When I saw the July 3 New York Times headline “Setting Sail on Gaza’s Sea of Spin,” I expected the worst.
Times reporter Ethan Bronner’s analysis piece on the Gaza humanitarian flotilla starts off predictably enough, saying there’s blame to spread all around:
Almost everything about the flotilla stuck in Greece and waiting to challenge Israel’s blockade of Gaza seems to be a parable for something else, part of an unstated effort to recast the Israeli-Palestinian narrative in extreme terms. Instead of helping to clarify what Gaza needs and how it might build a future, the saga has merely brought out the public relations demons on all sides.
PR demons?!
The first problem, according to Bronner, concerns the very purpose of the flotilla. As he sees it, there would seem to be no need for much relief in Gaza, thanks to Israel’s generosity following the killings of activists on last year’s flotilla:
The international outrage that followed helped force an easing of the siege. One result, largely unacknowledged by the flotilla leaders: far more goods have gone into Gaza over the past year, and while the 1.6 million people there still need many things, basic supplies are not among them.
This is something that Bronner seems to fixate on in his reporting– he had a June 25 report that touted the building boom in Gaza:
Two luxury hotels are opening in Gaza this month. Thousands of new cars are plying the roads. A second shopping mall –with escalators imported from Israel–will open next month. Hundreds of homes and two dozen schools are about to go up. A Hamas-run farm where Jewish settlements once stood is producing enough fruit that Israeli imports are tapering off.
As pro-Palestinian activists prepare to set sail aboard a flotilla aimed at maintaining an international spotlight on Gaza and pressure on Israel, this isolated Palestinian coastal enclave is experiencing its first real period of economic growth since the siege they are protesting began in 2007.
He went on to note that things were not progressing evenly, but his point seemed to be that things were much improved since the last flotilla, thus making the current efforts unnecessary (“For the past year, Israel has allowed most everything into Gaza but cement, steel and other construction material.”)
But the evidence available from human rights observers tells a very different story. From the Oxfam report, “Dashed Hopes” (12/1/10):
Many in the international community, including Quartet Representative Tony Blair, expressed hopes that this would lead to a major change and alleviate the plight of the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza. However, five months later, there are few signs of real improvement on the ground as the “ease” has left foundations of the illegal blockade policy intact.
While the Government of Israel committed to expand and accelerate the inflow of construction materials for international projects, it has so far only approved 7 per cent of the building plan for UNRWA’s projects in Gaza, and of that 7 per cent only a small fraction of the necessary construction material has been allowed to enter for projects including schools and health centres. In fact, the UN reports that Gaza requires 670,000 truckloads of construction material, while only an average of 715 of these truckloads have been received per month since the “easing” was announced.
Although there has been a significant increase in the amount of food stuffs entering Gaza, many humanitarian items, including vital water equipment, that are not on the Israeli restricted list continue to receive no permits. Two thirds of Gaza’s factories report they have received none or only some of the raw materials they need to recommence operations. As a result, 39% of Gaza residents remain unemployed and unable to afford the new goods in the shops. Without raw materials and the chance to export, Gaza’s businesses are unable to compete with the cheaper newly imported goods. This economic development leaves 80% of the population dependent upon international aid.
And a March 2011 United Nations report found that
the easing of the blockade on the Gaza Strip since June 2010 did not result in a significant improvement in people’s livelihoods, which were largely depleted during three years of strict blockade. Because of the ongoing restrictions on the import of building materials, only a small minority of the 40,000 housing units, needed to meet natural population growth and the loss of homes during the “Cast Lead” offensive, could be actually constructed.
Bronner argues that the improvement in Gaza goes “largely unacknowledged” by the flotilla activists. Actually, what they’re saying is that the blockade has hardly been eased–which is almost the opposite of what Ethan Bronner is reporting.
Bronner’s white supremacism (aka, “Zionism”) is no surprise. The New York Times doesn’t tell you what to think… it tells you what the cool, important people are thinking… people like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Cool, important people like that. Uncool, unimportant people like me need their own media. Thanks, FAIR.
Kudos to the Freedom Riders!
We’re having a big welcome home party for our friends who went on the Audacity of Hope.
Cheers, from New England
Obama and Clinton should be impeached!
ethan bronner cannot be trusted on anything he writes about Israel and Palestine. In that context, he is an anti-Arab bigot, which his writings long have shown.
Nima Shirazi over at WideAsleepinAmerica.com revealed more of Bronner’s Gaza propaganda last week. Check it out:
06.30.11 – Operation Desert Bloom: The Zionist Myth that Won’t Spoil, Wither, or Die
http://t.co/m4iFG2h
@Joe & Ken: You got it, my President who I voted for with every fiber of my being has consistently betrayed the beliefs he espoused as a candidate. When he did nothing to even reprimand his Sec. of State as she threw unarmed elderly Americans under the ship, as it were, that was enough for me. I contacted the White House on their website and asked for her resignation. As always I checked the “answer requested” button and as always none came. I have never in my life witnessed a President ok-ing an attack on the American people before. I hope to never witness it again. Where is the outcry?
I’m glad to see the author quoting from reliable sources – Oxfam and the U.N. Excuse me while I lose my breakfast. There’s another dose of poison lies coming in over the radio..
Of course Ethan Bronner who is a Zionist anti-Palestinian cannot be trusted. As of now Israel is the most non-democratic country in the region, with the help of United States. Read Haaretz if you need accurate reporting.
If you don’t want to take Bronner’s word for it try Der Spiegel, it reports essentially the same thing. Times are rough in Gaza but there is no humanitarian crisis there. The Blockade is legal (the UN says so), but only as long as it is enforced. If the Israelis let the Flotilla through they would have no standing to stop the next Iranian shipload of missiles. The Greek government offered to deliver the goods from the Flotilla, but the Flotilla leaders turned them down flat. This is all about breaking the blockade, but to open the way to arms shipments and not for humanitarian purposes,
The UN Report is appalling, disturbing and sickening. Still, these blind fools and apologists can’t understand why the world is so utterly disgusted with Israel’s behavior. While the entire report is disturbing, the worst part is that which details the increase of violence, including arrests and deaths, of children and the escalation of the attacks by both the military and the settlers. What a mistake the world made in creating that monster! Short of disbanding Israel, sending all its squatters back to Europe and Ukraine and prosecuting its leaders in the ICC, the world will never ever be able to right the wrong they’ve done the Palestinians.
@ Stan:
There’s no humanitarian crisis in Gaza? Oh, really, Stan? Have you read the UN Report or are you just speaking from first-hand experience?
“The Monthly Humanitarian Monitor | May 2011”
http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_opt_the_humanitarian_monitor_2011_06_16_english.pdf
Denial is not a river in Egypt, it’s a state of mind in Israel and with its apologists and trolls.
So, Misty Harris, Oxfam and the U.N. are not reliable sources, eh? Funny, how every time Israel has a bone with any of its neighbors, it goes running to the UN to complaint and they expect the UN to take care of it too just like they did in 1948. How sad! How you Hasbaraniks have absolutely no problems or shame in biting the very hand that feeds you.
MK Ultra’s link is to a report that confirms that there are serious problems in Gaza and with Israeli suppression of demonstrations, but that THERE IS NO HUMANITARIAN CRISIS in Gaza. There is serious unemployment but no shortage of food or other essentials. Ultra’s call for dismantling Israel and expelling its Jewish population would lead to a real humanitarian crisis–aka genocide. Let’s be clear about what is on the table here from people like MK Ultra who pretend to be humanitarians.
I never see mentioned anywhere the Israeli reasoning “for” the blockade. After all,they did not just spin a wheel and pick this bunch of lovelies as their foils.I try to envision how we would act if mexico was doing some of the things against us that springs from the loving wishing well that is gaza.
Stan; MK Ultra did not “call for the dismantling of Israel… .” Calm down and reread the post. Disagree with the opinion expressed all you like, but spare me the accusations regarding the author.
This is one of those topics so charged with emotion that it tends to go from discussion and debate to hyperbole and hysteria in .02 seconds. Which in itself makes the point that a fair and peaceful resolution is highly unlikely, if not impossible. Given the endless horror of the situation one could be forgiven for wishing that the mess had never been created in the first place.
What do we expect from the NY Times? After all, Bronner’s own public editor recommended he be reassigned due to any conflict of interest between his reporting and the fact that his son is in the Israeli military. What did Bill Keller say? Forget it. Anyone who thinks the NY Times is going to provide accurate reporting on anything remotely related to Israel and the Palestinians only has to look at their track record.
Bronner needs to be REASSIGNED to another area of the world, but Keller’s own political stakes and obedience to his pay masters would never permit it. THAT’s the MSM in the U.S., and all I can say is that it’s a good thing we live in a globalized communications environment and don’t have to depend on the NY Times. With that blowhard Thomas Friedman telling Egyptians what they should do and banging the drum about the Muslim Brotherhood, and Bronner stationed in West Jerusalem, on this issue it’s pretty clear that there is one word for the NY Times–Rag.
Deb….I call them the NY crimes after their Obama backing in the last election.
By the way banging the drum about the muslim brotherhood is a waste of time.I would ride through town with a lantern.Or hit a fire horn.Or ring the liberty bell. Anything to warn people that the maniacs are on the way.
RE: “NYT’s Gaza Denial”
SEE: “Denial Makes the World Go Round” ~ By Benedict Carey, New York Times, 11/20/07
(excerpts) Everyone is in denial about something; just try denying it and watch friends make a list. For Freud, denial was a defense against external realities that threaten the ego, and many psychologists today would argue that it can be a protective defense in the face of unbearable news…
…In an effort to calculate exactly how often people overlook or punish infractions within their peer groups, a team of anthropologists from New Mexico and Vancouver ran a simulation of a game to measure levels of cooperation. In this one-on-one game, players decide whether to contribute to a shared investment pool, and they can cut off their partner if they believe that player’s contributions are too meager. The researchers found that once players had an established relationship of trust based on many interactions â┚¬” once, in effect, the two joined the same clique â┚¬” they were willing to overlook four or five selfish violations in a row without cutting a friend off. They cut strangers off after a single violation…
ENTIRE ARTICLE – http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/20/health/research/20deni.html