A year after Israeli pullout, Gaza dreams of renewal lie in tatters
GAZA - Just a year ago, Gazans were euphoric with dreams of a renaissance that would turn their squalid, overpopulated patch of land into a Singapore on the Mediterranean. Singapore? YJCMTSU.
Israel had uprooted its settlements and pulled out its army after 38 years of occupation, donors pledged US$9 billion (7.1 billion) for rebuilding, and American Jews spent US$14 million (11 million) to bequeath leftover greenhouses to the Palestinians to jump-start a farming revival. Classic. Throwing good money, Other People's Money, after bad.
Now, Gaza is facing disaster. Who'da thunk it?
The Palestinian Authority, now led by the Islamic radicals of Hamas, is on the brink of collapse, Gaza's crushing poverty has worsened and the threat of an explosion of internal violence is ever-present. Israeli forces are back in the strip fighting Palestinian militants, but that war has been all but eclipsed by the 34-day Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon and its aftermath. Wait for it...
"We are in the worst situation since 1967," the year Israel took control of Gaza, economist Omar Shaban said. "It hits everything." Wait for it...
Palestinians and international officials say the blame lies everywhere. Wait for it...
International donors never came through with their pledges. Almost there...
The Palestinians never properly planned for their newfound freedom. They isolated themselves by electing Hamas, while militants continued to launch attacks on Israel from Gaza. Bingo! Give the twit a cupie doll! Almost like he gets Cause -> Effect! Wowzers!
Israel reneged on an agreement to allow Gaza free access to trade, halted the transfer of vital tax revenue to the Palestinian Authority and eventually sent the army back into Gaza after waves of rocket attacks and the capture of an Israeli soldier by Hamas-linked militants who had tunneled under the border. Hamas. End of story - the rest is fluffing, LOL.
Gazans have had little to celebrate in recent years. Hamas.
The 1.4 million people who live in the 360 square kilometers (140 square miles) of territory suffered some of the worst violence during fighting with Israel that began in September 2000. Hamas.
Then, last summer, four months before he was felled by a stroke, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon pulled all Israel's settlers and soldiers out of Gaza. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said these were "historic days of joy," and he brimmed with plans for Gaza's rebirth. Handed a Golden Opportunity...
The abandoned settlements would be used for tourism, farming and industry, and for apartment blocks to relieve Gaza's housing crunch. Ka-ching!
"If we are successful in this endeavor then we will have accomplished something incredible, which is to pull the Palestinian people out of poverty and into prosperity," Abbas said at the time. Uh, hang on there, Abu Dildo, your 'people' are Paleos... They haven't learned a goddamned thing since '48, what made you think they'd figure this obvious bit out, eh?
International officials said Gaza could be a trial run for a future Palestinian state. Sure thing... Actually it serves as a perfect model for the imaginary Paleo "state"...
But minutes after the last Israeli soldier pulled out of Gaza early on Sept. 12, ominous signs emerged. Like they stayed Paleos, you mean? Didn't magically become busy-beehive Mormons or industrious Buddhists? Huh, go figure.
Security forces lost control as Palestinians ran through the settlements, looting and torching greenhouses and buildings, including synagogues. Thousands jumped over the border wall into Egypt as security officers stood by helplessly. Paleos. Doing what they do best.
Still, there was promising momentum. Free money from Idjits!
In November, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice brokered a deal that gave the Palestinians control of their border crossing into Egypt the first time they had ever run an international border and greater access to Israel for their exports. Another Golden Opportunity...
In those heady days, Yehia Mahani, 40, had grand plans for his Gaza City factory, which makes hangers, plastic cups and household goods. He forgot the Paleo thing, too. They all do, including the EUdoinkers.
Expecting a flood of orders from Israel and abroad, he got bank approval for a US$150,000 (118,000) loan to expand his factory of 25 workers. Big Plans. I'm gonna be rich!
"We had hopes that things would be better, but it was the opposite," he said. "All these dreams died." Uh oh... Paleos.
Everything changed Jan. 25 when Hamas, which calls for Israel's destruction, won Palestinian parliamentary elections. Le bingo, part deux.
Foreign aid and Israeli tax transfers were cut off, leaving the new Hamas government unable to pay its 165,000 employees a major engine of the Palestinian economy. Bitten again by that damned Cause -> Effect thing. Some think they should learn, eventually. Heh.
Abbas, from the moderate Fatah Party, waged a power struggle with the new Hamas Cabinet over control of the security forces. When Abbas won, Hamas sent thousands of its own paramilitary troops into Gaza's streets, sparking gunfights and fears of a civil war. SOS. Paleos.
Things collapsed June 25, when Hamas-linked militants tunneled into Israel, attacked an army post and captured Cpl. Gilad Shalit. Paleo Logic. A full step down from Arab Logic.
Israel hit back by pounding Gaza with airstrikes, damaging its power plant, closing the Rafah crossing and sending soldiers back into the territory for the first time since the withdrawal. Shalit remains in captivity. Go figure, huh? Damned Jooos, caring about their people. Sheesh.
The hope for Gaza disintegrated. F**kin Duh. Paleos.
More than 200 Palestinians, most of them militants, have been killed and the remnants of Gaza's economy have been shredded. In the biggest sign of popular discontent, tens of thousands of teachers, health workers and other government employees went on strike on Sept. 2. But will they actually learn anything? LOL. They're Paleos!
Adel Sharar, 36, an unemployed father of five, has been suffering since Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh's government was forced to cut its payments to laborers who used to work for Israeli companies. Aw gee... Cause -> Effect on a personal level. *sniff*
"I know that they are not magicians, I know Haniyeh does not have a magic wand, but in the end, as a Muslim, he must be responsible for his followers," he said as he waited for U.N. food aid. "In four months, we did not have any meal with meat." And all of this is whose fault?
Salim Taba, a 30-year-old engineer, has not been paid his monthly US$800 (630) salary from the Palestinian Authority in six months. He is considering selling his car and some of his wife's jewelry to pay back part of a US$12,000 (9,440) bank loan. Stella Salim!! You're tearing me apart!
"I am lucky. My wife is working and we have no children, but I am sorry that I didn't listen to the advice of some of my friends, and I voted for Hamas," he said. Yep, some voted for Fatah. Kinda like voting for Goebbels instead of Hitler. If you had only listened, Sali, a "moderate" bunch of Paleo killers could've remained in charge of your insane asylum. Damn!
A year after the government announced its big plans for the settlements, they remain covered in the rubble left over from the Israeli pullout. Instead of being used for development, many have become training camps for militant groups. Ooooh, now we know whose fault they think it is. Professional seething training and Guilt Projection 401.
"We cannot blame the occupation only ... we have to blame ourselves," said Shaban, the economist. "There was no master plan. There are no projects going on." Okay, who swung the feather! *gotta dust myself off*
The hope for the greenhouses, too, has ended in disappointment, with US$25 million (20 million) worth of tomatoes, strawberries and peppers stuck at the Karni border crossing into Israel and eventually dumped in landfills, according to the Palestine Development Company, which ran the greenhouses for the government. It had Jooo cooties! The always consistent Paleos.
Seeing no hope for improvement, the government didn't even bother to plant new crops. Of course not, cuz it was the Jooos fault for giving Gaza back! Ha, we're onto you sneaky bastards!
Businesses also have been devastated. Israel routinely closes the Karni crossing, citing security threats, and last month released footage of what it said was a tunnel militants had dug toward the crossing in preparation for an attack. I don't think they have a word for "security" or the absense of killing in Paleoese. Please rephrase.
The closures made it impossible for Mahani's factory to import the raw plastic, coloring and additives he needed, and he couldn't export what little he could produce, he said. Oh shit, more tears.
The factory, which used to run 24 hours a day, now works only 24 hours a week because of rolling blackouts due to the Israeli attack on the power plant, he said. His employees are lucky to work one 8-hour shift a week, and the business, which only sells its products in Gaza, is losing US$3,000 to US$5,000 (2,360 to 3,930) a month, he said. Damned Jooos!
"We are hoping that next year will be better, that next year will be better. We are living by hope," he said. And on Other People's Money. Don't forget that little detail...
To keep his business solvent, Mahani opened a new factory in Egypt, where 100 people work in round-the-clock shifts. Where they're Arabs, so life still sucks, but at least they're not Paleos.
According to Paltrade, a coalition of Palestinian exporters, more than 20 Gaza textile and furniture manufacturers moved their businesses to Egypt or Jordan, diverting millions of dollars in investment and thousands of jobs from Gaza. Go figure, huh? Traitors!
Many others are looking to leave, creating fears of worse unemployment and even deeper poverty, said Hanan Taha, a Paltrade official in Gaza. Requiring even more Other People's Money. A proud Paleo tradition.
"The situation is very difficult. The crisis is continuous," she said. Cuz you're still Paleos and you will never live in peace, so you reap what you sew. Dipshits.
"There are no hopes and dreams." LOL... Stop it, you're killing me here.
#1
I'm a little more sympathetic than you. One group who were NOT blamed for Gaza's condition, but should be, are the Islamacist religious leaders who urged people to have 9, 10, 11 kids or more in order to outbreed the Jews.
Doing that in a densely populated tiny region with little indigenous industry or agriculture goes beyond irresponsible. It is the direct cause of the deep, grinding poverty in Gaza.
The EU's co-dependency relationship with the Palestinians allowed this sort of preaching to be heard and followed, since it meant Gazans never ever had to think about the consequences of their birthrate combined with poor education.
If I had been a Gazan in the last election I don't know who I would have voted for. The PLO is deeply, deeply corrupt and siphoned off most of the aid money. The aid projects that were started under them were seldom finished and usually given out as patronage.
OTOH Hamas was a clear recipe for international disaster. We photographed too many IRC ambulances used in terror attacks and documented too many efforts by Hamas to break the basic rules of agreements that were negotiated, so the Euros had to back off of outright support for Hamas and the results after that were inevitable.
#3
--"In four months, we did not have any meal with meat."
Get this man a contract w/PETA! See, it can be done!
Salim Taba, a 30-year-old engineer, has not been paid his monthly US$800 (630) salary from the Palestinian Authority in six months. He is considering selling his car and some of his wife's jewelry to pay back part of a US$12,000 (9,440) bank loan.
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/09/2006 12:12 Comments ||
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#5
Gaza: sympathy meter LOCKED, BOLTED and WELDED on ZERO. You did it to yourselves, punks, just like the Hezb scum in S. Leb. You chose your actions, NOW YOU CAN LIVE WITH THE CONSEQUENCES OF THOSE ACTIONS.
Posted by: mac ||
09/09/2006 12:14 Comments ||
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#6
It sounds like it may be a good idea to open a one man office in Gaza and divert some of that free money to those who could use it more productively (like me!)
#7
Frank, I know. I know. The Gazans at this point seem to be hopeless and worthless.
But I still maintain there is a special place in Hell for the sons of bitches who encouraged them in their downward spiral. Those who use kids as shields today were born and raised in that environment. It's the leaders in the 60s and 70s who I would condemn to the darkest, most painful places in the Pit.
#8
Lotp has some good points, I don't see what could really be added, except than the byline comments in this article are very good too. RB quality material.
#11
"Yep, some voted for Fatah. Kinda like voting for Goebbels instead of Hitler."
"...busy-beehive Mormons..."
Lol, indeed. Excellent in-line stuff. *applause*
I'd say that focusing on the breeding aspect is a little picky, lotp. That's true of all Islam, regardless of the territory involved. It's simply the result of Islamic misogyny. :-}
That the Paleos have perfected the blind and self-defeating Hate Machine is obvious, too, IMHO, so thumping 'em for it strikes me (lol) as apropos. The goofiness of this attempted symp piece just boggles - all of the facts prove their situation is self-inflicted and their logic delusional. Fluffing, indeed, lol.
#12
What I was trying to say is that they're using the term "moderate" quite loosely. As in, one bolt left half-on and the others removed kind of loose.
#14
Hey there, stranger. Good to see you around. Did you get a gander at Fjordman's article on "Moderate Muslims"? It confirms everything you've ever preached to us about these vermin in sheep's clothing, .com. I cannot thank you enough for opening my eyes to the unalloyed threat represented by all practicioners of Islam.
#15
Oooh, cool - nope, I hadn't seen that - some good reading ahead, thx!
To be honest, I know we all hate what's coming, but they've allowed us no choice in the matter. Sucks, in fact. I dread having to explain it to my grandkids... But I'll prolly start early - before the edumahduhcation system has filled their heads with the PC and pussification BS that has made us so vulnerable to such crude and banal threats as an ancient relic of barbarity and thoroughly failed idiocy such as socialism. Boggles. :-)
A new 9-11 occurs every single day. Another 3,000 people die whose lives might have been saved had we not been obliged to divert such tremendous amounts of wealth and manpower into thwarting the psychotic genocidal aspirations of a few ultra-violent Muslims. We need to clean Islam's collective clock and set about the more worthwhile tasks of fighting illiteracy, disease, famine and deprivation. All things which Islam seeks to install with its retrogressive barbaric cultism.
Enough is enough. As Fred mentioned in yesterday's article about the OIC's latest round of blaming "Islamophobia" (otherwise known as a 'healthy survival instinct') instead of taking responsibility for terrorism;
You want to quickly eliminate "Islamophobia"? Actively hunt down and ruthlessly kill every terrorist you get wind of. No explanations accepted, no dissimulation, just a bullet to the back of the head. Or maybe cut their heads off, we don't care. When Islam as an international force is something terrorists are afraid of, then we can talk.
I'm not finished with it, yet, but this is the definitive word. No stone is left unexamined and no trick or tenet left unexposed.
Wow. Fjordman is a steel trap - with sharp teeth and unfailing intellect.
He doesn't quite call Islam a human pathogen, heh, but he destroys the PC notions that we are dealing with people who think like us, but simply believe in different things - the typical fallacy of most Western attempts to analyze or explain Islam. They are nothing like us in any meaningful aspect - and Fjordman effortlessly annihilates the fools who fail to see it. We cannot "deal" with them for they are completely alien. We are faced, literally, with Us vs. Them and he proves it in spades.
An awesome effort and a truly brilliant result.
Thanks, Zen. Already bookmarked and saved on local disk.
#18
You are most welcome, .com. You have my deepest thanks for laying the groundwork so that I could appreciate the importance of Fjordman's message. Moderate Islam is a sham on the order of Moderate Nazism. I owe you bigtime, friend.
#19
I paid a first-hand price, lol. You are most welcome if I helped, but lawzy, lawzy, I'm a fluffy dandelion compared to Fjordman. Woohoo he's GREAT!
#21
When I first arrived at Rantburg, I did dread the impending Muslim Holocaust. That is no longer the case. After five long years of nothing but more Islamic atrocities and the Thundering Silence of tacitly supportive Muslims, I have reached the limits of my patience.
My patience has run out as well; but I still dread what we will in all likelihood end up having to do because it's gonna be REAL ugly.
But what I dread more is what we're going to have to endure before our society works up a head of steam sufficient to get us to that point. Not just the ever-rising tide of bullshit from the Left, but the near certainty that we're going to end up with one or more of our cities nuked before we get off our asses and act.
Welcome back, .com; you are REALLY missed around here.
Off to the gun shop; BBL...
Posted by: Dave D. ||
09/09/2006 15:57 Comments ||
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#22
Gasse, my man, I'm good - and happy to see you're still posting, lol. Shall we bore 'em with some Majik Kingdom stories? Lol.
I'm just a n00b, again, heh.
Here's as close as I ever came to Fjordman:
World History in 10 Easy Steps
by Mo
1) Ima have a Dream thingy: get even with Jooos, lenders, and wymyns!
2) I'll run around the desert taking over stuff, cutting off heads and clits and stuff.
3) Then: Global Dominion and death or slavery for the polytheists and infidels! w00t!
#23
Damn, Dave! You harshed my mellow! That is the crux of the biscuit: we'll have to get seriously plastered before the baggage half of us realize what Fjordman wrote is dead solid perfect Truth. MegaSigh.
I'm gonna hafta get me an NV license so's I can buy a gun here. I've been lazy about that... but it's only been 2.5 years and my TX license is still good so I kinda put it off... Lol.
#24
Even then I wonder ... on my worst days I worry that the "better in a burkha than in a uniform" mindset will delay and erode our capabilities until we have no options left.
On my better days I dread but also look forward to ending this shit.
#25
One small point, skipping back to the top of the thread: Gruth Hupeagum6409 (wonderful in-line comments, my dear, you nailed the essence of it all!) points to Hamas as the bad guys, and the Paleos as not getting it. lotp, too, wrote of the religious leaders that encouraged overproduction of offspring. However, the many babies thingy was originally a PLO (post-election loss known as Fatah, for some reason) program, based on Mahmoud Abbas' dissertation, in which he proposed using excess population to push the Jews off the land as an alternative to the open violence alternating with world pressure organized by Yasser Arafat.
In the West having large families tend to be a decision made by conservative, religious types. For the Palestinians, who are for the most part monogamous as far as I am aware (unlike those Gulf Arabs who can afford a multiplicity of wives) birthing maximum cannon fodder has always been a political decision.
I'd like to give this the sympathy it deserves - but I can't find my nano-violin.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/09/2006 17:51 Comments ||
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#29
Back from the gun shop. Christmas is in the bag.
"Damn, Dave! You harshed my mellow!"
Dang! I just HATE it when that happens...
"I'm gonna hafta get me an NV license so's I can buy a gun here."
Say what? I thought it was only the LLL coastal states that made you do that "license" shit??? Criminy...
Oh, well.
While wallowing through the no-man's-land of the WTFIDC* Days the last few months here on the 'Burg, I've been doing a lot of noodling along the lines of "Where is this 'GWoT' thingie gonna go from here?"
I don't see any big changes so long as GWB is in office barring a) a major, mass-casualty terrorist attack on one of our cities or b) an upset victory by the Democrats in November that puts them overwhelmingly in charge of the House and the Senate.
But the war we're waging right now will come to an abrupt end at exactly noon on January 20th, 2009 when Bush's successor is sworn in. That'll be it, full stop. Finito. And at that moment a new war will take its place, guided by someone else's sense (or lack of it) as to what should be done about the Islamic menace. And that new path may be VERY different from the one GWB and crew have laid out.
But what will it be? I don't have any answers I'm real confident about, but I do have a strong gut sense that if GWB is followed by a Democrat we are in deep, DEEP doo-doo.
Something to continue thinking about, anyway...
* WTFIDC = "Where The Fuck Is Dot-Com????"
Posted by: Dave D. ||
09/09/2006 18:53 Comments ||
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#30
Debates...we'll have debates and things will be a biy more obvious by then, so the debaters will be asked questions like;
How do you intend to stop Israel from burning Damascus ? or Will you commit American troops to the shia-sunni civil war ?
We will pick our winner when he bashes McCain in the face and declares war on the donkey 'moderates'.
We're looking for one man with two balls.
Police and Internal Security forces raided the Galilee offices of the "Friends of the Prisoner" organization Thursday night. The police reported that the organization had been operating with Hamas, and had been responsible for money transfers to high-risk prisoners in Israeli jails. During the raid material and other property from the office was confiscated.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/09/2006 00:00 ||
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A Palestinian woman, the sister of a terrorist who was shot and killed by IDF troops in a gun battle, was arrested in a refugee camp near Nablus on Thursday, Army Radio reported. The woman was allegedly planning a terror attack in Israel.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/09/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Traditionally, refugee camps are a means to gather, rest, recruit, plan and feed on someone else's food before the next excursion.
Israel's foreign minister said on Friday it was "about time" the Jewish state talked to the Palestinians, adding no conditions should be put on meeting President Mahmoud Abbas. But Tzipi Livni said Abbas should expect nothing from talks, such as a release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel, unless militants in the Gaza Strip freed a soldier captured in a cross-border raid on June 25.
Her comments were a softening of remarks by Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who said this week a summit between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Abbas, who is also known as Abu Mazen, would take place only if the soldier was released first. "In relation to a meeting with Abu Mazen, I do not think there need to be any conditions for such a meeting," Livni, told a news conference in Tel Aviv with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. "It is about time we found a way to talk with the Palestinians and with Abu Mazen in order to find out whether there is a way to promote a process that can lead in the future to a two-state solution."
Posted by: Fred ||
09/09/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
The Israelis got a Tony coming to town, talking piece. There are some aspects of Blair I will not miss, this is one.
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/09/2006 1:46 Comments ||
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#2
well, you know how Cherie loves her Paleos....
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/09/2006 10:11 Comments ||
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Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh declared on Friday that his embattled Hamas-led government had no intention of stepping down, despite a sweeping civil service strike and an economic crisis that a top UN official said has brought the Gaza Strip to a "point of near meltdown."
Hamas' takeover of the Palestinian Authority in March has provoked crushing international sanctions that have rendered the government unable to pay its 165,000 employees for the past six months.
In the widest sign of growing displeasure with Hamas, tens of thousands of teachers, health workers and other government employees launched an open-ended strike last Saturday. The work stoppage, organized in large part by the rival Fatah movement, has threatened to bring down the government. "The government is not going to resign," Haniyeh told 2,000 worshippers at a mosque in the southern Gaza town of Rafah. "We have no thoughts of resignation or dismantling the (Palestinian) Authority."
Posted by: Fred ||
09/09/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
What would this government be stepping down from?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Police and Internal Security forces raided the Galilee offices of the "Friends of the Prisoner" organization Thursday night. The police reported that the organization had been operating with Hamas, and had been responsible for money transfers to high-risk prisoners in Israeli jails. During the raid material and other property from the office was confiscated.
Israel's foreign minister said on Friday it was "about time" the Jewish state talked to the Palestinians, adding no conditions should be put on meeting President Mahmoud Abbas. But Tzipi Livni said Abbas should expect nothing from talks, such as a release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel, unless militants in the Gaza Strip freed a soldier captured in a cross-border raid on June 25. 
Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh declared on Friday that his embattled Hamas-led government had no intention of stepping down, despite a sweeping civil service strike and an economic crisis that a top UN official said has brought the Gaza Strip to a "point of near meltdown." 
