The Humanitarian Situation in Gaza today

Had this forwarded to me today.  The references are mainly UNRWA, so it looks fairly reliable.

Interesting points to note when people say that Israel is withholding Medical Supplies, Water or Electricity.  Also regarding food and housing, it is also interesting.  A completely diametric view as shown by Anti-Israel supporters.

The Humanitarian Situation in Gaza

November 18, 2012

Crossings

1. Israel is making a major effort to maintain the fabric of civilian life in Gaza, despite the situation of current hostilities. The IDF opened today the Kerem Shalom crossing for movement of food, medicine and other goods from Israel despite the ongoing rocket attacks on the Israeli population and previous attacks on the crossing.

2. The Erez crossing was open today, as on every other day of Operation Pillar of Defense. Seventy foreign journalists entered Gaza today by way of Erez. Twenty Gazans entered Israel for medical treatment, and twenty-three foreign nationals, representing NGOs who until now had been prevented by Hamas from leaving the Gaza Strip, departed.

Food and Housing Security

1. Gaza is not experiencing food scarcity. Israel is not blocking entrance of goods into Gaza, except for weaponry and dual-use materials. Construction materials can be imported to Gaza under the supervision of international organizations.

2. Israel is continuing the yearly supply of five million cubic meters (1,320,860,250 gallons) of water to Gaza, despite the rocket attacks on Israeli cities and towns.

3. UNRWA (UN Relief and Works Agency) reports (17.11.12) that despite some displacement of families due to hostilities, "there hasn't been any need to provide emergency humanitarian assistance or to open UNRWA facilities as emergency shelters."

Medical Care

1. Between January – October 2012, approximately 14,500 patients and their accompanying chaperones entered Israel from Gaza for medical treatment.  99% of the medical requests by Palestinian residents of Gaza were approved by Israel.

2. The World Health Organization has reported a ten-day slowdown in referral process for Gaza patients due to disagreements between the Ramallah and Gaza Health Ministries.

3. Gaza hospitals are currently operating at 80% capacity (17.11), slightly higher than routine periods.

4. Israel is not blocking entrance of medical supplies into Gaza. Requests submitted by the international community are answered within 24-72 hours of submission, almost always positively, and Israel has opened the Kerem Shalom passage for transit of medical materials and other goods, despite the danger to personnel at the crossing.

5. At present, there is a shortage of some medical supplies in Gaza due to disagreements between Hamas and the PA, and budgetary difficulties of the Palestinian Authority.

6. UNRWA reports that all of its 21 health centers are open and functioning. Of UNRWA's 12,000 staff members in Gaza, only one person has sustained injuries in the hostilities, and those are minor.

Electricity

1. Israel is supplying 125 megawatts of electricity to the Gaza Strip from the power station in Ashkelon despite the rocket attacks on Israel's population, and on Ashkelon itself.

2. Gaza continues to suffer from power outages due to a deliberate policy of Hamas, which opposes import of fuel from Israel. As a result, the Gaza power station is operating at 20% capacity.

Operation Pillar of Defense

Operation Pillar of Defense has started.  Apparently the media is reporting this is because of the killing by Israel of the Terrorist leader Ahmed Jabari.  The fact that Hamas had escalated rocket activity in the last month had been completely ignored by all outside of Israel.

Can you imagine the gall of people who say "Israel broke the Truce".  What Truce, where you are able to rain missiles on innocent civilians?

The usual response in the media is that Palestinian rocket fire is harmless.  Supposedly small homemade firecrackers.  Well one of those rockets killed 3 people, including a baby.  And they are landing in Tel Aviv!  That is some serious distance.  These are Grad missiles smuggled from Iran.  Cynically fired from underground sites within densely populated areas.  Hamas will do whatever they can to provoke Israel and attempt to make more martyrs.  Nobody complains that they are putting their own people in the firing line.  To do so would risk death from their own leaders.

Iron Dome is intercepting about one in three.  I guess that is something.

Locally, cynical people are referencing the upcoming Israeli election.  Firstly, the operation is being undertaken by the IDF, not the government.  And it has bipartison support.  There is only so much terror activity that civilians will put up with.  Whilst protecting citizens would definitely be a popular topic, this can hardly be taken just to win political points scoring.  If anything, this is a risk to government if the military operation goes bad.  The Lebanon operation in 2006 was politically bad for the Olmert government

However, speaking of elections, any word on Palestinian elections?  People seem to forget about those.  If you want to be cyncial about anything, remember that only the other week, Mahmoud Abbas renounced his right to live in Sefad, to the anger of Hamas.  Next week, Palestine go to the UN to recognise Statehood.  How does it look if they are firing rockets wanton into Israel.

This operation is being documented in Social Media like never before.  Hamas and the IDF are tweeting each other.

And right on cue, if you search twitter for "Israel" or "Gaza" you will see a war going on.  My facebook account has been awash with Memes.  I'm not going to reproduce any here - in essence I don't feel they achieve anything but whip up more fervour.

Hamas are keen to promote the idea of Israel as "baby murderers", and that is the majority of what is posted under the Gaza hashtags are such.  Again, just to get the emotions going to try and promote and justify their own atrocities.  Given they are attempting to generate their own martyrs (in the name of God!) is disgusting and despicable.

Antisemitism and the Left - The common ground of hatred

This week, Maia from the Hand Mirror wrote a post about Antisemitism invading Left Wing activities.  (Also picked up by Kiwiblog here).

I'm very surprised it's taken so long for someone to notice.  Well actually - this has been written about for a long time, but it has kept continuing.  No doubt it will still continue.

I can't count the about of antisemitic material that is either tolerated, defended or, in some cases actively promoted within the left.  Admittedly it is usually the extreme left.

Conspiracy theories in the Occupy movement?  Yes, I knew about that.  The occupy movement was such a vast disparate group of souls, many who wanted to create invisible enemies to hate and blame.  Of course they were to forget the movement started in Israel (not Wall St!).

I've seen defense of Iranian Holocaust denial seminars, and there has been the acceptance of the most vile genocide calls (all in the name of 'Palestine').  This has been seen by elected Left Wingers like Keith Locke and Bryan Peppergill.

And now, there is surprise - Neo Nazis marching and demonstrating with the Occupy Movement!  If you read my posts this year, you will see that we have neo-nazis Greta Berlin in the BDS movement and the Skull marching on Nakba day.  This should not be a surprise.

We are told they are supposed to be completely different ideologies - and they are.  But there is on thing in common:  Hate.

The extreme left carry so much hate and anger toward anything which could be seen as conservative.  It is a baseless hatred.  They hate the person - or in many cases a phantom.

The extreme right neo nazis carry this same kind of baseless hatred.  (Hamas also promote baseless hatred). 

These groups follow the ideology that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Maybe this is the wake up call the left need.  I expect (sadly), that I will be documenting similar events for many years to come.

Dead Sea Skincare controversy in Palmerston North

I'm always interested in anything involving Israel or Judaism in Palamerston North.  Maybe because it's so backward, and seemingly isolated from cultures like that (in my opinion).  Last summer, when I was there (for 5 weeks!), I couldn't find any Israeli products at all.

It seems now that a Dead Sea skincare stall has opened in the Plaza, and been pushing products in the same way as shopping centers in rest of the world.

Now the dead sea sales people are pushy, but the reports that people are giving seem a bit over the top - being grabbed, and forced upon.  This seems more that what I experienced in Melbourne, Sydney or even LA.  It could also be that NZers are just not used to pushy sales people.  Typically New Zealanders talk with their feet, and do not like having to say no.

To their credit, the store did refund the products, albeit that the father had to get angry first, which is very disappointing.

There have been some complaints though - like this post on the Plaza's facebook wall, with over 500+ likes and 140+ comments:

Thankfully, there are none of the usual "BDS" comments, and very few racist type comments.

These complaints are nothing compared to what I experienced in Israel, either at a Tel Aviv Shopping Mall or at the Arab Souk (market) in the old city of Jerulsalem.  In the Shopping mall, I walked out a CD store, where I was getting (obviously fake) CDs pushed on me.  The salesman ran out, grabbed my arm and physically was pulling me back to the store.  I was pretty firm, but he only stopped when another shopkeeper saw and came up and broke me away (and started yelling at the 'puller').  This kind of thing is common (I hear), but it was nice that someone knew that it was giving them a bad name.

The souk was worse though - I was looking at some T-shirts, when a kid came up and said I should check out his shop.  I followed him for what I thought would be a little way, but a few turns and I was removed from my friends and a bit lost (it's a bit of a rabbit warren).  The shopkeeper (apparently the kids father) told me a sob story about how they hadn't eaten for 3 days and urged me to buy something.  When I asked the price of the simplest thing he told me hundreds of shekels for a belt.  I tried to leave and was effectively threatened (in a subtle way), and that he knew 'people'.  I was pretty scared, and to cut the story short, I ended up with a very expensive belt, but got out.  The man even rummaged through my bag for "presents for the boy" - there is some Arab kid in Jerusalem with a Mutton Birds tape nicked from my bag!

When I'm next in Palmerston North, I'm very keen to search out the Dead Se scrolls store.  I won't buy anything (for a start, you can get it much cheaper online - Try StrawberryNet for starters).  If the salespeople are Israeli, I might accost them back and try to get them to come to a Shabbat dinner!  In general, I don't push religion on anyone, but for them I might make an exception :-)

JWire Joins BDS Protest

A good article in JWire by Michelle Coleman, who joined a BDS Protest "Undercover".

Quite short and an amusing read.  It is quite funny to hear about a South African being lectured about "Apartheid Israel" by people who don't even know what Apartheid means!

In South Africa, Blacks and Whites had separate buses and seats.  In Israel you'll end up mixing with Muslims, Jews, Christians, Africans and Thai.

Counter Protest to Racism by Socialist Aotearoa

A counter-protest to Friday's cemetary desecration was held the following day.

The Article in Stuff was labelled "Activists against Intolerance"

It was run by Irishman, Joe Carolan of Socialist Aotearoa and attracted about 30 people.

From Socialist Aoteroa's own website:

Socialist Aotearoa makes a clear distinction between the political acts, policies and opinions of the secular state of Israel, which isdisputed, and the security of the persons  of  Jewish people, the sanctity of which may not be disputed or endangered.

Of course, if you scroll down on this same page, you will see these links (among others):

Two links which promote violence, and do not advocate a peaceful settlement.
So the sanctity and security of Jews is fine, provided they don't live in Israel, or presumably support Israel.


This is the same Joe Carolan, who has no problem protesting outside Jewish houses of worship:

This is an interview with Joe Carolan, after protests in 2010 (which attracted small people), A protest which included burning flags and chants "Hamas, Hezbollah".

According to Joe, this isn't racism.  Is burning a representation of Jewish people contradictory to "security of the persons  of  Jewish people, the sanctity of which may not be disputed or endangered"?

Joe was one of the organisers of the tiny protest against Shahar Peer competing at the Auckland Tennis Open against 

Here is a photo from one of Joe's protests, stating that Zionists are Nazis:

Joe Carolan and SA support the BDS movement.  No comment from Joe on the racists inside those ranks?

No comment from Joe on Hamas, who vow to kill the Jews?  No comment from Joe when BDS activists quote "The invention of the Jewish People"?  No comment on the Iranian Holocaust denial conferences.

The protest was conveniently held on a Saturday, where Jewish involvement would be small.  It would have been funny to see what would have happened if someone had turned up wearing an Israeli flag - would Joe have consoled them?  Or burnt the flag?

One of the Graffiti messages on a grave said "F*** Israel".  I was half expecting Joe to come out and say "We oppose all the swastikas, but we support this message".

With friends like Joe, who needs enemies! 

Jewish Graves desecrated in Auckland

Jewish graves in an Auckland cemetary have been desecrated.  They were daubed in Graffiti - mainly swatikas and "88" (a Far right symbol that represents "Heil Hitler").  One had "F*** Israel" written.

This is not the first time.  In 2003, after Helen Clark's jumped up "Spy Scandal" there were four separate attacks in 6 Months.

This is most likely the work of the far right morons known as "Right Wing Resistance" or some such that were having conferences this labour weekend.  They are so small in numbers and stupid that I seldom blog about them.  Still dangerous, apparently.  Unlikely to win too much respect with cowardly acts like this.