Palestine Protests Against Western Economic Violence

Palestinians and Israelis took part in a non violent peace march yesterday demanding that Palestine be "uncaged" and that Western powers cease their acts of economic violence against them by restoring the aid that the US and EU have cut since the election of Hamas.

ISM said in a press release that Israeli and international activists with pictures of western leaders taped to their chests carried a barbed-wire cage in which a Palestinian dressed in Palestinian flags was symbolically trapped.

"This was to signify the fact that Palestine is being made a prison created by the Israeli state and it's western financiers," said the press release.

Since the election of Hamas the US and EU have cut aid to the Palestinians and Israel has closed the Karni crossing, ending any ability for the Palestinians to trade their goods.

The PA is now unable to pay it's employees, which will lead to disaster in the region.

The PA is the largest employer in the territories. Its 152,000 employees support 942,000 people. The UN estimates that 37 percent of the people employed in the Gaza Strip, more than 73,000 people, earn their living from the PA. Most of the hospitals and schools also depend on the budgets that come from the PA and a minority of them rely on budgets from international organizations and UNRWA. UNRWA Commissioner-General Karen Koning AbuZayd has told Haaretz that salvation cannot come from the budgets allocated for refugees. In any case, of the $9.754 million needed this year for funding necessities, she is lacking nearly $120,000. Of the $150 million needed for projects like building schools and rehabilitating camps, thus far only $14.3 million have been provided.

AbuZayd stresses that all of these figures do not take into account the expected crisis on the territories in the wake of the stoppage of salary payments to PA employees. According to her, UNRWA will even find it difficult to cope with the most basic needs of the refugees alone. She expects that 25,000 families will be added to the food distribution list and thousands of unemployed refugees who will have lost their jobs will join the lines at the organization's employment bureaus.

AbuZayd says that with all their dedication, there is a limit to the volunteer spirit of the doctors and the teachers. At the end of this month, when there is no money left in the PA coffers for paying their salaries, thousands of patients will be sent to die at home and tens of thousands of children will be thrown into the streets. Thus, we will provide for the children of the next intifada of stones.

A senior World Bank official has asked to remind the Israelis who assume a hungry Palestinian does not vote for Hamas that it has already been proven that Hamas is the victor in humanitarian crises. Just as in Israel, applying terror against an entire civilian population in the context of the struggle against the occupation strengthens the right, collective punishment of the population strengthens fanatics in the territories.

The current US/Isreali policy, of punishing the Palestinians for choosing a government that the West does not approve of, is simply disgusting.

Anyone with a conscience can see that brutalising these people, which is the only way to describe what we are doing, is counter productive; and will only increase anger and resentment against the West.

Britain tried yesterday to find alternative ways to fund the PA but it met with the inevitable US objections.

The current US/Israeli policy is cruel, short sighted and undemocratic.

The Americans are, once again, playing to an Israeli songsheet.

Hamas have already offered a deal of "quiet for quiet" which the Israelis have rejected. Hamas are currently operating a ceasefire towards Israel which the Israelis have not reciprocated. Hamas have also said they would be willing to discuss a two state solution which the Israelis have ignored.

It is time for the US to ask itself who the real opponent of peace in the Middle East is.

The US should end it's ridiculous stance of refusing to have any dealings with Hamas and enter negotiations as a matter of urgency.

But, first and foremost, they must end this inhumane policy of starving the Palestinians.

Tags: Palestine, US, EU, Israel, funding, Karni, crossing, starvation, hardship, sanctions, withdrawal,