re: #183 Petero1818

There is not a shortage of food aid to Gaza, nor of medicine.

That has been rather hotly debated in the recent past.

Israel’s policy was summed up by Dov Weisglass, an adviser to Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, earlier this year. ‘The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger,’ he said.

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What Gaza requires is an economy.

Yep. The dynamics make that impossible right now. Hamas needs to blame Israel for everything…and Israel doesn’t want a functioning economy that supports Hamas. Neither side has any incetive to make the economy work.

So unless the flotilla is bringing jobs, it is merely a stunt.

False dichotomy. I worked to bring aid to children in Mexico. TGhey were not starving to death, but the extra clothes and foodstuffs were a help to them. I don’t recall thinking I was engaging in a stunt. Some of these people may well think that. I doubt that they all do.

Gaza requires an economy, and they will not have one until they decide that building a civil society is more important than trying to kill Israelis.

Hamas established a single party dictatorship, so what the people want is no longer taken into consideration. Since Hamas feels they have a religious mandate (requirement, actually) to kill Jews, this is not going to end simply by making a “civil society” decision. It is far more fundamental then that. It requires the abandonment of a form of magical thinking we can’t even get rid of in one of our own major political parties.