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siege |sēj|

noun
a military operation in which enemy forces surround a town or building, cutting off essential supplies, with the aim of compelling the surrender of those inside

The collective punishment – imprisonment and cutting off of needed resources, energy, trade and medicine – cruelly harms and kills people – you know, people, like your friends and family – in the entire region of Gaza in dozens of ways.

With the implicit complicity of a frightening number of people, myself included, and enabled by an obfuscating (lack of) media coverage (take the repeated phrase "eases restrictions" in reference to an evil policy of loosening and tightening a noose), a military siege of one and a half million people continues as the unjustifiable means to unjust and unattainable ends.

To be clear – firing missiles at a town in Israel is evil and stupid. Even pretending to accept some sort of unofficial death penalty for war crimes, what is the culpability of the people of Sedorot? It is an absurd question; there is no way the attacks are justifiable. And what is its effect on the people the violent attackers claim to represent? Disaster.

Cordoning off a city, a region, and blockading human necessities (not to mention occasionally terrorizing people with military attacks) is evil and stupid. Even pretending to accept some sort of extrajudicial death penalty or punishment, what is the culpability of the people of Gaza? It is an absurd question; there is no way the siege is justifiable. And what will its effect be on the people the government of Israel claims to represent? I fear to contemplate.

In the past I've argued that this violence from both sides that hurts everyone isn't the result of stupidity but evil intention. (This is beyond the root problem, as I see it, of inequality: the grab by rich and powerful with influence over the Israeli government for resources, land, and control of people.) My assessment was that instigating and continuing conflict propels peddlers of petrification to power, and keeps them there, even as it terribly hurts the society of the whole region. The old, usually right, "both sides are wrong" viewpoint. (The Israeli government, with far greater power, has done more wrong and I also feel greater responsibility for trying to stop that, as a U.S. citizen and as a Jew.) Now, however, one really has to wonder if there's at least as much stupidity as evil in there. What can the prospects be for a functioning economy and society be with this seeding of hatred and destruction? How will even the most powerful and most ruthless fail to lose out along with everyone else.

The willful destruction, alone, of economic infrastructure in Gaza will mean pain, suffering, and anger of terrible import.

Comprehensive justice and and opportunity is needed (everywhere in the world, come to think of it) but as part of that the Israeli government's evil siege must be stopped.

Just letting it be known – write your congressperson, your local newspaper – that this is known would be an important step at this point, and could make a difference.

I don't have many good media resources but will try to post more.

See: Gaza scrambles for supplies as border forced open

More: http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/category/gaza/