As we noted a few days ago, Israel's creation of a "Warsaw Ghetto" in Gaza continues apace, using control of the food supply as a primary weapon against the civilian population. Haaretz takes up the case again in a new story:

Every time Gazans sit down for a meal, they face a depressing reality. The selection of foods available to them is dictated almost entirely by a harsh policy imposed by the Israeli government, which, as of late, has even refused to allow such innocuous-seeming foods as pumpkins, pasta or beans to cross the border.

The goal behind Israel's tight control of Gazans' dietary regime is definitely not improving their health. Rather, the government argues that allowing "luxury" foods into Gaza would only add to the popularity of Hamas' leaders, enabling them to better feed their constituency. But, in the eyes of many observers, Israel's policy of limiting foods that enter the Strip is almost tantamount to starvation, and comes dangerously close to collective punishment, both of which are not only illegal and immoral methods to use in pursuit of Israeli security, but also do little to improve that security.

It is in fact, in law, in truth and in reality collective punishment, not just "dangerously close" to it. It is an all-out, astonishing brazen war crime -- a clear echo of Nazi policies on provisioning the Jewish ghettos in Poland after the Germans conquered the country. But let's move on:

Indeed, what long-term Israeli interest is served by having pregnant women and children suffer anemia, which causes well-documented damage to fetal and juvenile development? Limiting their access to iron does not improve Israeli security. Rather, it constitutes a gross violation of our own basic human values and the morality of Israeli society.

Can the experts please explain: Why does the Health Ministry recommendation for the diet of Israeli infants and toddlers - "soft fruit such as bananas and avocado, cooked chicken and beef, and cheese cubes" - not apply to Palestinian children? These particular items are all strictly forbidden from entering Gaza, while rice and a limited selection of meat and produce are the only food items in fact allowed to enter.

Several months ago, ministry officials approached the United Nations to consult with them about their dietary plan for the Gaza Strip. The UN officials - as one might guess - politely told them to go to hell, refusing to have anything to do with such a policy. The Israelis then turned to a Health Ministry dietician, whose advice might have led to the present policy according to which, as Israeli officials have stated, "the minimal requirements for the sustenance of Gaza Strip residents are being observed without inflicting a humanitarian disaster."

The participation of medical experts in drawing up the menus for Palestinians in Gaza - if they knew what policy their advice would help produce - is a grave violation of medical ethics.

What the Israelis are doing in Gaza is precisely what the Americans and British did for years in Iraq: not an open genocide, with machine-gun squads and extermination camps, but the deliberate degradation of a people, seeking to cripple not only their political, military and economic power, but also the physical, emotional, intellectual, and social development of future generations. Every expert in child development will tell you how vitally important proper nutrition -- not to mention a stable, secure environment -- is to the development of a child's body and personality. And Nazi experts of yore could have told us how the social, emotional and psychological functioning of adults can also be degraded and destroyed by prolonged captivity in harsh, humiliating conditions of constant fear and incessant hunger. The Nazis could tell us this because they practiced it against the Jews of Europe.

This kind of degradation is what the Anglo-American elites inflicted on Iraqis before the 2003 invasion-- and they are still inflicting on them each and every day of the continuing occupation of the broken land, as the Washington Post reports. Israel, having less ground to cover and fewer captives to degrade, are able to act with even greater intensity and deliberation in Gaza than their Western mentors' pre-war strangulation of Iraq.

And of course the United States is very much a full partner in the ghettoization of Gaza. The deliberate, scientific calibration of cruelty being applied there by the Israelis would not be taking place without the indispensible financial and material support -- and political cover -- that the United States provides to Israel. The degradation of the people of Gaza -- and above all, the children of Gaza -- goes on because the administration of President Barack Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress of the United States do not want to stop it. 

Comments (13)

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Gonzolegend said:

The Strategy of Collective Punishment You are very right Chris, starving an entire city has become a weapon that occupation forces use to break the will of a people. In both Iraq in the 90's and Gaza since the election of Hamas, starvation seems to have become a tool to punish people who don't agree to go along with the US empire. But there is another reason I can see for Israel starving the Gaza Strip. As well as punishing a population and sapping their will to resist it ensures that the cycle of violence continues. If Hamas or Islamic Jihad or even a lone Palestinian man were to retaliate to the blockade by committing a terrorist act it would ultimately serve Israel's aims of isolating Palestine from the world. You cannot starve an entire city and expect not a single person to hit back at you. So why would Israel starve Gaza?

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July 12, 2009
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Erroll said:

Israel's policies treated more critically in Israel than in U.S. Thankfully there are some Israelis, such as those who write in Haaretz, who are willing to criticize their government and the treatment that it gives to the Palestinians. Contrast that with the number of newspapers and politicians in the United States [such as Al Franken, et al] who treat Israel as the third rail of politics, as a subject and country that should always be treated in a favorable light.

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July 13, 2009
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pasmon said:

	A religious perspective At the judgement day, God will ask muslims and christioans "Why did you kill the innocent in my name". He will then ask jews "Why did you deprive people of their right to live in their lands in my name."
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July 13, 2009
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yankee 30 said:

	... 'Please, sir, I want some more.' Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
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July 13, 2009
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Bloodyscot said:

Israel is starting to feel the pressure of the press which they are use to having some control over Israel is feeling the pressure but until Hamas and the Palestinian Authority can work together then Israel keep this up and say Abbas is not legitimate. Israel is trying to change the focus of the press off of the blockade and the settlements. Hamas must step up and do something soon while the US is trying to restart the roadmap or I see little hope for the Palestinians or for peace.

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July 13, 2009
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Sean O'Neil said:

... The degradation of the people of Gaza -- and above all, the children of Gaza -- goes on because the administration of President Barack Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress of the United States do not want to stop it. This is the pivotal statement for all who wonder why it goes on under the administration of Our Miraculous Mulatto, POTUS44, Barack Hussein Obama, and the uberDonkle Congress.

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July 13, 2009
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moshe cohen said:

	starvation is good for gazans Gaza suffers from overpopulation at the present time. Starvation aimed at significantly reducing the population will be good for them in the long term.
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July 13, 2009
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s.douglas said:

... In the ancient world, opposition to the ruling power commonly exposed subject populations to what we might, today, term 'total war'. I was raised, while reading the Classics, to understand that a different, primitive standard applied in that remote, Barbarous Era; and that I should not apply my Moderne vView upon the relevant texts if I wanted to really absorb the meaning of what I was being forced to translate (largely on the fly -- I was a lazy student!) in Latin 4... What an f'in' joke, eh? Destroy All Monsters! Even if they are innocent women and children -- dispossesed against all norms of international law -- standards that pass for Holy Statute; willfully and successfully abrogated because of a fatal catch in the perverted by-laws of the only planetary ruling authority...the one that allows a U.S. Veto... Americans: Wake Up; or Damn yourselves through collaborative, willful ignorance... "Hey, Fascist! Maybe you would like to purchase our Pledge-Stamps in order to purchase, ship, and plant SALT in Gaza! in order to properly destroy the infestation of persons you MUST NOT recognize as whole human beings!"

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July 13, 2009
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yankee 30 said:

	... There are an estimated 13.2 million Jews worldwide. There are more than 1 billion muslims. One Jew's concern for Palestinian well being is redundant thinking.
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July 13, 2009
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Sean O'Neil said:

	It seems Chris Floyd has angered some people. The amount of hacked down-time over the past couple of weeks... pretty significant. Seems there are a lot of people out there who want the truth to stay buried. Nice work by Rich Kastelein keeping things running.
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July 14, 2009
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Green Eagle said:

A Solution I would like to propose a simple solution to the Gaza problem. Though many people do not seem to know this, Gaza was part of Egypt, before the 1967 war. When Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt, the Egyptians refused to take Gaza back. We constantly hear demands to return to 1967 borders. How about, as part of that, Egypt finally agrees to take Gaza back, and accepts responsibility for its administration. This would take Israel out of the picture, and allow the residents of Gaza to live under Muslim rule, as they did before 1967. I mean this seriously. Isn't this the best solution to this problem of a very small area that has become a massive irritant to the world?

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July 14, 2009 | url
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yankee 30 said:

... "starvation is good for gazans" ...one Jew's disguised persecutory schizoid disorder as so much wishful(fearful) thinking. _______________ 1987: Hamas Forms with the Support of Israeli Intelligence. Sheikh Ahmed Yassin forms Hamas as the military arm of his Islamic Association, which had been licensed by Israel ten years earlier (see 1973-197. According to Charles Freeman, a former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, “Israel started Hamas. It was a project of Shin Bet, which had a feeling that they could use it to hem in the PLO.” [CounterPunch, 1/18/2003; Dreyfuss, 2005, pp. 191, 208] Anthony Cordesman, a Middle East analyst for the Center for Strategic Studies, states that Israel “aided Hamas directly—the Israelis wanted to use it as a counterbalance to the PLO.” A former senior CIA official speaking to UPI describes Israel’s support for Hamas as “a direct attempt to divide and dilute support for a strong, secular PLO by using a competing religious alternative.” Further, according to an unnamed US government official, “the thinking on the part of some of the right-wing Israeli establishment was that Hamas and the other groups, if they gained control, would refuse to have anything to do with the peace process and would torpedo any agreements put in place.” Larry Johnson, a counterterrorism official at the State Department, states: “The Israelis are their own worst enemies when it comes to fighting terrorism. They are like a guy who sets fire to his hair and then tries to put it out by hitting it with a hammer. They do more to incite and sustain terrorism than curb it.” [United Press International, 2/24/2001 Sources: Larry C. Johnson, Unnamed former CIA official]

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July 14, 2009
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Sean O'Neil said:

	oh boy. "Green Eagle" is back with his Binny Net & Yahoo Junior perspective. We're so lucky to have such a violent, thuggish, hateful bigot here. Let's all give him a big round of one-hand-clapping applause!
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July 14, 2009
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