By Barry Rosenfeld
Gaza – A Lost Opportunity Part 1
The following is the second part of a short history of the Gaza Strip and Israel’s involvement with it.
We need only look at what happened after August of 2005 when the Israeli government removed all of its military from the Gaza Strip and forced the removal of close to 10,000 Jewish residents from an area called Gush Katif, that had in fact been made by them into a Gan Eden of beautiful homes, farms and businesses, all built on what had been formally sand dunes. While the homes were bulldozed by the Israelis, the businesses and especially the highly productive network of greenhouses were purchased by a foundation set up by the EU and heavily funded by former head of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn. They were to be given to the Palestinian Authority so as to preserve the jobs of the Palestinians that had been working there. After the IDF left the area the greenhouses were heavily looted while some were left intact. (Wikipedia)
Prior to its destruction by the Israeli government, Gush Katif had housed 200 farms that together exported an average $200 million in produce each year which represented 15 percent of the agricultural exports of the State of Israel.
The total assets of Gush Katif were valued at $23 billion. This small Jewish community accounted for 95 percent of Israel’s export to Europe of bug-free lettuce and greens; 70 percent of organic vegetables; 60 percent of cherry tomatoes; and 60 percent of geraniums. (Wikipedia)
Although the homes of settlers were destroyed by the IDF, synagogues, public buildings, factories and office buildings were left intact. Following the evacuation the synagogues were immediately set upon and destroyed by Palestinian mobs.
Abu Abir, a member of the Popular Resistance Committee, a terrorist organization, is reported to have said, “The looting and burning of the synagogues was a great joy…It was in an unplanned expression of happiness that these synagogues were destroyed.” (Wikipedia)
In February of 2007 YNet news reported that “The ruins of two large synagogues in Gush Katif, the evacuated Jewish communities of the Gaza Strip, have been transformed into a military base used by Palestinian groups to fire rockets at Israeli cities and train for attacks against the Jewish state, according to a senior terror leader in Gaza.” At that time Abir was reported as saying, “We are proud to turn these lands, especially these parts that were for a long time the symbol of occupation and injustice, like the synagogue, into a military base and source of fire against the Zionists and the Zionist entity.” (YNet) Desecration of Jewish holy sites by Arabs is nothing new since the Jordanians used gravestones from Jewish cemeteries as building blocks between 1948 and 1967 when they occupied East Jerusalem, to build roads and latrines. (Wikipedia)
This parable of destruction underscores the mindset of those who control the Gaza Strip. Rather than benefit from attempts by the international community to improve conditions in Gaza, the terrorist organizations that run that society have one goal and one goal only, and that is the destruction of the State of Israel. They will do anything and sacrifice anything in the service of reaching this goal. If it means the death of thousands of women and children, that is nothing to them. These infants and toddlers become shahidin, holy sacrifices for the cause of Islam, which is to dominate the world with one Islamic sharia government under a caliphate, one Islamic world state.
Such a caliphate has already been declared by ISIS in Iraq and northern Syria. It is the will of the Palestinians to take back what God has given Israel and add it to this one Islamic state.
…to be continued.
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