The Gaza Strip... Why?

Shatner · Post by **Shatner** » Thu Jul 17, 2014 10:13 pm

Sorry for the naked ignorance on display here, but what I know about Isreal, Palestine, and all the stuff going on there is pretty inadequate. I always assumed that the Gaza Strip was a border between Palestine, Egypt, and Israel. While that is technically true, the strip is a Palestinian enclave. If this were Europa Universalis or Crusader Kings, the Palestine AI wouldn't accept the Strip, even if I offered to sell it to them. Why on earth does that exist?!

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Thu Jul 17, 2014 10:24 pm

I think it's just because a lot of Palestinian people lived there when they created Israel.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Jul 17, 2014 10:34 pm

There is no Palestine? The gaza strip belongs to isreal, and is populated by palestinians.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Jul 17, 2014 10:46 pm

It's a ghetto. In the classic sense. Palestinians were forced from their homes and made to move into smaller and smaller portions of the country. Palestinians can't really move any farther away anymore because the borders of Egypt and the sea remain inviolate. Periodically, the Israelis shrink the strip by bulldozing Palestinian homes and putting up "settlements" for Orthodox Jews, or perform various pogroms on the ghetto.

About 1.8 million people live in that little thing, which makes it about 30% denser than Miami.

-Username17

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Thu Jul 17, 2014 11:02 pm

From the Official Israeli Point of View(TM), Gaza City was the brief home of the All-Palestine State, Egypt had occupied it for a bit after the Arab-Israeli War, and then Israeli booted Egypt hard in the Six Day War and began to construct settlements in the strip, nominally for security purposes. But there's very limited livable land there, so that really just displaces and disrupts the lives of the Palestinians already living there.

Plus, they have secret tunnels under the border with Egypt where you can illicitly order Kentucky Fried Chicken and pizza to be smuggled to you.

Shatner · Post by **Shatner** » Thu Jul 17, 2014 11:47 pm

And moving the people out from the Strip in to the West Bank hasn't happened... why, exactly?

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Thu Jul 17, 2014 11:53 pm

I would like to know the same. I assume Israel is interfering somehow, as if I was Palestinian I would be eagerly evacuating to someplace friendlier.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Thu Jul 17, 2014 11:54 pm

Well, for one the two are politically distinct, even though they're both Palestinian. Gaza is controlled by Hamas, the West Bank by the Palestine National Authority.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 12:10 am

Secondly, Isreal built giant walls and won't let people leave into Isreal. So... You can't move.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 12:12 am

People don't like leaving their houses much, as it turns out, even if it would be really convenient for everyone and their personal safety if they went somewhere else. Also, the West Bank isn't precisely a great place to live either, what with Israel treating it as unclaimed territory open for settlement.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 12:13 am

It is hard to be pro-Israel when they're complete assholes. Granted, they're complete assholes because they faced genocide and are surrounded by hostile countries that would destroy them if they can. But they're still complete assholes.

Shatner · Post by **Shatner** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 12:16 am

name_here wrote:People don't like leaving their houses much, as it turns out, even if it would be really convenient for everyone and their personal safety if they went somewhere else. Also, the West Bank isn't precisely a great place to live either, what with Israel treating it as unclaimed territory open for settlement.

Yeah but

and

Holy shit! Are these houses bomb proof?

Edit: Sorry, I'm not trying to be dense, it just boggles my possibly-too-removed-from-the-shittyness-of-the-middle-east-to-comprehend mind that bombs falling doesn't mean moving waaay the hell away ASAP.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 12:25 am

I'm a semi-nomadic person by habit anyway, so it might just be something I don't understand, but if bombs were falling in my city and there wasn't really any organized effort to stop it, I'd be looking for any option to move to a place where that isn't happening.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 12:27 am

Actually, the Palestinian artillery has shitty aim. Israel also has some shiny new counter-artillery tech to shoot down incoming rockets and shells that look like they'll actually hit something.

As for why people are staying in Gaza now, as opposed to why they stayed in the first place, it's not like they have anywhere to go at present. Israel has the place pretty well blockaded, and Egypt is a bit busy at the moment to accept a major refugee population and accusations of harboring terrorists.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 1:25 am

Chamomile wrote:I'm a semi-nomadic person by habit anyway, so it might just be something I don't understand, but if bombs were falling in my city and there wasn't really any organized effort to stop it, I'd be looking for any option to move to a place where that isn't happening.

You gotta remember, Israel -was- Palestine back in the day. The Palestinians were suddenly told their land wasn't theirs and forced into smaller and smaller areas while discriminated against by their new government. They're fed up

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 1:38 am

1) Hamas is not the Palestinian Artillery. They are a terrorist organization with no taxes and no authority who get funding and weapons primarily from foreign organizations with grudges against Isreal.

2) Stop talking about how you would totally leave. You would not leave. You would be trapped there like everyone else.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Strip

Wiki wrote:The Oslo Accords ceded control of the airspace and territorial waters to Israel.Any external travel from Gaza requires cooperation from either Egypt or Israel.
...
The blockade of the Gaza Strip by Egypt and Israel continued after the war, although Israel allowed in limited quantities of medical humanitarian aid.
...
UNOCHA called on Israel to reduce restrictions on exports and the import of construction materials, and to lift the general ban on movement between Gaza and the West Bank via Israel. After Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak resigned on May 28, 2011, Egypt permanently opened its border with the Gaza Strip to students, medical patients, and foreign passport holders.

Are you a student, medical patient, or a foreign passport holder? You can leave via Egypt starting in 2011.

Are you anyone else? You literally are not allowed to leave the Gaza Strip at all under any circumstances. If you try to move to the West Bank you will be shot.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 1:50 am

Here's what Winston Churchill said on the Peel commission on the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine (1937):

"I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place."

It's... the most mustache twirlingly villainous thing he could have possibly said about the whole situation

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 1:59 am

Maxus wrote:You gotta remember, Israel -was- Palestine back in the day. The Palestinians were suddenly told their land wasn't theirs and forced into smaller and smaller areas while discriminated against by their new government. They're fed up

Sure, and if that exact same thing happened to my city, I'd leave. I'd move to Canada, or even Mexico and learn a new language, pretty much at the drop of a hat if at all possible, and let the invaders have the old land because sticking around just out of stubbornness while they slowly exterminate my people isn't really a winning strategy. If I can't save it, I'm not going to risk dying with it just because.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 2:06 am

Chamomile wrote:
Maxus wrote:You gotta remember, Israel -was- Palestine back in the day. The Palestinians were suddenly told their land wasn't theirs and forced into smaller and smaller areas while discriminated against by their new government. They're fed up
Sure, and if that exact same thing happened to my city, I'd leave.

No you wouldn't. You would be shot in the face if you tried. For fucks sake, I'm not an expert on this shit but for fucks sake stop opening your mouth if you literally know nothing about it.

Shatner · Post by **Shatner** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 3:16 am

What I'm (most at the moment) confused about is the following:

Israel seems to want the Gaza Strip and doesn't like it being full of Palestinians. After years of bombing, blockades, and violence, I'm sure the number of Palestinians willing to leave for the West Bank (unpleasant though it may be) is greater than zero.

It seems like fewer Palestinians in the Gaza Strip brings the current Palestinian population closer to Israel's desired number, which is zero.

So why isn't Israel offering to escort every person who wants out out?

zeruslord · Post by **zeruslord** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 4:25 am

The Palestinian Authority is what Israel recognizes as the Palestinian government. However, the PA as such doesn't really have any people - the entire government is run on a spoils system, so in practice the people providing governmental services are actually either Hamas or the Palestinian Liberation Organization, both of which have gone back and forth between being considered terrorist organizations and being considered legitimate Palestinian political parties based on how many explosives they're using on Israelis this year. Hamas actually won a majority in the PA legislature back in 2006, but the US didn't consider a Hamas-led government acceptable and threatened to cut off aid, so a unity government was formed. It fell apart in summer 2007, and after a few weeks of fighting Hamas had control of Gaza and the PA (controlled by the PLO, and bearing in mind that it's entirely political appointees) had control of the West Bank. In practice, Hamas has been the government of the Gaza Strip ever since. It's really a pretty standard scenario in failed states and ungoverned autonomous regions - even if your organization isn't recognized as a government and its justification for existence is specifically fighting someone with a UN seat, somebody still needs to run the fire department. See also: Kurdistan, the Pakistani Taliban, the Afghani Northern Alliance during the 90s.

RE: leaving, in 1947 there were supposed to be two states - Israel and Palestine. In 1948, the Arab-Israeli war happened and Israel took over large parts of what had been Arab Palestine before then. The Gaza Strip was de facto under Eqyptian control and the West Bank was under Jordanian control, but the Palestinian population wasn't permitted to leave into Egypt, and was kept in refugee camps in Jordan, and the Israeli border was obviously closed.

Shatner: Israel has the Gaza Strip blockaded, but they don't have any boots on the ground under normal circumstances. Hamas doesn't have any tanks or planes, but they've got some shoulder-fired antitank weapons smuggled to them by Iran, and lots of men with guns. The IDF only sends ground troops in when they can't accomplish their objectives with air power, and when they do go in, they're in a shooting war with Hamas and tend to have casualties. Also, Israel's objective with regards to Gaza isn't land - at this point it's mostly trying to prevent rocket and mortar attacks while maintaining the status quo. Trying to set up a system which lets innocent Palestinians out of the Strip without letting Hamas infiltrate the West Bank while keeping Israelis out of danger is basically impossible, and Israel places a far higher priority on the safety of their citizens than they do on the freedom of movement of Palestinians.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 6:15 am

Chamomile wrote:
Maxus wrote:You gotta remember, Israel -was- Palestine back in the day. The Palestinians were suddenly told their land wasn't theirs and forced into smaller and smaller areas while discriminated against by their new government. They're fed up
Sure, and if that exact same thing happened to my city, I'd leave. I'd move to Canada, or even Mexico and learn a new language, pretty much at the drop of a hat if at all possible, and let the invaders have the old land because sticking around just out of stubbornness while they slowly exterminate my people isn't really a winning strategy. If I can't save it, I'm not going to risk dying with it just because.

That is not how this works. The Gaza Strip is completely blockaded on every border it has and the movement of Palestinians in and out closely monitored (read: denied, or extensively tracked so they can be kicked back out later) by its neighbors. Nobody wants them and nobody will take them. It was hard enough to get Israel to let in food and water so less people would starve.

The Gaza Strip is actually just an autonomous concentration camp that the Israel government occasionally bombs with disproportionate force to make a political point. Sometimes, Israel will do you the courtesy of letting you know that the part you live in is about to be bombed, so you can go be somewhere else before coming back to the smoldering ruin that was once your home. But you can't leave to a part of the world where you aren't a perpetual victim of crimes against humanity, because you actually live in a really big concentration camp and trying to leave is a murderable offense.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 6:33 am

DSMatticus wrote:That is not how this works. The Gaza Strip is completely blockaded on every border it has and the movement of Palestinians in and out closely monitored (read: denied, or extensively tracked so they can be kicked back out later) by its neighbors.

So what you're saying is:

I would like to know the same. I assume Israel is interfering somehow, as if I was Palestinian I would be eagerly evacuating to someplace friendlier.

I was right, and:

People don't like leaving their houses much, as it turns out, even if it would be really convenient for everyone and their personal safety if they went somewhere else.

name_here, the person with whom I was actually arguing, was wrong.

Good to know.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 8:14 am

Gaza, as described by the people who live there, is a prison where the guards live outside the fence and just shoot anyone who even looks at them, only some days the guards also lob in hand grenades. Legally they can access some tiny bits of beach, but when you take your kids there the Israelis will shell you anyway. Random violent death from afar is just part of life, and hundreds of young men are kidnapped and tortured for teh LOLs by Israel every year. So people, they're a wee bit angry.

The local opinion on the rockets is that they tried no rockets for thirty years, and the Israelis bombed them, stole more land, and they got nothing. They tried hijacking planes and boats and they still got bombed but also got some international recognition and got some land back. They tried rockets and mass protests and got bombed, but got even better recognition and some state rights. Now they try, on and off, more or less rockets, ceasefires, whatever. No matter what they do, the bombs keep coming, but the more rockets they fire the better international attention they get and the less pushy the Israeli government is. It's a pretty simple equation, and they follow it.

And Israel bombs them regardless because it gives justification to the "threat" Israel faces, which earns them tens of billions of dollars of aid from the US government every year.

The obvious solution is to just make everyone a citizen of Israel and be done with it, but Israel will never do that, so a long fake war leading to eventual genocide is the only outcome that can happen. Which side suffers the genocide is largely a matter of how long it takes the US to fall over.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 9:23 am

Chamomile: I'm guessing you have Kaelik on ignore and that's why you missed his posts mentioning the blockade, but it's a lot harder to explain how you managed to name drop name_here as giving you bad explanations while quoting the exact post in which he said this:

name_here wrote:As for why people are staying in Gaza now, as opposed to why they stayed in the first place, it's not like they have anywhere to go at present. Israel has the place pretty well blockaded, and Egypt is a bit busy at the moment to accept a major refugee population and accusations of harboring terrorists.

You have to admit that's kind of funny. At least a little bit.