Full marks to Elder of Ziyon for raising the one about The Independent (UK)'s story written by Patrick Cockburn in Gaza about staving Gazans - 'Gaza is a jail. Nobody is allowed to leave. We are all starving now''.
According to Cockburn:
"Gaza is dying. The Israeli siege of the Palestinian enclave is so tight that its people are on the edge of starvation. Here on the shores of the Mediterranean a great tragedy is taking place that is being ignored ...
A whole society is being destroyed. There are 1.5 million Palestinians imprisoned in the most heavily populated area in the world. Israel has stopped all trade. It has even forbidden fishermen to go far from the shore so they wade into the surf to try vainly to catch fish with hand-thrown nets ...
There are signs of desperation everywhere. Crime is increasing. People do anything to feed their families ...
'It is the worst year for us since 1948 [when Palestinian refugees first poured into Gaza],' says Dr Maged Abu-Ramadan, a former ophthalmologist who is mayor of Gaza City. 'Gaza is a jail. Neither people nor goods are allowed to leave it. People are already starving. They try to live on bread and falafel and a few tomatoes and cucumbers they grow themselves.'"
This article was published 18 months ago. In the meantime, no one can point to a single Gazan who has died of starvation since that date because the story was mostly lies and exaggeration then as it is now. The only thing about it that remotely approximates reality is the claim made that a "whole society is being destroyed" and the only reason why this is so close to the mark is because it's Hamas that is doing the destroying.
The rest of Cockburn's piece was meant to be swallowed by the gullible in an attempt to make readers hate Israel, sympathise with the Palestinians and provide convenient cover for those who were firing missiles at Israeli schools on a daily basis well before the "siege" began. Of course, people like Cockburn expect the Israelis to turn the other cheek whenever those missiles are fired and whenever Jews in the region are under attack from those who seek to destroy them.
According to Cockburn:
"Gaza is dying. The Israeli siege of the Palestinian enclave is so tight that its people are on the edge of starvation. Here on the shores of the Mediterranean a great tragedy is taking place that is being ignored ...
A whole society is being destroyed. There are 1.5 million Palestinians imprisoned in the most heavily populated area in the world. Israel has stopped all trade. It has even forbidden fishermen to go far from the shore so they wade into the surf to try vainly to catch fish with hand-thrown nets ...
There are signs of desperation everywhere. Crime is increasing. People do anything to feed their families ...
'It is the worst year for us since 1948 [when Palestinian refugees first poured into Gaza],' says Dr Maged Abu-Ramadan, a former ophthalmologist who is mayor of Gaza City. 'Gaza is a jail. Neither people nor goods are allowed to leave it. People are already starving. They try to live on bread and falafel and a few tomatoes and cucumbers they grow themselves.'"
This article was published 18 months ago. In the meantime, no one can point to a single Gazan who has died of starvation since that date because the story was mostly lies and exaggeration then as it is now. The only thing about it that remotely approximates reality is the claim made that a "whole society is being destroyed" and the only reason why this is so close to the mark is because it's Hamas that is doing the destroying.
The rest of Cockburn's piece was meant to be swallowed by the gullible in an attempt to make readers hate Israel, sympathise with the Palestinians and provide convenient cover for those who were firing missiles at Israeli schools on a daily basis well before the "siege" began. Of course, people like Cockburn expect the Israelis to turn the other cheek whenever those missiles are fired and whenever Jews in the region are under attack from those who seek to destroy them.
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