Please take a minute to thank Times correspondent Stefanie Marsh for an excellent article on 9 January 2008 entitled "Hopeless in Gaza." This is particularly praiseworthy for a newspaper that is known for its pro-Israel sympathies, and it is likely to result in a strong and negative response by the pro-Israel lobby, so let us make sure that Marsh does not regret speaking out, and that the Times does not regret publishing the article.
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The article is available at the following link, but as it is quite long, below are extracts:
http://tinyurl.com/35k4le
"Being there, on the ground, is soul crushingly demoralising. Walk through enough rubble and military checkpoints and in a matter of days you become aware of the possibility of feeling nothing at all."
"…the West Bank separation barrier...is growing at lightning speed and separating Palestinians from their livelihoods."
"The West Bank is described by the World Bank as a 'shattered economic space'. Gaza? Since Hamas seized control of the territory and the area was blockaded, it can hardly be considered an economic space at all."
"The few feeble attempts to establish a functioning Palestinian economy are nipped in the bud, even if they involve major investments from countries such as Britain. The Gaza Marine Field, an offshore gas reserve, is believed to contain natural gas worth about £2 billion, and it was expected to bolster the local economy after the British multinational BG Group bought the rights for commercial exploitation. After top-level talks between the British and the Israeli side, including Gordon Brown when he was Chancellor, as well as an investment in excess of £60 million on behalf of BG Group, the project has not yet moved from scratch because of Israeli opposition based on concern that revenues might end up in the hands of Hamas, as well as legal challenges from Israeli gas companies."
"It may be politically incorrect to compare the Eres crossing into Gaza to a vast labyrinthine decontamination unit, but that's what it felt like."
"…in Gaza, your first view is a panorama of rubble, the remnants of bombed-out factories. Your first thought, as a Western journalist, is will I be abducted (just as your last thought on exiting is, will I be accidentally shot by an Israeli border guard?). Your second thought is, how did it get so bad? And where are the Palestinian allies?"
"Two things have happened since the death of Arafat: Palestinians have no central government and their leaders are corrupt and chaotic. Israelis continue to build walls and expand the settlements."
"Wherever you go you are followed by the wall, stalked by the wall: look around, there it is behind you or in front of you or beside you, often with another complementary wall running along behind it. In this beautiful part of the world it is very grey, as if the pavement has risen up perpendicular to the soil, like fallen gravestones that have righted themselves overnight. Some walls are painted with trompe-l'oeils of false landscapes, but all are garlanded with barbed wire and bombs. In Bethlehem I met families driven crazy by the wall that now encircles their houses and cripples their businesses. Moshe Dayan, the Israeli general and statesman, once famously told Palestinian refugees: 'You shall continue to live like dogs, and whoever wishes may leave.' Here are people living like dogs, but they are fenced in, they can't leave."