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Another story that hasn’t made it to any of the western news outlets:
Last Saturday, the first shopping mall was opened in Gaza. Granted, it’s a pretty modest mall by US, European or even Israeli standards, lacks elevators and escalators (which isn’t such a hardship, since it only has two levels), but the shoppers entering don’t have to go through a security check before entering, the way we do in Israel.
What makes it interesting is its existence at all. With Hamas and so-called “humanitarian groups” supporting them crying incessantly about the “humanitarian crisis” in Gaza, about how many people were left homeless by Operation Cast Lead and the lack of medical facilities, what kind of government places a higher priority on a shopping mall than it does on feeding their constituents, rebuilding the homes destroyed in Operation Cast Lead and the deplorable lack of medical facilities that caused over 11,000 Gaza residents to be treated in Israel during 2009?
This mall didn’t spring into existence overnight—it’s been a work in progress for over a year, while Hamas and Palestinian spokespeople around the world have been publicly (and loudly) wringing their hands before the TV cameras and crying crocodile tears over the supposed “humanitarian crisis” while Ismail Haniyeh and his cohorts now sport between 10 and 20 kilos more than they did before the “siege” and still wear designer suits and drive around in luxury armored Beemers and Mercedes.
One UN observer formerly stationed in the Strip recalled that “Gaza is the only place in the world where refugees drive around in Mercedes and BMWs.”
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My Word: Consuming interests in Gaza
By Liat Collins
No sooner had Israel announced it was easing the blockade on Gaza, in the wake of the flotilla affair, the residents opened a shopping mall.
That was quick. No sooner had Israel announced it was easing the blockade on Gaza, in the wake of the flotilla affair, than the poor starving residents we’ve all heard so much about opened a shopping mall. Talk about conspicuous consumption.
The mall was apparently a work quietly in progress for more than a year – many UN debates and European Union statements on the “humanitarian crisis” ago – but it officially opened only last week.
Putting things in proportion, the shopping center, covering roughly 9,700 sq. ft., is only on two stories, does not have an escalator and, according to Palestinian journalists, does not come even close to the style of an American mall. Or even Israeli malls, for that matter.
On the other hand, as an Israel Television reporter noted, neither does it need to have armed security guards and metal detectors at the entrance. Unlike Israeli malls, the Hamas-sanctioned shoppers’ paradise is not likely to be the target of Palestinian suicide bombers using it as a stop on the way to jihadi heaven.
I read several different reports of the mall launch – for obvious reasons, I could not personally check this out even if I were a consumer culture fan.
None mentioned whether the Gaza shopping center is equipped with missile-proof shelters. No new buildings in Israel – from malls to housing projects – are built without them. That’s because just about every Israeli in the North and South of the country knows what it’s like to come under attack – it’s only been four years since the Second Lebanon War, after all, and Gaza-launched missiles still land in the Negev now and again (and again), even a year and a half after Operation Cast Lead put an end to the massive 80-rockets-a-day bombardments.
The new mall is equipped with air conditioning, adding to its obvious attraction – in the summer heat, it’s either there or Gaza’s beautiful beaches.
But this just fuels my suspicions that the much-publicized Gazan energy crisis (blamed like everything else on Israel) is not quite as severe as the Hamas leadership, dramatically photographed working by candlelight, would have us believe.
Vendors at the shopping center claim that most of the goods were smuggled into Gaza through the tunnels from Egypt because of the Israeli blockade.
(Actually, Egypt, equally concerned with the ramifications of Hamas control in Gaza, also imposed an embargo, which is often overlooked.) Still, it seems huge quantities of cement and metal must have entered the Strip after all. It makes you wonder about the amount of arms that got through.
Altogether, the mall requires a mind shift. Looking for photos, the first images that popped up on the search engines were of a homeless family still living in a tent after Israeli forces reportedly bulldozed their house during Cast Lead – in an area from which Hamas was launching missiles among its human shield population.
It seems strange that Gazans can build a shopping mall for those who can afford to shop (or afford to dream) before rebuilding the homes of those who lost them in the mini-war.
AS FAR as I know, none of the Israelis whose homes were destroyed by Palestinian missiles are out on the streets – which probably goes to show why Israel over the past six decades or so has successfully absorbed millions of immigrants and refugees while the Palestinians are the only people who have managed to perpetuate their refugee status for more than 60 years.
If bombed-out Israelis thought that the government was encouraging the construction of shopping malls before replacing their apartment buildings, they would move into protest tents, not shacks.
Not, of course, that all Israeli construction has gone smoothly. As I have noted before, in all the brouhaha created by the extreme Haredim over the construction of new emergency rooms on the site of ancient graves at Ashkelon’s Barzilai Medical Center, it was easy to overlook the fact that the main reason for the new wing is that it would be missile-proof. We’ve become so used to the thought that Israeli hospitals can be (and have been) hit by rockets that it doesn’t seem unusual anymore. Just the same as Israelis traveling abroad are surprised by the lack of security checks at the entrance to foreign malls, not targeted by Islamist suicide bombers (heaven forbid).
Israeli hospitals also have security checks. Who would purposely attack a hospital? Well, some people are so ungrateful. Just look at the arrest publicized last week of a Hamas-affiliated gang of terrorists operating in the West Bank and responsible for killing policeman F.-Sgt. Yehoshua “Shuki” Sofer in a roadside ambush on June 14, just three months ahead of his wedding.
Two weeks before the attack, a leader of the terror cell accompanied his daughter to the Ein Kerem campus of Jerusalem’s Hadassah University Medical Center where a tumor was removed from her eye in surgery reportedly funded by an Israeli aid organization.
Shopping might provide some form of escapism for those who (unlike me) enjoy that sort of thing, but there is still a war going on out there. Actually, there is still a war raging in my e-mail inbox, which is daily bombarded with messages about Israel’s “war crimes.” While writing this piece, for example, I found among my incoming mail a screed from a Danish-based group called The Palestinian Information Center, whose anti- Israel message is obviously outdated, although sadly not unfashionable.
“Stop Israel’s War Crimes in Gaza,” its logo screamed; among the alleged crimes: a humanitarian disaster, torture, home demolitions and illegal detentions.
It also proclaims “Gaza on Fire.” If I suggest that they use the water from Gaza’s Olympic-size swimming pool to put it out, I wonder what the group’s next e-mail will say. But I would like to remind them that Hamas controls Gaza, not Israel. And as they brought up the subject of illegal detentions, it wouldn’t kill Hamas to let Gilad Schalit go four years after he was abducted.
And another thing: The group should drop the photo of Ariel Sharon.
He’s been out of the picture since he became comatose following his stroke in January 2006.
Sharon’s name did come up this month, however, as members of the Jewish communities expelled/evacuated from their homes in Gush Katif began marking the fifth anniversary since disengagement. While not exactly refugees, many of the 7,000 former residents have yet to move into permanent homes. And I have yet to find the person who lived there – even those who have rebuilt their lives – who can’t say “told you so” regarding the increased shelling from Gaza that followed the pullout.
Still, there is something comforting about the thought of Gazans building a mall – any hint of economic improvement brings with it a hope for peace and quiet.
News of the mall opening, however, coincided with reports of the latest Hamas-imposed restriction. On July 18, the Hamas-controlled Interior Ministry issued an order banning women from smoking nargilas in public places in the Gaza Strip, saying the practice “violated social norms and traditions.”
Who would have thought that the consumer culture symbolized in shopping malls would be considered more acceptable than smoking a water pipe in public? It goes to show that the customer does not always have rights.
The writer is editor of The International Jerusalem Post. liat@jpost.com
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I have no objection to Gazans having a shopping mall… or an Olympic-sized swimming pool, a 5-Star restaurant and a 5-Star hotel—or a dozen of each. What I DO object to is the hypocrisy of the crocodile tears and public hand-wringing, shouting about a “humanitarian crisis” while giving priority to such projects.
Even more objectionable are the lies and hypocrisy of the media in hiding these stories and the stupidity of posters in forums who vociferously take up the Palestinian war cries despite all the evidence that conflicts with their claims.
No, Gaza isn’t Utopia, but neither is Israel; if Hamas really wanted to end the blockade, they have the means to do it in their own hands with four simple actions…
1) Accept previous agreeements signed by the PA for the Palestinians;
2) Return Gilad Shalit, who was criminally abducted from Israeli territory and held in violation of all international conventions for the past 4 years plus;
3) Stop firing rockets and mortars at Israeli territory;
4) Renounce the genocidal aspects of the Hamas Covenant of 1988.
Even if Hamas agrees to these actions, which they have adamantly refused to do so far, there is no guarantee that Egypt will vacate its embargo of Gaza. THAT is a separate issue that has to do with the Egyptian government, not Israel’s.
The ball is in Hamas’ court and has been for the past four years.
