Dr. Alan Sabrosky
Dissident Voice
11 June 2010

In a gesture that has received more than a little attention in the Western media, Israeli officials announced with some fanfare that they were easing the embargo of goods they allow into Palestine. Israel’s supporters have been using the opportunity to declare that this demonstrates Israel is reasonable, and that US support of Israel is fully justified, even given the exceptionally tepid US response to the Israeli assault on the Gaza flotilla and America’s sustained opposition to any international efforts to hold Israel accountable for its actions.
This gesture becomes markedly less impressive once one examines the list of items once embargoed but now (at least for a while) allowed by Israel into Gaza. As a news website in India reported, “Palestinian liaison official Raed Fattouh, who coordinates the flow of goods into Gaza with Israel, said that soda, juice, jam, spices, shaving cream, potato chips, cookies and candy were now permitted.” Not much, to put it mildly, but to a suffering people in the ruins of their city, I imagine almost anything will be better than nothing. Besides, at least some of the aid supplies the Israelis have removed from the pirated Gaza flotilla vessels may end up in Gaza at some point, and that, too, will be something.



