Published: 6 August 2021
Last updated: 4 March 2024
MUHAMMAD SHEHADA: ‘I am in favour of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip," Naftali Bennett told community leaders in towns near the Gaza border; I could not agree more.
FOR OVER A DECADE, Israel has enforced a punishing blockade on the two million residents of the Strip, whose lives have descended into destitution and despair as the limits of their existence have continued to shrink year by year.
Gazans have nothing to hope for and thus nothing to lose, a situation Hamas is well aware of, and which goes a long way toward explaining things like the 11-day conflagration with Israel in May.
If followed by meaningful action, Bennett's comments could suggest a radical shift from former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's dehumanising policies—perhaps even a willingness to see us as human beings.
But is Prime Minister Bennett ready to put this sentiment—that Gaza's hopelessness is not just Israel's moral burden, but a security threat—into action? To do so, the focus moving forward must be on seeing Gaza as a population centre, not an enemy stronghold, and on positively—rather than punitively—disincentivizing the use of violence.
FULL STORY Is this Naftali Bennett's 'Nixon in China' moment? (Newsweek)
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The move comes amid other steps by the government of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to prevent the collapse of the Palestinian economy.
