Thursday, March 27, 2008

Flowers, Strawberries, and Missiles


By Mohammed Omer

"BEIT LAHIYA, Gaza, Mar 27 (IPS) - Just 300 yards from the hidden eyes in the Israeli tank, Ahmed Felfel picks his strawberries. But it isn't the Israelis in the tank who worry him as much as those others who will not let him sell them.

Earlier, it was flowers grown in Gaza and then fed to camels because the Israeli blockade would not let them through. Now it is strawberries grown and wasted.

It is Gaza's irony that the most desperate conditions produce some of the finest people seek. Nature itself has been kind to Gaza; the soil is rich, there is plenty of sunshine, and predictable rainfall. All that produces strawberries of a quality that the best restaurants in Europe like to serve.

After Gaza elected Hamas, Israel moved swiftly with U.S. backing to isolate the 23-mile long strip of land with Israel on one side and the Mediterranean on the other. It's a siege that will not let even flowers and strawberries through......."

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