Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Gazans suffer, and Israel is not the reason

http://www.sacbee.com/846/story/2419003.html
  WASHINGTON --  While Palestinian Christians in the West Bank celebrate 
Christmas in Bethlehem, Palestinians in Gaza, no matter their religious 
affiliation or political bent, are suffering in squalor and growing 
ignorance. Thousands are trying to flee.
Gaza has never been a prosperous enclave; the 140-square-mile territory 
has always been a poor, dependent state. But for Hamas, the radical 
Islamic terrorist group that seized control of Gaza in 2007, the 
long-term pursuit of a political impossibility trumps even the slightest 
concern for the welfare of the group's 1.5 million "constituents."
Residents of the Palestinian territories have been subjects of foreign 
states - Turkey, Great Britain, Jordan and then Israel - for half a 
millennium. But all the while, during both prosperous and desperate 
times, Palestinians have struggled to ensure that they educate their 
children. As a result, Palestinians have been among the best educated 
people in the world. Literacy rates, even for girls, have hovered around 
99 percent. By comparison, in Iran, perhaps the Palestinians' biggest 
defenders now, and Israel's greatest enemy, UNICEF reports that only 77 
percent of the population can read and write. Even Israel's literacy 
rate is lower: 97.1 percent.
But now, for the first time in the modern era, Gazans as young as 9, 10, 
11 are being put to work in ever larger numbers, forgoing school. 
"Learning achievement has declined along with primary school 
enrollment," UNICEF reports.
Much of the world blames Israel. During its invasion of Gaza last 
January, Israeli troops damaged or destroyed nearly half of the 
territory's schools along with much of the remaining infrastructure. The 
condemnation of Israel, much of it justified for the assault's 
brutality, continues to this day in the United Nations and elsewhere.
Still, most of the people behind the continuing reproval take little 
note of Hamas' own campaign of terror in the previous months, lobbing 
hundreds of missiles toward Israeli population centers. No matter. 
That's a debate for another day. The point is, a year has passed.
What political concessions has Hamas offered that might have enabled it 
to make repairs, improve the lot of its people? None. So, poverty and 
malnutrition are growing so fast that these pernicious blights are 
reaching epidemic status. The United Nations reported this fall that one 
in five Gazans now live in what it called "abject poverty." That is why 
many parents are no longer sending their children to school. They need 
the pennies their children can earn at menial jobs to buy food.
Their chieftains don't seem to care. I have interviewed the leaders of 
Hamas many times over the years, and all of them offered one consistent 
refrain, time and time again: We are patient. Our resistance will 
continue as long as it takes - even centuries - until we reach our goal, 
full control of Palestine.
Of course, that includes the state of Israel. One of them, Ismail Abu 
Shenab, now deceased, once told me: "There are plenty of open areas in 
the United States that could absorb the Jews." Even Shenaeb, zealot that 
he was, must have known that nothing like that was going to happen even 
in his grandchildren's lifetimes - if ever. But he and all his 
colleagues, then and now, pursued that ludicrous goal in exclusion of 
all else, and now it is leading to the social destruction of their own 
people.
Israel and Egypt have locked the gates to Gaza. Israel's closure is more 
understandable than Egypt's, given that Cairo pretends to be the 
Palestinian's greatest friend and protector. In any case, it's 
impossible to know just how many Gazans endorse Hamas' chimerical, 
single-minded, objective.
The majority of Gazans I have met want to live peaceful lives and 
provide for their children. Sure, all of them would love to turn the 
clock back to 1967, before Israel won control of Gaza. That's why most 
of them still choose to live in decades-old refugee camps, to show that 
they refuse to accept the current state of affairs.
But now a growing number - half the population, according to recent 
polls - is trying to get out of Gaza, escape from Hamas control and the 
deprivation that comes from its rule. In one famous case early this 
month, a healthy man joined the thousands who are fleeing to Egypt and 
Israel with bribes and fake medical reports, by pretending to be dying 
of cancer. He didn't get away with it.
Now, a year after the Israeli invasion of Gaza, it's time to stop 
blaming Israel for the desperate plight of Gaza's people. Now, without 
question, it's Hamas' fault.
ABOUT THE WRITER
Joel Brinkley is a former Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent 
for The New York Times and now a professor of journalism at Stanford 
University. Readers may send him e-mail at: 
brin...@foreign-matters.com

 question, it's Hamas' fault.
al contrario, proprio oggi più che mai la colpa è interamente di
Israele. Prima potevi dire che Hamas tirava i missili, oggi non lo
fanno più eppure l'assedio continua.