COMMENTARY: What a Difference a Year Makes: First Anniversary of Gaza Pull Out
By Craig HammondBluefield News Network Writer
This month marks the one year anniversary of the last Jewish resident to leave the Gaza Strip. If someone ever produces an honest-to-goodness before and after slide show of this five-mile-wide and twenty-four-mile long piece of real estate, you will see one of the most unbelievable contrasts in all of human history. How could something deteriorate so quickly? Ask the Palestinians.
Now, reasonable people can debate whether or not Jewish settlements should have been allowed in the first place. But for heavens sake, who could have predicted the level of destruction once the settlers had gone. Public buildings ideal for schools and other community functions and thousands of homes ready to live in were destroyed by orders of Hamas (the militant terrorist party of the Palestinians).
Three thousand state-of-the-art and world class greenhouses were demolished. The greenhouses produced so many flowers, fruits, and vegetables that surpluses had to be sold to Europe. Thousands of Palestinians were employed at the greenhouses. Nearly everything in the Gaza was wiped out.
Today there is a crisis in Gaza. Little or no housing is available to the 1.4 million inhabitants, food supplies are at starvation levels, and the Palestinians are now killing each other. Look at the pictures -- before and after. What is happening in Gaza today is not only dumb -- but weird.
Pictured is a greenhouse in Gaza before the settlers were removed.