We’re hearing all the time..Gaza, Gaza,Gaza. As if it’s a separate entity itself. It’s part of all of historic Palestine.. The people who live here, in this very densely populated strip are Palestinians. Many of them have relatives in Israel or the West Bank or in other countries, that they unable to visit or be visited by. Many are refugees, granted right of return by the UN.
But then UN Resolutions don’t apply to Israel. We all know that!
The Gazans are traditionally a sea-faring people. Their economic life ,fishing, exporting farming produce, and their social life, revolved around the sea.
Under the Olso Agreement of 1994, Gazans were granted their own economic offshore maritime activity zone of 20 nautical miles, open for fishing, recreation and economic activities. For 6 years, the Gazan fishermen operated freely within this zone.
But beginning in 2000, the Israeli Navy began its on-going campaign of harrassing, attacking, wounding, and sometimes killing, fishermen who venture near or beyond 6 nautical miles. Sometimes the fishing zone is arbrarily reduced to 3 nautical miles.
Why 2000? Because of the Hamas election? But that was in 2006. There must be another reason.
In 1999, the British Gas Group, (BG Group) discovered a vast deposit of natural gas within Gaza’s maritime zone. Furthermore according to the UN Convention on the Sea. Part V, Gaza has control of all seabed assets up to 200 nautical miles from shore. The Leviathan Gas Field as it is known is estimated to be worth millions. Gaza’s portion, would have enabled Gaza to be very prosperous.
As an October 22 2019 Mondoweiss article explained, “ Gaza, rather than being one of the poorest places on earth, could be one of its richest, if only the development and commercialization of this precious natural resource off its own coast could be given the go-ahead.
Moreover, the gas would benefit the Palestinian people as a whole. For example, West Bank Palestinians could also utilize the gas from the Gaza gas fields to power electricity stations in the West Bank, and reach self-sufficiency in electricity generation that would achieve significant savings to the economy. Indeed, in 1999 the late Yasser Arafat famously hailed the discovery of the two gas fields as “a gift from God to our people.”
But Sharon announced in 2000 that Israel would never buy gas from Palestinians.
War to control energy resources, does this surprise anyone? An 14 July 2014 article in The Guardian, has the headline “IDF’s Gaza assault is to control Palestinian gas, avert Israeli energy crisis”.
The Zionist agenda is and always has been to take over all resources: land, water, and maritime resources.
Just very recently the Leviathan Field has finally begun production. Israel will benefit enormously. All of its energy needs and much more will be easily met.
As for Gaza?
Gaza is unlivable, as the UN predicted it would be by 2020.
The lights are out, 95% of the water is unsafe to drink, fishermen are not allowed to fish , land is poisoned. In 2015 Amira said “In practice, Gaza has become a huge, let me be blunt, concentration camp.”
Should we care? Does anybody in the world care? Later this year there will be another Freedom Flotilla attempt to break the maritime siege. I wonder if any Kiwi will take part.
Lois Griffiths is a human rights activist
Thieves, liars, scoundrels, murderers and their legacy will not be forgotten.
Those that profit from their oppression and genocide can rightfully be held accountable and face the scorn of humankind.
BDS may be just a beginning.
Very informative, Lois. The population of Gaza is indeed Palestinian and the country should be allowed to reunite and enjoy the benefits of all its natural resources, free from foreign interference and military domination.
Palestine has NEVER been a country. It was a provincial backwater of the Ottoman Empire and the British called it ‘Palestine’ during the Mandate period. There is no ‘p’ phoneme in Arabic. your historical revisionism is very bogus.
Shocking,
How many wars and conflict are for control of oil and gas as well as other natural assets?
As well as war, slow genocide that the world has become complacent about aka Palastine, (and now zionist style assassinations are becoming more common around the world as the international community fails to take strong action and started doing them themselves)
Climate change mostly caused by oil and gas, https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change…
Oil and gas, an industry with too much money and power that is stopping more environmental and cheap ways of producing energy from becoming more widespread.
Oil and gas the majority funder for climate change deniers.
Work of prominent climate change denier was funded by energy industry
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/feb/21/climate-change-denier-willie-soon-funded-energy-industry
Biggest US coal company funded dozens of groups questioning climate change
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/13/peabody-energy-coal-mining-climate-change-denial-funding
9 out of 10 top climate change deniers linked with Exxon Mobil
https://www.zmescience.com/ecology/climate-change-papers-exxon-mobil/
The energy charter treaty considered one of the world’s most dangerous treatys and operates largely out of the public eye…
Australian company sues Sweden for $1.8 billion for phasing out uranium mining
Aura Energy Ltd, an Australian company also listed in the UK, has lodged an ISDS claim under the Energy Charter Treaty for US 1.8 billion compensation from the Swedish government because in 2018 it decided to phase out uranium mining for environmental reasons.
Read more: http://aftinet.org.au/cms/node/1823
https://www.energy-charter-dirty-secrets.org
The Leviathan gas field is directly opposite Haifa, nowhere near Gaza. The gas field off Gaza is called Gaza Marine and no company wants to touch it for two reasons: Hamas and Fatah infighting over who would get the profits, and any moneys generated would go into the coffers of Hamas, the listed terrorist organisation that rules Gaza with an iron fist and steals all the wealth from its own people to single mindedly focus on its primary mission, the destruction of Israel. Money that should go into infrastructure, employment, health etc is used to smuggle weapons (the ‘fishermen’ assist with this) and excavate tunnels with the sole purpose of murdering Israeli civilians.Your usual biased take, Ms Griffiths.
Yeah Right!
@ LG. Well done. Go you!
But we must remember; “charity begins at home.”
“Should we care?”
Yes.
“Does anybody in the world care?”
Yes, I’m sure so.
“Later this year there will be another Freedom Flotilla attempt to break the maritime siege. I wonder if any Kiwi will take part.”
If you can dig The Mighty Kiwi out from underneath foreign bankster debt, the ever mercenary attack dog that the MSD’s been forced to become and the mind-numbing, death-to-thinkers sludge our MSM’s been perverted into by the big (actually very little. Tiny. Very small. Trust me. I know but don’t ask me how I know) wealthy boys club of coke, hookers and billions then, yes. Someone here will no doubt take part.
“Charity begins at home…” Does anyone else know what that actually means?
The saying means; Take care of yourself first THEN take care of others.
It doesn’t mean ” I’ll take care of myself and fuck you.”
It’s my opinion that AO/NZ is in a direful situation and we are extremely vulnerable to invasion the subjected to a form of de-culturalism then of being rendered down to a subclass who will only look back on what was once our beautiful AO/NZ with tears in our eyes.
What might happen, ‘when’, not ‘if’ the middle east becomes a 60c plus uninhabitable dead zone, their oil can no longer be of value and all living things, as climate change cause’s global starvation and mass migrations of the humans who’ve not already succumbing to starvation and dehydration are on a doomed exodus to nowhere?
Where do you think your flotilla might most be needed then?
Let me be blunt. You are correct in my opinion. What the israeli’s are doing to the Gazans and the Palestinians IS truely abhorrent but it’d be a fuck sight worse if the bastards were here and doing it to us.
( A personal opinion? I think they ARE here and I think they ARE trying.
Stuff
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/5311500/SAS-patrolled-near-suspected-Israeli-spies
The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/20/christchurch-earthquake-israeli-spy-investigation )
FYI
‘Culturalism’
In philosophy and sociology, culturalism (new humanism or Znaniecki’s humanism) is the central importance of culture as an organizing force in human affairs.[1][2][3] It was originally coined by the Polish-American philosopher and sociologist Florian Znaniecki in his book Cultural Reality (1919) in English and later translated into Polish as kulturalizm. Znaniecki had introduced a similar concept in earlier Polish language publications which he described as humanism (humanizm).[3]
Fundamentalist Christians? Prepare to be outraged.
The Guardian.
The search for Eden: in pursuit of humanity’s origins
Our species, Homo sapiens, evolved in Africa over hundreds of thousands of years. Now we are beginning to understand how
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/05/the-search-for-eden-in-pursuit-of-humanitys-origins
To Quote:
“….geneticist Mark Thomas of University College London. He argues that culture – the accumulation of knowledge, beliefs and values in a society or tribe – has been vital to our survival. “Without culture we would be dead,” he says. “We know things today that were worked out by ancestors tens of thousands of years ago and have been passed along over the generations. Culture is our life-support system.”
Culture, is our life support system??
Not money then?
So? Why do we need banks in their current form again?
Have a wee cup of tea and go and research the dawn of banking. I double dare you.
For those of you who don’t read The Press, Lois Griffiths is the most consistent defender of Palestine and the Palestinian people I know.
She is right. It is a grab. Last year I wrote a letter to The Press about Israeli annexation of Palestine and how it looked like a creeping lava flow – whatever it consumes is not going to be Palestinian land again. As Lois notes in The Press in her letters, Gaza is now an environmentally very poor place to live and its not got long left before it becomes unlivable. Which might be what Netanyahu wants, because I assume then he will go for the jugular, occupy the whole place and tell everyone the Star of David rules the place forever and always.
Got accused of being anti-Israeli for my effort. Lois has been too at various points. A silly accusation that gets flung around like water in a water fight. It is not that I was anti-Israeli, but like everyone else I have seen try including Lois, It was because I said that Israel needs to go back to its recognized pre-Six Day War borders.
There were no borders in 1967, only armistice lines. Like Ms Griffiths, you can’t even get your facts straight. LG has been boring the readers of the Press for years with her ant-Israel letters which are utterly biased and devoid of any historical or factual context. Her BDS petition against Israel failed miserably. Gaza is indeed a prison and the jailers are Hamas. The Gazans voted overwhelmingly in 2007 for these terrorist monsters who have ruined their lives, while Hamas leaders live in luxury and refuse to hold further elections. Their charter states that they will never recognise Israel and seek genocide of all its people, finishing what Hitler started. Nice folk you and LG support.
And what does the United nations say Gaby.
You seem to be missing and awful lot of history.
The genocide is carried out by Israel who are also stealing land and resources.
Well done Lois,
Comments are closed.