7.11.07

Can you bring me a Cola, please?

When we travel, we ask our friends and family if they would like to have anything from abroad. Usually, their requests are for things that you can't find in their country or things that are known to be a specialty of other countries.
A colleague of ours, working with a UN agency, managed to get a permit to leave Gaza to Ramallah. The stories he tells are all of a horrid situation where living standards and personal safety are deteriorating to extents that we cannot imagine, despite living in the same country.
I might not have been very interested in the lack of cigarettes, or the fact that a packet is now as expensive as in the UK, in a territory whose per capita GNP is less than 5% of the UK. What really made me sad, was a request that his son asked from him: "can you bring me a cola, dad!"
In a territory where all supplies coming in are controlled by the Israeli Army, most of the essentials are not available, causing severe hike in prices and a lack of all essentials.
Such tactics were prevalent in medieval warfare, in our contemporary history they were used in by the US against Iraq, and are applied to other countries such as Cuba. Since 700 years have passed since this type of war tactic was dominating military action, is it not right to assume that through these 700 years, our ethical code has been developed so as not to justify such means? A request like that boy's is an indicator that something is clearly wrong in Gaza. Two million people are being starved. Does this sound in anyway like an action of a rogue state? To any sane person, it clearly is.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Ned
thanks for witnessing your daily life
I'm going to translate this post on dalMondo.info, for the italian reading people.

Ciao
Giovanni

Ned said...

Giovanni,
You are back! I just saw your message. I worried as you were away for a while.