Some of the Excellent Dining in Gaza.

Someone is eating good in Gaza. Check out this exclusive club. I wonder if anyone can eat there or if it's just restricted to the Hamas leadership? I hear their beef stroganoff and cream of spinach soup is really good. Not only is the food good it's located near all the shopping facilities and businesses in Gaza.

Roots Club is an icon in the heart of Gaza City. Designed with business in mind this multi-use complex - which includes an international cuisine fine dinging restaurant, an elegant banquet hall and a terrace garden café - is just minutes from Gaza’s key attractions, shopping facilities, and business center. It is only two hundred meters away from the white sand Gaza beach.
source

Fine food, white sand beaches. Sort of makes me want to book a vacation. This place looks fantastic. That's quite a lifestyle.

If you've read this far then hopefully you've figured out that I'm just calling out the media's agenda. Not that anyone here doubts that the media has an agenda. Sure there are slums in Gaza and Tel-Aviv. There are slums in Washington D.C. as well but you're not likely to find the media focusing on them. Only Gaza slums are worth reporting on. Let's skip over the fact that many in Gaza have a fairly comfortable life style. Even during the blockade.

What they won’t tell you about are the fancy new restaurants and swimming pools of Gaza, or about the wind surfing competitions on Gaza beaches, or the Strip’s crowded shops and markets. Many Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza live a middle class (and in some cases an upper class) lifestyle that western journalists refuse to report on because it doesn’t fit with the simplistic story they were sent to write.

fullcomment.nationalpost.com...

[edit on 10-6-2010 by dbates]

I had a friend who was in the skeleton UN staff through the civil war in Angola, and for some time after that. He told me there were 15 restaurants opened continuously with many food options. Go figure...

Just curious, when was that video made?

Ive travelled both Israel and Palestine repeatedly. The standard of living in Palestine is very high, compared to neighbouring countries (Jordan, Egypt, Syria).

Everyone is well fed, owns a car, has a house or an apartment, warm water, plenty of food.The reason Palestine is so rich compared to its arab neighbours is because of all of the Aid it receives from the West.

The "poor oppressed me" image is one exploited by many countries and groups to milk it for money. Israelis use it when they overdo demands for Holocaust reimbursement. And Palestinians know how to play that card too.

Cases of Child Malnutrition Double in Gaza Because of Blockade

Chronic Malnutrition in Gaza Blamed on Israel

Inside Gaza: Malnutrition and Shortages

Imposing Malnutrition in Gaza


Silly Palestinians. I dunno what they need food for anyway

Please forgive me if I don't agree with you that the world press has an agenda on the side of the Palestinians. In fact, i think it's the opposite, the mainstream media usually has a large bias toward israel.

reply to post by GobbledokTChipeater


Travelling there always beats reading the news. With the news you can never be sure whos agenda you are reading. But seen with your own eyes no agenda can fool you.

reply to post by buddhasystem

The video was probably made around 2005, the time of it's grand opening. Their menu doesn't look any worse for the wear due to the blockade though. In fact it's making me quite hungry reading it.

"Excellent Dining in Gaza" does not match the image forcefully implanted into the mass-mind via 24/7 media-programming, so dont expect people to welcome this thread with open arms.

When your brains are hardwired to believing one thing, not even reality will convince you otherwise.

Originally posted by Skyfloating
reply to post by GobbledokTChipeater

 

Travelling there always beats reading the news. With the news you can never be sure whos agenda you are reading. But seen with your own eyes no agenda can fool you.

Yes but if I believed everything that somebody told me on the internet, i would be a lot worse off. People have their own agendas and bias'. Not accusing you of that, merely pointing it out.

My second link was a report from the Red Cross. I would expect them to be pretty unbiased, no?

Originally posted by Skyfloating
"Excellent Dining in Gaza" does not match the image forcefully implanted into the mass-mind via 24/7 media-programming, so dont expect people to welcome this thread with open arms.

When your brains are hardwired to believing one thing, not even reality will convince you otherwise.

Yes but I am trying to look for a motive. What motive/reason does the international press possibly have to make the conditions in Gaza appear worse then they are? And I don't for a second believe that it is propaganda from the Palestinians.

It is clear to me that israel are the propaganda masters, and I have no reason to believe that this isn't propaganda.

Originally posted by GobbledokTChipeater

It is clear to me that israel are the propaganda masters, and I have no reason to believe that this isn't propaganda.

Thats right, dont believe me. But dont believe the other side either. Only trust what you've SEEN for yourself, live, with your own eyes. And by that I dont mean youtube-videos. No skill is necessary to cherry-pick the worst event that ever happened in Palestine and post it on Youtube as a "fair representation" of what the place looks like.

Currently it is "clear to you" that Palestinians are beyond propaganda and only Israelis do it. With that you have already abandoned a clear view of things. Expect any side to play the "poor me" card, constantly.

The motive? The usual: Money. Stories about nice dining in Gaza dont sell papers. Neither do they generate aid.

[edit on 10-6-2010 by Skyfloating]

This gaza restraunt likes to sell it's meat extra rare

www.fas.org...


Since the death of Yasser Arafat in November 2004, U.S. assistance to the Palestinians has been averaging close to $400 million a year, with funding levels spiking to more than double the average for FY2009 to address (1) humanitarian needs in Gaza during and after the December 2008-January 2009 Israel-Hamas Gaza conflict; and (2) reform, security, and development priorities in the West Bank. Since 2007, the United States has appropriated or reprogrammed nearly $2 billion in support of PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s security, governance, development, and reform programs, including $650 million for direct budgetary assistance to the PA and nearly $400 million in security and criminal justice sector assistance for the PA in the West Bank. The remainder is for project assistance administered by the U.S. Agency for International Development. During the 1990s, U.S. foreign aid to the Palestinians averaged approximately $75 million per year. Despite more robust levels of assistance in the past decade, Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Hamas’s heightened role in Palestinian politics have made it more difficult to implement effective and lasting aid projects that serve U.S. interests. Contributions from the United States to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) (which have been made since the time of UNRWA’s inception in 1950) have continued.


Hopefully this could shed a little light on the way things are going on down there. $400 million a year is a lot aid for 4.5 million people to work with.


Edit to add that the motivation for the press to present mainly poor conditions and images of war torn palestine could very well be the $400 million in aid they are receiving, that does not include other sources i believe.

[edit on 10-6-2010 by habfan1968]

When someone says "Gaza" the first thing you normally think of are run-down buildings, blood, murder and bombs. You dont first think of nice restaurants and beaches.

That is due to media-programming, not reality. Then, when this reality is put to question, the programmed quickly have to find images - the worst possible - in order to re-affirm the myth of all being gloomy in Gaza.

Not all is well in Gaza, Im not saying it is, but pictures like the one posted by LieBuster are specifically designed to evoke anger rather than represent Gaza. You could find pictures like that from anywhere in the world.

Originally posted by Skyfloating
Ive travelled both Israel and Palestine repeatedly. The standard of living in Palestine is very high, compared to neighbouring countries (Jordan, Egypt, Syria).

Sorry i didn't read the rest what you wrote because as a middle-east habitant, only this sentence is enough proof for me to understand that you are lying. You probably travelled with an F-16 or at best a helicopter.

[edit on 10-6-2010 by deccal]

If they were starving I'm pretty sure Israeli Embassies in the West and Europe would come under attack from people angered by images of stick-thin people stumbling around in the world's largest open-air prison.

A jail is still a jail and Gaza is the jail. Even rapists and murderers don't starve...

reply to post by Skyfloating


I don't want to open old cases, but this thread: www.abovetopsecret.com...
and the hillarious, epic maps you drawn there show that you are not objective in this issue at all.
I personally invite the OP and Skyfloating be my guest and make a journey to the mentioned countries. I am available on September and don't worry I don't bite

[edit on 10-6-2010 by deccal]

It's really difficult to find objective advice on the conditions in Gaza in most news sources. The thought finally occurred to me to check with travel sites to see what actual tourist were reporting.

Positioned between Israel and Egypt, Gaza isn't quite the pure hellhole you might expect given TV coverage, although this birthplace of the intifada and one of the most overpopulated bits on the planet isn't exactly paradise on earth, either. It does have reasonably modern infrastructure and architecture despite its troubles.

Usual Arabic cheap eats are available anywhere. Head to the posh suburb of Rimal for fancier food; the restaurant in the Windmill Hotel is nice.

wikitravel.org...

It's still difficult to find actual recent photos of Gaza. The condition of the place seems to be a closely guarded secret. No doubt the slums aren't that pretty but travel reviews seem to indicate that it's a great place to visit if you stay away from the actual border where most of the fighting takes place.

Originally posted by deccal
you are lying.

I know the ATS-Routine, Ive been around. If you challenge the prevailing view you must be a liar or disinfo-agent or as of recent a "megaphoner".

Reminds me of a thread I did a few years ago:

Israeli and Palestinian Models

My secret agenda is peace.

reply to post by deccal


Are you saying there is no lifestyle in Gaza? Beaches? Restaurants? Pretty Women? I insist there is.