Charles Krauthammer’s column today is as concise and powerful as his best.
The world is outraged at Israel’s blockade of Gaza. Turkey denounces its illegality, inhumanity, barbarity, etc. The usual U.N. suspects, Third World and European, join in. The Obama administration dithers.
But as Leslie Gelb, former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, writes, the blockade is not just perfectly rational, it is perfectly legal. Gaza under Hamas is a self-declared enemy of Israel — a declaration backed up by more than 4,000 rockets fired at Israeli civilian territory. Yet having pledged itself to unceasing belligerency, Hamas claims victimhood when Israel imposes a blockade to prevent Hamas from arming itself with still more rockets.
He goes on to assert, correctly, that this entire escapade has nothing to do with helping the people of Gaza, and everything to do with depriving Israel of any means of self-defense, even such passive means as a blockade. He also outlines the result of every recent “land for peace” gesture by Israel: only more attacks, from enemies who are now nearer. He finishes:
The world is tired of these troublesome Jews, six million — that number again — hard by the Mediterranean, refusing every invitation to national suicide. For which they are relentlessly demonized, ghettoized, and constrained from defending themselves, even as the more committed anti-Zionists — Iranian in particular — openly prepare a more final solution.
But read it all.
And courtesy of the Canada-Israel Committee, here are some figures on how much aid is regularly delivered to the people of Gaza.
Despite the fact that Israel publicly offered to inspect and then transfer the flotilla’s aid to Gaza several days prior to the incident, many opponents of Israel are now making wild accusations that humanitarian supplies are being blocked from entering Gaza.
The facts put these charges to rest – just take a look at how much aid Israel regularly delivers to Gaza, and what it means in real terms for Gazans:
- Over one million tons of humanitarian supplies were delivered by Israel to the people of Gaza in the past 18 months – that’s equal to nearly one ton of aid for every man, woman and child in Gaza.
- In the first quarter of 2010 alone (January-March), Israel delivered 94,500 tons of supplies to Gaza. It’s very easy to miss what that actually means for the people of Gaza. The breakdown includes:
- 40,000 tons of wheat – which is equal to 53 million loaves of bread;
- 2,760 tons of rice – which equals 69 million servings;
- 1,987 tons of clothes and footwear – the equivalent weight of 3.6 million pairs of jeans; and
- 553 tons of milk powder and baby food – equivalent to over 3.1 million days of formula for an average six-month-old baby.
- This reflects a long-term effort on the part of Israel to deliver a massive and comprehensive supply of aid to Gaza’s civilians, while restricting the ability of Hamas to import missiles that have been launched at the cities of southern Israel. In 2009 alone:
- During the Muslim holy days of Ramadan and Eid al-Adha, Israel shipped some 11,000 head of cattle into Gaza – enough to provide 8.8 million meals of beef;
- More than 3,000 tons of hypochlorite were delivered by Israel to Gaza for water purification purposes – that’s 60 billion gallons of purified water; and
- Israel brought some 4,883 tons of medical equipment and medicine into Gaza – a weight equivalent to over 360,000 260-piece mobile trauma first aid kits.
Read the full statistics and judge for yourself. Humanitarian crisis in Gaza? Not according to the facts.
