That being said I have been very moved by the news this weekend of the Israeli Naval Commando attack on the flotilla carrying aid supplies to the Gaza Strip. The attack and resulting loss of life and serious injury is obviously shocking in itself, but furthermore it has put the spotlight on the severity of the Gaza blockade that has been in place since 2007, and brought it further into the public consciousness.
According to the BBC website the UN agency UNRWA reports that as a result of the blockade 80% of Gazan households rely on some kind of food aid and that when aid is discounted, 70% of Gazan families live on less than a dollar a day per person. People can’t afford to provide for their family, even where items are actually available, because unemployment has soared since 2007 - before the blockade 3,900 industrial premises were operating, employing 35,000 people - by June 2008, and only 90 were still functioning, employing only 860.
This conflict is rooted in thousands of years of murky history and religion, and the things I know about it are a drop in the ocean of all the past events, but I fundamentally believe that the Israeli government should not treat these people, 1.5 million human beings, in such an appallingly inhumane manner.
Regardless of the security issues ongoing in the area, to forcibly deny the ordinary men, women and children who live in the region the necessities to live is unacceptable and our government and the UN should be putting serious pressure on Israel to change its tack. At the very least they should allow the people of Gaza access to clean water, food and medical care as well as allowing them to trade freely and removing their reliance on aid agencies and handouts.
In a 2008 article Chris Guinness of UNRWA was quoted as saying "This is not a humanitarian crisis, This is a political crisis of choice with dire humanitarian consequences." The same article quotes Tony Blair, in his role as Middle East envoy for the Quartet (US, Russia, the UN and the EU) saying "the present situation is not harming Hamas in Gaza but it is harming the people" and that the blockade was reinforcing rather than undermining Hamas’s hold on power.
If the Israeli government can’t bring themselves to remove the blockade simply because it’s the right thing to do, then perhaps they could consider it a political move to stop the inevitable radicalisation of every single Gazan resident if the blockade continues.
As for the attack on the Mavi Marmara, perhaps the most we can hope for is that it was the catalyst for change that is so desperately needed.
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