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Israel 'must lift blockade, not just for tomatoes'
Published Monday 07/05/2012 (updated) 08/05/2012 17:25
Ibrahim al-Qudra, deputy agricultural minister, said Israel must allow Gaza
traders to export all goods rather than allow selective produce to leave the
enclave based on the needs of the Israeli economy.
GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Israel must lift its blockade on Gaza and stop limiting exports to the needs of the Israeli market, the deputy agricultural minister said Monday.

The Vegetable Growers' Association in Israel is considering buying tomatoes from the Gaza Strip in response to a sudden price hike in Israeli tomatoes, Voice of Israel radio reported Sunday.

Ibrahim al-Qudra told Ma'an that Israel must allow Gaza traders to export all goods rather than allow selective produce to leave the enclave based on the needs of the Israeli economy.

Israel must lift the blockade rather than opening crossings based on its own benefits, he said.

"When the crossings are officially opened, we will respond to Israel, but we refuse the control of crossings based on Israel’s personal benefits," he added.

The deputy minister also said that Gaza had exported hundreds of thousands of tons of tomatoes to Israel prior to the blockade, but said Israel closed the crossing to cut off competition to its local produce.

In October 2011, Israeli officials temporarily lifted a ban on agricultural exports from the Gaza Strip to allow the entry of palm fronds used to mark a Jewish holiday following shortages in Israel, the Hebrew-language Israeli daily Maariv reported.

In 2005, Israel agreed to allow 400 truckloads of exports to leave Gaza every day. This April, Israel allowed a total of 20 truckloads to be exported from Gaza.

The reopening of Rafah crossing on Gaza's border with Egypt in May 2011 allowed some residents to leave the coastal strip for the first time in years.

However the terminal is not equipped for exports and so had little effect on the Gaza economy, which relied on exports prior to Israel's blockade.
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1 ) Colin Wright / USA
07/05/2012 21:32
(I) Assuming the goal is to undermine Hamas, Israel's policy is counterproductive anyway. If Gaza is inhabited by impoverished people constantly aware of Israel as an oppressive force, they will naturally turn to that group that promises both charitable aid and resistance -- that is, Hamas. If there was some degree of prosperity and commerce, more of the population would tend more to find Hamas' confrontational rhetoric and religious strictures more of an irritation than a comfort.
2 ) Colin Wright / USA
07/05/2012 21:36
(II) Of course, this assumes Israel's policy has a rational basis. I don't think it does. I think it is driven by a need to reenact the oppression of the Jews -- but with someone else in the role of victim. The Palestinians are to play that role -- and as long as they are able, the Zionists will abuse, oppress, dispossess, and humiliate the Palestinians in every way they dare. This -- and not the professed need for security -- is the engine of Israeli policy.
3 ) @ Colin #1 / USA too
07/05/2012 22:03
An Israeli ambassador once said that Americans do NOT understand the Middle East, and your comment just proves that he's right, and history proves that every time that Israel gives/helps Arabs, they just see it as weakness, and a reason to attack !!

In truth, Neither Israel, Nor Hamas 'must' do anything, but IF:
- Israel 'must lift blockade, not just for tomatoes', then surely
- Hamas 'must end the war/attacks, not just for a Hudna/ceasefire !!!


4 ) @ Colin #1 / \ Tibi/Tubas
07/05/2012 23:29
You are very naive about Gaza, where the impoverished people are aware of their own oppressive "government", Hamas & other Islamic militants (& only Israeli retaliation when the militants fire rockets into Israel), but Gazans are just as powerless to change it, as the Syrian people !!
5 ) Robby / USA
08/05/2012 06:22
This is confusing, does this mean the Palestinians are no longer interested in BDS?
6 ) Robby / USA
08/05/2012 06:32
1 ) Colin Wright / USA - I don't know how this happened (maybe someone is using your name), but I agree with most of what you said. I wonder if Israeli's and Gazans can deal directly with each other, either legally or illegally.
7 ) JohnWV / United States
08/05/2012 12:46
Israel has made itself into a militant supremacist theocracy/ethnocracy with ICBM nukes; a very real and rapidly increasing threat to itself and to the whole world. A pariah among nations. Justice demands that UN and NATO impose resolution just as involuntary, disruptive and humiliating to Israel as Israel has wreaked upon occupied Palestine for generations. The Jewish State must be made to recognize an armed Palestine with externally enforced autonomy, eviction of all settlers, true contiguity
8 ) Robby / USA
08/05/2012 16:31
2 ) Colin Wright / USA - Guess I replied to soon, my bad. While your first reply is coherent the second one is back to normal and purely unmerited conjecture.
9 ) @ JohnWV #7 / USA too
08/05/2012 17:21
You seems to be ignorant or quite a Jew hater,
wanting the whole world to go after Israel, because of 10 deaths,
before it goes after Arabs with 100s or 1,000s of deaths:
- Syria killed 13,000
- Yemen killed 2,000
- Egypt killed 800
- Tunisia killed 300
- Bahrain killed 90
- Iraq killed 30 and
- Israel killed 10*

* http://old.btselem.org/statistics/english/Casualties_Data.asp?Category=1®ion=WB&sD=19&sM=01&sY=2009&filterby=event&oferet_stat=after
10 ) Colin Wright / USA
08/05/2012 20:40
I seem to have hit a nerve.
11 ) Colin Wright / USA
08/05/2012 20:42
To Robby #8 'Guess I replied to soon, my bad. While your first reply is coherent the second one is back to normal and purely unmerited conjecture.' Alternatively, my first post laid out the facts -- which you agreed with -- but when in the second post I suggested the explanation for them, you realized you didn't want to know what was in the sausage after all.
12 ) Colin Wright / USA
08/05/2012 22:26
To @ #4 'You are very naive about Gaza, where the impoverished people are aware of their own oppressive "government"'...Gazans are just as powerless to change it." So since you're confident of the people's affection, put on your Israeli flag tee-shirt, go by yourself for a visit, and let me know how it goes. You can visit widows and orphans and ask them to express their appreciation.
13 ) Colin Wright / USA
08/05/2012 22:34
To JohnWV #7 'The Jewish State must be made to recognize an armed Palestine with externally enforced autonomy, eviction of all settlers, true contiguity' Just make Israel finally abide by the conditions she herself accepted in 1947. That'll suffice.
14 ) Robby / USA
09/05/2012 06:36
11 ) Colin Wright / USA - What does your opinion have to do with the metaphor of how sausage is made? Your first post is well stated, but it is also opinion - we THINK making Gazans more prosperous MIGHT change their attitudes towards HAMAS. Just because you and I might agree on something in general hardly makes it fact.
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