Reuters' Perry blames Israel for Gaza woes, evokes Yasser Arafat and Marshall Plan

In an inadvertently amusing piece of pro-Palestinian propaganda, Reuters correspondent Tom Perry pens a tale of destitution and depression in Gaza following the Israeli lifting of the embargo:

Jamal Basala once employed 20 people on his fishing trawler. Today, his access to the sea restricted by Israel, he employs four. He used to earn $5,000 a month. Today, he accepts assistance from aid agencies and can't afford his son's university fees. "I suffer depression," he said.

In the scores of stories Perry has written about the conflict over the last year, we have yet to see him refer once, to the economic distress or psychological trauma suffered by residents of Israeli border communities like Sderot.  Residents who were bombarded by thousands of Palestinian rockets precipitating the Israeli embargo on the Gaza Strip.  Perry fails to even mention the rockets as a factor in the embargo.

Mahmoud al-Hindi, a civil engineering graduate, once hoped for a career in a respected field. Today, more than a year since he graduated, Gaza's decaying economy has yet to provide him with his first job. "You find all the roads closed in your face," he said. "We have lost hope."

Obviously, Mahmoud was not on the Hamas-funded construction teams which recently completed the luxurious Grand Palace Hotel, a two-story shopping mall, the enchanting "Roots" restaurant, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, or the Al Mat-haf Museum and Cultural Center.  That's regrettable for Mahmoud but of course, not Israel's fault.

But where Israel is really to blame, according to Perry, is in making the late great Yasser Arafat into a liar:

The late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat pledged to turn Gaza into Singapore on the Mediterranean. Today, four years of sanctions have turned it into something quite different.

Ah yes, because after all, Arafat selflessly devoted his life and European taxpayer wealth to building a Great Society for his people.

Perry then quotes a Palestinian economist who suggests a solution for Palestinian poverty:

"Gaza needs a Marshall Plan," said Palestinian economist Omar Shaban, referring to the U.S. aid plan that jumpstarted Europe's economy after World War Two.

Shaban and Perry apparently don't recall that the Marshall Plan came after the Nazis were defeated -- a triumph which has yet to be duplicated in Nazi-inspired Gaza:

Therefore, you can see them making consistent efforts [in that direction] by way of publicity and movies, curricula of education and culture, using as their intermediaries their craftsmen who are part of the various Zionist Organizations which take on all sorts of names and shapes such as: the Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, gangs of spies and the like. All of them are nests of saboteurs and sabotage. Those Zionist organizations control vast material resources, which enable them to fulfill their mission amidst societies, with a view of implementing Zionist goals and sowing the concepts that can be of use to the enemy.

Still, one can always hope for change.