The Progress Report wrote:
No Military Solution In Gaza
From: The Progress Report [progress@americanprogressaction.org]
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2009 9:03 AM
To: tomc2322
Subject: No Military Solution In GazaA HUMANITARIAN IMPLOSION: Even before the current round of fighting, the situation in Gaza was dire. In Nov. 2007, Oxfam International reported “an increasing risk to public health in Gaza as water and sanitation services begin to buckle under the strain of Israel’s restrictions on fuel, vital maintenance goods and spare parts into Gaza.” The situation for 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip is worse now than it has ever been since the start of the Israeli military occupation in 1967. In March 2008, a coalition of humanitarian organizations released a report entitled The Gaza Strip: A Humanitarian Implosion. The report stated that “the current situation in Gaza is man-made, completely avoidable and, with the necessary political will, can also be reversed.” In a January 2008 interview with Middle East Progress, Nidal al-Mughrabi, Reuters senior correspondent in the Gaza Strip, said “the sanctions have led to more radicalism in the Strip. Hamas and other religious movements have used this environment and the pressure to their advantage. Instead of lobbying the people against Hamas, Israel, and the United States are moving the people behind Hamas.”
THE NEED FOR A LASTING RESOLUTION: There is a desperate need for a sustainable cease-fire agreement that provides both for Israeli security and takes significant steps toward ameliorating the condition of Palestinian civilians, possibly by re-opening Gaza crossings under international monitoring. As Center for American Progress Senior Fellows Mara Rudman and Brian Katulis presciently wrote in 2007, the strategy of “isolating Gaza puts Israel, Egypt, and the region at greater risk and ignores an international obligation to the 1.4 million people living in a small enclosed area of 360 square kilometers (25 miles long, six miles wide), who did not choose this fate, regardless of how they may have voted in the 2006 elections.” The Middle East has changed in significant ways since 2000, but the events of last several weeks once again show the need for greater U.S. engagement, along with international community and regional partners, to support and empower Israelis and Palestinians to finally reach something more than just a temporary truce.
The Center for American Progress is perhaps the foremost liberal think tank, but I disagree with the philosophy that the fighting cannot stop until a “lasting resolution” is reached. The biggest problem I have with this premise is that it is centrist and supports George W. Bush’s justification for the invasion.
The humanitarian crises should override the need for a long standing political solution. The humanitarian needs far outweigh ideology. Sanctions have never worked. Ever. The only thing sanctions test is how fast a population can starve.
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