Eva Bartlett - Gaza
May 13, 2009
I don’t need to answer the rhetorical question. I know the cliches that the US, Canada and other siege-supporting western nations will say about Hamas and terrorism and not providing material aid [the irony of Israel, committing attacks of terrorism on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, occupied Jerusalem, and the militarily-occupied Gaza Strip every day --with Israel's invasions, city lock-downs ('curfews'), military checkpoints, arbitary arrests and indefinite detentions (including minors), military invasions, shelling from the sea, shooting at and abduction of fishermen and farmers from their own territorial areas, and so on --being supported by the very nations that besiege Gaza... is sickening].
Palestinians words before, during, and after Israel’s latest war on Gaza aside, and those of independent bloggers and activists like myself far aside, do the words and photos of the many delegates from Europeans nations, as well as the US and Canada mean nothing? Are Amnesty International and like NGOs only valid with not referring to Palestine and Israel? Does the death toll of medical patients needing –and denied –treatment outside [over 310 now] mean nothing?
Today, a US resident wrote to me of the impossibility of sending money from the States to Palestine:
"I have been roaming for over a week for a western union place that accepts to send money…unfortunately there is no way to do so.
I thought first that they were scared to send themselves…and i started to go from one place to the other..i tried also with banks- that send WU- and everybody says no way…i then decided to go to dahiye thought that maybe here they are scared…but then even in dahiyeh…he showed me on his computer that they deleted the Palestinian Authority as an option..so they can’t even perform it..i told him u said u could send through US he said yes but they blocked it on us here….
Today i tried with money gram..and same thing."
Thanks to such stoic efforts of preventing money from entering Gaza, where over 80% of Palestinians are dependent on aid, and where aid is actively being banned entry except for but a trickle, the impoverished people I’ve been meeting all over Gaza must lose this last attempt at aid, when an economy has been intentionally destroyed and all efforts at self-subsistence are routinely, daily sabotaged.
Here is one such person, Amar, unable to work but still out every day trying to sell 1 shekel items to feed his 10 member family:
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