Not for nothing is this a holiday meal: the chicken required to make this dish has increased more than 100 percent in price since the bombings last January. One chicken can now cost as much as $18, as three of Gaza's 11 chicken farms were completely leveled by Israeli tanks, two more were severely damaged, and even the farms not directly damaged lost most of their animals for lack of fuel with which to heat the henhouses.
The massive unemployment in Gaza owing to the destruction of its productive sector and the impossibility of exporting through closed borders has reduced the per-capita daily income to about $2 a day. The ingredients for this splendid traditional dish would therefore cost more than two weeks' income for an average Gazan given the current situation.
Meat
Of course, grilled kebab is the king of street foods, served in a pita bread with grilled onions and a little plate of pickled vegetables. But traditional home-cooking tends more to the slow stews, meat so tender it melts at the touch of the fork. Sumaggiye is one of these dishes, perhaps the most quintessentially Gazan. It is a stew of beef, chickpeas and chard, married with the unique combination of lemony sumac and tahini. It is served with fried garlic and chili and mopped up with fresh pita bread. During the holiday season at the end of Ramadan, neighbors give each other bowls of sumaggiye, each family having its particular style of making the dish.Lambs can be smuggled through the tunnels--they trot right through--whereas calves generally panic or don't fit.As beef is now almost completely unavailable in Gaza, this and other dishes are being made with lamb if they are being made at all. Lambs can be smuggled through the tunnels--they trot right through--whereas calves generally panic or don't fit. The minimum number of calves necessary to feed Gaza, according to the Israeli "Red Lines" document, is 300 a week, but even before the crossings were completely closed fewer than 100 entered per week. Now none enter at all, though small quantities of frozen meat are occasionally allowed in.
This has grievous consequences on both sides of the border. In Gaza it means malnutrition, astronomical prices, and the accumulation of power in the hands of those who run the tunnels. In Israel it means a breakdown of the trade relations that were once extremely lucrative for Israeli farmers.
Farms
The siege, or, as Israel calls it, the "restriction of luxury products" (like paper, shoes and rice), does have some economic benefits for Israeli farmers, however. If they have lost an enormous market, they have gained a dumping ground that serves to regulate market prices. What is or what is not a luxury, Gazans told me, seems to be determined by the surpluses produced by Israeli farms: when i visited, for example, the Israeli markets were glutted with melons, and at least three trucks a week of melons were entering Gaza. Whole neighborhoods of Gaza, I was told, were living largely off of melons.
Mustafa, a farmer I visited on the eastern border of Gaza who was harvesting his melons, lamented that there was no market at all for them: so many had so suddenly entered through the border. This was probably just as well, he added, as his melon patch was abutting the "security" limit from the border, and when working there he and his sons were occasionally shot at. Their farm, like so many others, is directly in the shadow of the border wall and its watchtowers.
Every once in a while jet planes drop a box of leaflets to the ground, advising them of new security limits: a couple of weeks ago the security limit was increased to 300 meters from the border, putting the melon patch in a danger zone. His children, he told me, know very well up to which row of vegetables they can play and after which row they will be shot.
During the bombardment last January, Mustafa's family was fortunate enough not to have their farm bulldozed, as some of their neighbors did, but they did lose almost all their livestock when their barn was hit by artillery fire. Some 25 goats and sheep were killed while the family huddled in the house listening to the continuous din of the nearby watchtower firing over their farm and into the refugee camp just beyond their lands.
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Maggie Schmitt describes food markets in Gaza for the food channel:
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Very little of this seemed to be about the food or the market.
Time for them to consider maybe some new leadership as their current leadership seems determined to get them bombed until they have nothing more to lose.
Absolutely.
There is the chance, of course, that the people they agree with the direction their government has taken them. In which case I believe the proper sentiment involves "making beds, and lying in them..."
It's a mess. The government of Gaza is basically at war with Israel, and the complaint seems to be that Israel isn't shipping enough food to the entity at war with it, or is occasionally shipping too much food.
The population of Gaza may honestly prefer the current government to the alternatives, or just may be unable to change their government, and can't tell which.
I'm honestly not sure what the rules of war are for a government that won't surrender and that you're not willing to occupy indefinitely. It's hard to come up with a workable set.
When the pigs start bombing you, you know you might want to turn the page on your self written Gabriel Garcia Marquez like biography.
Some time ago, Hamas blew a hole in the fence separating Gaza from Egypt, and thousands of people poured through, buying what they could at the Egyptian markets.
What surprised me, is that they came back! Why in the world would anyone pick Gaza given a choice between it and any other spot on earth?
I could be wrong but don't many of these people live on AFDJ (Aid for Dependent Jihadists) from your UN.
I remember reading at the time that the Egyptians were shocked at how wealthy the Palestinians were.
'Cause it's their home. It's where they grew up, and it's where they live, and it's where their loved-ones live.
People like to be with their loved-ones, and they like to be at home.
Patrick Meighan
Culver City, CA
Ken - I imagine it's at least partially because the Egyptians aren't any more fond of Palestinians than the Jordanians or Syrians are, and would be hostile to a wave of immigrants. Hostile enough, perhaps, to simply force them to return if they tried to stay.
I can't say for sure, but that seems very, very likely from my understanding of the relations involved.
Other-Arab hostility towards modern Palestinians is widely and well attested. Without getting into its roots, it certainly makes life even more difficult for the Gazans, who are thus effectively prohibited from emigration.
There's nothing wrong with Gaza that a radically changed culture and similarly changed government wouldn't fix. I know, I'm just a font of useful suggestions...
Its true that Egyptians are not very fond of Palestinians (Israel tried to give the Gaza strip to Egypt together with the sanai peninsula, but Egypt declined), however, Egypt is unlikely to spend a great deal of resources hunting down Palestinians.
I would think that being illegal Palestinian in Egypt is preferable to being a wealthy gazan. Sort of like I would rather be an illegal immigrant in the US (which tracks its illegals much better than Egypt) than be a moderately wealthy and influential citizen of Zimbabwe.
As I remember it, the Gazans were shocked at how poor the Egyptians were.
I don't know how many resources the Egyptians would allocate to tracking down illegal immigrants from Gaza, but I do remember seeing an interview with an Egyptian general -- this was shown on MEMRI tv -- who was furious at them. He claimed they were invading the houses of Egyptians and that some were ready to become suicide bombers, as if they expected to find lots of Jews in Egypt. If it were left up to him, it certainly seemed like he wanted them out at all costs.
If you keep launching rockets at your neighbors like the Gazans do it's really difficult for me to feel much pity when you have to eat melons instead of chicken. The horror!
a) The Gazan dietary situation is more dire than "hav(ing) to eat melons instead of chicken." The people of Gaza are being near-starved... kept just north of the technical minimum daily caloric requirement so as to not run afoul of an Israeli Supreme Court ruling. There are few people who could blithely accept having to watch their loved-ones wither in front of them--down to the starvation line--because of a siege imposed upon them by an outside nation. I doubt you could. I know I couldn't.
b) Denying food to citizens of Gaza who did not launch rockets as punishment for the rockets fired by others is what is known as collective punishment, which happens to be an overt violation of international law. See the Fourth Geneva Convention (of which Israel is a signatory). Or, if you prefer, see Pasternak:
Pasha: "The private life is dead - for a man with any manhood."
Zhivago: "I saw some of your 'manhood' on the way at a place called Mink."
Pasha: "They were selling horses to the Whites."
Zhivago: "It seems you've burnt the wrong village"
Pasha: "They always say that, and what does it matter? A village betrays us, a village is burned. The point's made."
Zhivago: "Your point - their village."
Patrick Meighan
Culver City, CA
IIRC, when the border wall with Egypt was breached, thousands of Gazans poured through and went to el-Arish, the nearest Egyptian city, to shop, and they were astonished at the squalor. Apparently Gaza is neither as poor nor as squalid as el-Arish or, from what I understand, most Arab cities in countries without substantial petroleum income.
So it stands to reason they'd come back to Gaza. I leave it to others to draw conclusions.
No question the residents of Gaza would be better off if they were ruled by a (relatively) legitimate government authority -- like Egypt or Jordan.
And I'm sure that would be acceptable to Israel, as they would have a responsible partner that could be held accountable. It is only a political fiction that keeps them in this never-never land status.
The problem is that neither Jordan nor Egypt has the slightest interest in ruling Palestinians, for much the same reasons that US is in no hurry what so every to annex Mexico.
In fact, they were kicked out of Jordan.
The plan was for them to get Israel after the Arab states invaded. Israel hasn't been very cooperative, though.
I am trying to care but failing miserably. Gaza is nothing but a murder factory sponging off the international community and absorbing aid fund that could be better spent elsewhere (just about anywhere). If they prefer Kassams to food, then so be it. They are just lucky that Israel no longer wants the hassle of occupation.
I think you might be going a bit far. Only a very small subset of Palestinians are in the terrorism business. A larger faction support their actions, but that is not really the same thing. One should not loose ones house because they happen to want say US to loose in some foreign war. Such actions are contemptible, but not illegal.
Problem is, Israels choice lies between collective punishment, and no punishment. One choice protects it, the other does not.
They ELECTED an explicitly terrorist government (and Jimmy Carter certified it!). Arguably they are more deserving of having their collective ass kicked than anyone since Nazi Germany. The Iraqis didn't elect Saddam. The Norks didn't elect Kim Jong is Ill. The Palestinians in Gaza elected the genocidal HAMAS. Now they can live or die with that decision.
To be fair, that was arguably more about corruption than policy towards Israel.
Only a very small subset of Palestinians are in the terrorism business.
And they're the ones that Syria, Iran, and etc. send all the guns and money to.
They also make a point of murdering Palestinians who suggest maybe peace with Israel wouldn't be so bad.
That's why the situation never gets resolved.
Megan do you mean "siege"?
I've never understood why Israelis and Palestinians can't just get along with one another. It would be mutually beneficial.
It would be beneficial to everyone except the Palestianian leadership and the local Arab/Persian autocrats.
The autocrats need someone to hate, to distract the people from the fact they have failed to deliver any economic progress. The Palis were promised the whole of Israel and still think they can get it.
"Not for nothing is this a holiday meal: the chicken required to make this dish has increased more than 100 percent in price since the bombings last January."
Well, at least the Palestinians must have plenty of fruit from those high-tech greenhouses that those rich American Jews bought from the Israeli settlers and donated to the Palestinians, no?
three of Gaza's 11 chicken farms were completely leveled by Israeli tanks
If they needed the chicken farms, why did they fire rockets at Israel from them? Sheesh.
The Palestinians always seem to be in the position of murdering their parents then asking the court for mercy on the basis they're orphans.
A Northern Ireland border town that has a monument to Sinn Fein members who died in a hunger strike some 25 years ago is now a way station for commerce with Ireland*. The Irish, on either side, are typically more interested in items in grocery carts. Oh, there is the occasional demonstration but a little happiness or gemutlich makes the war dog prefer soccer to combat.
* Article in the Financial Times in the last year.