By DIANE JOSEPHY PEAVEY
I am concerned by the guest opinion written by a recent college graduate about community-honored citizens, the Liebichs. I was raised to value intellectual curiosity and the pursuit of truth. The Liebichs exemplify those attributes. They have traveled extensively in the Middle East, most recently to meet with key policy-makers on issues that frustrate peace in the region. They have insights to share. If we won't listen to each other's stories, we cannot understand the history and heartaches of our controversies.
I too have traveled in the Middle East, and I am increasingly discouraged over the prospects for peace. The story of Gaza is a part of this distress.
It began in 1948 when Zionists forced Palestinians from their homes and villages into this small area of land to make room for the creation of Israel. It was not unlike the reservation confinement of American Indians after their forced removal from the land of their ancestors.
From 1967 to 2005 Israel occupied and ran the Gaza Strip but did little to address the overcrowding and poverty. After it "pulled out" of the region, Israel retained exclusive control over the Palestinian borders—air, sea and land—and imposed a restrictive blockade (technically an act of war). Through these closures, Israel has imprisoned Gazans, severed their access to economic markets and left them dependent on humanitarian aid.
Today, U.N. statistics report, three-quarters of Gaza's population lives in poverty in the most densely inhabited land mass in the world; 60 percent of its people are 18 or younger and have known no other life; 80 percent of all food comes from U.N. relief parcels; the drinking water contains raw sewage; and international efforts, including those of the World Bank to rebuild water systems have been thwarted by Israeli border closures.
No one condones the rocket fire of Gaza's Hamas leadership or is unsympathetic to the fears of neighboring Israelis. But political leadership is not the issue. Hamas did not create the misery in Gaza but its rise is a direct response to it. Now it uses rocket fire, albeit ineffective, as an attempt to reopen its borders for economic relief.
Western powers and Israel suggest that Fatah's Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank is the preferred leadership alternative to Hamas. But under Abbas, Israeli road closures, checkpoints and illegal settlement land seizures have increased daily and peace is still illusive. Is this the reward for "reasonable" leadership?
Today Gazans, without army, navy or air force, without bomb shelters, food, water or medical care, are dying in shocking numbers, and alone, under Israel's military assault.
A year ago, I was denied access to Gaza at the Erez border crossing. Six months later, I was turned down for Israeli press credentials to visit Gaza for a story I hoped to write for the Mountain Express. Countless civilians and humanitarian aid workers regularly are denied entry into Gaza by Israeli border control.
Finally, in November in an unprecedented move by a democracy, Israel closed off Gaza to the international press. Throughout the current military assault, foreign journalists have been unable to verify the claims of either side.
Now we are left with "what ifs?" "What if" there were no years of oppression, might there be no Hamas, no rockets, no fear? "What if" there is a cease-fire to halt Hamas rockets, will it also provide economic relief for Gaza? "What if" we Westerners (Israel included) rejected military force as the path to peace and replaced it with food, water, land to farm, jobs, economic partners and the insistence that people be treated with dignity? Could things be different?
