Easing of blockade is an Israeli ploy

This is no easing of the blockade. Israel’s national security cabinet voted yesterday to “liberalise” the system for transferring civilian goods into the beleaguered Gaza Strip.

Other than allowing some construction materials into the Strip for some “civilian projects”, the office of Israel’s prime minister offered few details. After they were barred for three years, it took until March for Israel to allow Gazans to receive shoes. Who knows what weapons those clever shabab from Hamas are concocting at this very moment with a rubber sole and a shoelace or two?

While any move to loosen restrictions on Gaza is welcome, this move should be seen for what it really is: a political sop to mollify Washington and other friendly critics who are appalled by Israel’s actions against the Gaza flotilla last month. Israel is desperate for their help in stopping their citizens from joining flotillas being planned for later this summer and the fall.

The Israeli cabinet’s decision, tantamount to a pat on the head of international public opinion, is not only begrudging (it took the ministers two days to reach it) and niggling (thanks for the bag of cement) – it’s beside the point.

When Israel is under pressure, it invariably offers to release a fraction of the estimated 10,000 Palestinian prisoners in its jails or lift a few checkpoints in the West Bank. Now it is deigning to barter with the international community over a list of goods that it bars from the Gaza Strip under an illegal blockade. The one currency that Israel deems counterfeit is any genuine step towards allowing Palestinians the freedom to administer their own state and their own lives.

When it comes to the Strip, Israel wants it both ways. On the one hand, it wants air-tight control over the Strip’s borders, coastline and airspace keeping Palestinians as virtual prisoners. On the other hand, it wants to claim that the ruling Hamas movement is entirely to blame for the misery and repression of Gaza’s 1.5 million people. A few two-by-fours won’t changed that.