Siege that spells slow death for the innocents or the many ways israelis murder palestinians

FOR THREE weeks, seven-month-old Mohammed Abu Amra has been lying in Gaza's main paediatric hospital, suffering from immune deficiency and suspected cystic fibrosis.

His doctors do not have the drug they need to relieve his symptoms, which include fever and distressed breathing, racking his thin ribs at almost twice the healthy rate of breaths per minute.

Nor does any hospital in the sealed-off Gaza Strip have the equipment or expertise needed to clinically diagnose Mohammed's condition. For eight days his doctors have been waiting for a reply to their request to transfer the baby to a hospital in Israel. If it is not granted, they say, he will probably die.

"Because of the Israeli siege the number of patients who can travel is very limited," says paediatrician Dr Ahmed Shakat, standing over the child's bed in Gaza's al-Nasser hospital.

"In the past it took one day to transfer an urgent patient to Israel. Now I need maybe five, maybe 10, if it happens at all. The Israelis say it's because of security, but it means urgent cases can die. In the past we could have transferred him also to Egypt, but now that border is closed because of the siege."

Baby Amra is not expected to die quickly if denied proper treatment. Nor would any single factor or player be directly responsible for his death. If he dies it will be partly because he was sick, partly because he was weak, partly because he could not escape from Gaza, partly because the things he needed to survive were not provided to him quickly enough or in sufficient quantity; a variety of reasons that the Israeli government, the rival Palestinian factions and international humanitarian bodies all seek to blame on each other.

In this the child resembles the Gaza Strip itself, a real-life dystopia cut off from the outside world where, under the pressure of half a dozen or so slowly tightening screws, life is coming apart at every seam. Mahmoud Daher, Gaza director of the UN-affiliated World Health Organisation (WHO), says that the health service is where the effects of Palestinian infighting and Israel's blockade are showing most dramatically.

Last week WHO reported that out of the 782 Gaza patients to have sought specialist treatment outside the Strip since the siege was tightened in June, 100 have been granted permits by Israel to leave.

Of those, 27 were turned back to Gaza after being interrogated by Israeli security agents at the Erez crossing. Four died after their passage was delayed or refused; another seven died while waiting for permits in Gaza hospitals.

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The Best Coverage of Current Situation in Palestine

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ALI ABUNIMAH: Yes. What we've seen is really a direct result of the Bush doctrine. Since January 2006 when Hamas won the legislative election fair and square, the United States refused the election result and it has been arming several Palestinian militias, particularly those controlled by the Gaza warlord, Mohammed Declan. This is a repeat strategy of the contras. These are Palestinian contras. And the architect of this policy is none other than Elliott Abrams, the deputy national security advisor, who was convicted for lying to congress in the Iran-contra scandal. And Alvaro de Soto, the UN Reporter that you mentioned in the introduction, Amy, confirms in detail the extent of the conspiracy that the United States has been undertaking to overthrow the election result and destroy Hamas. And just a few days before this round of fighting started on June 7, Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper reported that senior Fatah commanders in the Gaza Strip had asked Israel for millions of rounds of ammunition, RPG's, hand grenades and armored cars to use against Hamas. So I think what we've seen is Hamas taking a last resort move to put an end to what it describes as a coup intended to overthrow the election result. It's a major blow for the United States and for the Bush doctrine, although it's very hard to see how it helps Palestinians very much considering that Israel and the United States are likely to tighten the siege of Gaza and to continue to fund the militias. We've already seen Condoleezza Rice throwing her support behind Abbas and no sign of a letup in US interference and armed intervention in Palestinian affairs.

AMY GOODMAN: How did the weapons get to both sides? And does that aid that Condoleezza Rice is talking about include weapons?

ALI ABUNIMAH: Yes. The weapons that have been delivered to the Fatah militias to the Palestinian contras of Mohammed Declan, come via Egypt and are delivered with the direct coordination of Israel. The Fatah commanders make requests to Israel and Israel coordinates the delivery of the weapons to Egypt. Hamas gets its weapons. There are reports that Hamas receives funding from Iran. Hamas also gets weapons from Egypt. What's notable is that many of the weapons that Israel delivers to Fatah for use against Hamas are then sold on by corrupt Fatah commanders to the highest bidders, so recently Israel has been actually turning down Fatah requests for weapons because they say to the Fatah commanders you just turn around and sell the weapons to Hamas. So Gaza is absolutely awash with weapons and nobody seems to have any difficulty getting hold of them.

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DePaul University, the Nazi School

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Mr. Finkelstein’s work, accusing Jews of exploiting the Holocaust for monetary gain and attacking Israel for oppressing the Palestinians, has made Mr. Finkelstein many enemies over the years. One of the most dogged has been Alan Dershowitz, the attorney and Harvard law professor whose impassioned defense of Israel has led to frequent and often venomous conflicts with Mr. Finkelstein.

In a full-court press against Mr. Finkelstein, Mr. Dershowitz lobbied professors, alumni and the administration of DePaul, a Roman Catholic university in Chicago, to deny him tenure. Many faculty members at DePaul and elsewhere decried what they called Mr. Dershowitz’s heavy-handed tactics.
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