Aljazeera and Gaza (un an plus tard), Will US Congress Add it to “the Brown List”?..............
“One year has passed since the savage Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip, but for the people there time might as well have stood still. Since Palestinians in Gaza buried their loved ones - more than 1,400 people, almost 400 of them children - there has been little healing and virtually no reconstruction. According to international aid agencies, only 41 trucks of building supplies have been allowed into Gaza during the year. Promises of billions made at a donors' conference in Egypt last March attended by luminaries of the so-called "international community" and the Middle East peace process industry are unfulfilled, and the Israeli siege, supported by the US, the European Union, Arab states, and tacitly by the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah, continues. Amid the endless, horrifying statistics a few stand out: Of Gaza's 640 schools, 18 were completely destroyed and 280 damaged in Israeli attacks. Two-hundred-and-fifty students and 15 teachers were killed. Of 122 health facilities assessed by the World Health Organization, 48 per cent were damaged or destroyed. Ninety per cent of households in Gaza still experience power cuts for 4 to 8 hours per day due to Israeli attacks on the power grid and degradation caused by the blockade. Forty-six per cent of Gaza's once productive agricultural land is out of use due to Israeli damage to farms and Israeli-declared free fire zones. Gaza's exports of more than 130,000 tonnes per year of tomatoes, flowers, strawberries and other fruit have fallen to zero. That "much of Gaza still lies in ruins," a coalition of international aid agencies stated recently, "is not an accident; it is a matter of policy". This policy has been clear all along and it has nothing to do with Israeli "security". From June 19, 2008, to November 4, 2008, calm prevailed between Israel and Gaza, as Hamas adhered strictly - as even Israel has acknowledged - to a negotiated ceasefire. That ceasefire collapsed when Israel launched a surprise attack on Gaza killing six people, after which Hamas and other resistance factions retaliated……….”
Aljazeera notes that this report reflects its author’s views. I believe it also largely reflects the views of Aljazeera staff, as well as the overwhelming majority of peoples of Arab countries. This will probably not appear in MEMRI or even the mainstream US media- more likely it will appear in some European media. Some members of the US Congress, should they read this may decide to add Aljazeera to their “brown list” of media channels to be monitored and perhaps hounded into oblivion, but it does reflect the views of most Arabs, even those who live under the rule of the regime of Alarabiya and Asharq Alawsat.
Cheers and Happy New Year
mhg
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