Collective punishment - by the numbers

CIA World Factbook 2010 - Gaza
Population - 1½ million
Median age : 17.5 years. With half the population under 17½ years old, Gaza is slightly ahead of Chad, Niger, and Uganda.
44% of the population is under 14 years old.
2% is over 65.
Population below the poverty line - 70%
Unemployment rate - 40%
Literacy rate - 92%
Arable land - 29%

UNICEF - Gaza
Number of homes obliterated in last year's war - 3,500
Number of homes damaged - 50,000

"Throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) almost 12,000 children under five years old still die from preventable causes each year, as do more than 1,800 children under 12 months old."

So. Despite horrific child mortality rates, half the population of Gaza are children, children living in rubble below the poverty line with a 60/40 likelihood of future employment.

As the CIA Factbook notes cryptically : "The rapid growth of a young adult population unable to find employment can lead to unrest".

Bradley Burston, senior editor at Haaretz :

"We are no longer defending Israel. We are now defending the siege, which is itself becoming Israel's Vietnam.

We explain, time and again, that we are not at war with the people of Gaza. We say it time and again because we ourselves need to believe it, and because, deep down, we do not. "

h/t Big News Network : 800,000 kids bearing brunt of Gaza blockade , which sent me off to check out their sources.

Israel lost at sea

Bradley Burston is a senior editor at Haaretz; his blog is A Special Place in Hell

The Second Gaza War : Israel lost at sea
We are no longer defending Israel. We are now defending the siege, which is itself becoming Israel's Vietnam.

A war tells a people terrible truths about itself. That is why it is so difficult to listen.

We were determined to avoid an honest look at the first Gaza war. Now, in international waters and having opened fire on an international group of humanitarian aid workers and activists, we are fighting and losing the second. For Israel, in the end, this Second Gaza War could be far more costly and painful than the first.

In going to war in Gaza in late 2008, Israeli military and political leaders hoped to teach Hamas a lesson. They succeeded. Hamas learned that the best way to fight Israel is to let Israel do what it has begun to do naturally: bluster, blunder, stonewall, and fume.

Hamas, and no less, Iran and Hezbollah, learned early on that Israel's own embargo against Hamas-ruled Gaza was the most sophisticated and powerful weapon they could have deployed against the Jewish state.

Here in Israel, we have still yet to learn the lesson: We are no longer defending Israel. We are now defending the siege. The siege itself is becoming Israel's Vietnam.

continued ...

Israel attacks flotilla bound for Gaza

Hours after Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was presented with this Toronto Maple Leafs jersey in Toronto, Israeli commandos dropped from helicopters onto the lead vessel of a six ship international aid flotilla bound for Gaza and opened fire.

Israeli Radio is reporting 16 to 19 killed with 30 injured and confirms the flotilla was in international waters.

According to AFP, "the Israeli military censor ordered a block on all information regarding those injured or killed during the storming of the ship."

The six ships bearing 10,000 tons of supplies and over 600 activists from 40 countries, including 86 year old Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire of Northern Ireland, are now being towed to Ashod.

I was watching a Turkish TV live feed from the lead vessel until it went off the air. I couldn't understand what anyone was saying except for a voice shouting in English that they were in international waters and a woman calling for help for the wounded. The live footage is now being rebroadcast at the same link with commentary in English.

But back to the jersey photo op. Netanyahu says Israel has never had a better friend than Canada and thanked Steve today for being "an unwavering friend of Israel."

Too true. Canada was the first country in the world to boycott Gaza for electing Hamas. When Israel bombed Lebanon in 2008 killing 1400, Steve called Israel's actions "measured". A Canadian killed when Israel shelled UN offices went unremarked by our government. We support the Wall at the UN. Peter Kent, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, has more than once stated on his website that "an attack on Israel would be considered an attack on Canada." We have cut off funding to humanitarian groups like Kairos and UNRWA who have been sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians, and replaced members on the board of the once independent group Rights and Democracy with pro-Israel hawks. Canada had the largest delegation at last year's Conference on Anti-Semitism in Israel and provides nearly twice the Canadian forces to man the borders of Gaza as does the United States. We have our own McCarthyite Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism and banned George Galloway from Canada. Con MPs have sent out flyers to their constituents suggesting that Liberals are soft on anti-Semitism, the definition of which has now been expanded to include any criticism of Israel, following the lead of our prime minister who has accused MPs of anti-Semitism in the House of Commons. Last month the Ethics Commissioner reported that Israel is the top destination of choice for MPs seeking junkets abroad paid for by outside organizations, and Ontario Premier McGuinty is there now drumming up trade. Two years ago Israel and Canada signed what it pleases Israel's Ministry of Public Security to describe on their website as a pact on "cooperation in home land security and counter terrorism issues."

BFF

Against this complicity by our own government in the three-year-old Israeli blockade of Gaza, we must raise our voices in support of international law. We must no longer allow our government to speak in our name here.

Witness Gaza. Witness. Gaza.