Reserve IDF officer Lt. Col. Jonathan HaLevi, a researcher for the Institute for Contemporary Affairs, wrote that Israel’s continuing supervised flow of humanitarian aide to Gaza also has helped the Gaza economy rebound. ‘Gaza is not cut off from the outside world,” he wrote, and added that the large supply of goods and merchandise, including fuel oil, that enters Gaza through smuggling tunnels and pipelines from Egypt has actually helped bring down the cost of gasoline and diesel fuel to half the price in Israel. HaLevi’s reported stated, “Recently, Rep. Ron Paul told Don Imus on the Fox Business Channel that Israel was "preventing food and medicine from going into Gaza. He said there are 'people that are starving' and closed with a vile suggestion that the situation of the Gazans was 'almost like in concentration camps.'" However, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted to a Congressional committee last April, “The [Gaza] crossings are no longer completely closed…. A lot of what has been said was not permitted to cross is just not accurate.” The Bethlehem-based Ma'an news agency stated last February, "Gaza markets are saturated with goods." Beaches are filled with vacationers as well (photot below). The de facto Hamas government in Gaza also has received $5 billion in cold cash since it took over control of the area from the rival Fatah faction in a bloody militia war three years ago this month. Hamas also receives millions of dollars in direct aid from Arab countries as well from the United Nations and European Union, which until last November paid for the diesel fuel to run the Gaza power plant. HaLevi pointed out that the tunnel system not only supplies Hamas with more weapons it but also “serves such criminal purposes as drug running and trafficking in young women.” The Kuwaiti newspaper Awan last December reported on the phenomenon of "importing" minor girls from Egypt and selling them into prostitution in Gaza, supposedly for purposes of marriage or domestic work. He said Hamas exploits the smuggling tunnels for “sending fighters for training in Iran and Syria, and for the import of advanced weapons systems, [including] antiaircraft and anti-tank missiles), explosives, and ammunition." “According to their logic, Israel is obligated to help an enemy entity that is attacking it. If this were true, the United States would have a duty to extend assistance to villages in Afghanistan controlled by the Taliban fighters who are attacking coalition forces.” Gaza Arabs’ life expectancy is well above average, and infant mortality rates are far higher in famine-plagued countries, but world aid continues to pour in to the Hamas-controlled region, according to official data. Yet Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is asking U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday for more aid, in addition to the billons of dollars of foreign funds the PA has received the past few years. He has cited Israel’s partial blockade of Gaza as the main cause for alleged shortages in Gaza and in villages administered by the United Nations in Judea and Samaria. Recent photos and statements by Arab sources deny any shortage of food or merchandise in Gaza. The Israeli government recently sent foreign journalists a link showing a fancy first-class restaurant in Gaza, noting "we have been told the beef stroganoff and cream of spinach soup are highly recommended." Video: Roots Club in Gaza http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJvvkXYD12U. Statistics provided by the United Nations and the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) show that while famine kills millions of small children in India (pictured), Guatemala and Africa, among other nations, the child mortality rate for Arab "refugees” is 35 per 1,000, compared with 180 per 1,000 in Angola and 116 in Niger. World hunger organizations report that 10-15 million below the age of 5 die each year, and 50,000 people die daily. One-third of all deaths in the world are due to poverty. The life expectancy for Gaza Arabs is 72 years, nearly five years more than the world average, according to CIA World Factbook statistics. In Swaziland, the life expectancy is less than 40 years, and it is 42 years in Zambia. Photo: Gaza Arabs at sea. Mainstream media have focused on Gaza as an area where the de factoHamas government suffered from a lack of funds because of an American financial boycott. Attention also is given to the Israeli embargo, enforced to try to prevent Hamas from adding to its large arsenal of anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles, long-range rockets and rifles. The Palestinian Authority, which contributes half of its budget to Gaza Arabs, has become more dependent on the massive foreign aid it has received since the beginning of the 2000 Second Intifada, also known as the Oslo War. In contrast, 22 member countries of the OECD Development Assistance Committee, the world's major donors, provided $103.9 billion to fight poverty in 2006, while the Palestinian Authority receives one of the world’s highest foreign subsidies per capita. It has received nearly $10 billion in foreign aid since 1994 when the PA was formally established. The European Union is the largest donor, followed by the United States, which contributes nearly twice as much as Saudi Arabia. The aid has enabled the PA, which seeks to become an independent country though located within Israel's borders, to inflate its public payroll to more than 160,000 workers while its education system continues to incite violence against Israel. Donors currently contribute more than $1 billion a year. The domestic output of the PA economy dropped by 30 percent on a per capita basis since 1999, one year before the Oslo War broke out. The local economy collapsed as neighboring Jewish communities were unable to employ thousands of Arab workers because of terrorist attacks. However, the World Bank has cited security restrictions on trade in and out of Judea, Samaria and Gaza as one of the reasons for Gaza’s economic problems. The researcher, Steven Stotsky, a senior research analyst for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), wrote that foreign funding of the Palestinian Authority made it “less dependent on revenue derived from commerce, detaching the PA's solvency from the health of the economy. Thus, while the intifada sent the Palestinian economy into free fall, the PA's coffers swelled. The conditions were thus established that ensured the separation of Palestinian governance from responsibility for the economic health of the Palestinian people. "Not only did the security forces fail to prevent terrorist attacks, in many cases they colluded with terrorist groups and sometimes perpetrated attacks themselves." 
Claims by United Nations officials, reported without investigation by most mainstream media, have falsely promoted the image of a humanitarian crisis and a scarcity of foods and merchandise in Gaza, implying that Gaza Arabs share the plague of famine as in India and other countries.
Janine Zacharia of the Washington Post reported last week, "If you walk down Gaza City's main thoroughfare -Salah al-Din Street - grocery stores are stocked wall-too-wall with everything from fresh Israeli yogurts and hummus to Cocoa Puffs smuggled in from Egypt.” Smuggled goods are cheaper than the regular price.
The French newspaper LeMonde last October quoted Bassem Khoury, minister of national economy for the Palestinian Authority, that Hamas has profited so much from the smuggling tunnel system and outside aid that it “doesn't know what to do with its money. Taxpayers in Europe should know that as a result of this system their money ends up in Hamas' pocket." 
HaLevi maintained, “The position of the human rights organizations, which paint an exaggerated picture of the effects of the siege, is marred by a double standard. On the one hand, they argue vehemently that Israel is still an occupying power and must therefore see to the "security and welfare of the residents of Gaza"; yet on the other hand, the welfare and security of Gaza's residents have been severely harmed by the Hamas regime, with its gradual imposition of Islamic law while violently suppressing the opposition.
The flow of weapons into Gaza occasionally is stopped by Egyptian authorities who last May seized a large cache of weapons and explosives that were slated to be smuggled into Gaza from the Sinai. The weapons stockpile included 61 anti-aircraft missiles, 40 anti-tank mines, 15 standard mines, and 5 machine guns with ammunition. Last April 1, an Egyptian newspaper reported that security forces had seized 100 anti-aircraft missiles, 45 rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), and 40 explosive devices.
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu June 9, 2010 http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/137973
The term "Palestinian refugees" refers to children who are descendants of Arabs who fled Israel in the 1948 War of Independence and the Six-Day War in 1967. Lebanon and Jordan, among other countries, prefer to keep the Arabs in “refugee camps” to prevent their integrating with the rest of the population, where they might pose a political challenge.
A previous report in the Middle East Quarterly concluded, "Perhaps aid itself does not cause violence, but there is strong evidence that it contributes to a culture of corruption, government malfeasance and terrorism that has had lethal consequences for both Israelis and Palestinians over the past decade."
Wednesday, 9 June 2010
Photo Evidence of ‘Myth of Siege of Gaza’
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu June 9, 2010 http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/137965
The” myth of the siege of Gaza” has been exploded in a research report that quotes Arab sources that say “Gaza markets are saturated with goods.” The Washington Post reported last week that Gaza “pharmacies look as well-supplied as a typical Rite Aid.”
A Tale of Two Worlds: Gaza and the Global Village
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