My recollection is that this was one study - never enacted as policy - that aimed to ensure that the flow of aid into Gaza was sufficient to avoid malnutrition in the population. If memory serves, the study showed the number of calories needed was about 2300. Of course, this was jumped upon by the anti-Israel brigade who revelled in the (false) equivalence with the Nazis, who limted Jewish calorie intake in the Warsaw Ghetto to just 180 calories.
Again, we could have a serious discussion about Israeli policy in Gaza, whether it amounts to collective punishment, and whether it is against international law. You're not interested in that though. You're only interested in hurling unproven, borderline-at-best antisemitic attacks.
Sorry, I can't let this go.
This caloric report was never intended to ensure anything about the "flow of aid" into Gaza. This report was in the context of the Israeli planning of the blockade of Gaza in 2007. The blockade covered everything (i.e. plastic toys for kids), but most cruelly it covered food.
Some of food items that the Israeli state allowed imported were kidney beans, tinned meat and coriander. But some items that were not allowed to be imported included things like jam, chocolate, cinnamon and fruit juice.
So human rights groups began asking Israel to produce a list of what were the banned items. Israel did not want to. Then the groups began asking what was the reasoning behind the list of banned items. Again they were fobbed off. They tried to obtain copies of the document through their version of FOIP, and they were denied.
So the Israeli human rights groups, Gisha took the Israeli government to court to obtain the documents that it relied upon.
At the beginning of the court case, the Israeli government told the court that the overall rationale: "The limitation on the transfer of goods is a central pillar in the means at the disposal of the State of Israel in the armed conflict between it and Hamas."
And the Israeli authorities confirmed the existence of 4 documents - how they process requests for imports into Gaza, how they monitor the shortages within Gaza, their approved list of what is allowed in, and document entitled "Food Consumption in the Gaza Strip - Red Lines," which sets out the minimum calorie intake needed by Gaza's million and a half inhabitants, according to their age and sex.
As Jebediah says, the Israeli government told the court that it only used this presentation for "internal planning work" but that the document "never served as a basis for the policy of the authority."
This is the same bullshit that the state of Israel does when it is called out on its actions (i.e. bombing AP building - "Hamas was there" - show us the evidence that Hamas was using the building - Israel shows the "evidence" only to its closest ally, not to AP or rest of the world - Israeli spokespeople continue to appear on American news shows repeating the lie that there was evidence).
Gisha persisted with the case, and 3.5 years later they got the copy of the "Food Consumption in the Gaza Strip - Red Lines." It was a presentation by the Ministry of Health to the IDF to "identify the point of intervention for prevention of malnutrition in the Gaza Strip."
The quotes above come from this BBC article by Tim Franks:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8654337.stmGisha's report on the presentation here:
https://gisha.org/en/red-lines-presentation-new-details-about-the-old-policy-while-the-current-policy-remains-shrouded-in-secrecy/Click the link because you can see the presentation! But if you do not want to, the the text of the article is:
October 17, 2012. A three-and-a-half-year long legal battle waged by Gisha has led the Israeli Ministry of Defense to reveal the document entitled “Food Consumption in the Gaza Strip – Red Lines”. The document includes information about the policy of restricting the entrance of food to the Gaza Strip, which was in effect between 2007 and 2010. Two versions of this document, in the format of PowerPoint presentations, were provided to Gisha over the Sukkot holiday, after the Israeli Supreme Court rejected the state’s appeal against disclosing the document on September 5, 2012. a position paper provides a general background for the presentation, an analysis of its content and a description of the legal proceedings that resulted in its publication. We also wish to raise a few important points that we think emerge from the presentation.
The sharp decrease in the incoming quantities of food products caused supply to be unpredictable and contributed to a significant rise in food prices in Gaza. Nonetheless, Israel’s policy during the period in question did not result in widespread hunger or ongoing shortages of basic food products in the Gaza Strip. According to World Food Programme reports from those years, Gaza merchants reported isolated shortages and difficulties maintaining supplies of basic products such as flour, sugar, dairy products and oil. In addition, the severe economic crisis caused by the closure, particularly by restrictions on the entrance of raw materials and the marketing of goods outside the Strip which led to a rise in the unemployment rate, resulted in increased dependence on aid. Between the second quarter of 2007 and the second quarter of 2008, the rate of unemployment soared by 72% (from 26.4% to 45.4%). A report by the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) found that the number of Gaza residents receiving humanitarian aid rose from 63% of the population in 2006 to 80% in 2007. The main repercussions of the closure at the time were, as they largely continue to be today, increased poverty, increased dependence on aid and denial of opportunities for economic development, higher education and access to dignified work.
The red lines presentation, prepared in January 2008, summarizes work conducted by the security establishment in cooperation with the Israeli Ministry of Health which analyzed ordinary food consumption by Gaza Strip residents. Throughout the legal battle for publication of the presentation, and in the cover letter sent to Gisha along with the presentations, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) claimed that: “the aforementioned presentations are drafts and have never been used as a basis for implementing civilian policy toward the Gaza Strip”. The statement is perplexing considering the fact that the quotas that were set for bringing in goods at the time precisely match some of the quantities evidently calculated over the course of the work done by security and health ministry officials (see details in the position paper).
A look at the data on goods that entered Gaza from Israel immediately after Hamas seized control of the Strip and Israel’s tightening of the closure reveals that the quantities that were cleared for entry did not reflect the “red lines” set in the presentation (see table), and were in fact smaller. The calculations made in the presentation led to the conclusion that the “daily humanitarian portion” Gaza’s residents needed would require bringing in 106 trucks from Israel five days per week. In the first year following Hamas’ takeover of the Strip and the tightening of the closure (July 2007 to June 2008), an average of 90 trucks entered each scheduled working day.
In his testimony before the Turkel Commission, COGAT, Major General Eitan Dangot, explained that the quantity of goods brought into the Gaza Strip was restricted also as a result of the firing of rockets at Israel, particularly at the crossings. Without disputing that, we would like to remind that previous documents that were published as a result of Gisha’s work demonstrate that the official policy included restrictions on food that had nothing to do with any direct and immediate security need. One of Gisha’s main arguments at the time was that because of periodic closures resulting from escalations in violence, Israel should have increased access for supply of goods on the days the crossings operated normally. This argument was rejected by the Israeli Supreme Court.
The presentation describes a monitoring mechanism for a policy that, in effect, deliberately reduced the standard of living in Gaza. Statements made by politicians and top security officials at the time indicate that the policy was meant to put pressure on Hamas. It had two fundamental tenets: the legal position that after the disengagement and Hamas’s takeover of the Strip, Israel had only minimal humanitarian obligations toward Gaza’s residents, and a political-security rationale that indiscriminate pressure on the entire population is a legitimate and effective measure to be implemented in the context of the armed conflict with Hamas.
First and foremost, we note that preventing the transfer of basic items to a civilian population as a means of exerting pressure on political or military actors violates international humanitarian law. Israel, which exercises significant control over the civilian population’s access to food, thus bears obligations toward that population. The fact that Egypt did not open a regular and reliable channel for supply of food to Gaza does not detract from Israel’s obligations (for a complete analysis of Gisha’s position about the legal status of Gaza, see Scale of Control).
These days, it is difficult to find a politician or security expert in Israel who would say that the closure policy of 2007-2010 benefitted Israel politically or in terms of security. For more than two years now, Israel has not imposed any restrictions on the entrance of food to the Gaza Strip. Yet, the two fundamental tenets of the policy, the legal position and the political-security rationale, remain the basis for the current policy, which the security establishment calls “the separation policy”. As part of this policy, sweeping and indiscriminate restrictions are placed on the movement of goods and people between Gaza and the West Bank. Once again, some of the restrictions are imposed devoid of a concrete security necessity. The restrictions cause severe damage to the economy and are accompanied by declarations that one of the goals of the policy is to put pressure on the Hamas regime and bolster the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
While the security establishment has been forced to disclose documents that bring an old policy up for critical discussion, the current policy remains shrouded in secrecy. It is unclear which political or military actors formulated the “separation policy”, what its objectives are and how it is monitored. Misguided policies are destined to fail and to be exposed. The question is whether this time, policy-makers will choose to come out and explain to the public whom they purport to serve how the restrictions on movement currently imposed on Gaza’s residents are determined and how they conform to the legal and moral norms to which Israel considers itself bound.
Gisha’s position is that Israel must refrain from imposing restrictions on movement which are not necessary for maintaining security and which disproportionately harm the ability of the civilian population to lead normal lives and engage in economic development.
If any of you are interested in how Palestinian life changed after 1948, you could not go wrong in reading a cookbook on Palestinian cooking. How their persecution and displacement by the Israeli state lead to a complete change in their diet and health, as they went from traditional food sources to UN relief packages, and how their efforts to rebuild their agricultural sector have been setback by the blockade. Among the big issues now are the restriction of their fishing rights; of course, due to security reasons by Israel. Gisha has quite a few articles on the fishing issue.
