Report: Gazans Fleeing to Israel, Risking Death to Escape Hamas Oppression

[shira]

A growing number of Palestinians are fleeing the Gaza Strip for Israel, Israeli news site nrg reported on Sunday.

According to the report, the reason for the exodus is the oppressive rule of terror group Hamas, which has controlled the coastal enclave since 2007.

The number of Gazans attempting to make the move has steadily risen since Israel’s 50-day war against Hamas terrorists last summer, dubbed Operation Protective Edge, nrg said. When apprehended by Israeli authorities, the absconders told interrogators about their poor living conditions and the repressive Hamas regime.

The IDF interrogations revealed that the refugees are even willing to risk going to prison — or being killed by security forces mistaking them for terrorists — due to widespread hunger and fear of Hamas.

The fugitives also said that Hamas was acting to prevent the exit of Palestinians from Gaza into Israel, for fear they will become Israeli collaborators. They explained that since the establishment by Hamas of an administrative route near the border fence with Israel, which is guarded by Hamas fighters, they are forced to crawl under the fence, to avoid being caught and executed.

http://www.algemeiner.com/2015/08/30/report-hamass-iron-grip-is-spurring-frightened-and-hungry-gazans-flee-to-israel/

[procon]

1. Seriously? "The IDF interrogations revealed..."

Why would anyone think this is a credible story when the whole preposterous claim is based on statements obtained under a military "interrogation" or torture? This fairytale might serve to soothe the conscious and allow Israeli sympathizers to pat themselves on the back, relieved to know that whatever evils they might condone against the Palestinian people, the IDF has offered up a convenient scapegoat with with this saccharin, feel good fable.

[6chars]

3. What is the truth?

[shira]

4. You're making up the torture claim. At worst, they were questioned.

I know it's hard to believe Israel takes Palestinians in for humanitarian purposes, but this is actually a common occurrence.

[leftynyc]

14. Seriously?

You find it hard to believe living under the terrorist hamas is a problem? Which means one of two things - either this story is the truth or these are terrorists who got caught. Which one do you think it is? Or do you just want so badly to believe that Israel is the boogie man that you'll believe living under terrorist hamas is a picnic?

[procon]

15. I question the veracity of this feckless, feel-good story that is

long on patting Israel on the back, but suspiciously short on quantifiable facts and details, conveniently omits the current status of these mysteriously unidentifiable Palestinians, and is totally lacking any means of corroborating the government's official story. As a propaganda release, this tall tale might soothe the conscience of some of Israel's supporters, but none of your baseless conjectures are substantiated by the scant statements in the cited article.

There is no evidence of Israel's philanthropic beneficence regarding the particular Palestinians in the story under discussion here. Nevertheless, no matter what their good deeds Israel might profess, they are obliterated by decades of Israel's brutal military occupation forces and the ruthless subjugation of the peoples of Palestinian. If you're worried that Israel is viewed as the proverbial boogieman, then insist that they stop acting like one, yeah?

[leftynyc]

16. Spare me the hysteria

You already told me everything I need to know about you. hamas is to be believed and Israel is not - got it.

[procon]

17. No one should fall for propaganda so easily.

I guess I could say that is all I need to know about you, too, but that would be just as offensive to you. I will acknowledge that your emotional attachment and unswerving loyalty to the state of Israel is presented with the utmost sincerity, while your unquestioned defense of their actions remains flawlessly unshakable regardless of the facts at hand.

[leftynyc]

18. Facts?

What facts do you have that nobody else seems to? Other than thinking Israel is not to be believed about anything - even that the terrorist hamas is unbearable to live under. Propaganda? Physician, heal thyself.

[Scootaloo]

2. How does this make you feel, Shira?

[shira]

5. Israel did the right thing, don't you think? n/t

[Scootaloo]

6. Well, what did Israel do, exactly?

The article says nothing about the Israeli response to this situation, just that some Gazans were apprehended, and what they told intelligence officials.

[shira]

7. Israel will take them in, as they have multiple times before with asylum seekers....

...or those seeking family unification:

http://soc.haifa.ac.il/~s.smooha/download/TheModelofDemIsraelasJewDeminNN.pdf

See 2/3 down page 487 and you'll find b/w 1993 and 2001, there were 97K Palestinians granted citizenship (coming from Gaza & the W.Bank) due to family unification.

That hasn't stopped either.

[procon]

8. Don't move the goal posts.

Stick with the article you originally cited which offers no mention of "humanitarian purposes" or "asylum seekers". Although, it does refer to "absconders", evidently the actual people were never interviewed to corroborate the government's preposterous story. The reader is left with nothing but the official version, the wonderfully sanitized information presented by Israeli authorities and distributed without question or critique by a pro-Israeli press.

Its propaganda, yeah?

[shira]

10. Seems you ignored the link in #4. But here's another example...

Disabled Gaza baby lives in Israel hospital
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4375600,00.html

And a 3rd example...

[procon]

11. What does any of this have to do with a story purportedly about Palestinian "fugitives"?

First you claim these dubious Palestinians were being held for "humanitarian purposes," then they were "asylum seekers", next you speculated they were "seeking family unification", and now you've tossed out a claim of "disabled". Your defensive excuses are all over the map, but they don't match anything that is written in the suspiciously uninformative propaganda article you cited. In fact there is absolutely mention of the fate of these questionably fictitious Palestinians.

[shira]

12. The point is that the allegedly evil Zionist Empire routinely takes in....

....Palestinians for various humanitarian reasons. All the examples provided to you show that this isn't out of the norm. It's not an exception to the rule and there's really no reason to believe it's a lie.

Of course those who see evil intent, motive or hidden agendas in everything Israel does won't believe anything that doesn't conform to the Israel Sucks narrative.

[Scootaloo]

9. Anything about this particular instance though, Shira?

[Little Tich]

13. Israel Extends Law Restricting Unification of Citizens With Spouses From 'Enemy States'

Source: Haaretz, Apr 14, 2013

'Citizenship Law' denies entry or living permits to partners considered a security threat; it mainly affects Israeli Arab citizens and their families from the West Bank and Gaza.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet decided unanimously on Sunday to extend the Citizenship Law restricting the "family reunification" of Israeli citizens with certain foreign partners for an additional year.

The law denies entry or living permits to partners who are considered a security threat, among them Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza, and citizens of enemy countries or from areas involved in long-term conflict with Israel. The law affects mainly Israeli Arab citizens and their families from the West Bank and Gaza.

The proposal brought before the cabinet on Sunday was submitted by Interior Minister Gideon Sa'ar, and was formulated based on a Shin Bet opinion regarding the volatility of partners from the Gaza Strip.

Meretz party head Zahava Gal-On slammed the decision as placing "draconian restrictions on Israeli Arab citizens' right to marry," calling the designation of all Palestinians as a security threat "racist" and discriminatory.

Read more: http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel/israel-extends-law-restricting-unification-of-citizens-with-spouses-from-enemy-states-1.515423

BTW, did you really read what you posted? Here are some snippets:

The model of ethnic democracy: Israel as a Jewish democratic state* by SAMMY SMOOHA, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Haifa

Source: Nations and Nationalism 8 (4), 2002,

p 488

Arab rights are incomplete and not properly protected, however. Although Arabs qualify as a national minority for being a segment of the Palestinian people and Arab nation and for having a strong national consciousness as a national minority, Israel recognises them as an ethnic, linguistic, religious and cultural minority but denies them the status of a national Palestinian-Arab minority. Israel does not recognise their national leadership, does not grant them cultural autonomy and discourages their ties with the Palestinian people. Their individual and collective right to own, acquire, lease or rent property, for instance, is vulnerable in view of the massive land expropriations, the state's reluctance to allocate land for Arab development, and the social and quasi-legal restrictions on land acquisitions by Arabs outside Arab areas. Discrimination against the Arabs by the state and by the Jewish public is widespread in the funding of services, entitlements and hiring (Kretzmer 1990). It must be emphasised, however, that land confiscations virtually ceased in the mid-1960s and the Supreme Court ruled in 2000 against discriminatory allocation of land by the state (the Katzir case).

p496

Scholars who classify Israel as a liberal democracy or a non-democracy ignore part of the complex reality. Incontrast, the model of ethnic democracy does justice to the dual character of Israel. It presumes Israel to be a democracy, though not a first-rate Western democracy. It is a democracy in which rights are extended to all but not equally. It is a democracy in which there is an inherent contradiction between the Jewish and democratic nature of the state. The alternative classifications of Israel err in overlooking these fundamental tensions and contradictions built into the Israeli political system.

Read more: http://soc.haifa.ac.il/~s.smooha/download/TheModelofDemIsraelasJewDeminNN.pdf