No food for us, thanks – Allah will provide

Despite its people’s intense poverty, and despite the Gaza Strip’s almost total dependence on outside sources for food and basic materials, Hamas is banning produce from Israeli farmers.

That’ll show ‘em!

Sure, the move will be costly to Israeli fruit and vegetable growers, denying them an estimated $1 million a day in sales. But it will cost Gazans even more: some of the only decent food in their already meager diet.

(Note: When Israel uprooted some 8,000 settlers from Gaza two years ago, it decided not to dismantle dozens of greenhouses that the settlers had built and used to create a thriving agricultural industry. Rather than exploit this gift, however, the Palestinian Authority – then under Fatah control – allowed, and even encouraged, local Gazans to destroy the greenhouses.)

Hamas is literally biting the hands that feed it. And those hands are not only attached to farmers in the “Zionist entity”.

Close to 1 million Gazans rely on food aid from the United Nations. The World Food Program sends hundreds of tons of food – or would, if it could get through the border crossings.

There used to be three functioning crossings along Gaza’s borders: at Erez, in the north, used primarily by laborers who went to work in Israel; at Karni, in the east, used primarily for exchanging goods with Israel; and at Rafah, in the south, used primarily for travel to and from Egypt. All have been closed because of repeated Palestinian attacks – only making matters worse for those unfortunate enough to live in Gaza.

A highly secure, innovative crossing created in the wake of Israel’s withdrawal from the Strip in 2005 exists at Kerem Shalom, near Rafah and at a point where the Gazan, Egyptian and Israeli borders meet. Combining representatives of all three sides, the crossing was overseen by European inspectors/mediators. But after Palestinian gunmen attacked this vital crossing, too, the Europeans headed home.

This leaves Gaza with almost no help from the outside world. The effect, as one might expect, is paralysis. Just one consequence is that the UN is being forced to abandon its major construction efforts in the Strip, which not only provide shelter for locals but sorely needed employment as well.

Recently, despite having no mutually agreed protocol in place for the functioning of the Kerem Shalom crossing, Israel was delivering aid to Gazans through a secure portal there.

Now Hamas is undermining those efforts, too.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said the “Zionist-controlled crossing of Kerem Shalom” was just part of a conspiracy by Israel and the pro-American Fatah leadership in Ramallah against the Palestinians in Gaza. How the delivery of food and building materials to some of the poorest people on the planet is a “plot” against them, Barhoum does not make clear.

What is clear is that Hamas is cutting its nose to spite its face. You could call Gaza a banana republic – if only Hamas would allow bananas in!