* Corruption of the blockade; Israeli surpluses tend to get sold. This picture also hints at what's going on:

Note the arbitrariness (cinnamon, but not coriander), the unconnection to "preventing terror" (donkeys?) the illogic (no animals, but animal feed), the dependency (clothes, but not fabric to make clothes with), the censorship (no newspapers), the perversity (frozen meat and fruit into a land of intermittent electricity supply -- but not dried fruit!)
Or to quote a members-only post:
That's not a list designed to prevent terrorism; that's a list designed
to stop infrastructure developing and prevent the growth of a healthy
economy - in other words, a recipe for breeding terrorism in the future.
Related to this is that Palestine is a captive market, literally, for
Israeli goods. As I posted in the other thread, Richard ben Cramer's HOW
ISRAEL LOST is excellent on this. One particularly intriguing fact;
retired Israeli generals very frequently go on to sit on the boards of
companies who do much of their business selling to the Palestinian
market.
* Israeli criticism of the blockade. Eyewitness accounts of IDF violence, and rebuttals of the IDF story. The attack jammed cell phones BTW, and the IDF has confiscated phones and laptops of the flotilla members. So we can assume they don't want independent evidence getting out.
* BBC FAQ on it all
* Israel's lesson? It announces it will use more force against subsequent ships.
* Funny neighbor analogy a couple posts down.
Equal citizenship or independence. That's what the Palestinians deserve, plain and simple.
Note the arbitrariness (cinnamon, but not coriander), the unconnection to "preventing terror" (donkeys?) the illogic (no animals, but animal feed), the dependency (clothes, but not fabric to make clothes with), the censorship (no newspapers), the perversity (frozen meat and fruit into a land of intermittent electricity supply -- but not dried fruit!)
Or to quote a members-only post:
That's not a list designed to prevent terrorism; that's a list designed
to stop infrastructure developing and prevent the growth of a healthy
economy - in other words, a recipe for breeding terrorism in the future.
Related to this is that Palestine is a captive market, literally, for
Israeli goods. As I posted in the other thread, Richard ben Cramer's HOW
ISRAEL LOST is excellent on this. One particularly intriguing fact;
retired Israeli generals very frequently go on to sit on the boards of
companies who do much of their business selling to the Palestinian
market.
* Israeli criticism of the blockade. Eyewitness accounts of IDF violence, and rebuttals of the IDF story. The attack jammed cell phones BTW, and the IDF has confiscated phones and laptops of the flotilla members. So we can assume they don't want independent evidence getting out.
* BBC FAQ on it all
* Israel's lesson? It announces it will use more force against subsequent ships.
* Funny neighbor analogy a couple posts down.
Equal citizenship or independence. That's what the Palestinians deserve, plain and simple.