A humanitarian ship with food going to a starved nation, that is attacked by heavy millitary, would be news anywhere it happened and beacause of the list of people that attended the ship.
Jounalists, politicians, humanitarian workers, from all over europa participated.
The new humantarian boat on its way to Gaza, even have a Nobel peace price winner on and the boat is named after the young american woman that was bulldozed down in front of a palestinian house some years ago, Rachel Corrie.
Bolded by me
Haven´t you read the thread ? There is no food shortage in the Gaza strip.
See this report posted by me June 04, 2010, 01:38:58 :
Wednesday, 2nd June 2010, at. 12:01 /
the situation in Gaza: the problem is lack of work rather than lack of food
GAZA (01/06/2010): To judge from some media, the situation in Gaza is desperate, everything is about to collapse, the community is on the brink of disaster or at the level of the third world.
Israel's closure of the border with the Gaza Strip has been going on for three years. Since the Palestinian coalition government collapsed, and Hamas during the ensuing civil war threw Fatah out. Since then the Palestinian community's immediate collaps has been prophesied numerous times in the media. We hear sometimes, that the Palestinians have nothing to eat. The UN must from time to time to stop food distribution, either because their stocks are running low, or because they cannot get diesel for their trucks and therefore cannot deliver the food and so on.
Yesterday I drove into the Gaza Strip. I no longer do so as often as before, because while it once was just a quick flying visit by car going in in the morning and out again late afternoon, it is now so slow a process that when I finally go down here, I usually stay about a week. It is also a regular occurrence, that the Israelis close the Gaza Strip to foreign journalists, so if you happen to be there you are unable to get out for some days or weeks, which is why I don´t go there as often as I used to.
This time, I had expected to see real suffering, because with all the fuss in recent days to bring some tons of humanitarian relief in - so much so that people actually sacrificed their lives for it – there had to be a really desperate situation in the Gaza Strip. No food. Long queues in front of the UN food stocks. Hungry children with food bowls. But that was not the picture that greeted me.
When yesterday morning I drove through Gaza City, I was immediately surprised that there was almost as many traffic jams, as there always has been. Is there not a shortage of fuel? Apparently not. They are using it with abandon. Gasoline is not even rationed.
Many shops were closed yesterday, Hamas has declared a general strike in protest against Israel's brutal and deadly attack on the Turkish flotilla with pro-Palestinian activists on board. So it was difficult to estimate how many products were on the shelves. I therefore went to the Shati refugee camp, also known as Beach Camp, which has become entirely surrounded by Gaza City and immersed in it. Here is one of Gaza's many vegetable markets that sell much more than just fruits and vegetables.
I cannot say whether, in better times, there has been a larger range of product on sale than there was yesterday. But there was certainly no shortage of vegetables, fruits or any other ordinary, basic foods. Tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, watermelons, potatoes - mountains of them at the many stalls.
I must admit I was a little surprised, because when I call my Palestinian friends down here, they tell me about all the problems and shortages, so I expected that the crisis was a little more obvious.
And the first woman we interviewed in the market confirmed this strange, contradictory, negative outlook:
"We have nothing," she said. We need everything! Food, beverages ... everything! "
She was not the least bothered by the fact, that she stood between mountains of vegetables, fruit, eggs, poultry and fish, while she uttered this doomsday prophecy.
Another woman, Rifka Abu Nahal, who originally comes from the rural area was more in touch with reality. She says that a really crucial problem is over consumption of water, which makes the water table sink. This means that the Mediterranean's salt water penetrates into and contaminate the groundwater, which already has become too salty. This makes it both unpleasant to drink, and ultimately it will destroy the farmland.
She goes on to say that it is the bad economy that is the biggest problem.
"There is a high unemployment rate.. This means that many people have no income, but must live on charity from their relatives. So they cannot afford to buy the available goods. They can stand and look at the meat, but they cannot buy it, "she explains.
What probably will surprise many is, that only vegetables are grown here in the Gaza Strip. And with the exception of watermelon all the fruits come from none other than ... Israel!
Yousuf al-Assad Yazgy owns a fruit and vegetable stall here in the market. All his fruit is imported from Israel.
"It's not all fruit and vegetables that come from Israel. Ours do. Not much fruit is grown in the Gaza Strip. Mostly tomatoes, potatoes and vegetables are grown. So in my stall the vegetables and watermelon are from Gaza. All the fruit comes from across the border from Israel, "he explains, but he says that there may be long periods when the border is closed, and no fruit comes in.
Another supply route is the tunnels down in the southern part of the Gaza Strip under the border with Egypt. A very large proportion of goods in the grocery stores here in Gaza come from Egypt and are smuggled in.
On the way out of the Shati camp we stop at a small grocery store sales. Nothing fancy, just a small, humble local shop. The proprietor´s son, Mohammed Abu Nada, who is minding the shop, says that they would not be able to do business if it were not for contraband goods from Egypt.
He takes us on a brief tour of the shelves and points out everything that comes from Egypt. It turns out to be much more than half of the goods. I would estimate 75-80 per cent. Several other products - including long-life UHT milk - comes from Israel, but has also been smuggled through tunnels from Egypt.
The detour via the Sinai desert and the tunnels do not, of course, make the goods cheaper, which Mohammed Abu Nada is well aware of.
The products are more expensive, he says. Many people cannot afford to buy them, or can only buy certain things sometimes. But still, that even such a small, poor-looking grocery store on the outskirts of a refugee camp has so many relatively expensive smuggled goods on the shelves, nevertheless shows that some customers at least can afford to buy them. Otherwise, the shopowner would of course not invest in them.
I have not written this story to postulate that there are no problems in the Gaza Strip, because that would be untrue. There are problems. Many problems indeed. But it is not lack of food, which primarily concern people down here. The biggest problem is the lack of jobs and a sustainable domestic economy.
There is a shortage of building materials, cement and everything within the construction industry. This lack, however, has sparked a whole new industry. Poor Palestinians dig through the many empty lots and the ruins of destroyed houses and factory buildings which the war has left. Here are all kinds of things that can be reused. Even many of the stones and the concrete can be utilized.
But a genuine Palestinian economic development, as their brethren in the West Bank currently enjoy with help from the West, would do much to improve the situation in the Gaza Strip. And this economic development must come from within. There will never again be a situation where up to 150,000 workers from the Gaza Strip can work in Israel and bring money back to help the local economy. (Something Israel was actually also criticized for). The wave of terrorism and suicide bombings in the 90s and beginning of 2000 put and end to that.
But to get such an economic development, with help from the West, going it will require Israeli cooperation. And it also means that the Hamas government must soften its total and unflinching refusal to negotiate with Israel or even recognize its right to exist. And you actually feel that - although there is a very long way to go – there are tendencies in some circles of Hamas, to show greater flexibility.
To cultivate this wing of the Islamists, it is probably also necessary that we in the West soften our attitude of total rejection of Hamas. Even our own Danish diplomats in the region have, in common with other EU diplomats, had no contacts with Hamas. A dialogue is necessary.
Unless there is some sort of defusing of the situation, the danger is, that the more militant and fanatical jihadist groups that are already emerging in the Gaza Strip, begin to challenge Hamas and force the organization to abandon all possibilities of political compromises, and instead protect its Islamist credentials.
http://blog.tv2.dk/steffen-jensen.tv2/As to Steffen Jensen´s claim that food shortage is the least of the Gazans problems seem to be substantiated by the this survey by the Economist :
Topic: Isrealis attack Aid Convoy ships