“One Occupied Gazan Summer” is a three-part personal narrative by Mariam I. who explores her thoughts and retraces her steps during her most recent visit to the Gaza Strip. Read part two here and part three here.
Part one of three. As summer ends and fall begins, I find myself reflecting on the three months of summer I spent in Gaza this year. Though the sweet moments I miss most are the ones I spent laughing with my cousins deep into the night and getting lost with friends in neighborhoods we’d never before seen, the hardest moments to forget are the subtly brutal ways siege and occupation impacted our daily lives.
I remember two weeks in June of muted activity and total fear of non-emergency movement in the Gaza Strip. I had made my first set of plans with the girls from work; I was excited to finally have some kind of non-family-centered social life and to bond with a couple of girls my age. We were going to have lunch at a hotel in the Sudaniyyeh area of northern Gaza City.
I’d heard a lot about this place; it was fancy, extravagant, had a beautiful swimming pool, was impossible to afford for the overwhelming majority of Gazans, and hadn’t made any profit since it was built. I was a little too excited when I got dressed that morning. I remember hesitating before I decided to wear sandals to work. They are horribly too informal for a law student intern trying to make a good impression. But hey, I was going out with the girls. My boss would have to learn to deal with my sandaled feet.
I hopped out of my cheap, decrepit taxi and half-skipped to work. The girl who spearheaded the plans was the receptionist, Nour. As soon as I walked in, overly chipper and with a bounce in my step, I asked Nour if she was excited for our lunch date. She frowned and looked at me sympathetically as she explained that the Sudaniyyeh area, where the hotel was located, was totally off limits for our lunch plans. This area was known to be targeted during surges of Israeli attack, like the one we were experiencing. [Read more...]
Nice try: Terrible reasoning for why Israel should cut Gaza’s power supply
Consider this a Nakba special. Here, an individual (to be initialed AE) presents his reasoning for why Israel should cut power supplies to the Gaza Strip this coming summer to make up for any of Israel’s power deficiencies. His text will be in bold. My responses will be in italics.
Israel isn’t directly at fault for the lack of power in Gaza. True, Israel did bomb the power plant in 2006 but its been 6 years and, while Israel (and Egypt) attempted to stop building materials from getting into Gaza they were obviously unsuccessful (there was plenty of smuggling as evidenced by the huge amount of rockets fired from Gaza (just from the beginning of 2007 until mid-June of 2008 there were 4,117 rockets fired from Gaza)
Right off the bat, a contradiction. This is going to be good. First, AE contends that Israel is not to be held responsible. But then he immediately cites the 2006 bombings that destroyed much of the main power system in the Gaza Strip. And let us not forget the carnage of 2008-2009 that intentionally damaged Gaza’s power grid. Thinking he can get away with seeming so intellectual, AE also throws in some stats: 4,117 rockets fired from Gaza from 2007 to 2008. What he forgets to mention is Israel fired 14,617 heavy artillery shells into Gaza in just 18 months, from September 2005 to May 2007, according to Human Rights Watch.
Presumably, the Gazans could have used the building material for a power plant but, once again, they prioritized murdering Israeli civilians over caring for their own citizens.
I take it AE doesn’t consider it murder when a uniformed military force lays siege to a surrounding strip of territory for twenty-two straight days.
Israel should not be obligated to give free electricity to those who chose to use the building materials that could have been used to create that electricity in order to attempt to kill as many of the civilians who are providing the electricity as they can.
First, Israel does not “give free electricity”. It sells it. By this point, one would assume this is common knowledge. And second, maybe this is just a grammatical concern of mine but AE should learn how to construct complex sentences with more than one object. In this case, civilians are not the ones providing electricity. [Read more...]