

Gaza is the place world pretends to forget about - asadlionpk
http://mondoweiss.net/2013/12/forgets-pretends-forget.html

======
drorh
Unfortunately, when Israel pulled out of Gaza and let its people decide their
future, the first thing they did was to crash the agricultural infrastructure
Israel left (such as greenhouses) and the next was to elect Hamas to rule
them, who proceed immediately to building military infrastructure (factories
to produce missiles, underground tunnels and weapon caches, smuggling tunnels
one could pass a vehicle through to enhance terrorist and Iranian missiles to
the Gaza strip). No wonder then that not too long later, Israel was forced to
place a blockade to prevent or even slow down the military buildup. Later
mini-wars following missiles attacks from Gaza towards Israeli cities clearly
showed why the blockade was needed.

Had the Palestinians had a smarter leadership who had some sense in their
heads, they would have put the huge amounts of money used for militarization
(and corruption, as the EU has determined) to buildng better life for their
citizens. Israel had all the incentives to help them had they for once got
some sense. However, it is apparently too much to expect - see what is going
all over the middle east (and other places like Nigeria) and you can tell that
violence is endemic in the Arab/Muslim culture and until they won't evolve
past this cultural disability, the people will continue to suffer, in Gaza, in
Egypt, in Libia, in Nigeria, in Iran, in Syria, in Iraq, in Pakistan, ... (the
list goes on)

------
Protostome
I'm an Israeli.

I have much sympathy for the people of Gaza, It sounds pretty rough there and
I hope the blockade will be removed soon.

However, Israel put a blockade on Gaza since Hamas kept firing rocket to
Israeli cities even after Israel removed all the settlements. Right now, there
is no Israeli presence in Gaza, but rockets keep on falling. Gaza is in a such
a poor state since Hamas leaders would rather buy thousands of rockets and
explosives and not build an hospital or a water treatment system.

Moreover, Gaza has not been forgotten. In fact, it is mentioned in the news
much more than Darfur, Congo, Eritrea or any other African country where
people are being slaughtered and plagued daily without any western
intervention.

