There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza

Sunday Telegraph:

With its tastefully hung fairy lights twinkling above a patio bedecked with topiary, Roots is not your typical Gaza eatery.

Snazzily dressed waiters in starched aprons and red-bow ties hover attentively; a loudspeaker discreetly playing Tom Jones's "She's a Lady" provides a nod to western sophistication while the waft of scented tobacco from the hookah pipes of its patrons adds an air of eastern exoticism.

Its local reputation aside, Roots has another, less welcome, claim to fame: it is the only restaurant in Gaza to win a recommendation from the office of Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

The unusual endorsement came in a communique issued days before Israeli commandos killed nine pro-Palestinian activists last week in a violent melee on board the Mavi Marmara, the lead vessel of an international flotilla attempting to bring aid to Gaza.

If the tenor of the communique, which encouraged prospective visitors to try the spinach soup and beef stroganoff, was facetious, its underlying intent was anything but.

Ever since Israel imposed its blockade of Gaza in 2007, the territory has become a byword for misery, stoking ever greater anger in the Arab world and growing concern in the West.

With the deaths on the Mavi Marmara bringing Gaza's tribulations into renewed relief, Britain and its European allies this week stepped up their calls on Israel to lift a blockade widely seen as causing an unacceptable amount of human suffering.

Such an assessment is seen as unfair and "hypocritical" in Israel, which insists that there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza, despite the claims of aid agencies to the contrary, and that the blockade's objective is to weaken Hamas, the territory's Islamist overlords, not its people.

The existence of restaurants like Roots has therefore become central to a narrative that Gazan life, in the words of one Israeli official last week, "is good and stable".

Step into Hasan Hasuna's grocery shop in Gaza City, the territory's main city, and you could be forgiven for thinking that Israel has a point.

Mr Hasuna's shelves boast a surprising variety of goods, many of them banned from entering Gaza by Israel, from pasta to chocolate. There was even a box of Cadbury Creme Eggs, hard to come by in the Middle East, placed strategically at the check-out counter.

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It all goes to show, argues Gerald Steinberg, an Israeli commentator, that the perception of Gaza as a disaster zone on a par with parts of Africa is deeply misleading and one that has been deliberately fostered by "pro-Palestinian" employees of the UN.

"These UN reports are simply political propaganda," said Mr Steinberg, whose NGO Monitor seeks to redress what it claims is anti-Israel bias by some western aid agencies. "The entire humanitarian crisis claim, everything that comes out on the situation in Gaza is manipulated as political warfare against Israel."

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There is no doubt that the Hamas death cult has made life miserable in Gaza because of its genocidal hatred of Israel. Building supplies are restricted because they can be used for the rockets that attack Israel non combatants. The misery that exist in Gaza is their because of Hamas. It is an organization that needs to be destroyed and replaced with a less racist group willing to live side by side with Israel.

It should be noted that the residents of Gaza were better off under Israeli rule. Things started really going down hill for them after the Israeli pullout. The hostility to Israel has caused many of the residents to lose jobs in Israel. It has also caused Israelis to no longer invest in businesses in Gaza.