By Jonathan Cook
The National
"
Six and a half years ago, shortly after Hamas won the Palestinian national
elections and took control of Gaza, a senior Israeli official described Israel's
planned response. "The idea," he said, "is to put the Palestinians on a diet,
but not to make them die of hunger."
Alhough Dov Weisglass was an adviser to Ehud Olmert, the prime minister of the
day, few observers treated his comment as more than hyperbole, a supposedly
droll characterisation of the blockade Israel was about to impose on the tiny
enclave.
Last week, however, evidence finally emerged to prove that indeed
this did
become Israeli policy. After a three-year legal battle by an Israeli human
rights group, Gisha, Israel was forced to disclose its so-called "Red Lines"
document. Drafted in early 2008, the defence ministry paper set forth proposals
on how to treat Hamas-ruled Gaza.
Health officials provided
calculations of the minimum number of calories
needed by Gaza's 1.5 million inhabitants to avoid malnutrition. Those figures
were then translated into truckloads of food Israel was supposed to allow in
each day.....
On the first day of the Gaza offensive, Yoav Galant, the commander in charge,
explained the aim succinctly: it was to "send Gaza decades into the past". Seen
in this context, Mr Weisglass' diet can be understood as just one more
refinement of the Dahiya doctrine: a society refashioned to accept its
subjugation through a combination of violence, poverty, malnutrition and a
permanent struggle over limited resources.
This experiment in the manufacture of Palestinian despair is, it goes with
saying, both illegal and grossly immoral. As cracks open in Israel's blockade,
including the Qatari diplomatic mission this week, the experiment is also
ultimately certain to be futile."
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