Yes we’ve heard of the terrible siege that Israel has laid against Gaza. Mere Rhetoric catalogues all of the charges against Israel and shows them to be bogus.
The latest to fall is how Israel’s blockade harmed the sick and injured in Gaza. Israel actually allows the vast majority of those who apply to leave for medical treatment to get treatment in Israel.
Which means that during this horrible “siege,” Israel has been doubling and re-doubling the number of patients allowed from Gaza to Israel or the PA for treatment.
Additionally as the JCPA – the source for these figures – points out
# The facts are that Israel has provided ever increasing numbers of approvals of permits since the Hamas takeover of Gaza, despite increasing rocket attacks on Israel’s civilian population, including mortar and terror attacks directed at the Erez crossing used by patients.
# At the same time, there have been at least 20 incidents where Palestinians used medical missions to attempt terror attacks.
Reading things like this makes me wonder if Israel actually cares more about Palestinians than the Palestinian leadership does. The most recent medical efforts we saw from Hamas was its persecution of Fatah affiliated doctors, making health care in Gaza even less available. Yet it’s Israel that will be in the dock, accused by the likes of Amnesty International of preventing access to health care and other crimes:
Amnesty International raises concern over human rights violations entrenched in the normative and institutional structure of the Israeli state: the failure of Israel to recognize the applicability to the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) of humanitarian and human rights law; the unlawful settlements in the OPT; the construction of a fence/wall mostly within the OPT; the demolition of Palestinian homes in the OPT and of Arab Israeli homes in Israel; policies which undermine the rights of the occupied Palestinian population to health, education, housing, work and an adequate standard of living in the West Bank and, in particular, in Gaza where Israeli authorities have imposed a stringent blockade; torture or other ill-treatment of detainees;
This goes beyond irresponsible. There exists no charitable explanation for AI and the other NGO’s who will be doing the will of the Arab world next year at Durban II and demonizing Israel. This isn’t about helping the Palestinians but about hating Israel and the Jews.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
“Reading things like this makes me wonder if Israel actually cares more about Palestinians than the Palestinian leadership does.”
That’s not setting a very high standard but yes, of course they do, and they always have. Certainly Israel has done much more to beter the lives of the average “Palestinian” than the “Palestinian” leadership has. For all the talk of the cruel occupation, Arab life expectancy, medical care, education and per capita income soared after Israel took responsibility for Yesha after the 1967 war, and Arab infant mortality, illiteracy and disease plummeted. Until the first Intifada, when the Arabs managed to reversed the situation. And then the second Intifada. Yet Israel always gets all of the blame and none of the credit.