viernes, junio 04, 2010

EL WASHINGTON POST sobre el bloqueo de Gaza:
Gazans lament where they can't go more than what they can't buy. They also decry the lack of employment -- with no building supplies and few trade possibilities, joblessness is rampant. Once an exporter of fruits and other goods, Gaza has been turned into a mini-welfare state with a broken economy where food and daily goods are plentiful, but where 80 percent of the population depends on charity. Hospitals, schools, electricity systems and sewage treatment facilities are all in deep disrepair.

Yet if you walk down Gaza City's main thoroughfare -- Salah al-Din Street -- grocery stores are stocked wall-to-wall with everything from fresh Israeli yogurts and hummus to Cocoa Puffs smuggled in from Egypt. Pharmacies look as well-supplied as a typical Rite Aid in the United States.

"When Western people come, they have this certain image of Gaza," said Omar Shaban, an economist who heads Pal-Think for Strategic Studies in Gaza. "We have microwaves in our homes, not only me, everybody. If you go to a refugee camp, the house is bad, but the people and the equipment are very modern. The problem is the public infrastructure."
Y probablemente el problema es más que las infraestructuras, desde luego. Es una economía en muy mala situación, pero que en absoluto es la de crisis humanitaria con gente que se muere literalmente de hambre, como están diciendo tantos. Las 15.000 toneladas de comida, medicinas y otros suministros que entran cada semana desde Israel hacen que los mercados estén abastecidos (tened en cuenta que el enlace es a una web palestina). Un periodista danés que vive en Gaza lo corroboraba hace poco. Y no sólo los mercados: también los restaurantes de lujo que sí, también existen. Por ejemplo el Roots Club: