We must never forget Gaza

By Khalid Amayreh Despite a slight improvement in the general humanitarian situation, the Gaza Strip remains a disaster area. In fact, in terms of the sheer destruction of homes and infrastructure, the coastal enclave can be compared to quake-stricken Haiti, with the main difference lying in the fact that while the Caribbean island’s calamity was a natural disaster, the Gaza disaster was inflicted by the criminal Israeli regime.  Today, Israel continues to prevent a large number of consumer products from entering Gaza. This policy, often justified by security considerations, has actually nothing to do with security. It is a deliberate measure aimed at further tormenting the inhabitants of Gaza by showing them that Israel has the final say and that they would have to submit themselves to the Zionist will. This is how the Nazis behaved toward the inhabitants of the Ghetto Warsaw, forcing them to smuggle food and other consumer products into the camp.  What is more scandalous is that the  Zionist regime is adamantly preventing the entry into Gaza of building materials needed for the reconstruction of the estimated 40,000 homes destroyed, either completely or partly during last year’s Nazi-like onslaught against the impoverished territory. Unfortunately, this callous and criminal policy is not being challenged by the international community which keeps issuing platitudinous remarks about the need to meet the humanitarian needs of the people of Gaza,  this is while thousands of  Gazans, whose homes were destroyed by the Nazis of our times, remain without shelter and are totally exposed to the elements of nature. In fact, the enduring nightmare in Gaza is beyond the pale of common sense. The Israelis, who killed more than 1400 Gazans, including more than 350 children last year alone, claiming they did it in self defense, are maintaining this suffocating blockade as an expression of sadism, callousness and hateful vindictiveness. What else can be said about a government whose ministers and spokespeople routinely appear on TV screens bragging and gloating over the suffering of Gaza children?  There is no doubt that the continued blockade of Gaza has exposed the brutal ugliness of Israel’s face, demonstrating that Israel and Nazi Germany are very much two sides of the same coin. Nonetheless, exposing Israel’s ugly face alone won’t save Gazan lives or enable the thoroughly tormented inhabitants of the largest detention camp in the world to rebuild their lives, torn into smithereens by a state that murders, steals and lies and then claims to be the only democracy in the Middle East. Hence, it is important to make every conceivable effort and make every possible undertaking to help Gaza rebuild its life and restore a semblance of normal life. Undoubtedly admirable efforts have been made by courageous men and women from around the globe who often put their lives at risk in order to highlight the Gaza plight. However, it is imperative that more qualitative and pro-active efforts be made in order to make a real difference.  In short, Gaza must never be allowed to die quietly or silently. This was the message more than three years ago when the cruel blockade began. This is still the message today; because the overall situation in Gaza doesn’t really differ much now from what it was three years ago. Unfortunately, we can’t rely much on the “good will” of most countries, perhaps with the exception of some magnanimous governments such as the Turkish government which has utilized much of the diplomatic weight of the Turkish state in order to help the just cause of the oppressed people of Gaza. The Obama administration, which many people had given the benefit of the doubt when it came to power more than a year ago, has turned out to be quite important in the face of Israeli insolence and arrogance of power.  Similarly, Europe is doing nothing in real terms, apart from issuing nice-sounding statements about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the need to allow Gazans to rebuild their homes. And Egypt, the supposedly brotherly neighboring Arab country which is supposed to hasten to aide Gaza is completing and perfecting a nefarious underground concrete wall along its borders with Gaza in order to prevent the smuggling of food into the blockaded region. Even the Palestinian Authority (PA) is implicitly encouraging Israel and Egypt and the West to keep up the pressure on Gaza in the hope that this pressure would prompt the people of Gaza to rise up against Hamas. Well, how can such an entity, which is colluding and conspiring with Israel against its own people, be a true party to any Palestinian national reconciliation? In light, it is necessary to once again mobilize the peoples of the world to rise up and demonstrate loudly in order to exert pressure on their respective governments to pressure Israel to put an end to this shameful, sadistic and cruel collective punishment. We need to see millions of peoples take to the streets everywhere to demonstrate for Gaza and for humanity. In the final analysis, Gaza has become the ultimate test for humanity’s moral commitment. If we, God forbid, don’t succeed in saving Gaza from the claws of Zio-Nazism, the future of humanity itself will be bleak.