NOVANEWS
I think this skims over the issue of the blockade and it mentions it and seems to give the impression that the “Trade not aid” project will reverse the issue of doctors picking up trash to make a living in Gaza. But it cannot just skim over the blockade issue. It seems like it is just words. So how is this project going to give the people of Gaza back when the main, the only problem is the blockade. It refers to corruption as well….but it is not corruption that is stopping trade. It is the blockade. At the moment Gaza is not going to get rich from selling wristbands which it may or may not be able to deliver. This is playing. It actually makes me a bit uneasy.
————————————————–
Trade Not Aid
What is lost on many is the damage to a society when a people are compelled to live long-term on handouts as opposed to being able to provide for themselves. Normally aid is designated to people in the aftermath of a natural disaster. But in the case of Gaza it is political corruption and the failure to defeat this corruption that has resulted in the people of Gaza enduring over four years as a charitable dependency. The result of this is devastating. In simple terms the parents are not only unable to protect their children from Israeli aggression, but are also incapable of providing even the bare essentials, absent the aid. Children become both witness and victim of this reality. Many begin to lose respect for their parents, and that in turn causes parents to suffer from diminishing self-respect and depression. If no other options exist and aid becomes institutionalised, as it has become in Gaza, people begin to see it as their only means to live, dignity is stolen from the recipients, and an insidiously destructive weapon becomes self-feeding, destroying a society from within.
At the root of this all is the blockade and the inability to conduct trade. At a certain point, it becomes arguably criminal to relegate people to living on handouts. SIP’s position is that Palestinians are more than capable of standing on their own two feet, but our collective failure to direct our energy at the root of the problem has relegated them to the status of beggars. Doctors and engineers are picking up trash in Gaza today because it is the only job they can find. And they are the lucky ones who at least have a job. SIP intends to confront the problem head-on, to strike at the heart of the problem and eliminate this injustice by proactive, as opposed to reactive, means.
