The World is Sick

Deborah Orr writes an important column in the Independent today (Israel has turned Gaza into a prison. There can only be one reason for such inhumanity). I urge you to read the whole article. Here is a sample:

They are, of course, maintaining the military siege of Gaza that they began a few weeks before the Lebanon offensive knocked it off the diplomatic agenda. Lyrically titled "Operation Summer Rains", it has now rolled into its 10th week, killing 202 Palestinians - 44 of them children - launching 267 air strikes and damaging hundreds of buildings, many bridges and the Gaza power plant……….

Gaza needs peacekeepers too, but the army's desire to keep outsiders away from this prison territory is so great that even a delegation from a political organisation as innocuous as Birmingham City Council was turned away last week……….

"In the east part of the city, eight people were killed, 17 injured including journalists from Reuters, heavy shooting from the gunboats. Every day hospitals receive killed and injured people, hospital use of diesel increased, to run the operation rooms, with the continuous use of the electrical generators ... no water no electricity no proper sewage system, public health greatly affected, no entertaining, no cash to buy food, increasing number of families rely on aid food alone, children do not have well balanced meals, the borders are closed, only opened rarely to let in some medications and humanitarian aid for the Unrwa, thousands of children suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome symptoms."…. Gaza is a prison now, and nobody can get out or in. This too is the wild crescendo of a covert policy the Israelis have been pursuing for years……Can the Israelis really believe that they - and the thousands of others processed out of the region since 1948 - will ever be able to shrug, accept this and get on with their lives? Can they believe that a pair of prison territories can be maintained indefinitely, while Israel flourishes merrily around them?

Silence is complicity on this issue. Not only are Bliar and Bush complicit in the terrorist attack on Lebanon but they are also guilty of this horrific siege of an entire people. A siege hidden from view by the BBC and many media outlets. No doubt Bliar will soon fly to the region to try and boost his rock bottom ratings. The world is sick to death of these political stunts and needs actions against poverty and injustice now. Not trick, not promises of aid, not vague promises of peace, not loans, not small amounts of debt cancellation, not help to corrupt governments, not fake elections, not rejection of real democracy, not torture, not 'economic growth', not arms, not tokens and certainly not the theft of third-world resources dressed up with the cloak of - ‘The War on Turrr’.

We are all complicit in a sense. Taxes that I have paid have helped to create the situation. When I sit down for a meal with my children each night and think of the billions who cannot do the same, I am truly ashamed. Can I ever absolve my conscience without physically sharing in the desperation of the poor? Without giving up all that I have?