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Shining a light onto what the world has hitherto ignored

Although the plight of the Gazans has been on-going for years now, politicians and the media have largely ignored the plight of Gaza's people - 1.5 million of them trapped, under siege by the Israelis, in one of the smallest and densest areas in the world.

The New York Times deserves no congratulation for its coverage of the Israel-Palestinian / Gaza conflict - it has been poor and often one-sided pro-Israeli - but a feature piece on Gaza in today's paper [including the IHT] may, for the first time, be a wake up call to Americans about what is really going on in the Middle East.

"The Palestinians of Gaza, most of them descended from refugees of the 1948 war that created Israel, have lived through decades of conflict and confrontation. Their scars have accumulated like layers of sedimentary rock, each marking a different crisis — homelessness, occupation, war, dependency.

Today, however, two developments have conspired to turn a difficult life into a new torment: a three-year blockade by Israel and Egypt that has locked them in the small enclave and crushed what there was of a formal local economy; and the bitter rivalry between Palestinian factions, which has undermined identity and purpose, divided families and caused a severe shortage of electricity in the middle of summer.

There are plenty of things to buy in Gaza; goods are brought over the border or smuggled through the tunnels with Egypt. That is not the problem.

In fact, talk about food and people here get angry because it implies that their struggle is over subsistence rather than quality of life. The issue is not hunger. It is idleness, uncertainty and despair."

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