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Originally Posted by champstark
Come on dude, you know how many children Israel killed in Cast Lead and you know how harmful the blockade is to the health of over a million people (40% of whom are children).
Is it? Despite the heart-wrenching stories in the major news services, they are just that - stories. fiction.
now, nobody is saying that there isn't poverty in gaza. but
life expectancy in gaza is at least within the world average and longer than such developed countries as Malaysia, Turkey, Romania, Honduras, and Russia.
Here's the picture of the Gazan parliament suffering blackouts.
Notice the windows. There's daylight outside! Its
staged, like most of the "suffering".
Pictures of luxury hotels, fully stocked grocery stores, and public celebrations are widely available on the internet.
Additionally, Egypt has imposed the same blockade on Gaza for even longer than Israel has - i.e. since the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza.
So the real question is whether the harm to Gazan children is significant, and whether it has resulted from Israel's blockade, or the combined effects of Hamas' mismanagement and totalitarian control of resources.
In any event, Israel has quit Gaza. There is simply no benefit to Israel for any blockade if the rockets were to stop. The rockets do nothing at all but increase israeli sanctions and harm israeli civilians. They began long before the blockade started. Why haven't they stopped?
the answer is that conflict strengthens extremists. and hamas is extremist, and they know it. so, as long as the rockets fall, the blockade will stay. and as long as the story of the blockade stays in the news, hamas has power, as you recognize.
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They are living in complete poverty well below international standards of living.
what about local standards of living compared to before hamas took power? that's the real question. if you compare gazans to americans you're probably going to find a lot of issues.