Palestine: The Commodification Of Gaza

Exiled is a blogger who recently left Gaza – and he is in no hurry to return. In this translation of a recent post of his, we hear his opinions about political propaganda and self-interest, the tunnels to Egypt and the planned steel fence, and the nature of the outside world's concern for the Gaza Strip.

Exiled writes at his blog Nostalgia:

لا شي يشبه غزة،خرجت منها ولم تخرج مني،ليس حنينا بقدر ماهو …. لست ادري. (…) لا اريد الرجوع ولم اندم لحظة على الخروج رفضت ان اكون بضاعة،سلعة رخيصة يتاجر بها اهل الدين والسياسة والاعلام، ارفض العودة للركض خلف انبوبة الغاز وانتظار الكهرباء في ليالي الشتاء الطويلة والصراخ والعويل الحزبي والتكلس الديني
غزة بلد الكلام والانشاء الرخيص لا يفهمها احد، ملعب بعشرات الفرق ومئات المهاجمين والمدافعين ولكن بلا حكم ،يختلط فيها الحابل بالنابل ويكثر فيها الهرج والمرج كلوحة سرياليلة تستعصي على بيكاسو وسلفادور دالي
تحفر الانفاق لتهريب البضائع من مصر الى غزة…في حين انها عملية بيع وشراء تتم تحت نظر السلطتين في غزة ومصر ولكن تبقى تحت مسمى التهريب كي يستفيد منها الطرفين كل لمصلحته،كي تشحت سلطة غزة على شعبها المسكين الذي يشرب اطفاله الحليب مهربا،وكي تكون ذريعة لمصر لتحمي امنها القومي وحدودها من مخاطر التهريب
There is nothing like Gaza. I have left it, but it hasn't left me. It is not so much nostalgia as it is…I don't know. […] I don't want to return, and I do not regret leaving for a moment. I refused to be a commodity, a cheap article traded by the people of religion, politics and the media. I refuse to go back to running after gas canisters, waiting for electricity in the long winter nights, to the screaming and wailing of the political parties, and religious calcification.
Gaza is a place of cheap talk and bombast. No one understands it. It is the playground of dozens of teams and hundreds of strikers and defenders, but without rules. Everything has become totally mixed up and chaotic, like a surreal painting that even Picasso or Salvador Dali couldn't decipher.
Tunnels are dug to smuggle goods from Egypt into Gaza…and while this is a buying and selling deal carried out in plain sight of the authorities in Gaza and in Egypt, yet it is still called “smuggling” so that the two parties will benefit from it for their own ends – so that the Gaza government can sponge off its poor people who are feeding their children contraband milk, and to serve as a pretext for Egypt to protect its national security and borders from the dangers of smuggling.
تروج الانفاق على انها عمل وطني بحت يقوم به اناس شرفاء خدمة لشعبهم المكلوب…في حين ان حيتان التجارة ومجرميها في غزة هم من يقوما بالحفر خدمة لمصالحهم المادية البحتة،ولهم مقاومين للايجار حيث اذا فتحت اسرائيل معابرها من غزة لادخال البضائع يضرب اولئك المقاومين المرتزقة الصواريخ على المعابر لاقفالها لكي يحتكرو البيع (…) يسوق الشعب الغزي في الاعلام على انه شعب جائع ويأكل من المزابل،في حين ان مليارات الدولارات تم ضخها الى مصر من عمليات الشراء والبيع تحت الانفاق
فضحت مصر ونشر غسيلها الوسخ واحتشد المتظاهرون المتضامنون امام السفارات المصرية في العالم تنديدا بالجدار الفولاذي على الحدود، في حين ان مصر كانت قادرة ببساطة وبكل هدوء وبدون اي شوشرة اغلاق جميع الانفاق مع غزة دون اي شوشرة اعلامية

تبني مصرجدار فولاذي عالي…ولا احد في غزة يدري لماذا؟ فاغلاق الانفاق لا يحتاج الى هذا الجدار، ولن يمنع الجدار الانفاق!

The tunnels have been promoted as pure work for the nation, undertaken by honest men in the service of their desperate people…while the big fish of commerce in Gaza and their criminals are the ones digging tunnels out of pure material self-interest. They have their own resistance-for-hire, because if Israel opened its crossings into Gaza to allow goods to enter, that mercenary resistance would hit the crossings with rockets to close them, in order to keep a monopoly on the trade. […] The Gazan people are presented in the media as a hungry people eating from rubbish bins, whereas billions of dollars have been pumped into Egypt by the buying and selling through the tunnels.
Egypt was exposed and had its dirty laundry hung out publicly when solidarity demonstrators gathered in front of Egyptian embassies worldwide to condemn the steel wall on the border, while Egypt could have simply and very quietly closed all the Gaza tunnels – without any media circus.
Egypt is building a high steel fence…and no one in Gaza knows why! To close the tunnels does not require this wall, and the wall will not prevent the tunnels!
في غباء غير معهود من النظام المصري يعرقل قافلة جالاوي التضامنية ؟! والتي لا تعود بالنفع على غزة الا مزيدا من الشعارات الحنجورية الرنانة بلا اي جديد وبلا اي حل جذري لمعضلة غزة والتي يتم تسويقها على انها محنة غذاء
يأتي اهل الخير والضمير والثوار النبلاء من العالم نحو غزة ليتضامنوا معها، في حين ان غزة هي من تتضامن معهم وتمنحهم راحة الضمير والالق الثوري والبروباجندا الاعلامية
لا احد يفهم غزة
With uncharacteristic stupidity on the part of the Egyptian regime, the Galloway solidarity convoy was obstructed?! Something which brings no more benefit to Gaza than loud, pompous slogans, without anything new and without any fundamental solution for Gaza's dilemma, which is marketed as a food crisis.
Charitable people with a conscience, noble revolutionaries come to Gaza from every part of the world to show their solidarity. In the meantime Gaza is the one that is in solidarity with them, and gives them peace of mind, revolutionary aura, and propaganda materials.
No one understands Gaza.

Update: This blog has since been deleted.

3 comments

  • This is an amazing post which cries for understanding. There´s nothing that makes sense about the way Gaza is dealt with. No justice or coherence, no wonder whoever has an option escapes the jail that it´s been forced into becoming.

  • Jennifer Mc Cleary

    You know, building a fence to keep people out will only breed further anomosity between nations whilst creating the catylist through which the Gazian people will establish further innovative methods by which they can feed their starving and subjegated people, fence or not. Fences don’t work, the Mexican/American example has been a testiment to that. One would hope they would not follow our terrible example.

  • Jane

    Hello:

    The situations in Palestine are extremely illegal and must end. I dont understand how the Palestinians are being treated in THEIR OWN country.

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