Israel wants maximum suffering in Gaza: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Ralph Schoenman, the author of “Hidden History of Zionism” in Berkeley, about Israel’s move to severely reduce gas supplies to the besieged Gaza Strip, making life even more difficult for families dealing with the extremely cold weather.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Is this an effort to turn the people against Hamas?

Schoenman: One has to understand that this is a regular and routine operation on the part of the Israeli authorities. As nsnbc international reports every year the Israeli occupation cuts cooking gas supplies for Gaza residents during the most extreme cold waves which tend to begin at end of December and the suffering of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip is doubled due to the Israeli cuts on cooking gas supplies during the current wave of extreme cold.

It is week four since the authorities in Israel severely decreased cooking gas supplies for the Gaza Strip so Mohammed Al-Abdullah, member of the union of owners of fuel and gas companies, he disclosed that the amount allowed in the Gaza is only 15 percent of daily need during normal times and current consumption is more than 300 times due to the cold weather of winter. Gas stations across the Gaza Strip are now full of empty gas containers, unable to fill the needs of consumers. People have started using coal and wood fire for cooking and other tasks to keep life going. Days of Palestine notes that Israeli authorities have been stealing Palestinian gas off the Mediterranean coast and using it and selling it to the world. In addition they impose restrictions on Palestinians in Gaza with respect to obtaining gas from huge reserves. 

So what we are looking at here is a deliberate policy of inflicting maximum suffering on the part of the residents of Gaza, cutting them off from gas, cutting them off from essential supplies at the height of winter is a deliberate act designed to impoverish and to make miserable the lives of the people in Gaza. That is the constant of Israeli policy with respect to Gaza and its inhabitants. 

Press TV: I am wondering then, I would imagine the Israelis want the Gazans to bow down to them. Will that ever likely happen do you think?

Schoenman: Well it is designed to undermine support on the part of the people of Gaza for resistance whether from Hamas or from the Palestinian population in general outside of Gaza. The people of Gaza resist the designs of the Zionists to starve them out, [to … their existence and livelihood] and to make them bow down to control what is really always a touchstone of the expansionist policies of the Zionists with respect to the Palestinian population everywhere and the repression is intensifying with respect to the people in the West Bank and inside the Green Line even as these measures are taken against Gaza is a seamless policy of subjugation that has to be resisted. The people of Palestine will not bow down.

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