Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Israel Declares Gaza "Hostile" Territory   [J. Peter Pham]

As the Jerusalem Post reports, the Israeli security cabinet voted unamimously today to formally declare what everyone already knows to be the case: that a terrorist organization, Hamas, has taken control of Gaza and turned it into "hostile territory." The move opens the way for Israel, at its discretion, to cut off the electricity, water, and fuel which it has been supplying to Gaza, even after Hamas ousted forces loyal to Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas from the area.

While some like the United Nations official quoted in the article will argue that Israel is engaging in "collective punishment", the Jewish state is doing nothing more than what any other nation at war does with a declared enemy. Did the Allies in World War II feel themselves bound to make sure that Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan had an adequate supplies of petroleum? The object of a blockade, after all, is to degrade the enemy's ability to continue fighting effectively. As long as shipments of basic foodstuffs and medicine for use by non-combatants are allowed past a blockade—after due inspection, if necessary, to prevent the smuggling of contraband—a country at war, unlike a former spouse paying alimony, is hardly obliged to keep a declared enemy in the style to which he or she has become accustomed.

09/19 08:36 AMShare