Boycott of Hamas prompts urgent call for child support
The UN has made an unprecedented call for aid to the Palestinians to be increased by 80% as the US/EU and Israeli refusal to deal with the Hamas regime has led to an " extremely bleak" humanitarian outlook which the UN says is " predicted to worsen dramatically in the coming months."
Its new report says that 70 percent of Palestinians will be without paid work by the end of the year.
The rise in unemployment stems from the ban on paying salaries to the Palestinian Authority's 152,000 employees - which normally support another million people - and the continued contraction of the economy because of intensified closures and the loss of work in Israel.
Filippo Grandi, deputy director of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said that 100,000 people in Gaza alone were now on a waiting list for places on the agency's short term job creation schemes.
The report also says that beside a continuing death toll because of " Israeli-Palestinian" violence, inter Palestinian conflict - which has already claimed ten lives this month, has been compounded by the non payment of salaries to security personnel. It warns: "A rise in criminality and lawlessness will further undermine private investment and could jepoardise aid deliveries."
Repeated closures of the Karni crossing - which the report says has been open, and then well below capacity - for only 56 percent of the year have also devastated the economy. David Shearer, the director of the UN's Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said the internationally funded rehabilitation of Gaza nurseries left by departing Jewish settlers last August had failed because "only a fraction" of the produce was able to leave Gaza for export markets.
Repeated closures of the Karni crossing - which the report says has been open, and then well below capacity - for only 56 percent of the year have also devastated the economy. David Shearer, the director of the UN's Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said the internationally funded rehabilitation of Gaza nurseries left by departing Jewish settlers last August had failed because "only a fraction" of the produce was able to leave Gaza for export markets.
The punishment that we have visited upon the people of Palestine for having the temerity to vote for a government that we disapprove of undermines our whole claim to believe in democracy.
Our behaviour is little short of a disgrace.
We are currently punishing a civilian population in the hope of bringing about a change in the democratically elected leadership of that region.
That's pretty near to a textbook definition of terrorism.
I have no great faith that the US will desist from it's disastrous policy regarding the Palestinians. But it's depressing beyond words to watch this play itself out.
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2 comments:
kel, I like the look and the content of your blog..you ought to have many people commenting as you definitely have worthwhile, 'commentable' (new word ha) posts. (so why do I not comment more often??) never mind...
I am almost suspicious thinking that they (TPTB) are trying to get her to follow up Bush in the next election..say it ain't so.
The whole Administration is tainted, top down, big time. I feel very strongly that they have sold their souls (as a matter of speaking)and do not warrant any consideration. If anything, anything coming from them has to be viewed as 'what's behind it'. These people are devoid of any humanitarian concepts. This administration especially has this attitude of who to accept and who not. I am not sure about Iran having nukes but then, since when can 'the West' feel safe that the US has them? Or any weapons for that matter? The US has no moral ground to claim any superiority cloaked in whichever reasoning of why someone else should not or could not have something. That being an elected government, weaponry, or a different social economic political model (Chavez in Venezuela)..
Ingrid
Thanks for commenting on my "commentable" post!
I do think the Bush administration is more hypocritical than any preceding American administration.
Their attitude towards Hamas represents their hypocrisy when they claim to love democracy, and Bush's desire to develop a new range of "bunker busting" nuclear weapons reveals his hypocrisy when he demands that Iran comply with the very Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that Bush has abandoned.
And they wonder why Russia and China are reluctant to back their plans vis a vis Iran?
If they were more consistent in their stances they would carry more moral authority.
As things presently stand, they are - as you rightly say - worthy only of suspicion.
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