gaza as in Egypt, because the culture is far more conservative, but that's the point: women are not responsible for being harassed and attacked, it is the men who attack them, no matter what the women choose to wear.

In Gaza, if there is no problem with women dressing up nicely and wearing makeup to put a nice face on a business, then there should be no problem if they want to take off the hijab, too. The harassers are the criminals, not the victims of harassment.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

PA continues its siege of Gaza - more crucial medicines are running out. But human rights NGOs don't care.

We are now more than two months into the "reconciliation" between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, much of which only occurred because the PA imposed a crippling siege on Gaza of electricity, fuel and medicines that was ignored by the world.

And yet the siege continues.

Israel does not limit medicines or medical equipment into Gaza (with the exception of a tiny number of devices that need to be approved individually because they contain radioactive material or the like.)

But the Palestinian Authority does limit them. And the world, obsessed with Israel's blockade, ignores the things that Mahmoud Abbas does to his own people, not unlike Syria's Assad.

Gaza health officials are alarmed as the shortage of medicines and other medical needs have reached a critical point.

There is now a shortage of materials needed for blood tests, such as tests for hepatitis C and B tests and HIV tests. There is also a shortage of PKU tests for newborns, and for thyroid diseases.

Also, anti-rejection drugs for people who have received organ transplants.

Out of 657 laboratory items needed, 383 of them are down to zero and 274 will run out within three months.

Israel's restriction of materials to Gaza did not kill anyone (I did not see any such claims in Arab media) but these shortages, mandated by Mahmoud Abbas on his own people for some seven months already, are resulting in deaths.

So, where are the "human rights" NGOs complaining about the humanitarian crisis? Where is the media?

They are discussing how a 18 year old "child" was arrested for assaulting a soldier on video.

Gaza? Who cares? Certainly not the media and the NGOs when Israel cannot be blamed.

(Also in Gaza, the companies that clean hospitals are on strike, due to not getting paid. Surgeries are being cancelled. I don't know who is responsible for their salaries, but once again Gaza woes only make news when they can be blamed on Jews. Certainly the "pro-Palestinian" crowd doesn't care about their precious pets.)

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Report: Palestinian Authority stops delivering medicines to Gaza. NGOs, media silent.

Palestine Today quotes Dr. Munir Bursh, the pharmacy director at the Ministry of Health in Gaza, saying that the Palestinian Authority has stopped supplying medicines and baby formula to Gaza altogether.

"90% of the treatment of cancer patients in the Gaza Strip has stopped due to the lack of the supply of drugs," he said.

Bursh added, "This is reprehensible and very strange, threatening a major health disaster up to the collapse of the health situation in Gaza, because the Ramallah government has been responsible for supplying medicine to Gaza, despite the deficit in the previous years."

"Whoever made this decision is killing the entire people, and punishing the entire people."

He said that the PA supplies the Gaza Strip with medicines every two months, but it did not send any medicines for three months now.

Hospitals in Gaza are also worried about the closure of the Gaza power plant due to the spat between Hamas and Fatah, saying that they cannot desalinate the water needed for every day purposes.

The PA denies the story of stopping medicines to Gaza, although it has publicly threatened to stop pretty much everything they pay for that goes to Gaza in recent weeks in an attempt to get angry Gazans to rise up against Hamas.

Of course, the Western media is all over this story, because the lives and well-being of Gazans are so important to them and the people being blamed for their predicament is not at all a factor in how the story of Gaza suffering gets reported to the world.

Oh, sorry, I was delirious for a minute there. The stories of both how Israel has refused to stop electricity to Gaza despite the PA's refusal to pay, and this story, have been completely ignored by Western media, NGOs and so-called "pro-Palestinian" activists, because if Israel cannot be blamed, the suffering of Gazans is simply not newsworthy.

Which proves yet again that the reporting and NGO reports from Gaza are not motivated by human rights or morality, but a desire by NGOs and reporters to bash Israel.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Flood libel, part 2

Yesterday, I pointed out a false Ma'an story claiming that Israel deliberately opened up "dams" to flood Gaza with excess rainwater. As I pointed out, there are no dams near Gaza; there are some reservoirs but no evidence that they released any water.

This is one of those obvious lies that start getting believed by being repeated year after year, and even AFP ended up reporting that Israel opened up dams without doing a modicum of fact checking. ("Journalist" Max Blumenthal repeated the lie as well, as did Radio France International.)

Today, the claims were proven to be lies, as CAMERA reports:

Regarding the claim that Israel opened dams, thereby flooding Gaza, a spokesman for the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) told CAMERA:

The claim is entirely false, and southern Israel does not have any dams. Due to the recent rain, streams were flooded throughout the region with no connection to actions taken by the State of Israel.

Prior to the storm, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories allowed the transfer of four water pumps belonging to the Palestinian Water Authority from Israel into Gaza to supplement the 13 pumps already in the Gaza Strip in dealing with any potential flooding throughout the area.
In addition, Nechemia Shahaf, the head of the Drainage Authority for the Shakma-Besor Region, confirmed to CAMERA that there are no dams which can be opened and closed in southern Israel. Shahaf said, "There is a diverting dam one meter high which directs water to reservoirs. This is a low dam which cannot be opened or closed." He also noted that the singular dam, which cannot be opened, is next to Kibbutz Gvulot, and approximately 20 kilometers away from Gaza.

But that was only one of the false stories claiming that Israel floods Palestinians.

IMEMC and Palestine News Network claimed that somehow Israel managed to flood a "refugee" camp by opening "barrages":

Aida refugee camp north Bethlehem city has drowned after Gilo Israeli settlement opened its barrages, throwing all excess rain and melted snow water onto the camp.

Aida camp is adjacent to the Israeli apartheid wall, which is backed by the Gilo settlement northwest, that opened the barrages to flood the homes of refugees.

The head of water pumps in the camp, Sami Hmedan, said that Israeli occupation authorities opens the barrage water with disregard to the Palestinians and without any official concerns.

Gilo as seen from Aida. Where are the "barrages"?

The only "barrage" between Gilo and Aida is the security barrier. If anything, that protected Aida from excessive flooding.

Or are they saying that those devious Israelis removed the "apartheid wall" to flood Arabs and then quickly put it back?

Who knows what crazy slander they will come up with next. But we do know that a percentage of those lies will end up in AFP and other mainstream media, because if there is something that Palestinian Arabs have learned over the years, it is that repeating their lies gets results.

(h/t Gidon Shaviv, Judge Dan, Bob Knot, Nurit Baytch, Rudi Roth)

Hamas health ministry refusing to buy polio, other vaccines; UNRWA downplays the story

UNRWA released a statement to several Arabic newspapers warning of serious health crisis on the horizon in Gaza.

There is a severe shortage of vaccines in Gaza, and those for polio, the mumps, rubella and meningitis have been completely depleted, while those for tetanus and whooping cough are dangerously low.

UNRWA warned that polio is starting to spread again in the Middle East because of the Syrian war.

As of this writing, this statement is not found at UNRWA's website. Their Twitter account only links to an Al Jazeera Arabic version of the story - a story that implies that Israel is responsible for the shortage, as it reports this story together with the launch of a "Popular Committee Against the Siege on Gaza." Even that is only mentioned in Arabic.

Why is UNRWA so reluctant to publicize this story of an impending heath catastrophe in English?

Perhaps their statement to Ma'an sheds some light.

In that statement, the UNRWA spokesperson Abu Hasna says that the responsibility of purchasing vaccines rests with the Gaza Ministry of Health and that UNRWA has warned them about this looming crisis for months.

Israel does not, and never has, restricted vaccines into Gaza. The Al Jazeera story, and the reporting of other Arabic media outlets, imply that this is part of the "siege" - but they are lying.

The looming health crisis is purely the result of Hamas either not caring about the health of people under its control, or a cynical purposeful creation of an epidemic by Hamas to make Israel look bad. That is not so far fetched, as Hamas has done exactly that by refusing imports of fuel to Gaza even when Israel was willing to provide it.

UNRWA, always eager to blame Israel for all problems, does not want to publicly say anything bad about Hamas. So instead of publicly shaming Hamas for refusing to allow life-saving vaccines to enter Gaza, UNRWA only discreetly planted stories about the issue in Arabic media and downplayed the reasons for the crisis, hoping that Hamas will take the hint without UNRWA having to go public to the West.

How much can UNRWA really care about the "refugees" when they are so reluctant to publicize how badly they are being treated by their Arab leaders?

Meanwhile, Israel has approved some 26 construction projects into Gaza, including 12 for UNRWA.

That isn't on their website either, because this is another story that doesn't fit UNRWA's anti-Israel agenda - and agenda that clearly trumps its mission.

(Similarly, I have not yet found this story on any of the usual "pro-Palestinian" websites.)

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

More hypocrisy and lies from the BDS crowd. Pretty funny, actually.

Another day, another new initiative to boycott Israel:

Activists are gearing up for a day of action on 9 February that will target Israeli agricultural export companies such as Mehadrin and Hadakalim over their role in Israeli settlements and the dispossession of Palestinian farmers.

In a statement titled “Farming Injustice” released earlier this month, all major Palestinian agricultural organizations called for “the launching of worldwide campaigns on 9 February against Israeli agricultural export corporations in light of their deep complicity in Israel’s ongoing violations of international law and Palestinian human rights.”

Once again, a bunch of tiny self-proclaimed leaders who pretend to speak for all Palestinian Arab farmers are saying that they want to kill the farms, since the bulk of exports from the Palestinian Arab territories use Israeli exporters.

The reality is, of course, quite different, as real Palestinian Arab farmers work closely with Israel in order to maximize their efficiencies and profits:

On Tuesday (29.1), the Civil Administration coordinated and funded the departure of about 150 Palestinians agriculture workers from Judea and Samaria to the exhibition "Cleantech" - the 17th annual international event for water technologies, energy efficiency , renewable energy, green building , recycling and green transportation, that take place at the Israel Trade Fairs and Conventions Center, Tel-Aviv.. Through the exhibition, the Agriculturists explored the developments in green agricultural.

This conference joins a seminar on the use of reclaimed water for agriculture, conducted by the Civil Administration agriculture office two weeks ago (January 15 to 17). During the seminar, 22 representatives from the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture were informed on the use of reclaimed water for agriculture, due to the growing shortage of fresh water for irrigation in the area and to increase the knowledge and awareness of this issue in the Palestinians agriculture farms in Judea and Samaria.

In addition, the Civil Administration agriculture officer, Mr Samir Muadi, held last week (24.1) a meeting with Israel's olive sector manager and with the advisor to the Palestinian Minister of Agriculture, following meeting held in October regarding the Palestinian olive sector. During those two meetings, it was decided on marketing Olive Oil from the Palestinian Authority to Israel, as the olive sector is a central and important sector of the Palestinian agriculture.

In addition, the Gaza DCO coordinated the departure of about 60 agriculture workers from the Gaza Strip to the annual agricultural exhibition of the Arava research and development (R & D) unit held at Yair Station on Wednesday and Thursday (January 30 to 31). The exhibition was attended by representatives of the agricultural crop sectors in Israel and overseas delegations. During the exhibition, displaying crops and technological developments in the field of agriculture, the Gaza DCO agricultural coordinator visit the greenhouses at Ein Yahav that grow tomatoes, peppers, etc.

I don't know who these farmers are if they are cooperating with Israel and defying the "agricultural organizations" whose entire purpose is anti-Israel and whose websites often have nothing to say about farming.

One part of the screed was interesting:

Earlier Corporate Watch research had shown that Palestinians forced to work in packing houses controlled by Mehadrin are paid as little as 56 shekels ($15) per day.

They are forced to work for Mehadrin? is it at gunpoint, or does their employer use whips and keep them in chains?

And what evidence is there that they are being paid $15 a day? Well, three years ago, an anti-Israel organization asked a few Arab workers who were willing to speak to them what they were paid. That's the "proof."

If it is true, then Mehadrin may be breaking the law according to this organization. I'm not aware of any lawsuits brought by "Corporate Watch" on their behalf, though. It must not have been very important.

There are a couple of funny parts about this complaint. One can presume that most Jordan Valley workers for Israeli companies are employed without permits. Companies argue that employment law should follow Jordanian law, not Israeli law, which is how they justify giving a lower salary to those without permits. Yet 2011 statistics show that the poor salaries that Palestinian Arab workers get for illegally working for Israeli companies is roughly the average salary of West Bank Palestinian Arabs who work for Arabs! So while it is possible that Mehadrin or others are not paying the rates they should, it is apparent that the Palestinian Arab workers are getting the market rates, and they are hardly being "forced" to work for the hated Jews.

They can always quit!

But even funnier is that anti-Israel organizations don't usually complain that the Jews are paying the Palestinian Arabs too little - but that they pay too much! The same 2011 article notes:

The increase in the percentage of those employed in settlements does not fit with the Palestinian Authority (PA) plan to completely prevent Palestinian labourers from working in settlements, and to render such work illegal as of 2012. Originally the PA intended to impose punishments of up to five years imprisonment and financial penalties of some US $14,000. The Palestinian Minister of Labour Ahmad Majdalani noted in December 2010 that his ministry is cooperating with the national economic office to establish a fund for loans to workers employed in settlements.

...An additional reason for the increase in the level of those employed in settlements is the large gap between the salary in the Palestinian sector and that in settlements. While the average daily salary in the West Bank stands at NIS 76.9 and in Gaza NIS 46.2, a Palestinian worker in a settlement earns an average of NIS 150 daily.

In short:

The BDSers want Palestinian Arab farmers to lose millions of dollars that they are making today by cooperating with Israeli exporters.
The BDSers want Palestinian Arabs to stop working for Israelis that pay them double the rates they would get from Arab employers.
The actual farmers in the territories are happy to work with Israel to make money.
The actual workers in the settlements are happy to get more money for their families by legally working for Israelis.

The disconnect between the BDSers and the people they pretend to care about can hardly be any starker.

The explanation, of course, is the same explanation that answers nearly every Middle East enigma involving Israel since 1948: the people who pretend to be "pro-Palestinian" are really just against the rights of Jews to have any political power or self-determination.

Once you understand that, the inconsistencies fall away.