Some of the Excellent Dining in Gaza.

Originally posted by Skyfloating
reply to post by deccal

 

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

Sure there are...
By the way, did you check your old thread I posted above? Wht do you think about the maps you posted?

reply to post by deccal


No, no derailing to another thread, topic, time. You agree that the media tends to sensationalize and exaggerate things and that highlighting some nice aspects of Gaza is not much appreciated.

To be fair, similar can be said of the media and Israel. The first time I was there I was stunned at how beautiful it is, because I had only seen missiles an screaming people on TV.

reply to post by deccal

What's all this talk about maps in other threads? Are they maps to the best places to eat in Gaza city? There's no need to drag other topics into this discussion unless they mention mushroom steak or shrimp and strawberry ice-cream. All available in Gaza of course.

I need to go get something to eat. This is making me hungry. Funny what topics you start when your stomach is growling.

Originally posted by Skyfloating
reply to post by deccal

 

To be fair, similar can be said of the media and Israel. The first time I was there I was stunned at how beautiful it is, because I had only seen missiles an screaming people on TV.

And those screams were on the beach because the sun was very hot an not because it was phospor bomb coming from above.
I understand that both of you mods trying to chill and cool the atmosphere on the middle-east forum here, but please make it in a belieavable and logical way.


[edit on 10-6-2010 by deccal]

This is certainly food for thought, I remember backpacking in East Germany in the first days of the wall coming down, walk past the first mile or so and East Germany was beautiful, a winding river lined with trees and pubs and old buildings(restored?), there were beer gardens and smiling people .
I expected concrete gulag type building sand chimmney stacks spewing poison into the gloomy grey sky.
Europe was in general clean wheres I expected dirt and grime.
But this does not mean the other side of reality doesnt exist.
The rich in Europe in Germany fared ok compared to the commonman in ww2 and who can deny that?
In ww1 whilst millions of men were slaughtered the rich had balls where venison and cognac were on the tables.
No doubt Gaza is full of the rich in parts, just as new York is.
But the poor are hidden in any society, they are in quiet desperation counting time in the shadows of the beautiful, the sexy, the rich.
Rich parasites oops I mean rich people care not one fig for anyone but them, whether the poor are their own kind or not.
The real conspiracy th eworld over is how parasites feed off the masses and become super rich, but that one has been proven to be false courtesy of the press and economic disciples.
Wealth breeds wealth yes , they steal then give you back your watch broken.
The middle east issue is about resources and land/money.
The rich hide behind religion and we all leave them alone.
Gaza kids are dying because no one gives a fig, on all sides.

I find it hard to believe that a country which has up to 80% unemployment is doing as well as you guys make it out to be.

Am I supposed to believe you guys instead of the above link, which details a report issued collectively by Amnesty International, CARE International UK, CAFOD, Christian Aid, Médecins du Monde UK, Oxfam, Save The Children UK and Trócaire?

I'm sorry skyfloating but I find it hard to ignore all of the other reports by independent agencies and just take your word for it.

Originally posted by GobbledokTChipeater
I find it hard to believe that a country which has up to 80% unemployment is doing as well as you guys make it out to be.

It doesnt matter what you believe or see on the Internet. What matters is what you see with your own eyes when you travel there.

Am I supposed to believe you guys

As already mentioned, dont believe anyone - go see for yourself.

Palestine is stunningly beautiful - pine trees, sandy beaches, quaint mosques and churches and very nice people.

I just typed "Palestine" into Google images and it showed none of that. It showed a kid poised against an Israeli tank. It showed a bunch of Hamas masks.

No doubt, those thing exist. But why is it so difficult to believe that the good stuff exists too?

Originally posted by Skyfloating

Originally posted by GobbledokTChipeater
I find it hard to believe that a country which has up to 80% unemployment is doing as well as you guys make it out to be.

It doesnt matter what you believe or see on the Internet. What matters is what you see with your own eyes when you travel there.

Please...Come on...
Did you speak with everyone there and made a survey? Did you made a scientific investtigation? Dİd you make..........
I am sure, that you are much more clever than what you are writing right now.

Originally posted by deccal
Please...Come on...
Did you speak with everyone there and made a survey? Did you made a scientific investtigation? Dİd you make..........
I am sure, that you are much more clever than what you are writing right now.

Ive dined with Palestinians and Ive slept in their homes. Same with Israelis.

Most people here on ATS dont know that Israelis and Palestinians play soccer on the same teams.

Or that there are love affairs between Israelis and Palestinians.

Why dont they know any of this?

Because they are conditioned not to see it.

Originally posted by Skyfloating

As already mentioned, dont believe anyone - go see for yourself.

Since it is unlikely that I will ever make it to Gaza, I must take the word of unbiased, independent organisations over a person on an internet forum.

You may call it ignorant, I call it prudent

reply to post by deccal


Rooters Club looks like a yummy place, but I prefer their simple-mans Food, some Falafel and whatever they put between these breads. Delicious.

Just Delicious.

Originally posted by Skyfloating
reply to post by deccal

 

Rooters Club looks like a yummy place, but I prefer their simple-mans Food, some Falafel and whatever they put between these breads. Delicious.

Just Delicious.

Sure falafel is delicious.

Ok, life in Gaza is beatiful, infrastructure is perfect (even after last years brutal attack).
But you don't see the deep logical contradictions in the way that this thread opened and in the way you are defending some points here.

Did you try Humus? It is also very delicious.


[edit on 10-6-2010 by deccal]

reply to post by GobbledokTChipeater


I just checked your link to CARE International. May I ask why you turned "up to 40% employment" into "up to 80% employement"?

Gaza may be like I found Mexico a few years ago when I was on a humanitarian mission.

We flew from Houston, TX to Mexico City on a 24 hour layover before we went into the jungle.

Our hotel was clean with hot water and the city was beautiful filled with beautiful people.

We decided to see what was described to us as a human dump.
It was on the out skirts of the city and we found that people had been living in an actual very huge trash dump for generations.

On the other side of the street we saw dwellings made out of sticks and paper and other trash covering a hill.

Finally back in the city proper we dined like royalty and shopped till we dropped.

We finally flew out of Mexico City to the boarder of Mexico and Honduras.
Our hotel was in a town of 200,000 people. The town was clean and had a view of a volcano.

During the hours of 8am and 9pm we worked in the jungle where people lived worse than hogs.

You can have it both ways in most every country.

I saw no beautiful people where our work site was. Even when our day was over and we were eating ice cream at 2am in the city I could not erase the pictures of poverty that were forever etched in my brain.

These same uneven way of living conditions have been evident to me in other countries as well. There is no middle class. There are the rich and there are also the people that live in absolute poverty.

It just depends on what part of the country you are visiting.

Unbelievable, i just read that the Greeks claim that even Humus is a Greek food

[edit on 10-6-2010 by deccal]

reply to post by dizziedame


No. You find those kind of massive slum-dumps in Cairo and Mexico city but not in Palestine. One reason for that is that the cities are not big enough to develop slums. Another is that the standard of living in Palestine is higher than in Egypt.

Originally posted by Skyfloating

I just checked your link to CARE International. May I ask why you turned "up to 40% employment" into "up to 80% employement"?

I stand corrected, thank you. I should've said 80% of people in Gaza are dependent on food aid.

40% is still a lot, no? Could you imagine the state your home country would be in if 40% of people were unemployed?

Originally posted by dizziedame
Gaza may be like I found Mexico a few years ago when I was on a humanitarian mission.

We decided to see what was described to us as a human dump.
It was on the out skirts of the city and we found that people had been living in an actual very huge trash dump for generations.

Finally back in the city proper we dined like royalty and shopped till we dropped.

Exactly and that's my entire beef with the media who filter what we see of Gaza. I fully believe that the refugee camps exist. We get to see all of the bombed buildings, barbed wire, and rubble. What they almost never show is that there's a whole other side that's beautiful and prosperous. Everyone is being conditioned to believe that only one side of the coin exists when that's just not true.

When I lived in Nairobi, Kenya we were about 2 miles from the Kibera slum. Arguably the worst and most expansive slum in the world. Yet the street we lived on was beautiful and lush as was the majority of the town. You can find both points of view in the media. Why doesn't this Yin-Yang exist in Gaza? It's an actual conspiracy I tell you. We're being conditioned to hate one side or the other.

A few years ago, friends of the family visited Gaza, what they told me of it was quite shocking at the time.

They said that they were expecting slums, begging and IDF patrols. What they saw was in contrast to what they suspected. A bustling city life, pimped out cars and bikes cruising the promenades, people living with purpose, families enjoying the beach.

Since then, I have taken a different stance on this and believe that we are all being taken for a ride. People around the world are angered by what they imagine the Gaza Strip to represent; an open air prison with most of the population starving to death and diseased. Added to this, the image of IDF freely murdering civilians on a whim.

The truth seems to be more inline with our misery focused media drawn to skirmishes on the borders, combined with powerful 'rating gaining' imagery where any instance of guns or tanks pointing in the general direction of civilians, makes for a cold depicition of events.

I have no doubts that there are civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip, but these are caused by a combination of Hamas imposing its rule, IDF soldiers abusing their authority and civilians antagonising the troops.

If you want to see a similar example, go to Iraq, where my best friend works on contract for a Norweigan oil company and has seen US troops bully the civilians and treat them like s*it.

Although this abuse of authority is evident there, he cannot wait to go back each time.

Kind regards,

Skellon.




[edit on 10-6-2010 by Skellon]

Originally posted by GobbledokTChipeater
I stand corrected, thank you. I should've said 80% of people in Gaza are dependent on food aid.

I dont believe the number is that high. But whatever the case may be, Gaza has more than enough food.

This is aid delivered by Israel alone (not mentioning all other countries):

"There is no starvation in Gaza. No one has died of hunger," Khalil Hamada, a senior official at Gaza's Ministry of Justice, told London's Daily Telegraph

in the first quarter of 2010 (January-March), 94,500 tons of supplies passed through Israel's border crossings with Gaza. That aid included 40,000 tons of wheat (equal to 53 million loaves of bread), 2,760 tones of rice (or 69 million servings), 1,987 tons of clothes (the equivalent of 3.6 million pairs of jeans), and 553 tons of milk powder and baby food.

*