Israel, Justice

Rescue the Spirit of Humanity

CYPRUS-MIDEAST-CONFLICT-GAZA-AID-BOAT

The humanitarian situation in Gaza has grown beyond intolerable. If you have any doubts, just read this devastatingly important article by Sara Roy, senior research scholar at Harvard’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies:

Today, 96 percent of Gaza’s population of 1.4 million is dependent on humanitarian aid for basic needs. According to the World Food Programme, the Gaza Strip requires a minimum of 400 trucks of food every day just to meet the basic nutritional needs of the population. Yet, despite a 22 March decision by the Israeli cabinet to lift all restrictions on foodstuffs entering Gaza, only 653 trucks of food and other supplies were allowed entry during the week of May 10, at best meeting 23 percent of required need.
Israel now allows only 30 to 40 commercial items to enter Gaza compared to 4,000 approved products prior to June 2006. According to the Israeli journalist, Amira Hass, Gazans still are denied many commodities (a policy in effect long before the December assault): Building materials (including wood for windows and doors), electrical appliances (such as refrigerators and washing machines), spare parts for cars and machines, fabrics, threads, needles, candles, matches, mattresses, sheets, blankets, cutlery, crockery, cups, glasses, musical instruments, books, tea, coffee, sausages, semolina, chocolate, sesame seeds, nuts, milk products in large packages, most baking products, light bulbs, crayons, clothing, and shoes.
What possible benefit can be derived from an increasingly impoverished, unhealthy, densely crowded, and furious Gaza alongside Israel? Gaza’s terrible injustice not only threatens Israeli and regional security, but it undermines America’s credibility, alienating our claim to democratic practice and the rule of law.

And now the news has just come in that Israel has seized the “Spirit of Humanity,” a boat carrying a cargo of humanitarian aid in international waters, and is forcibly towing it to an Israeli port. The boat contained 21 human rights workers from 11 countries, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire and former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. It was bringing medicine, toys, and other much needed humanitarian relief.
If you’re looking for a way to channel your upset over this dire situation into effective contribution to Gaza relief, I particularly recommmend American Near East Refugee Aid. Their projects in Gaza include:
– Delivery of life-saving pharmaceuticals and medical supplies to hospitals and clinics;
– Distribution of fortified milk and high-energy biscuits to 25,200 children in 186 preschools.

– Water projects that bring water networks to families in need and pumping systems to keep raw sewage off the streets.

– A psychosocial program that helps thousands of children and parents struggling to survive the effects of war.
– Cash-for-work programs that employ workers to clear agricultural land of plastic waste and provide 200 families a means of self-reliance.

45 thoughts on “Rescue the Spirit of Humanity

  1. They’re still letting the aid in, just through the border crossing. Besides, Israel would happily open its borders if Palestinians quit launching rockets and sending in terrorists. Or maybe you should send the aid through the tunnels with Egypt 🙂

  2. OJ – are you serious? I have a hard time believing that these humanitarian workers would risk their lives to deliver much needed aid, if the Israelis were actually letting supplies come through. Besides, Palestine should be its own, sovereign state, free from Israeli control.
    Similar to your point, I am sure Palestinians would quit launching homemade rockets if Israel would open its borders, cease with the illegal settlements, and stop committing war crimes against innocent civilians.

  3. This is ridiculous. Even if you let everything through, how on earth are one million people going to live on 360 sq km(cia factbook).
    Let the arab countries take some palestinians. Otherwise I don’t see how you’re going to solve the “densely crowded” problem.

  4. Michael, yes, actually they have. The Israeli Supreme Court ruled that reducing the average caloric intake of Gaza is not technically collective punishment by starvation, unless the average slips below the medical definition of starvation (a minimum amount of calories per day). Israel also defines pasta as “luxury” goods and won’t let it enter. Isn’t that amazing? I mean, doesn’t the callousness of that just boggle your mind? Not technically starving 1.5 million people, just nearly so. Such thinking is a shame to every Jewish part of me.
    formermuslim, there’s space to spread out in Gaza, except Israel destroyed a lot of houses recently and won’t permit building supplies to enter. I think a less politically controversial solution might be letting them fix their houses.

  5. Even if you let everything through, how on earth are one million people going to live on 360 sq km(cia factbook)
    There actually is a feasible political solution. As part of an agreement, Gaza’s borders can be tripled southward, into the Sinai. That would leave enough room to build a new, large city, a seaport, and a commercial airport in expanded Gaza.
    Egypt can receive some symbolic land in the Negev as compensation, along with a tunnel/ pipeline crossing north of Eilat, through Jordan, and into the Persian Gulf.
    I am sure Palestinians would quit launching homemade rockets if Israel would open its borders, cease with the illegal settlements, and stop committing war crimes against innocent civilians.
    Most of us remember the years 2000-2004, Billy C. That dog just won’t hunt anymore.

  6. “I am sure Palestinians would quit launching homemade rockets if Israel would open its borders, cease with the illegal settlements, and stop committing war crimes against innocent civilians.”
    I think the same argument was used before the disengagement from Gaza. Just destroy the settlements there, and pull out the army, and no more rockets. In the period after the disengagement, before Gilad Shalit was kidnapped, before Israel closed the borders and kept out aid, before Hamas won the parliamentary elections and then the military takeover of the land – during that period as well there were rockets. I’m not saying that Israeli policy toward the Palestinians isn’t hostile, both in the West Bank and in Gaza, but this type of argument now seems stale.

  7. I do not buy their Human Rights Crisis. They get in rockets and guns, how come they do not get food? Why wasting money and time smuggling arams while their population is “starving”?
    It’s very odd, that missiles get in but not food or medicines. It sounds like a publicity stunt.

  8. “I’m not saying that Israeli policy toward the Palestinians isn’t hostile, both in the West Bank and in Gaza”
    “Hostile” How about, immoral, shameful, shocking to the conscience, and violative of the deepest Jewish values of menshlichkeyt/basic decency, rokhmones/compassion and tzedek/justice.
    The argument about the ending of settlements etc. may sound “stale” but what is true is that the only way out of this mess is direct negotiations between Hamas and Israel and it is Israel that refuses to negotiate with Hamas. Do they have to sing Hatikvah before Israel will talk to them? They don’t have to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. They aren’t Zionists and they don’t believe in a Jewish state. All they need to do is to be ready to negotiate something, a ceasefire, an agreement and it is Israel that refuses to negotiate. Before the pullout of the settlements, which was implemented unilaterally without any negotiation, there were attacks on the settlements. Once Israel pulled out the settlements and re-invented Gaza as an “open air prison”, where they controlled all exits and entrances, there were rocket attacks against Israel.
    Any Jew should be outraged by Sara Roy’s report. We all owe her a debt of gratitude for her abiding commitment to Jewish ethical values.

  9. “What is true is that the only way out of this mess is direct negotiations between Hamas and Israel”
    Actually, that is a recipe to ensure the continuation of this conflict, ad infinitum. The reason the Israeli government doesn’t want to negotiate with (and thereby strengthen) Hamas is because Hamas will never agree to an end-of-conflict treaty with Israel.
    Why would an organization whose raison d’etre is to establish an Islamic calipathe on all of the land–not a free Palestinian state–ever sign a treaty with Israel?
    They say it all of the time. Fatah (which is a Palestinian nationalist movement) knows it; Israel knows it; everybody knows it…. except for certain “Progressive” Jews.

  10. rabbibrian,
    though I don’t agree with all of your words there, I was using “hostile” as a euphamism.
    “Once Israel pulled out the settlements and re-invented Gaza as an “open air prison”, where they controlled all exits and entrances, there were rocket attacks against Israel.”
    Palestinian propoganda. The was a period between the summer of 2005 and the June 2006 (the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit (the disengagement), that the Rafah crossing with Egypt was fully open. Palestinians could come and go as they pleased (or as Egypt allowed). The other crossings, of course controlled by Israel (why shouldn’t israel control its own border?), were open as well. Karni and Kerem Shalom (where Shalit was kidnapped) were open to cargo, and Erez was open to Palestinian workers coming into Israel. Israel during that time began discussion with Fatah about building a seaport in Gaza. During that time, yes, there WERE rockets from Gaza.

  11. Why would an organization whose raison d’etre is to establish an Islamic calipathe on all of the land–not a free Palestinian state–ever sign a treaty with Israel?
    Jonathan, haven’t we already gone over this? You parrot that line as if it magically solved your problem. Both Israel and Hamas have negotiated, are negotiating, and will negotiate. The same — the exact same — complaints were made about Fatah and the PLO. They begrudgingly recognized Israel and changed their charter. It’s already happened before.
    Don’t be dense.

  12. We’ve gone over this before, no doubt.
    So, again, the exact same complaints WERE NOT made about Fatah. Fatah/PLO was/is a secular nationalist movement at the end of the day. It wasn’t so shocking when they publicly endorsed U.N. Resolution 242 in 1988–FIVE YEARS BEFORE OSLO.
    It is indisputable that Hamas is an organization whose raison d’etre is the establishment of an Islamic calipathe on all of the land….that’s part of the reason that Fatah (a Palestinian nationlist organization) opposes Hamas….that’s why Hams will never, ever sign an end-of-conflict treaty with Israel.
    If Hamas officials were to call a press conference tomorrow and endorse Resolution 242, then I’d be the first to say you’re right…but there is no way that will happen.
    If that’s “parroting,” then I’ll have to keep parroting.

  13. If we have demonstrated anything to the universe, it’s that earth humanity remains linked to its primal past. Each year Israel relives its past by celebrating the Holocaust, as if the Jewish people are the only people to have experienced such devastation. I would give more credence to this event if it weren’t for the fact that it remains racially specific. However, holocausts cloak themselves within various events, including famine, pestilence, war, imperialism, etc., etc., including the Irish, Armenians, American Indians, various African nations, and so on. What slaughter we have rationalized in the name of progress? If you’re Jewish and are offended by these remarks, you unfortunately miss my point. It’s almost like two families occupying a ship, one on one side and one on the other, feuding with each other over some issue while the crew discovers a leak and attempts to establish a compromise. Rather than work together to save the ship and themselves, the families continue their hostilities until the ship sinks, taking the valiant crew with them. Question is how much more time will the earth give us before she decides enough is enough?

  14. Jonathan, it’s the same complaints — their charter enshrines throwing us into the sea, they’re dedicated to our destruction, they want all the land of Palestine, and so on.
    It’s the same shlock. Your parrot is defeathered, that dog won’t hunt, whatever. Give it a rest, we here do not believe that.

  15. As is your method, you won’t address what I actually wrote, but instead say that I am using a shlock, am parroting what I hear from the war-mongerors at AIPAC, etc. That is your right, of course.
    But, I do think that some people here listen to reason. Sorry.

  16. “But, I do think that some people here listen to reason. Sorry.”
    this is from a friend’s facebook status:
    “Latest Issue of Psych Bulletin: Meta-Analysis of Studies Examining Selective Exposure of Information. We are nearly two times more likely to avoid information that could help us reach accurate conclusions if it goes against our pre-existing beliefs. People prefer validation over being correct. Feeling good over growth”

  17. Jesus H Christ, what more do you right-wingers need to hear to understand that our depriving the Gazans of PASTA and LIGHTBULBS has nothing to do with bombs? How does pasta present a terrorist threat?

  18. Yes all they want is an economy. The potrayal of them rejoicing after suicide bombings is all israeli propoganda filmed on israeli movie lots. All they want is peace. It is all our fault. Let us give them all of the land. If we give them land and control they will be happy like they are in gush katif. It is a lie that they destroyed the place. They are living there working the farms.
    They are great. We are bad. There is only one side!!!
    Thank you jewschool.

  19. to “i love jewschool”…
    Do the Palestinians have issues maintaining order and basic infrastructure? Yeah. And maybe that’s part of an argument that they aren’t ready for a state yet (not that I’m advocating that argument). What it isn’t is a justification for seizing a boat full of food for little kids.

  20. Justin,
    How can you say “well said” to Ned? I can’t comment to him directly so here is why I addressed this to you – Ned said that Israel “celebrates” the Holocaust. Celebrate? WT*! You don’t celebrate the death of millions. You commemorate, remember, or what ever, but in no shape or form does Israel celebrate evil. That’s sick. Israelis aren’t a bunch of people who celebrate people who willingly blow themselves up like Humus, or is it Hamas, I always mix up the two.
    With that being said, I do think Israel needs to relax some measures. Also, Israel should put up all its demands to Hamas all up front and let the Europeans deal with the diplomatic meltdown.
    Finally, the Free Gaza boats just want publicity. If they really cared about sending food to Gaza, they could have just gone through the Israeli crossings.

  21. Michael W.
    actually, Israel does celebrate the Holocaust in how it educates on it, how it remembers it. it celebrates the notion of the ‘new Jew’ who ‘rose from the ashes’ and blah blah blah blah blah. oh i know, it’s much easier to say that Ned is just a Jew-hater and an anti-Semite who couldn’t possibly understand our collective trauma…or we could listen to what he’s saying, and recognize that he’s right, and what he said was done so nicely. Also, way to ignore the message of what Ned said because you dislike one word.
    Ugh, now you’ve made me come out of my fast from discussing things Israel and here I am getting red in the face. Sending food through the Israeli crossings acknowledges Israel’s right to imprison the people of Gaza, which they do not have. THAT is why they go through the shore, to show how INSANE the Israeli military is being.
    You’re right though. Israelis aren’t sick, Palestinians are. Israelis are always right, Arabs are always wrong. Israelis live with halos over their head and Arabs have horns and pitchforks. It’s that simple. Israelis want peace and Arabs want war. Yup. That’s how it is.

  22. I would hope we have a lot in common, Justin.
    I’m just truly sorry that KFJ and you (and apparantly others) are utterly certain that something false to many of us is undoubtedly true…and then use these tactics to “shout-down” those who make the case to the contrary:
    1) you’re dense
    2) you’re only parroting information (because it’s impossible to disagree with KFJ on our own)
    3) you’re using shlock
    4) nobody at Jewschool believes it (because KFJ speaks for all JS readers)
    5)you make up things that others don’t argure (ie, I write that Hamas’s raison d’etre is to establish an Islamic calipathe on all of the land–that is indisputable–and KFJ responds that I wrote that their charter calls for throwing all Jews into the sea…it’s not the same thing.)
    6) And now, Justin, you write that I’m using Selective Exposure of Information….
    How progressive.

  23. And here, because it’s always the same argument, I’ll make your arguments and respond, before you can find another way to deligitimize somebody who disagrees with you.
    1) Everybody said the same thing about Sadat in the 70’s and PLO(Fatah)in the 80’s that they’re saying about Hamas now: ie, they’ll never moderate–and in engaging Hamas we can bring about the kind of compromises we reached with Sadat and Arafat.
    Unfortunately, the PLO (Fatah) is a secular Palestinian liberation/moderation group. Sadat’s regime, like Assad’s, is a secular dictatorship. It’s not so illogical that, for pragmatic reasons, such people came to compromise with Israel…on the other hand, Hamas is the Gaza branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Their indisputable ideoloy is to establish an Islamic calipathe on all of the land between the river and the sea–as part of the movement to establish an Islamic calipathe in all “Muslim” lands…that’s why Fatah are against them. They employ Palestinian nationalism to achieve those goals, but a Palestinian state–even one living next to Israel–is not their goal. One pluralistic, open, liberal state, in all of the land, for both Arabs and Jews, is not their goal either, btw.
    2) Hamas keeps implying that they wil compromise in interviews and we’re being pigheaded in not recognizing this–ie, they say that they’ll agree to a 10-year-hudna if Israel withdrawls the settlements and army to the June ’67 lines, and agrees to the principle of the right of return.
    So, after 10 years, Hamas will continue pursuing its indisputable objective of establishing an Islamic caliphate, through diplomcay and/or violence…but now it would be from the June ’67 lines, without any Israeli military in the territories, and after Israel has stipulated that millions of Palestinians have the right to move inside of the Green Line.
    3)People like Netanyahu and Lieberman aren’t interested in a two-state agreement, so Israel is just as bad.
    Netanyahu and Lieberman aren’t interested in a two-state agreement, but does J Street insist that Avigdor Lierman is the key to a two-state agreement? Efi Eitam too (he’s more analogous to Hamas in this sence??)
    4) KFJ has written that Hamas’s leadership knows they won’t destroy Israel, and they will compromise at the moment of truth because of that knowledge.
    Call me crazy, but I don’t think existential decisions should be made only on the basis of KFJ’s genuine beliefs….
    Ok?…Ok.
    Now, you two can again write how I’m mindlessly parroting my hateful right-wing line…or however you’ll phrase it this time

  24. I just want to put it out there that my comment on selective exposure was geared towards ALL of us. Everybody does it. I do, you do, and I bet KFJ does. That’s why when we have these conversations it’s the same one over, and over, and over, and over. because we only believe what we want. you’re right, I’m right; I’m wrong and you’re wrong. something tells me you’re not going to convince me of your beliefs, and I’d bet my right arm that I can’t convince you of mine.

  25. (1) The byline says “PROGRESSIVE Jews and Judaism”. Progressive means “left wing, bleeding heart commie liberal”. OKAY?
    (2) The claim that Israel “tried giving the Palestinians land and failed” is hogwash. Israel controls the border crossings, airspace, sea, water, power, fuel, food and even currency (the Bank of Israel regularly stocks Gazan banks with shekels so they won’t start printing their own money, God forbid). Israel NEVER TRIED leaving Gaza, only controlling it by other means.

  26. (1) The byline says “PROGRESSIVE Jews and Judaism”. Progressive means “left wing, bleeding heart commie liberal”. OKAY?
    That makes you immune to reason?
    Israel controls the border crossings
    They’re crossings into Israel! The same old silly excuses for why Palestinians have not rejected the tactics of war and built instead a functioning society, after 20 years of political independence and tens of billions in overseas donations.
    Israel NEVER TRIED leaving Gaza, only controlling it by other means.
    If a serial killer lived next door, you wouldn’t put up a fence, install security cameras and adopt a few guard dogs?

  27. PM-
    you’d put up a fence around YOUR house and install security cameras on YOUR roof and adopt guard dogs that stay on YOUR property. You wouldn’t go set up a checkpoint outside your neighbor’s door, that’d be illegal. You wouldn’t put your cameras in your neighbor’s house, that’d be illegal. You wouldn’t sick your dog on your neighbor’s innocent friends, that’d be illegal. It is offensive when someone wholesale describes an entire people as equitable to a “serial killer.” Amit’s point is that while Israel removed settlers and troops from Gaza the occupation continues by locking the borders. Also, Canada and Mexico operate the borders into those countries. No one should have issue with Israel operating the crossings into Israel–the issue is that they operate the crossings into Palestine, as well. Neighboring nations operate their own side of the border, not their neighbors side also. And Gaza’s sea border is their border with the sea, not a border with Israel. And I believe Amit’s purpose in pointing out that Jewschool is a blog by progressive Jews about progressive politics and Judaism is that those readers who get offended by our progressive views should not be so surprised by our progressive views. And again, regarding being able to reason–you see what you want to and make your own reasonable conclusions, Amit sees what he wants to and makes his own reasonable conclusions, and so too for every individual. We like to think we’re right, so if someone can prove us wrong it’s much easier to say they don’t reason appropriately. The ‘left-wing’ does it to the ‘right-wing’ and the ‘right-wing’ says it of the ‘left-wing’.

  28. Justin,
    I can’t speak for others (obviously,) but I’ve never been offended by your views, or Amit’s. However, is it difficult to understand that some positions on issues– such as advocating open diplomacy with Hamas////or strengthening the Assad regime through a treaty with Israel—simply don’t register as Progressive positions at all, to some of us. Maybe I’m wrong and you’re right–only time will tell…but does that mean that Amit and KFJ have the exclusive authority to determine what is or isn’t a “Progressive” idea, or how or how not JS readers think?

  29. You wouldn’t go set up a checkpoint outside your neighbor’s door, that’d be illegal.
    You shouldn’t have to! If a serial killer is living next door, you would call SWAT to take them down with extreme prejudice. The problem is that this serial killer is friends with all the cops, and they really don’t mind that he’s killing your relatives, as long as he’s not killing THEIR relatives.
    Justin, the fact that we agree a serial killer is living next door is enough for me. Whether that serial killer is living with a large extended family (who he regularly abuses), and how we should deal with that family, is another matter.

  30. we DO NOT agree on that. as I said in my last comment:
    “It is offensive when someone wholesale describes an entire people as equitable to a ‘serial killer.'” There are serial killers in Palestine, just as there are serial killers in all nations. But no nation is collectively a serial killer, especially when the non-serial killers FAR OUTNUMBER the serial killers, as they do in Palestine, like every other society.

  31. I think its beautiful how three million people can all be branded subhuman because the Israeli propaganda machine wants to do so.

  32. No nation is collectively a serial killer ?
    Here are the facts.
    There were far more non serial killers in Japan than serial killers during world war two. And yet the Americans bomd Hiroshima.
    There were far more non- Nazi’s in Germany than Nazi’s and yet the U.S. firebombed Dresden.
    A nation is held responsible as a WHOLE when those who are beligerent take control, do evil and the good people do nothing.
    Hamas as a collective have declared absolute war on the israeli will never accept the state of israel and will never rest until everyone reading this is dead. To deny that is to be a liar or insane.
    if the leaders of the free world in 1941 thought like you there would be no free world today. Hamas as a government is EVIL and the world doesn’t have the luxary of liberalism to create bombs that only kill the evil ones.
    Let the non-serial killers take control of their nation. The people have far more say in their government that the germans did. When the vote for Hamas they join in the pursuit of evil. When Himmler was captured after the war he said_ If the French would have attacked early on we would have backed down. Instead liberalism and the opiate of” peace in our time caused the death of millions of people”.
    You have all been to israel. They may have a stupid government but it is not a government that celebrates death.
    Hamas is a government that celebrates death. Or more specifically your death.
    If you doubt that I welcome you to live in gaza city for a year. If you doubt that the israeli government do NOT celebrate death I invite you to live in Jerusalem for a year.
    You don’t have to be a zionist to believe that self defence is a human right.

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