This no-holds-barred look at the UN's compicity in Gazam by Asaf Romirowskym and Nicole Brackman, is published in the National Post's Full Comment section:
Israel was the first victim but won’t be the last
By Asaf Romirowsky and Nicole Brackman
Since 2007, Israel has maintained a legal maritime blockade around Gaza. Gaza is a territory ruled by a known terrorist organization — Hamas — whose explicitly stated goal is the elimination of Israel through violence. Past experience has proven that Hamas keeps its promises of terror, cravenly using its own citizens as civilian shields in order to launch attacks on Israelis.
Preventing this terror has been a full-time occupation for Israel, and the goal of the maritime blockade has been the protection of Israeli citizens. Keeping rockets and other weapons out of the hands of Hamas, while simultaneously letting food and other humanitarian aid in, is a constant exercise in measured risk. World media outlets have bought into the widespread Palestinian propaganda that the Gaza blockade is a humanitarian crisis — going so far as to conflate the situation in Gaza with a “holocaust” and comparing the Israelis to “Nazis” for failing to allow basic human services to reach Gazans.
This inflammatory language does get attention. It also effectively masks the reality on the ground — the fact that it is Hamas itself which blocks humanitarian aid from reaching its citizens, diverting funds and materiel instead to building arms caches. In what has become a brilliant public relations ploy, the Hamas leadership has managed again to use its civilians to shield its true intentions and actions.
Nearly half a decade ago, Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip in order to disengage from that territory and create a chance for peace. Hamas (a recognized terror organization by both the United States and Israel) took advantage of internecine Palestinian fighting and took control of Gaza. The putative “government” of Gaza is not one which values human life (at least not that of its citizens, much less Israelis); the civilian infrastructure in Gaza Strip has been exploited by Hamas to launch attacks — inviting Israeli response (which is then condemned as targeting civilians). By using hospitals, mosques and offices of international aid groups to conduct terrorist activity against Israel, Hamas is swaying public opinion in its favour.
Hamas found a willing and able partner in the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). It was UNRWA’s director of operations in Gaza, John Ging, who was quoted in The New York Times in early 2009 as saying that Israel’s blockade was choking off basic humanitarian supplies like medicine, clothing and blankets, as well as food supplies. Moreover, it was Ging who called upon the international community “to shoulder its responsibility on this issue” by “sending ships to break the siege.”
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