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World Health Agencies Condemn Israeli Blockade of Gaza (Again); Obama's Biggest Mideast Failure

Too true.!....are the only words in response to this clearly argued case as put by Juan Cole in his piece "World Health Agencies Condemn Israeli Blockade of Gaza (Again); Obama's Biggest Mideast Failure" on his Informed Comment blog:

"When a relief plane for the Physicians without Borders isn't allowed to land by US military authorities at the airport in Port-au-Prince, there is an outcry.

But Israeli military authorities will not allow any relief planes at all to land in the Gaza Strip (the Israelis destroyed Gaza's airport in 2001).

We cheer when a Haitian child is rescued from the rubble, but ignore the thousands of Gazan children who are suffering malnutrition and being buried by Israeli policy, a policy that is a war crime. I am of course not the only to be struck by this contrast: see also Phil Weiss and others quoted at his essential site.

On Wednesday, 80 international aid groups called upon Israel to change its policy of blockading civilians in Gaza, because it is having severe negative effects on the health of Gazans.

Admittedly, the situation in Gaza is not as dire as that in Haiti. But it is very, very bad, and it is man-made. The Israeli government imposed a blockade on the Gaza strip in 2007 and has maintained it ever since. It limits the import of fuel and staples, and punishes the whole population. Since half of the 1.5 million Gazans are children, the Israeli siege of the little territory is among the more massive ongoing cases of child abuse in the world. There is a virtual news blackout on this atrocity in the US mass media, and attempts of two sets of activists to get humanitarian aid to Gaza in recent weeks were largely ignored by them."

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