Bush's "Vision" Is Palestine's Nightmare--Sam Bahour

Tweet

US President George W. Bush landed in Israel yesterday on his first presidential trip to the country. He participated in a press conference in Jerusalem with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, what both men termed a "historic" and "monumental" occasion. After listening to both so-called leaders make their opening comments and fielding questions from journalists, the only groundbreaking revelation I could register was that Bush's naivete, either real or feigned, only served the agenda of one party in the region -- Hamas. The radical Islamists at Hamas could not find a better recruiter for their movement if they tried.

My opinion may be extreme, but then again, I live in extreme limbo under Israeli military occupation, shaped by a policy both men continuously refuse to call by its true name -- state terror.

My opinion is certainly subjective but I started my day by reading a communique from the real world: a report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs that the background of the issue: on 28 June 2006 the Israeli Air Force bombed the power plant in the Gaza Strip, destroying all six transformers and cutting 43 percent of Gaza's total power capacity. The report states, "households in the Gaza Strip are now experiencing regular power cuts" and notes that "the irregular [electricity] supply causes additional problems. Running water in Gaza is only available in most households for around eight hours per day. If there is no power when water is available, it cannot be pumped above ground level, reducing the availability of running water to between four and six hours per day." The result of this single punitive measure, as stated in this report, is that if Gaza's Coastal Municipalities Water Utility "cannot provide its own emergency power supply because of its own fuel shortages, it has to pump raw sewage into the sea which damages the coastline in Gaza, southern Israel and Egypt."

In another report, released the same day, the World Food Programme spokesperson Kirstie Campbell finds that 70 percent of the population of Gaza has to choose between putting food on the table or a roof over their heads.