El-Farra described a visit to a local school, where conditions are so far removed from the normality that most readers would take for granted, it is almost like being transported back to the Dark Ages.
“Yesterday I was visiting one of the schools and I could see the children in the classroom with candles. Gaza is a very crowded place, 1.5 million people, and the schools have two shifts. It is winter now and the day is too short and there is no electricity in the schools. So you can imagine the disruption in the education, the effect on health, and the general effect on all aspects of our lives.”
El-Farra started her blog almost two years ago, often making entries by candlelight, praying her computer batteries will survive long enough to allow her to finish.
“I started writing my blog because I felt that it was a window in the sky, it was a way of telling the people what’s happening in my country under occupation,” she said.
Appearing on the same edition of Middle East Today with El-Farra was Professor Alon Ben-Meir, a well known and respected author and Middle East analyst.
“I am against any kind of occupation, direct or indirect. I have always advocated that occupation in any form, however benevolent, is not sustainable. And it has to end,” he said.
While not defending Israel’s action, Ben-Meir noted there were always two sides to a story, and if the Kassam rocket attacks on Southern Israel stopped, so would the Israeli retaliations.
But many other analysts believe the largely ineffective rocket attacks are a pretext for the siege, saying the destruction of Hamas politically is the sole intention of Israeli government.
“Hamas has denied the right of Israel to exist,” Ben-Meir told Middle East Today.
And so, or goes the conventional wisdom, Israel and the United States have decided that Hamas should cease to exist either as a political entity or as a military threat.
And the 1.5 million Gaza residents are being collectively punished for voting Hamas into power in an election judged generally fair and open by international observers, including former US President Jimmy Carter.
The best way to stop the violence and open the way for a negotiated settlement, said Ben-Meir, is for the United Nations to issue a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire. An end to the rocket attacks and an end to Israeli incursions and retaliations in the Gaza Strip.
“A resolution with heavy penalties for any side that breaks the ceasefire, including Israel,” Ben-Meir said.
Prof. Ben-meir’s suggestion was made with profound earnestness, borne out by one of his earlier statements that, “I am concerned about every Palestinian life, about every human life.”
But will the care and concern for human life be enough to get such a resolution passed by the United Nations Security Council?
A third guest on the program, the Chicago based writer and commentator Stephen Lendman, dismissed the proposal, saying the possibility that the United States would allow such a resolution to pass would be, “between little and none.”
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