Israel, Hamas and blame for the plight of women in Gaza

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/01/israel-hamas-women-in-gaza

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Reading Angela Robson's depressing report (Behind the blockade, G2, 31 July), one could be forgiven for thinking that the horrors she describes are self-inflicted and largely attributable to the election of Hamas. This would be wrong, because long before that election the Israelis were systematically making any cross-border movement, particularly economic activity, unpredictable and arduous. Agricultural produce from Gaza was turned away constantly and often allowed to rot before export was possible.

As a result, economic conditions in Gaza worsened, ensuring the election of Hamas. Today, that election is held up as the stumbling block to peace by the Israelis, just as Yasser Arafat was before his death.

What we see today is the result of a deliberate policy. The Israelis know full well what they are doing, and success is in sight as settlement activity accelerates. I expect the Palestinians will be reduced to a status similar to American Indians, but without similar benefits or rights, within the next two decades.

If the fourth most powerful nation on Earth had any interest in peace with its neighbours, it would have taken up one of the many opportunities of the past three decades to agree a resolution. Abdul Hamed Newcastle upon Tyne

• Angela Robson vividly describes the difficulties of the women in Gaza. She blames the Israeli blockade for the bad economic conditions there. But she does not tell us that Israel left the Gaza strip five years ago. If at that time all terror activity from Gaza ceased – which means no rocket launching, no weapons smuggling, no efforts to bomb the border crossing points, no efforts to send suicide murderers into Israel – all the crossing points would have remained open, there would have been free exchange of goods, thousands of Gazans would have been able to work in Israel. It would have been possible to travel between the West Bank and Gaza, financial help from the international community could have been invested and further Israeli withdrawals from the West Bank would have been made much easier.

But as Robson is supposed to know, Hamas chose to continue its war of terror and continued to fire rockets at Israeli towns and villages. That is why the blockade was imposed. The reason so many doors have been closed to Palestinian women in Gaza and the reason they are afraid to appear in public without being fully covered is not the Israeli blockade but the extreme Islamist ideology of the Hamas government. Dr Jacob Amir Jerusalem

• It is interesting to note that, while William Hague and Bill Clinton press for UN action on Syria, some of the oldest UN resolutions – those relating to Israeli occupation of Palestinian land – are blatantly defied by Israel (Palestinians see hopes for state fade as settlers' numbers jump, 27 July). Palestinians have endured an increase in Israeli settlers of 15,000 in one year and a massive increase in settler violence. Perhaps Bashar al-Assad should welcome a UN resolution against him. Condemnation by the UN appears to be the quickest way to achieve your aims by violence and intimidation. Lawrence Glover Bootle, Merseyside