Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: The power crisis in Gaza was created by Hamas

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-power-crisis-in-gaza-was-created-by-hamas/
 
 
Over the past week, there have been dozens of news stories about the
power plant in Gaza City that ran out of fuel. A typical one is this
from AP:
 
    Palestinian energy officials say fuel shortages have forced them
to shutter the Gaza Strip’s lone power plant, causing blackouts in the
impoverished territory.
 
 
 
    Gaza’s energy authority has until recently relied on fuel smuggled
from Egypt to circumvent an Israeli blockade. But shortages in Egypt
have halted the smuggling.
 
There is only one problem: The story is entirely wrong. There was no
Israeli blockade on fuel.
 
Israel at first sent fuel to Gaza through the Nahal Oz crossing. After
terrorist attacks on that crossing, Israel moved the transfer of fuel
to the Kerem Shalom crossing, and even doubled its capacity.
 
Israel continued to transfer fuel to Gaza, with one week in November
2010 seeing some 1.7 million liters transferred via Kerem Shalom. The
only limitations on both power plant fuel and fuel for cooking gas and
other needs was Palestinian demand.
 
Suddenly, in January 2011, that demand disappeared. Hamas started
refusing shipments of fuel from Israel. The main reason was that
smuggled fuel from Egypt was cheaper – because Egypt subsidizes fuel
costs, and the smugglers passed on that savings to Hamas. Hamas, in
turn, imposed a 150% tax on the smuggled fuel, turning it into a very
lucrative business.
 
In recent weeks, Egypt started cracking down on fuel smuggling,
because there were local shortages of fuel and butane cylinders in the
Northern Sinai that were leading to serious unrest among the locals.
Egypt, reasonably, cracked down on the smuggling business – a business
that Hamas had by now come to rely upon for basic services to work in
Gaza.
 
Even after the current crisis started, Egypt offered to transfer fuel
to Hamas through the pipeline at Kerem Shalom, as the Rafah crossing
does not have the capacity to handle massive daily fuel shipments.
Hamas refused, insisting instead that the fuel come straight from
Egypt, bypassing Israel.
 
Now, Hamas is holding its own citizens hostage, using the specter of
hospitals and water treatment plants going dark as emotional blackmail
to get a reliable supply of cheap fuel from Egypt.
 
And during all this time, Israel has been ready and available to send
over any amount of fuel that Gaza needs.
 
It is not only news reporters who are getting the story wrong. Human
rights NGOs  have completely swallowed the Hamas narrative that Israel
is somehow at fault for the shortages as well. Al Mezan said “This
shortfall is a result of the Israeli Occupation Forces’ (IOF)
continued suspension of delivery of industrial fuel” and Oxfam was
quoted as saying “Since Israel put Gaza under total blockade in 2007,
only limited amounts of fuel for Gaza’s power plants were allowed to
enter the enclave, prompting the government in Gaza to procure fuel
from Egypt through the Rafah tunnels.”
 
Meanwhile, the only reliable source for electricity in Gaza comes from
Israeli power lines.
 
The meme that Israel is at fault for the Gaza fuel shortage is
pervasive – and completely wrong. Yet very few journalists and
Palestinian Arabs are telling the truth, that Hamas has created and
cynically manipulated an artificial crisis to pressure Egypt to
provide inexpensive fuel to the enclave, to be taxed handsomely by the
terrorist leadership of Gaza.

 
http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-power-crisis-in-gaza-was-created-by-hamas/
 
 
Del resto era ben spiegato anche nell'articolo postato da quel pirla del
Persio.
 
Solo che lui non l'aveva letto...
 
-- 
Io non gufo l'Inter. Le spacco le corna.