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Gaza's Only Power Plant Knocked Offline
necro81 (917438) writes "Gaza's only power plant (see this profile at IEEE Spectrum — duct tape and bailing wire not included) has been knocked offline following an Israeli strike. Reports vary, but it appears that Israeli tank shells caused a fuel bunker at the plant to explode. Gaza, already short on electricity despite imports from Israel and Egpyt, now faces widening blackouts."
Israel is sure doing a good job in that area creating more enemies, if that is their intention, the plan is working.
Also, I should point out that they (the people of Gaza) don't have voting rights. They used to. They voted in Hamas in free and fair elections. Of course, after Hamas consolidated power, they suspended further elections indefinitely. Hamas still enjoys widespread popular support in Gaza, but they'd be in power regardless, since elections are no longer held and there is no longer any democratic means of removing them from power.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
So... you're on the fence about which side to blame.
Israel claims that it is merely exercising its right to self-defense and that Gaza is no longer occupied. Here’s what you need to know about these talking points and more.
Israel has killed almost 800 Palestinians in the past twenty-one days in the Gaza Strip alone; its onslaught continues. The UN estimates that more than 74 percent of those killed are civilians. That is to be expected in a population of 1.8 million where the number of Hamas members is approximately 15,000. Israel does not deny that it killed those Palestinians using modern aerial technology and precise weaponry courtesy of the world’s only superpower. In fact, it does not even deny that they are civilians.
Israel’s propaganda machine, however, insists that these Palestinians wanted to die (“culture of martyrdom”), staged their own death (“telegenically dead”) or were the tragic victims of Hamas’s use of civilian infrastructure for military purposes (“human shielding”). In all instances, the military power is blaming the victims for their own deaths, accusing them of devaluing life and attributing this disregard to cultural bankruptcy. In effect, Israel—along with uncritical mainstream media that unquestionably accept this discourse—dehumanizes Palestinians, deprives them even of their victimhood and legitimizes egregious human rights and legal violations.
This is not the first time. The gruesome images of decapitated children’s bodies and stolen innocence on Gaza’s shores are a dreadful repeat of Israel’s assault on Gaza in November 2012 and winter 2008–09. Not only are the military tactics the same but so too are the public relations efforts and the faulty legal arguments that underpin the attacks. Mainstream media news anchors are inexplicably accepting these arguments as fact.
Below I address five of Israel’s recurring talking points. I hope this proves useful to newsmakers.
1) Israel is exercising its right to self-defense.
As the occupying power of the Gaza Strip, and the Palestinian Territories more broadly, Israel has an obligation and a duty to protect the civilians under its occupation. It governs by military and law enforcement authority to maintain order, protect itself and protect the civilian population under its occupation. It cannot simultaneously occupy the territory, thus usurping the self-governing powers that would otherwise belong to Palestinians, and declare war upon them. These contradictory policies (occupying a land and then declaring war on it) make the Palestinian population doubly vulnerable.
The precarious and unstable conditions in the Gaza Strip from which Palestinians suffer are Israel’s responsibility. Israel argues that it can invoke the right to self-defense under international law as defined in Article 51 of the UN Charter. The International Court of Justice, however, rejected this faulty legal interpretation in its 2004 Advisory Opinion. The ICJ explained that an armed attack that would trigger Article 51 must be attributable to a sovereign state, but the armed attacks by Palestinians emerge from within Israel’s jurisdictional control. Israel does have the right to
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Several important facts are missing from the summary. The only correct one is that, yes, Gaza's only power plant has been attacked.
However:
1. The effect of this power plant being out of commission is relatively minor. Gaza receives most of its electricity (and water), whether in war or peace, from, guess who - Israel. And no, they don't pay their bills (their debt is around $500 million). In fact the bizarre and twisted reality in the Middle East today is that the Israeli taxpayer is funding electricity for the enemy's rocket manufacturers.
2. The Israeli army has denied firing anywhere near the power plant and there is a high probability that the attack was a misfired Hamas rocket or mortar bomb, similar to other recent cases where Hamas rockets have killed Gazans.
3. About 50,000 Gazans have already been in a blackout for a couple of weeks since a Hamas rocket fell near one of the power lines supplying Gaza with electricity from Israel. The Israeli Electric Company will not risk its technicians' lives to repair this line while under enemy fire, thank you very much.