With raw sewage flowing in the streets caused by the sewage pumps' lack of electricity, to hospitals having to decide how to deal with the immanent failure of their backup generators for lack of fuel, to the lack of food and all supplies necessary for life and all of this on top of a system of checkpoints and controls reminiscent of apartheid, I was delighted to watch the Gazans breech the Egyptian border and stream into that country. They went, not to live in Egypt, but to purchase the necessities which Israel had, illegally, denied them.
Israel's claim that all this was necessary to stop rocket and mortar fire from Gaza into Israel rings hollow. That rocket and mortar fire cause a few rather minor injuries to Israelis, and the response to it has resulted in scores of Palestinian deaths, many of whom were women and children, as well as many more serious injuries.
It was heartening to watch as the Egyptian forces did nothing to impede the Gazans. It was an act of brotherly solidarity on the part of the Egyptian people. The expressions of outrage and "concern" voiced by the United States, and our demand the Egypt close the border label us, once again, a the worlds greatest terrorist nation. Condoleeza Rice expesses our "sympathy" for the plight of the residents of Gaza, yet does nothing whatever to help. In fact, her insistance that the border be closed exposes our unwillingness to even let those unfortunate victims help themselves.
The Israelis are now suggesting that, because they've made Gazans so desperate that they crash through barriers at great risk to themselves to get basic food and fuel and medicines, the Israelis now have no responsibility whatever to assist with supplies to Gaza. "The Gazans obviously can do it themselves", Israel proclaims. What hideous, monstrous inhumanity and hypocricy.
Facing, as the do, the combined power of the US and Israel, and the impotence of their Arab neighbors and sympathizers, there seems no real hope for the Palestinians. This is an enormity.
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