The following story, published by Electronic Intifada, truly astounds me, though often I wonder why I am still astounded; just as wonders never cease, so too, it seems, do injustices never rest.
Two hundred thousand Palestinian children began school in the Gaza Strip this month without a full complement of textbooks. Why? Because Israel, which maintains a stranglehold over this small strip of land along the Mediterranean even after withdrawing its settlers from there in 2005, considers paper, ink and binding materials not to be “fundamental humanitarian needs.”
Israel, attempting to throttle the democratically elected Hamas government, generally permits only food, medicine and fuel to enter Gaza, and allows virtually no Palestinian exports to leave. Lately, it held up delivery of materials needed for printing textbooks. As a result, Gaza students began the year facing a 30 percent shortage of texts.
No full-page advertisements in major American newspapers have publicized Israel’s violations of Palestinian children’s right to an education. No editors, syndicated columnists or presidents of major universities in this country have denounced this callous measure. Our politicians have demanded no remedial action. Instead, they continue, verbally and materially, to support Israel in its near-total blockade of 1.5 million Palestinians, kids and all.
Israel’s trampling of Palestinian students’ right to education — the key to a lifetime of opportunity — has rarely evoked official protest from American leaders. The Israeli army has closed Palestinian universities for years at a time. Israeli military authorities have barred Palestinian occupational therapy students from traveling from Gaza to the West Bank to obtain vital clinical training.
Hundreds of Israeli checkpoints and roadblocks can turn a routine trip to a local school into a harrowing ordeal. Israeli gunfire has even killed Palestinian schoolchildren sitting in their classrooms. None of these offenses has merited so much as a congressional resolution, let alone more serious efforts to curb Israeli behavior, such as government-imposed sanctions.
And so it continues. The full article can be found here, and is certainly worth a read.
Compiled by George Bisharat, a professor of law at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, for the Baltimore Sun, the article emphasizes the slow steps being made to publicize and act on the events unfolding in not only the Gaza Strip, but across Palestine.
I’m not sure about the U.S., but in Britain a suitable amount of news is published daily in the media – predominantly the newspapers – depending, of course, on the political slant of the editors.
From conversations with Americans, it seems that quite a bit is hidden in the media regarding Israeli actions, which is why sites such as Electronic Iraq, Electronic Intifada, and Electronic Lebanon are so valuable.
Compiled by people on the ground – volunteers, translators, journalists – the truth emerges objectively and shockingly. May such sites long thrive and continue their worthy cause!
