Samer Badawi, Dallas Morning News, 30 December 2008
We at United Palestinian Appeal have a simple sign near our computers. It reads: What have we done for Gaza today?
For 18 months, since Israel imposed a near-total blockade of Gaza, we could answer that question, however humbly, with news of another modest grant – $30,000 to provide hot meals for a thousand malnourished kindergartners, $40,000 to purchase supplies for healthcare clinics, $50,000 to train young people in first aid.
Last Saturday we had no answers.
Hours after the jets screamed in, dropping 100 tons of bombs and claiming more Palestinian lives in one day than in the worst year of the first Intifada, we spoke with a physician at Kamal Adwan Hospital. He detailed the tragedy:
There were shortages of virtually all emergency room stocks – from gauze to antibiotics. The dead were piled in the hallways because the morgue was filled. The maimed and dying bled in the halls, finding mercy only in prayer.
“We’re depending on you to tell the world what is happening,” he said.
Let’s begin with the truth: Gaza is not free.
Israel’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, asked Americans to imagine San Diego being rocketed daily from Tijuana. There is no parallel. My country, the United States, does not decide whether the people of Tijuana travel beyond their city, fish along its shores, find work, education, healthcare or food.
Imagine that San Diego’s borders were sealed by a neighboring power and that food and medicine and the ability to enter and exit were tightly controlled. Imagine if the densely populated downtown was then pummeled by air strikes.
Israel has imprisoned Gazans inside a 25-mile strip since redeploying its army – and 8,000 illegal settlers – in 2005. Removing the settlers might have been a step toward ending the now 41-year occupation of Gaza. Instead, Israel chose to close off Gaza to the world.
Then came the rockets. Leaving out the context – that Israel never stopped controlling Gaza’s land and sea borders, airspace, or access to food, medicine, and fuel – Israeli leaders point to Hamas rockets as proof that Palestinians do not want peace.
Were it true, that logic would beg another question: What do Palestinians want?
Palestinians want freedom, security and dignity, just like Israelis. It will no doubt be difficult to reach a compromise that reclaims that dignity from the ashes of 1948, when Israel was created literally atop the ruins of more than 400 Palestinian villages and many of its Palestinian inhabitants expelled to Gaza. Israel will only compound that historic wrong – and further jeopardize hopes for peace – if it continues its siege and bombardment of Gaza.
Samer Badawi is the executive director of United Palestinian Appeal, a Washington-based charity established in 1978 to assist needy Palestinians and contribute to socioeconomic and cultural development. His e-mail is samer.badawi@gmail.com.