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!

Hamas “didn’t expect to win”

For confirmation of our assertion that Fatah collapsed in the Gaza Strip, check out Khaled Abu Toameh’s article in today’s Jerusalem Post. Abu Toameh quotes a Hamas official describing the movement’s swift capture of the entire strip as shocking even to themselves.

There is some spin from the official about the validity of the Palestinian security forces in their Fatah-dominated makeup… and he also points out that Fatah’s fighters were demoralized by the fact that their leaders had fled the area, leaving them totally adrift...

Even so, you would expect people to fight if they had been inculcated with a defensive spirit. That Fatah lacked this spirit became glaringly obvious during the confrontations with Hamas.

As the official in the Jerusalem Post story says:

“It was not a matter of a military victory for Hamas as much as it was a psychological defeat for Fatah.”

The groundwork for that psychological defeat was laid well before the Hamas uprising…

The Crusaders of Gaza

Apparently, the Huda Army does not read The Christian Post.

On Saturday, the newspaper published a ridiculously optimistic forecast of interfaith relations in the Gaza Strip:

Hamas-Christian Friendship Gives Hope for Believers' Safety in Gaza

While looting, sporadic violence, and instability still plague the newly Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, a Christian persecution group [sic] hopes that a long-established friendship between it and Hamas will keep the small Christian community relatively safe from targeted attacks.

Open Doors, an international ministry working with persecuted Christians, said although it fears a worsening of living conditions for Gaza inhabitants, it does not think Christians will be attacked by the Islamic fundamentalist group.

“I am afraid it is going to get worst now that the border with Israel will be sealed tight,” Al Janssen, director of communications for Open Doors International, said to The Christian Post on Friday. “If food isn’t getting in and water isn’t getting in then there is going to be a humanitarian crisis.”

However, Janssen noted that he hopes the conversations between Hamas leaders and Open Doors founder Brother Andrew “will bear some fruit.”

Brother Andrew had built a relationship spanning over a decade with Hamas leaders. In December 1992, over a thousand Hamas leaders were deported from Israel and left on the side of a mountain in Lebanon.

Brother Andrew had flew in [sic] and visited the Hamas camp in a humanitarian way and gave Bibles and his book “God’s Smuggler” to them, who in turn invited Brother Andrew into their tent for a meal.

When the Hamas leaders later were able to return to their countries, Brother Andrew in turn hosted meals for Hamas leaders where he would testify about the Gospel. The two built a friendship where they would mutually challenge each other's religious beliefs but would do so with respect.

“Hamas are still people who need to hear the Gospel,” Janssen said. “Maybe at night, one of them would think about God and where he will go when he dies. We as Christians should spread the Gospel and not just cut them off.”

On Sunday, two Christian institutions in Gaza City were attacked.

As the Jerusalem Post story relates:

Masked gunmen in Gaza City set fire to the Latin Church and went on a rampage inside the Rosary Sisters School on Sunday. The attack was the first of its kind since Hamas took full control over the Gaza Strip last week.

Leaders of the Christian community in the Strip expressed deep concern over the fate of the Christians living under Hamas. They said most of them wanted to leave the Gaza out of fear for their lives.

An estimated 2,500 Christians live in Gaza City.

...

A group calling itself the Huda (Guidance) Army Organization threatened to target all Christians living in the Gaza Strip following remarks against Islam and the Prophet Muhammad that were made last year by Pope Benedict XVI.

“We will target all Crusaders in the Gaza Strip,” the group said in a leaflet, “until the pope issues an official apology. ”

The group also threatened to attack churches and Christian-owned institutions and homes.

“All centers belonging to Crusaders, including churches and institutions, will from now on be targeted,” it said. “We will even attack the Crusaders as they sit intoxicated in their homes.”

The Huda Army Organization said preparations had been completed “to strike at every Crusader and infidel on the purified land of Palestine."

Looks like Brother Andrew might have overestimated that mutual respect.

What is this, if not a war?

The death toll in factional violence in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the year is fast approaching 200. Over the past few days, Fatah and Hamas have taken turns throwing each other’s members off tall buildings. Gunmen from each group are shooting at each other inside hospitals, assassinating each other’s officials, killing women and children, and preachers too. They are storming each other's headquarters.

As one Fatah spokesman said, “What is this, if not a war?”

So much could be said about how utterly unsurprising these clashes are, about the culture of hatred that both Fatah and Hamas have cultivated and how it is finally consuming them, about the complete failure of the Palestinians and of anyone who has ever taken an interest in their fate to affect the development of a fruitful society amongst them... but the simplest and most salient point of all is that this is, indeed, a war. And it is gruesome.