Stop ignoring the facts about Cast Lead

[JackRiddler]

132. I am not a Hamas spokesperson. Are you someone's spokesperson?

pelsar, please refrain from projecting on to me your unsubstantiated assumptions and caricatures about my worldview.

We can all look for ourselves. When I look at Gaza, I see a four-sided strip of land with 1.5 million people crowded into one of the world's highest population densities, very dependent on goods from the outside. The territory is sealed off and blockaded by the IDF on three sides, and usually (in the years since 2005) also blockaded on the south side by the Egyptian military. Israel does not recognize Gazans as citizens of a state. As a foreign power, Israel maintains blanket surveillance of the area, controls the airspace and sea rights, and decides who goes in and out (generally meaning who doesn't go in or out). Israel explicitly reserves the right and has the capability to make unannounced military incursions at any time, as it has done on many occasions, most significantly during the Cast Lead Massacre of 2008. When exercised, the IDF's ability to apply force in Gaza is usually overwhelming. The people of Gaza recognize the IDF's authority over them only when it is applied by force. By any reasonable definition, these conditions describe a territory under the harsh military occupation of a foreign power. The current Israeli government and Hamas leadership may both have political reasons to claim this is not an occupation. Neither claim changes the current validity of the facts I've described.

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