Nakba, the Palestinian catastrophe (1948)

Bethlehem - Ma'an - After lobbying efforts by Spanish activists, the City Council of Villanueva de Duero has decided to remove Eden-brand water products from government buildings.

The company, founded in the 1980s after Israel illegally annexed Syria's Golan Heights, originally took water from the Salukiya spring and expanded operations to Europe, eventually moving to bottle water at springs on the continent. The European branch of the company provides water coolers and filter systems to offices around the union.

Local leaders of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel campaign requested that the municipality cease its support for a company that they say profits from illegally occupied and annexed lands.

Teachers and workers of the Nursing School of the University of Valladolid, in the same municipality as Villanueva de Duero, successfully petitioned in June to have Edan removed from vending machines.

The Platform of Solidarity with Palestine-Valladolid thanked both institutions for their "commitment and support to the Palestinian people’s cause" and called the two actions a major boost to the BDS movement.

 

A recently-revealed tape has shown Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, discussing ways to undermine the Oslo Accords and calling the United States "easy" to manipulate.

The video was filmed in 2001, apparently without Netanyahu's knowledge, during a meeting with Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank. It aired on Friday night on Israel's Channel 10, and several translations have been posted online.

At one point on the tape, Netanyahu threatens a "broad attack" against the Palestinian Authority.

"The main thing, first of all, is to hit them. Not just one blow, but blows that are so painful that the price will be too heavy to be borne," Netanyahu said. "A broad attack on the Palestinian Authority."

The tape was shot during the early stages of the second intifada, when violence between Israelis and Palestinians was escalating. Netanyahu was speaking with settlers who lost family members to Palestinian attacks.

Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister at the time, had recently deployed additional Israeli troops in the West Bank.

Undermining the Oslo Accords

Netanyahu - who did not hold political office when the recording was made - was dismissive of the United States, calling it easily manipulated.

"I know what America is," Netanyahu said. "America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won't get in the way."

Netanyahu also spoke extensively about undermining the Oslo Accords, the agreement signed in 1993 which set a framework for future Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

The Oslo Accords specified that Israel would be allowed to keep "military zones" in the West Bank in any future agreement with the Palestinian Authority. Netanyahu told the settlers he would use that loophole to retain large portions of Palestinian territory.

"I'm going to interpret the accords in such a way that would allow me to put an end to this galloping forward to the '67 borders," he said.

"How do we do it? Nobody said what defined military zones were. Defined military zones are security zones; as far as I'm concerned, the entire Jordan Valley is a defined military zone."

In the recording, Netanyahu described Bill Clinton - the former US president who helped to negotiate the accords - as "radically pro-Palestinian".

Israeli settlements have been dumping untreated waste directly into a sewage canal that runs through the occupied West Bank, affecting Palestinian villages along its banks.

The hazard posed is compounded by the dumping of toxic chemical waste on agricultural land, with villagers reporting a rash of skin diseases and respiratory problems.

The Israeli government has banned plans by the Palestinian Authority to build pipes and pumps to treat and divert wastewater away from the affected villages.

Al Jazeera's Nisreen El-Shamayleh reports.

Hove Crown Court, Brighton UK, 11AM 2nd July 2010

Final two Decommissioners found not guilty.

Defendents offered no defence other than 'the prevention of imminent war crimes' for entering the EDO factory and causing approximately £200,000 worth of damage.

Jury returned a unanimous not guilty verdict for the other 5 defendents.

The jury in the trial of seven activists who decommissioned a Brighton arms factory to prevent Israel war crimes in Gaza in January 2009, have now found all seven activists not guilty of Conspiracy to Cause Criminal Damage by unanimous verdict in Hove Crown Court.

The seven entered the factory on 16th Jan 2009, causing nearly £200,000 of damage and shutting down production.

They offered no defence other than the prevention of imminent war crimes. Simon Levin, Tom Woodhead, Ornella Saibene, Bob Nicholls, Harvey Tadman were all acquitted on Wednesday. The final two Elijah Smith and and Chris Osmond were acquitted this morning.

Chris Osmond said "This action was taken because of EDO MBMs illegal supply of weapons to the Israeli military. We brought the suffering of ordinary Palestinians into a British courtroom and confronted with the evidence they took the brave decision to find that our actions were justified"

All have now been found not guilty by unanimous verdict.

Messages of support have already arrived from Caroline Lucas, MP for Brighton Pavilion, and Noam Chomsky.

Caroline Lucas said: 'I am absolutely delighted that the jury has recognised that the actions of the decommissioners were a legitimate response to the atrocities being committed in Gaza. I do not advocate non violent direct action lightly; however in this situation it is clear that the decommissioners had exhausted all democratic avenues and, crucially, that their actions were driven by the responsibility to prevent further suffering in Gaza.'

Noam Chomsky said 'I would like to express my respect and admiration for those who are undertaking non-violent resistance to oppose British participation in Israel's cruel crimes in Gaza.'

The Israeli Ambassador in London is said to be 'furious.' at the Judges decision ( Click for article by Roni Sofer, Ynetnews, 2nd July 2010)

http://decommissioners.co.uk/

For further information , please contact Andrew Beckett 07526557436 07722953180

Mohammed Abu Tir, Ahmed Othwan and Mohammed Tutah, in addition to the former minister for Jerusalem affairs, Khalid Abu Arafa, have been issued with notices by the Israeli authorities of eviction to leave their homes in occupied east Jerusalem.

On 30 June, the Israelis detained Abu Tir in preparation for his expulsion, whilst Othwan, Tutah and Abu Arafa have sought refuge in the office of the International Committee of the Red Cross  in Jerusalem. Israel, the occupying power, claims these members of the Palestinian legislature are being served with notices as their participation in the Palestinian legislature proves non-allegiance to Israel. The parliamentarians have been informed that they may only remain if they resign from the Palestinian legislature.

It is without doubt that as elected representatives of the Palestinian Legislative Council they should not be removed from the areas which they have been elected to represent. We call for the British government to support the right of these parliamentarians to live in their home and to uphold the principles of the fourth Geneva convention which prohibits the expulsion of a protected people by an occupying power "regardless of their motive". Any breach of this convention constitutes a war crime and as such Israel's political and military leadership should be held accountable.

Caroline Lucas MP (Green)

John McHugo Chair, Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine

Betty Hunter General secretary, Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Ismail Patel Chair, Friends of Al-Aqsa

Richard Burden MP and Martin Linton Labour Friends of Palestine

Letter published in the Guardian, Tuesday 6th July 2010

An American academic once told me: "Many people in the Islamic world think America does not believe in human rights, but they are wrong; America believes in human rights indeed, the problem is the American definition of human."

In other words: the American definition of 'human' is not a universal one. This is not purely an American characteristic; every culture faces the challenge of broadening its cultural limits and universalising its moral norms.

But among all human cultures and ideologies, the Israeli case is unique in its double standard.

Criminality wrapped in self-righteousness and aggression immersed in victimhood are a few striking characteristics of the Israeli reality and discourse.

The Israeli personality

The duality of "Israel's insistent emphasis upon its isolation and uniqueness, its claim to be both victim and hero," as Tony Judt wrote in Haaretz a few years ago, reflects the fragility and self-centeredness of the Israeli personality. This is not, unfortunately, exclusive to Israel's political elite, but rather it extends to their Zionist supporters worldwide, including those, such as novelist Elie Wiesel and philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, who portray themselves in humanistic and aesthetic images.

I was profoundly moved by the graphic description of the atrocities committed during the Holocaust in Elie Wiesel's Night, which depicts his and his father's experience of a terrifying process that violates human life and degrades human dignity.

But I was struck by the tone of self-righteousness and self-justification in Wiesel's fictional Dawn, particularly when he writes: "The commandment thou shalt not kill was given from the summit of one of the mountains here in Palestine, and we were the only ones to obey it. But that all over ... in the days and weeks and months to come, you will have only one purpose: to kill those who have made us killers."

When the Jewish South African judge, Richard Goldstone, exposed Israeli war crimes in Gaza, Wiesel called that "a crime against the Jewish people”. But this is simply an immoral use of past atrocities as a moral justification for present brutalities and oppression.

Moreover, one cannot but entertain two questions here: Firstly, what kind of moral claim does Wiesel, who was born of a Romanian father and a Hungarian mother, have over the divine call at Mount Sinai in the heart of a Middle Eastern desert? And secondly, by which moral or legal norm are the Palestinians of today responsible for the wrongdoings of the Germans of yesterday?

Self-serving myths

The worst of this hypocritical language, however, can be found in Bernard-Henri Lévy's article about Israel's aggression against the Gaza Freedom Flotilla published in Haaretz  on June 8, 2010.

Lévy presents himself in self-glorifying terms as being "someone who takes pride in having helped to conceive, with others, this kind of symbolic action ?(the boat for Vietnam; the march for the survival of Cambodia in 1979)...". But when it comes to Gaza's plight, Lévy simply dismisses the tragedy by denying the existence of the Israeli blockade and attacking easy targets, such as "the fascislamist government of Ismail Haniya" and "the Islamist gang who took power by force three years ago".

Thus, he shamelessly dismisses the grand effort of the multiethnic, multinational and religiously diverse group of humanistic leaders and activists on the Freedom Flotilla.

Moreover, Lévy lacks the objectivity to address the fascizionist - to borrow from his own terminology - gangs who aggressively invaded Palestinian land over six decades ago, and uprooted a whole population forcing them into the new Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps - Gaza and the West Bank.

Indeed, for those who put their selfish desires above the moral principles of justice and compassion, their self-serving myths are better in their eyes than the ugly truth.

Jewish humanistic intellectuals, such as Professor Tony Judt and musician Gilad Atzmon deplore Israel's self-indulgence and lack of maturity. Judt writes: "Israel still comports itself like an adolescent: consumed by a brittle confidence in its own uniqueness; certain that no one 'understands' it and everyone is 'against' it; full of wounded self-esteem, quick to take offence and quick to give it ... that it can do as it wishes, that its actions carry no consequences, and that it is immortal."

Atzmon writes: "We are dealing here with a uniquely and seriously disturbed immature nation. We are dealing with a self-loving narcissistic child .... The more the Israelis love themselves and their delusional phantasmic innocence, the more they are frightened that people out there may be as sadistic as they themselves proved to be. This behavioural mode is called projection .... Jews have a very good reason to be frightened. Their national state is a racist genocidal entity."

'Holocaustianity'

What is most disappointing, however, is not the Zionist self-righteousness and narcissism; rather it is the Western acceptance and support of this attitude - an attitude that is better understood when placed in a historical context.

The main theoretical basis of the acceptance of Israeli exceptionalism in Western culture is the diversion, mainly within the Protestant branch of Christianity, of the Christian incarnation of God in the person of Jesus to a new incarnation of God in the Jews as a people - the Chosen People.

This tendency started with Martin Luther (1483-1546) who subdued Christianity theologically and morally to the Jewish factor in his small epistle That Jesus Christ was Born a Jew. Luther wrote in that epistle: "When we are inclined to boast of our position, we should remember that we are but Gentiles, while the Jews are of the lineage of Christ. We are aliens and in-laws; they are blood relatives, cousins, and brothers of our Lord."

Through this Luther – who was paradoxically a staunch anti-Semite - inadvertently opened a theological window, that would centuries later allow the 'cult of Israel', as it has been dubbed by the American writer Grace Halsell, to replace Christianity in most Protestant denominations, especially among American Baptists. After all, what they are doing is no more than a literal implementation of Luther's deification of the Jews.

Professor Yvonne Haddad of Georgetown University’s Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding calls this heresy 'Holocaustianity’. And within this new heresy lie the roots of the Israeli exceptionalism.

Trivialising the Holocaust

Professor Judt writes that: "What Israel lost by its continuing occupation of Arab lands it gained through its close identification with the recovered memory of Europe's dead Jews." But he knows well that the memory of the dead is the worse moral justification for murdering innocents: "In the eyes of a watching world, the fact that the great-grandmother of an Israeli soldier died in Treblinka is no excuse for his own abusive treatment of a Palestinian woman waiting to cross a checkpoint. 'Remember Auschwitz' is not an acceptable response."

But that is exactly the kind of moral justification we have from the Israelis today.

When an advisor to Shimon Peres, the Israeli president, tried to attack Helen Thomas' remarks in which she said Israelis should "go home ... [to] Poland, Germany ..." all he did is remind her that some of his relatives were killed in Poland and Germany more than half a century ago, as if that is a good reason to starve the Palestinians to death and to kill humanitarian activists in international waters today.

After all, the Israeli politician was just confirming what Thomas said: you belong there; not here.

This is how the Holocaust memory, a memory of a human tragedy by any and every measure, is trivialised by Israeli criminality.

A moral burden

Many political thinkers and politicians have recently realised that Israel is becoming a liability and a strategic burden for the US. It has always been a strategic burden. But the problem is much deeper. Israel is becoming a moral burden on all those who have an ethical conscience, including Jews who value human dignity and social justice.

Even those who spent their lives advancing the Zionist cause are today realising the moral paradox of their life's achievement. Henry Siegman, a German-born American writer who served as the executive director of the American Jewish Congress from 1978 to 1994, wrote in Haaretz on June 11, 2010: "A million and a half civilians have been forced to live in an open-air prison in inhuman conditions for over three years now, but unlike the Hitler years, they are not Jews but Palestinians. Their jailers, incredibly, are survivors of the Holocaust, or their descendants."

All decent human beings must support the oppressed Palestinian against the Israeli oppressor.

The oppressed Arabs of Palestine (Muslims and Christians) are rendering through their suffering a great service to the entire body of humanity, by exposing the most self-centered and supremacist ideology in our world - an ideology that is wrapped today in a bloody sacredness.

Mohamed El-Moctar El-Shinqiti is an author in political history and history of religion. He is a research coordinator at Qatar Foundation.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

source:

Al Jazeera journalist Jamal Elshayyal was on board the MV Marmara on the Gaza Flotilla which was stormed by Israeli soldiers on 31 May. As with others on board, Jamal’s possessions were all confiscated by the soldiers, and not returned to him. As a journalist, his rights were not respected. As a citizen of Britain, worse still, his passport was not returned to him, and 23 days later, is still missing.

Just a few months ago Israeli secret services used stolen British passports to carry out an assassination in the sovereign country of the UAE. At the time, William Hague announced in parliament that he would never allow such a thing to happen if he was foreign secretary. Today, he holds that very position, yet has refused to publicly demand for the return of Jamal Elshayyal’s passports.

It is up to you to hold our Foreign Secretary to account. Email, call and write to him today, and ensure that he publicly pressures Israel for the return of the passport.

Contact
1. Rt. Hon. William Hague MP
Foreign Secretary
King Charles Street
London
SW1A 2AH
Telephone 020 7008 1500, Option 2 and then ask for William Hague's Office
Email the following addresses individually : private.office@fco.gsi.gov.uk , MSU.PublicIn@fco.gov.uk , msu.correspondence@fco.gov.uk

2. Click here to contact your local MP to raise the issue in Parliament

Background

Jamal is a British national who has a long history of working on community projects, inter-faith relations, and social cohesion initiatives.

Jamal’s report from the top deck of the Mavi Marmara was the last the world saw before communications were cut off.

When the Israeli commandos arrested Jamal, they tied his hands behind his back, threw him to the ground and repeatedly kicked him. His hands remained tied for over 24 hours, during which he was refused permission to go to the toilet for several hours.

Jamal was forcibly taken to an Israeli prison and spent a further 30 hours in Israeli custody. During this time he was not allowed to make a phone call, nor was he allowed to see a lawyer. To make things worse, the British consulate did not come and see Jamal at any point during his ordeal.

When Jamal was finally released together with the other passengers (due to pressure from the Turkish government) his passports were not returned to him.

The Israeli authorities stole two of his British passports, as well as all of his possessions valued at over four thousand pounds.

The British government must investigate why it was acceptable for a British national to remain in custody in Israel without receiving any consular assistance. The FCO has said that the Israelis did not allow the consulate to see Jamal or several other British nationals and it is important to know why they accepted this position.

NB: Jamal Elshayyal has served on the executive of the National Union of Students, he was a candidate during the 2006 local elections for Uxbridge South, has advised the Metropolitan Police, Mayor For London, FCO and DFES on matters related to Terrorism, Community relations and racism.

Click here to read his account of what happened on board the flotilla on Al Jazeera Blogs

Friends of Al-Aqsa is a UK based non-profit making NGO concerned with defending the human rights of Palestinians and protecting the sacred al-Aqsa Sanctuary in Jerusalem. This vision is supported by various international groups and organisations. Friends of Al-Aqsa was first established in 1997 and now has an international support base.

18 June 2010
Write to your MP and tell them that the British government cannot accept Israel’s investigation into the Flotilla attack, and there needs to be an independent UN led inquiry.
(Contact details below)

Tirkel Commission is not Enough
Israel’s Tirkel Commission has been set up to ‘investigate’ the armed attack by Israeli troops on the Gaza Flotilla. 9 Turkish peace activists were killed on 31 May 2010 by live fire from Israeli troops.

Immediately after the incident, Israel began to defend itself, saying it was attacked by the peace activists. All video footage and photo evidence from the passengers of the attack on the MV Marmara were confiscated by the Israeli troops and have not been returned to their rightful owners, including 20 journalists who were on board the ship.

Since then, Israel has gone to great lengths to blame the activists, calling them ‘protestors’, ‘radicals’ and even ‘terrorists’. The information being circulated in Israeli society is expected to form the bulk of Israel’s inquiry into the attack on the Flotilla. Instead of releasing all of the video and photographic evidences that exist, the Tirkel Commission will look at selective materials which support Israel’s story. As no peace activists from the ships will be interviewed, not any of the soldiers who attacked the ship, this enquiry is flawed.

The Tirkel Commission fails to meet international standards for a number of reasons:

• 1. The Tirkel Commission's terms of reference do not include looking into the decision-making process by Israeli Politicians and Commanders which led to bloodshed on the high seas, to the killing of nine people whose purpose had been to reach Gaza rather than clash with Israeli soldiers.


• 2. The commission is specifically and explicitly excluded from calling any soldier or officer to testify and is expected to rely blindly on the army's own investigation of its own doings, which is carried out secretly.


• 3. Israel has confiscated most of visual recordings and photographic evidence from the passengers which is highly unlikely to be made available to the commission.


• 4. With Israel withholding vital evidence it would appear there may be selective or no eye-witness testimonies of the boat's Turkish, European and American passengers, whom the State of Israel has already branded as “terrorists”.


• 5. To get a semblance of international respectability, two international observers were attached to the commission. It should be noted that one of them - David Trimble, Protestant Unionist leader from North Ireland – expressed his allegiance just two weeks ago by joining a "Friends of Israel" group established by Netanyahu loyalist Dore Gold. In addition, Trimble is a veteran member of the Henry Jackson Society, an international organization linked with the American "neo conservative" circles and which advocates the "spreading of democracy" by way of military incursions and invasions. At Trimble's side, this society's membership includes such people as Richard Perle, who under the Bush Administration was among the main initiators of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, as well as William Kristol who is the main neo-conservative ideologue.


• 6. The other international observer on the commission is Ken Watkin, retired Canadian Army general and until recently Judge Advocate General. Watkin's name is associated with a sensational affair in Canada, regarding cases of Canadian forces in Afghanistan transferring dozens of prisoners to the custody of the Afghan government's security service – where they were tortured and some extra-judicially executed. Watkin refused to testify to the Canadian Parliament regarding the advice he had given to the military commanders on this issue, arguing that there existed between him and the Canadian government a privileged attorney–client relationship. This behavior does not bode well for Watkin 's willingness or ability to participate in exposing facts which might prove embarrassing to the Government of Israel.

The Tirkel Commission falls short of the basic International requirements of being independent, transparent and comprehensive. It has no credibility and therefore it is not acceptable.

TAKE ACTION:

   1. Write to your local MP
Include the above points in your letter.
      Click here to find the address of your MP or Click here to email a letter to your MP

   2. Write to the Foreign Secretary and encourage him not to accept the Tirkel Commission and instead call for an independent UN led investigation.
      Rt Hon. William Hague MP
      Foreign Secretary
      King Charles Street
      London
      SW1A 2AH

   3. Write to the Minister for the Middle East Alistair Burt, who is also an Officer of Conservative Friends of Israel.
      Rt Hon. Alistair Burt MP
      Minister for the Middle East
      King Charles Street
   London
      SW1A 2AH


Friends of Al-Aqsa is a UK based non-profit making NGO concerned with defending the human rights of Palestinians and protecting the sacred al-Aqsa Sanctuary in Jerusalem. This vision is supported by various international groups and organisations. Friends of Al-Aqsa was first established in 1997 and now has an international support base.

Thirteen British peace activists from the Gaza flotilla met with Minister for the Middle East, Alistair Burt MP, at 11am today. The meeting was the first between the FCO and the group of activists, taking place almost two weeks after most activists returned to the UK following their ordeal.

Others present at the meeting, which lasted 1 hour 10 minutes, included representatives from the Consular Directorates and FCO staff.

Activists Response to the Meeting
The Activists described a sense of frustration at a press conference following the meeting, stating that the inadequate response from the FCO has been astounding and would not be witnessed if any other country in the world was the perpetrator. It can be construed as a lack of commitment to the safety of its nationals abroad.

Ismail Patel, Chair of Friends of Al Aqsa observed: "Following this meeting, we feel heavily disheartened because we had faith that our government would do all it could for us, yet it appears that they allowed themselves to be bullied by Israel so that even the consulate staff could not visit some of us. In addition, the only way the real facts behind this attack will be made clear to the world is if a truly international investigation is launched, and this is something our government refuses to call for.

"We will not allow the killing of 9 innocent men to be whitewashed by an Israeli investigation which will not consult the victims nor the Israeli attackers in order to make its findings. We will continue to call for the return of all evidential materials and an independent investigation, and we will put pressure on our government to take this line with Israel".

For further comments, please contact Ismail Patel, iap@aqsa.org.uk, 07711823524

----------------------------------------------------------

Details of the meeting
The activists presented an account of the Israeli attack on the Flotilla and the inadequate response from the British Consulate in Jerusalem, who failed to meet some of the activists at all.

A number of requests were made by the activists, including:

1. Immediate return of the three missing British passports which Israel failed to give back when the activists were released from prison.
2. Return of all personal possessions, goods and property which were illegally confiscated from activists. After receiving legal advice the activists hold the view that their possessions were illegally appropriated and their rights are guaranteed by the Fourth Geneva Convention. An international statement concerning the legal consequences of the attack on the Flotilla, focusing on the War Crime of extensive appropriation of property, which has been compiled by Hickman Rose solicitors in conjunction with partners world-wide, was presented to the Minister.
3. Return of possessions is to include all audio and photographic materials which documented the attack and corroborate the real version of events on May 31. 20 activists on board were journalists and all of their footage was appropriated. This footage will be essential for any international investigation.
4. The British government to call for an international UN led inquiry into the attack on the Flotilla, as Israel's proposed enquiry falls far short of an adequate standard to ensure a true investigation.


Response
Mr Burt responded as follows:

   1. Promise to make a public call for an immediate return of the missing passports 'within days'.
   2. Undertake to call privately for Israel to return all possessions belonging to activists.
   3. The British government is willing to accept an enquiry by Israel into the attack on the Flotilla and will not call for an independent international enquiry.
   4. Despite the grave and serious nature of Israel's attack on the Flotilla, Mr Burt refused to facilitate a meeting between the activists and the Foreign Secretary William Hague MP.

As the right-wing leadership of the organised US Jewish community defends Israel against international condemnation for its deadly seizure of a flotilla bearing humanitarian supplies for Gaza, a familiar clutch of neo-conservative hawks is going on the offensive against what they see as the flotilla's chief defender, Turkey.

Outraged by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's repeated denunciations of the May 31 Israeli raid, as well as his co-sponsorship with Brazil of an agreement with Iran designed to promote renewed negotiations with the West on Tehran's nuclear programme, some neo-conservatives are even demanding that the US try to expel Ankara from NATO as one among several suggested actions aimed at punishing Erdogan's AKP (Justice and Development Party) government.

"Turkey, as a member of NATO, is privy to intelligence information having to do with terrorism and with Iran," noted the latest report by the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), a hard-line neo-conservative group that promotes US-Israeli military ties and has historically cultivated close ties to Turkey's military, as well.

"If Turkey finds its best friends to be Iran, Hamas, Syria and Brazil (look for Venezuela in the future) the security of that information (and Western technology in weapons in Turkey's arsenal) is suspect. The United States should seriously consider suspending military cooperation with Turkey as a prelude to removing it from the organisation," suggested the group.

Its board of advisers includes many prominent champions of the 2003 Iraq invasion, including former Defence Policy Board chairman Richard Perle, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director James Woolsey, and former UN ambassador John Bolton.

'Ingrained hostility'

Neo-conservative publications, notably The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard and the National Review, have also been firing away at the AKP government since the raid.

"Turkey now represents a major element in the global panorama of radical Islam," declared the Standard's Stephen Schwartz, while Daniel Pipes, the controversial director of the Likudist Middle East Forum (MEF), echoed JINSA's call for ousting Ankara from NATO and urged Washington to provide direct support for Turkey's opposition parties in an article published by the National Review Online.

The Journal has been running editorials and op-eds attacking Turkey on virtually a daily basis since the raid, accusing its government, among other things, of having "an ingrained hostility toward the Jewish state, remarkable sympathies for nearby radical regimes, and an attitude toward extremist groups like the IHH (the Islamist group that sponsored the flotilla's flagship, the Mavi Marmara) that borders on complicity".

On Monday, it ran an op-ed by long-time hawk Victor Davis Hanson that labelled the IHH "a terrorist organisation with ties to al-Qaeda", while an earlier op-ed, by Robert Pollock, its editorial features editor, called Erdogan and his foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, "demagogues appealing to the worst elements in their own country and the broader Middle East".

Meanwhile, in an op-ed published by The Forward, a Jewish weekly, Michael Rubin, a Perle protégé at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), accused Turkey of having "become a conduit for the smuggling of weapons to Israel's enemies", notably Lebanon's Hezbollah.

Backtracking

The onslaught is ironic both because of the neo-conservatives' long cultivation of Turkey and their avowed support for promoting democratic governance - of which they have singled out Turkey for special praise - in the Muslim world.

Neo-conservatives were among the most important promoters of the military alliance between Israel and Turkey that began to take shape in the late 1980s and was consolidated by the mid-1990s.

In fact, Perle and another of his protégés, former undersecretary of defence for policy, Douglas Feith, worked as paid lobbyists for Turkey during that period, in major part to persuade the powerful "Israel Lobby" to promote Ankara's interests on Capitol Hill.

In 1996, the two men participated in a task force chaired by Perle that proposed to incoming Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that he work with Turkey and Jordan to remove Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from power as part of an alliance designed to transform the strategic balance in the Middle East permanently in favour of Israel.

But the Turkey promoted by Perle and his fellow neo-cons in the 1980s and 1990s was one that was dominated by a secular business and political elite carefully monitored by an all-powerful military institution that mounted three coup d'etats between 1960 and 1980 and intervened a fourth time in 1997 to oust an Islamist-led government.

Disappointment

Despite its close links to both the US and Israel, however, the Turkish military badly disappointed the neo-cons in the run-up to Washington's invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

Instead of insisting that the civilian government at the time grant US requests to use Turkish territory as a major launching pad into northern Iraq, the armed forces decided to defer to overwhelming parliamentary and public opposition to the invasion.

"I think for whatever reason they did not play the strong leadership role on that issue that we would have expected," complained then deputy secretary of defence Paul Wolfowitz, a long-time Perle friend and colleague who, despite his lavish praise of Turkey as a model Muslim democracy, headed repeated efforts by the George W. Bush administration to persuade Turkey's national security council - where the military's voice was dominant - to effectively overrule its parliament.

Erdogan, who became prime minister just a week before the invasion and whose political and economic reforms have been widely praised in the West, at first sought good relations with Israel. As late as 2007, he arranged for Shimon Peres to become the first Israeli president to address the Turkish parliament.

By then, however, many neo-cons had become concerned about Erdogan's efforts to weaken the military's power, his warm reception of a top Hamas leader in 2005, criticism of Israel's military campaign against Hezbollah in 2006, and rapprochement with Syria.

When the military not so subtly threatened to intervene against Erdogan and the AKP in 2007, some neo-cons, notably Perle, suggested that the US should not try to discourage it. Others, including The Standard's Schwartz and Pipes, encouraged it as the lesser of two evils, even as The Journal defended the AKP as "more democratic than the secularists".

Since Erdogan's furious denunciation of Israel, and Peres personally, at the Davos World Economic Forum (WEF) after Israel's Cast Lead operation in Gaza in January 2009, however, neo-cons of virtually all stripes - including those, like The Journal's editorial writers, who have praised the AKP as a democratising force - have turned against Ankara. And the flotilla incident, combined with Erdogan's perceived defence of Iran's nuclear programme, has raised their animus to new heights.

"A combination of Islamist rule, resentment at exclusion from Europe, and a neo-Ottomanist ideology that envisions Turkey as a great power in the Middle East have made Turkey a state that is often plainly hostile not only to Israel but to American aims and interests," wrote Eliot Cohen, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, in a Journal op-ed on Monday.

Click here to read Jim Lobe's blog on US foreign policy.

Published under an agreement with IPS.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

The volatile situation in the Palestinian territories puts the Gaza Strip in the headlines frequently.

But despite the adversity behind these newsworthy events, there is nothing that Gazans fear more than dropping out of the headlines - the only real link to the outside world - and falling deeper into the isolation and obscurity of the Israeli blockade.

Gaza under siege is a forgotten place where time and change are irrelevant aside from degradation, both of physical surroundings and the quality inside us that makes human beings yearn for life.   

What keeps it afloat is outside humanitarian aid, but what infuses it with that faint semblance to normalcy are the tunnels running between Gaza and Egypt.

Covert and basic only two years ago, tunnel trade increased as the blockade continued.

The not so distant memory of the fuel crisis, when hospitals shut down and cars ran on diesel mixed with cooking oil, is what led more traders to go underground.

Today, store shelves are no longer empty, and pharmacies carry more types of medication.

Today electrical appliances can be brought in from Egypt, and power cuts have gone down to eight hours a day.

For many Gazans this is a far cry from the conditions they have endured since as far back as 2005.

But contrary to recent Israeli propaganda claims, in Gaza poverty, destitution and inhumane conditions not only exist, but thrive.

Perpetual state of waiting

The majority of Gazans, those at the market surveying goods, strolling around town (no one walks fast in Gaza, few people have pressing business) or lounging idly on chairs outside stores, are in a perpetual state of "waiting".

Ask any person what their future plans are, or - in the 50 per cent likelihood that they are unemployed - when they plan on getting a job, and you will get the same answer: when things get better I will know.

With a 70 per cent poverty rate it is not uncommon for young children to survive on a diet of bread, yogurt and water, as the majority cannot afford the products in the market.

In some stores these products are past their expiry dates, but still sit on the shelves.

With the damage to the infrastructure, Gazans have to buy clean drinking water.

I have been in homes where families with children have had to borrow money to buy clean water or go without.

I have also been in neighbourhoods where children suffer from skin and respiratory diseases from the sewage water that is dumped into the environment.

While thousands of young Gazans graduate from collage each year, less than half of them stand a chance of getting a job.

In some areas in Gaza ruins of bombed buildings have become landmarks, and in other areas the buildings that remain standing look odd amid the ruins.

Everything, from electronics to stationary is low quality and overpriced. People no longer see shame in wearing patched clothes.

If you get a serious illness you will probably go untreated and most likely not be allowed to leave for treatment, and if you live you are lucky.

Diminishing expectations

Years of imprisonment within a 360 square km piece of land, surrounded on all sides by a hostile military presence changes you, as an individual and as a people.

It diminishes your ability to expect good things, for yourself and from yourself.

There is no talk of the future any more in Gaza.

Under the current conditions most people live day to day on just enough knowing that they may not have even that tomorrow.

Palestinian leaderships in Gaza and the West Bank are ineffective in the face of Israel, and the rift between them is so wide that unity is as unlikely as the revival of the peace process.

Faith in international diplomatic efforts has all but disappeared.

Many American, European, Arab and UN officials at the highest levels have come to look at Gaza after the offensive.

They take the tour, visiting the sites of destruction, meet with representatives of the Palestinian factions, give a speech pledging solidarity and promising an end to the collective punishment that is the blockade.

These visits no longer raise hopes among Palestinians, or draw criticism from Israel, as both sides have come to understand that they are both fruitless (for Gazans) and inconsequential (to Israel).

Understanding the past

Do not believe news reports that tell you that Israel has eased the blockade.

Allowing cookies, pasta and stationary to enter the strip after they had been banned is not exactly addressing the humanitarian needs of a devastated, broken, poverty ridden, hungry, captive population.

The saying goes that to know the future you must understand the past.

It would all fall into perspective if it was acknowledged that Gaza has been under Israeli occupation since 1967, and remains so.

Previous peace agreements were a light version of this very occupation, granting Israel full control of the territory and its people and leading to the situation we are in today.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

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The remarks were not made in anger or haste, as were the now infamous, flippant and ill-conceived comments that cost White House reporter Helen Thomas her job, if not her legacy. Instead, they were made quite deliberately, with an air of thoughtfulness, while leaning over a lectern, as if lecturing to a class.

Thomas was forced into retirement for declaring that Jews "should get the hell out of Palestine," but New York Senator Chuck Schumer, one of the most powerful politicians in the US, has avoided any criticism or even major press coverage for remarks he made only days later that supported the continued "economic strangulation" of Gaza; in part, because, he essentially argues, the inhabitants of the benighted Strip are not Jewish.

Schumer made his remarks during a brief talk to the Orthodox Union, a well-known politically conservative Jewish educational, outreach and social service organisation.

The talk covered several foreign policy issues, including Iran and Israel/Palestine. When the topic turned to the Israeli attack on the Gaza aid flotilla Schumer began by explaining that the "Palestinian people still don't believe in the Jewish state, in a two-state solution". But that is not all, he continued: "They don't believe in the Torah, in David."

Because of this, and because they chose to elect Hamas, Schumer went on to argue, Israel is right - and the US should support its desire - "to strangle them economically until they see that's not the way to go".

Indeed, whether deliberately or because he does not understand the nature of Israeli policies vis-a-vis Gaza, Schumer did not actually use the word "blockade;" instead describing Israeli actions as a "boycott".

Only when Palestinians see the light, "when there's some moderation and cooperation, can [they] have an economic advancement".

Opinions that matter

With all due respect to Helen Thomas and her illustrious career, she was merely a columnist, with no political power and a relatively small readership. When she adopted opinions or arguments that contradicted the facts or were morally problematic, they were easily rebutted in the public sphere.

Charles Schumer, however, is an extremely powerful senator who serves on some of that body's most powerful committees, such as banking and judiciary.

Moreover, through his representation of New York, the state with the largest Jewish population in the US, he is a leading pro-Israel voice in congress who has the ability directly to impact the nature of US policy towards Israel and the Middle East more broadly.

In other words, what Senator Schumer says actually can cost people - Palestinians, Israelis, Americans - their livelihoods and even their lives, not to mention help prolong or alleviate one of the world's most intractable conflicts. And yet no one in official Washington even blinked.

To consider the implications of these comments, it is worth considering what would happen if any Arab or Muslim, never mind a US senator, explained that because Israelis do not support a two-state solution, and do not believe in the Quran - that is, have not converted to Islam - and have voted in one of the most right-wing governments in their country's history, the US, or the world more broadly, is justified in trying to "strangle Israel economically" until it moderates its policies.

Imagine the uproar. Consider what would happen to the person - a columnist or congressman - who made such a comment. Yet hardly anyone has even noticed, never mind considered the implications of Schumer's remarks, which on YouTube have garnered about 1,500 views. Not a single major US newspaper has even written, let alone editorialised, about them, in contrast to the plethora of editorials and op-eds in response to Thomas' remarks, one clip of which has been viewed well over 1.6 million times.

It is hard to know what to call Schumer's argument that, because Palestinians "don't believe in the Torah, in David," they can be strangled.

He specifically says "there should be humanitarian aid and people not starving to death," but he does not quite explain how "strangling" an economy that has already been nearly destroyed during 40 years of occupation can do anything but cause immense suffering to the people living in it, as numerous reports by the UN, Israeli, Palestinian and international aid organisations have documented in great detail.

Indeed, to "strangle" an entire people economically can only mean to try to destroy their ability to survive as a national group, which is a crime against humanity.

Official bigotry unchallenged

These are among the most ethnically and religiously bigoted and even inciteful public remarks by a senior American politician I have heard in a long time.

And the fact Schumer could make them without a hint of anger, as if he was merely stating the obvious, and feel no need to recant them after video of the talk was circulated on the internet (several calls to Schumer's press secretary asking for clarification were not answered), is as telling as it is worrisome.

It is also worth noting that besides the moral problems associated with his positions, almost every one of his arguments are factually inaccurate. The strong majority of Palestinians continue to support a two-state solution (74 per cent in an April 2009 poll), even thought the process meant to achieve it has delivered little but misery for them for almost two decades. They moderated their ideology and behaviour as part of Oslo and were met with an ever more intensive occupation in response.

Israel has, in fact, been strangling the Palestinian economy since the inception of the occupation, "de-developing" not just Gaza but the West Bank until Oslo, and then closing off the Territories physically while ensuring that they could not develop an autonomous economy as the central component of Oslo's economic protocols.

Indeed, it is precisely the intensification of the occupation that led to the breakdown of negotiations, the outbreak of the al-Aqsa intifada, the massive violence of Israel's response, and the election of Hamas in response to these dynamics. Even senior Israeli generals have admitted that their harsh actions have only strengthened Hamas.

Collective punishment

Schumer also fails to realise that by advocating the "economic strangulation" of Gaza he is calling for collective punishment of a civilian population in order to change its political beliefs or views.

As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he should know that this is essentially the definition of terrorism used by the US government, which in several federal statutes, including the Patriot Act, define terrorism as  involving acts that "appear to be intended ... to intimidate or coerce a civilian population ... to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion [or] affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping ..." (USA Patriot Act, Title VIII, Sec. 802).

Israel's policies of economic strangulation have clearly - and admittedly - been intended to force a change in behaviour, and are inseparable from its policies of assassination and kidnappings which have also been practiced by the US under the guise of drone strikes and renditions (it is also likely not coincidental that Senator Schumer also supported the use of torture by the Bush administration in 2004).

How does Senator Schumer think advocating economic strangulation will actually improve Israel's security, help moderate Palestinians, or, as should be a major concern for a US senator, improve the US' position in the eyes of the Muslims world as his party's president, Barack Obama, has been trying to do since taking office?

Moreover, his comments suggest that if Israel manages to choke Palestinians into compliance, the most he is willing to support is the sort of "economic peace" or development promised by Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, as an alternative to actual sovereignty and independence. If so, that would put him in direct confrontation with Obama's strongly-stated support for Palestinian statehood.

Finally, it might serve Senator Schumer to know that within Islam there is in fact an acceptance of the Torah and David, as the Torah (tawrat in Arabic) is considered one of the Holy Books of God, whose corruption by humans led to subsequent revelations until the final, according to Islamic theology, uncorrupted revelation, that comprised the Quran. Moreover, David is considered a prophet and another set of books, the Zabur, or songs/psalms, is attributed to him.

Perhaps if Schumer understood this basic theological relationship between Judaism and Islam, he might be less predisposed to imagining that Israelis and Palestinians are inevitably at odds, and that the latter will act irrationally and with malice against Israel no matter what Israel does and therefore the safest policy from Israel's perspective is, if not actual strangulation, at least continuous repression.

Obama's challenge

If Schumer thinks this way, many if not most of his colleagues, and the majority of the American media and political spheres, do as well.

If this is what he is up against, no wonder Obama is finding it so hard to change US policy towards the conflict.

It would be one thing if Schumer's views impacted only the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But his remarks to the Orthodox Union also touched upon Iran, and did so in a way that provide some alarming insight into what is likely the consensus of the senate about the goal of US policies towards the Islamic Republic.

Specifically, Schumer described a bill presently in reconciliation between the house and senate that would prevent any company that sold gasoline directly or indirectly to Iran from selling oil products in the US. If passed, such a bill would significantly impact Iran because while it is a major petroleum exporter, Iran in fact imports a larger share of the gasoline it uses for domestic consumption.

After describing the bill and its potential impact, Schumer added off-handedly, as if it was too obvious really to need mentioning, that "the whole idea is to bring the Iranian regime down".

He added: "There is a lot of discontent ... the people of Iran want economic advancement above all ... If we can stop that economic advancement we can hurt the country economically. That might be the spark that brings the people ... that brings the regime, which is fundamentally not popular and works by fear, down."

It seems that to Schumer what is good for Israel in Gaza is good for the US in Iran; engage in blatant attempts at regime change, even if doing so is a violation of international law; hurt or strangle a country economically in order to cause the people to suffer enough that they rise up against the government to whose existence you are opposed; and if none of that works, keep applying more pressure, until, presumably, there is no choice but to take military action.

Senator Schumer's words seem to represent the mainstream of opinion inside the Washington political establishment. They would seem, thus far, not to be the official policies of the Obama administration, but if the president does not articulate a clear agenda that includes bold action to break the logjams in negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, and between Iran and the Western powers, Schumer's views will likely become the de facto fall-back strategy of whatever administration is in power in two years' time.

And this will most likely mean a lot more suffering for Palestinians and Iranians, and ultimately, for Israelis and Americans as well.

Mark LeVine is a professor of history at UC Irvine and senior visiting researcher at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University in Sweden. His most recent books are Heavy Metal Islam (Random House) and Impossible Peace: Israel/Palestine Since 1989 (Zed Books).

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

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Turkey and Palestinians have attacked Israel's announcement that it is creating an internal committee to probe its deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla last month, saying it did not comply with UN demands.

Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish foreign minister, said Israel was incapable of conducting an "impartial investigation," while Hamas, the body governing the Gaza Strip, said the country's continuing refusal to accept an international probe proved its guilt.

"By refusing the formation of an international committee to investigate the massacre, Israel is condemning itself," said Fawzi Barhum, a Hamas spokesman.

The Israeli cabinet formally ratified the creation of the three-man committee looking into the raid on Monday, following its initial announcement of the probe late on Sunday.

The UN Security Council has demanded that Israel create an impartial and transparent investigation into the attack by Israeli commandos on May 31.

The raid on the flotilla, which was trying to deliver aid to the Gaza Strip, left nine Turkish activists dead.

Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, said the setting up of an internal committee by Israel did not comply with the UN's demands.

"The proposition made today for the inquiry committee does not correspond to the request of the Security Council," Abbas said in Paris on Monday after meeting Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president.

Turkey had also demanded a UN-led probe and threatened to review its ties with Israel if it did not heed calls for an independent inquiry.

'Uncovering the facts'

The committee set up to investigate the legal aspects of the raid will be chaired by Yaakov Tirkel, 75, a retired Israeli supreme court judge who will work alongside Amos Horev, 86, a retired major general, and Shabtai Rosen, 93, a professor of international law.

It will also include two international observers: David Trimble, 65, an Irish Nobel Peace Prize winner; and Ken Watkin, 55, former judge advocate general of the Canadian military.

It was not clear what powers Trimble and Watkin would have and a statement from Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said they would not be able "to vote in relation to the proceedings and conclusions of the commission".

The two men could also be denied access to information that could "cause substantial harm to national security or to the state's foreign relations," the statement said.

The inquiry will run alongside another internal military probe into the events of May 31, which began last week under Giora Eiland, a retired brigadier general.

Israel has made clear the investigation announced at the weekend will not hear any direct testimony from troops involved in the raid.

"I am convinced that uncovering the facts will prove that Israel acted in an appropriately defensive fashion in accordance with the highest standards," Netanyahu told cabinet members on Monday.

"The committee will clarify to the world that Israel acts according to law with responsibility and full transparency," he said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has described Israel's blockade of Gaza as a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

That conclusion rests on the Israeli government' status as an occupying power in Gaza, which assigns it certain obligations to the people of Gaza.

Those obligations are spelt out in detail by the Fourth Geneva Convention. At their most basic, though, they require Israel to provide for the basic needs of the people, particularly food and medical care.

The convention also requires the occupying power to allow sufficient shipments of aid - food, clothing, medical supplies and other essentials - and to take steps to preserve the health care system in the occupied territory.

Israel does not meet those basic requirements, according to many observers. Eighty per cent of people living in Gaza rely on food aid to survive; 14 per cent of children suffer from stunted growth due to malnutrition.

Power cuts are routine: 98 per cent of the population copes with routine blackouts. Fuel supplies are heavily restricted.

More than 100 basic medicines are unavailable in Gaza, and the territory’s few remaining hospitals - several were damaged during the 2008-2009 Israeli war in Gaza - lack basic supplies and equipment.
But didn't Israel withdraw from Gaza? How is it still an occupying power?

It’s true that the Israeli government no longer has a presence inside the Gaza Strip. Former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon ordered the withdrawal of all Israelis (including both soldiers and settlers) from the territory in his 2005 "unilateral disengagement plan".

But the Fourth Geneva Convention applies whenever a state has "effective control" over a territory. The Israeli government still controls Gaza’s airspace, and its land and sea borders. The only goods and people allowed into Gaza are those approved by the Israeli government.

Last month’s raid on the aid flotilla bound for Gaza is an instructive example. The organisers of the flotilla say their boats were on course to travel through Gazan waters, not Israeli waters. But the Israeli army still attacked the flotilla to prevent it from entering Gaza - showing that Israel maintains control over Gaza.
If there was no occupation, would the blockade still be illegal?

The principle of “proportionality” is central to international law: The military advantage gained by an action must outweigh the harm caused to the civilian population.

The blockade does not meet this test. It imposes hardships on the entire population of Gaza - 1.5 million people - purportedly in order to achieve a limited military aim: preventing Hamas from firing rockets at Israel.

What’s more, documents revealed last week by the Israeli human rights organisation Gisha show that the blockade actually has a political aim, not a military one. A written statement from the Israeli government described the blockade as "economic warfare" and said it was intended to break Hamas’s control over the government in Gaza.
What about the Egyptian government?

The Egyptian border crossing with Gaza, at Rafah, has been mostly sealed since Hamas took power in June of 2007. (The Egyptian government reopened the crossing earlier this month following Israel’s raid on the aid flotilla.)

But Egypt is not an occupying power in Gaza - it does not exercise "effective control" over the territory - so, whatever the moral and political arguments against its blockade, it is not required to apply the same legal standard as Israel.

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The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has described Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip as a violation of the Geneva Conventions and called on the Israeli government to lift it.

In a statement released on Monday, the organisation called the blockade "collective punishment", a crime under international law. It described Gaza as a territory plagued by frequent power cuts, a ruined economy, and a collapsed health care system.

"The closure imposed on the Gaza Strip is about to enter its fourth year, choking off any real possibility of economic development," the ICRC said.

"Gazans continue to suffer from unemployment, poverty and warfare, while the quality of Gaza's health care system has reached an all-time low."

Crippling shortages

Israeli officials insist that they provide enough "humanitarian aid" to cover Gaza's basic needs.

But the ICRC said the meagre list of goods allowed into Gaza doesn't meet the needs of the territory's 1.5 million inhabitants.

Beatrice Megevand-Roggo, the head of the ICRC's Middle East operations, told Al Jazeera that the organisation - which traditionally remains neutral - was reluctant to publicly criticise the blockade. But she said three years of quiet efforts to ease the embargo did not result in any progress.

"The result has not been what we expected, and we thought that after three years the situation was dire enough, serious enough, to speak out publicly to try to break this closure of Gaza," she said.

The shortages are particularly dire in Gaza's health care system, where the ICRC said more than 100 essential medicines - including chemotherapy and hemophilia drugs - are unavailable. Many basic medical supplies, like colonoscopy bags, are also barred from Gaza and routine blackouts cause damage to medical equipment.

"The state of the health-care system in Gaza has never been worse," Eileen Daly, the ICRC's health co-ordinator in Gaza, said.

"Thousands of patients could go without treatment, and the long-term outlook will be increasingly worrisome."

B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights organisation, released its own report on Monday documenting dire conditions in the Palestinian territories. The group noted that 95 per cent of Gaza's factories have closed, that 98 per cent of residents suffer from blackouts, and that 93 per cent of Gaza's water is polluted.

Amr Moussa, the secretary-general of the Arab League, on Sunday called for an end to the blockade.

Hamas criticised

The ICRC also criticised Hamas, the Islamic movement which controls Gaza, for preventing the ICRC from visiting Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier captured in 2006. Shalit is entitled to visits from the Red Cross under international law.

"In violation of international humanitarian law, [Hamas] has also refused to allow him to get in touch with his family," the ICRC said.

But the bulk of the ICRC's criticism was directed at Israel's blockade. In addition to the health care problems, the ICRC noted that 40 per cent of Gaza's residents are not connected to a sewage system, and that restrictions on movement have driven many farmers and fishermen into poverty.

One-third of Gaza's farmland is located in a "buffer zone" controlled by the Israeli army, and boats are only allowed to fish within three nautical miles of Gaza's coast.

The ICRC demanded that both Israel and the Hamas government "allow and facilitate rapid and unimpeded passage" of aid shipments to Gaza. Hamas has refused to accept 10,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid seized from the flotilla of aid ships attacked last month by the Israeli army.

The Israeli government announced on Sunday that a panel, chaired by former supreme court judge Yaakov Turkel, would investigate the flotilla attack.

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