Editor,
Rachel Fredman's description of the situation in Gaza and the West Bank in Monday's Daily Lobo is riddled with distortions.
Although she claims Gaza has been under the "sole jurisdiction" of the Palestinian Authority since Israel's withdrawal in 2005, she takes no account of the fact that Israel controls all of Gaza's borders, including those with Israel itself, as well as its border with Egypt and its Mediterranean coastline. The result is that Israel controls - and, for more than half the time since its withdrawal, has totally barred - all human and commercial entry to and egress from Gaza, a tiny territory where 1.3 million Palestinians live, crammed into only 130 square miles. People from Gaza cannot export agricultural and manufacturing products, or import vital items such as food or materials for building and upgrading infrastructure and have suffered huge economic losses. Their own entry and exit from the territory is severely restricted.
Moreover, last summer Israel destroyed Gaza's only power plant, cutting most electric power, along with access to such necessities as sewage treatment and water. Gaza is an open-air prison, its trapped population sitting ducks for frequent Israeli air and artillery bombardment. The Palestinian rockets fired into Israel are a response to Israel's brutal strangulation of Gaza.
In discussing checkpoints throughout the West Bank, Fredman also ignores the background of these ubiquitous restrictions on Palestinian freedom. Now numbering more than 500 in a territory of only 2,000 square miles, checkpoints have been in place since 1993 - well before Palestinian suicide bombings began. They are located inside the West Bank, not between Israel and the West Bank; they restrict Palestinian movement into and out of Palestinian cities and towns; they divide Palestinian areas, separating Palestinians from their schools, workplaces and hospitals. No Israeli endures the delays and humiliations at checkpoints that Palestinians endure daily - a reality Fredman would know if she had ever been to the West Bank.
It is worth noting that in 2006, according to the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, Israelis killed 633 Palestinians - the majority in Gaza, including a high proportion of women and children - while Palestinians killed 31 Israelis. This extremely lopsided death toll shows Israel to be the aggressor, not the victim.
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Fredman mentions the conditions imposed on the Palestinian government by Israel and the U.S., yet neither she nor the international community make the same demands of Israel. Israel is not required to recognize the Palestinians' right to exist as a nation, nor is it required to live up to past accords or renounce violence.
Justice demands that both Israelis and Palestinians be treated impartially - that Israelis have no more right to recognition, independence and freedom from violence than do Palestinians. There will never be true peace in the area until there is justice for both peoples. Fredman clearly does not know the meaning of the word.
Kathleen Christison
Author of Perceptions
of Palestine
