And so is my disgust at the propaganda passing as news in AmeriKa.
"In Gaza, gnawing problems persist amid construction boom" by Ethan Bronner, New York Times / June 26, 2011
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Israel’s critics say the fact that the conditions in Gaza do not rival the problems in sub-Saharan Africa only makes the political and human rights crisis here all the more tragic — and solvable.
Israel, they note, still controls access to sea, air, and most land routes, and its security policies have consciously strangled development opportunities for an educated and potentially high-achieving population that is trapped with no horizon. Pressure needs to be maintained to end the siege entirely, they say, and talk of improvement is counterproductive....
And that is EXACTLY what the GIST of the REST of the agenda-pushing piece.
Two luxury hotels are opening in Gaza this month. Thousands of new cars are on the roads. A second shopping mall — with escalators from Israel — will open next month. Hundreds of homes and two dozen schools are about to go up. A Hamas-run farm where Jewish settlements once stood is growing enough fruit that Israeli imports are tapering off.
As pro-Palestinian activists prepare to sail in a flotilla aimed at keeping attention on Gaza and pressure on Israel, this isolated Palestinian coastal enclave is having its first period of economic growth since the siege they are protesting began in 2007.
I'm shocked that the AmeriKan media actually called it a siege.
“Things are better than a year ago,’’ said Jamal El-Khoudary, chairman of the board of the Islamic University, who has led Gaza’s Popular Committee Against the Siege. “The siege on goods is now 60 to 70 percent over.’’
The truth is they really could not have gotten much worse.
Ala al-Rafati, the economy minister for Hamas, the militant group that governs Gaza, said in an interview that nearly 1,000 factories are operating here, and he estimated unemployment at no more than 25 percent after a sharp drop in jobless levels in the first quarter of this year. “Yesterday alone, the Gaza municipality launched 12 projects for paving roads, digging wells, and making gardens,’’ he said.
So is that the news from Gaza in mid-2011? Yes, but so is this: Thousands of homes that were destroyed in the Israeli antirocket invasion 2 1/2 years ago have not been rebuilt. Hospitals have canceled elective surgery for lack of supplies. Electricity remains maddeningly irregular.
Meaning NOT MUCH HAS REALLY CHANGED despite the pat-on-the-back propaganda!
The much-publicized opening of the Egyptian border has fizzled, so people remain trapped here.
Proving the new boss is damn near the same as the old boss in Egypt, sigh.
The number of residents living on less than $1.60 a day has tripled in four years. Three-quarters of the population rely on food aid.
About 10 ships with activists from 20 countries were scheduled to set sail for Gaza this weekend in a renewed attempt to break Israel’s embargo, according to Freedom Flotilla II, the group behind the protest.
The ships will depart from Athens and other Mediterranean ports and are expected to reach Gaza in the first few days of July. The State Department warned US citizens against “conspiring to deliver material support or other resources to or for the benefit of a designated foreign terrorist organization, such as Hamas.’’
What craven pieces of crap.
Related: Floating a Few Palestine Pieces
How come it's always a couple pieces of crap when it comes from my paper?
The first Gaza flotilla ended in violence in May of last year when Israeli naval commandos opened fire after the ship Mavi Marmara, one of six boats in the flotilla, refused to stop.
??????
Nine Turkish activists were killed.
One of them was American.
Yup, the Israeli act of piracy (not to mention the war crimes committed against Palestinians) are breezed over and obfuscated.
The Gaza Strip has never been among the world’s poorest places. There is near-universal literacy and relatively low infant mortality, and health conditions remain better than across much of the developing world.
That CERTAINLY EXPLAINS SO MUCH regarding the PALESTINIAN PEOPLE!
In spite of all the enforced sufferings and privations visited upon them by Israeli they still thrive!
Yes, they ARE the SOUL of the WORLD!!!!
“We have 100 percent vaccination; no polio, measles, diphtheria, or AIDS,’’ said Mahmoud Daher, a World Health Organization official here. “We’ve never had a cholera outbreak.’’
The Israeli government and its defenders use such data to portray Gaza as doing fine and Israeli policy as humane and appropriate....
I'm sorry, but nothing justifies war crimes.
International projects are proceeding, but there is an urgent need for housing, street paving, schools, factories, and public-works projects, all under Hamas or the private sector, and Israel’s policy bans access to the goods to move those forward.
So in recent months, tunnels under the southern border that were used to bring in consumer goods have become almost fully devoted to smuggling in building materials.
Sacks of cement and piles of gravel, Turkish in origin and bought legally in Egypt, are smuggled through the hundreds of tunnels in double shifts, day and night, totaling some 3,000 tons a day.
Hey, that is what you do when you are trying to SURVIVE!
Also means Israel can't be all that happy with Turkey.
Since the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian security authorities no longer stop smugglers, and streets are being paved and buildings constructed.
But the border opening is a bust?
Karim Gharbawi is an architect and building designer with 10 projects under way, all of them eight- and nine-story residential properties. He said there were some 130 engineering and design firms in Gaza. Two years ago, none were working. Today, he said, all of them are.
I'll take any improvement.
--more--"
Gotta spoil the good somehow:
"Palestinians may ease demands on Israel" June 24, 2011|Associated Press
RAMALLAH, West Bank — The Palestinians are ready to drop their demand for a freeze on Israeli settlement construction to get peace talks back on track, a top official told the Associated Press yesterday.
The softened position reflects the Palestinians’ growing realization that their alternative strategies to talks — reconciling with the Hamas militant group and seeking unilateral recognition at the United Nations — are both in trouble....
I don't see how. General Assembly is going to vote the thing through, and reconciliation is happening.
Do you know how sick I am of wishful psyop prop posing as news?
--more--"
Related:
Six Jewish Companies Own 96% of the World's Media
Declassified: Massive Israeli manipulation of US media exposed
That does explain the "journalistic style" of AmeriKa's jewspapers.
Update: Palestinians officially decide to seek UN recognition for statehood in September
Really, what is with the lying?
