The Shameful “Open Air Prison” Lie

[NOTE: I accuse the authors of the article discussed below of lying. Clearly, I cannot know whether they are guilty of a conscious effort to deceive, but their erroneous allegations have all the appropriate indicia. For one, I find it incredible that two well-educated people who consider themselves knowledgeable enough to write on this subject do not understand that Egypt has an eight-mile border with Gaza, nor how critical this fact is to a proper understanding of this subject. Second, I called these authors out on their errors on another person’s Facebook wall, and they did not correct any of them or even respond. I will let my readers judge for themselves].

Apart from the “apartheid” lie, it seems that the most popular one circulating about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that Israel is inflicting unbearable suffering on the people of the Gaza Strip by turning it into the world’s largest open-air prison. Here is a classic example, written by two purported libertarians/classic liberals, Akiva Malamet and Shikha Dalmia, made even more egregious by its timing. That is, in the immediate aftermath of the monstrous, massive terrorist slaughter committed by Hamas in central Israel on October 7, 2023 for which many faculty members and students at our elite universities offer excuses.

  Here, in stark terms, is this hideous lie:

But if Hamas emerged and, what is more, flourished, it cannot be denied that this is at least partly because of Israel’s cruel 16-year-long blockade of Gaza and the brutal occupation of the West Bank….to prevent Gaza from militarizing after Hamas came into power, Israel sharply constrained the flow of people and goods between Gaza, territorial Israel and the West Bank, turning the spigot of free movement on and off at its discretion. Since 2007, the two million Palestinians in the 365 square kilometer Gaza strip have been subjected to an air, land, and sea embargo with only the minimum entry of goods allowed. Exports have nearly stopped. Meanwhile, Israel supervises all the international aid to Gaza….Hamas’s meticulously planned attack has exposed the spectacular failure of this approach to national security. But this approach has succeeded in turning Gaza, which many have appropriately compared to an open air prison, into one of the poorest societies on earth (my emphasis).

   It is written as if these allegations were self-evident truths, in need of no substantiation, and indeed none was provided. As will be shown below, the factual claims of a “blockade,” the “minimum entry of goods,” the cessation of exports, and Israel’s responsibility for Gaza being “one of the poorest societies on earth,” are all demonstrably false. This lie is lent superficial plausibility by the authors’ failure to even mention that Gaza also shares an eight-mile border with Egypt, with a functioning crossing (“Rafah”) that permits the transit of both goods and people. Without this key information the casual observer could be forgiven for believing that Gaza was an open-air prison.

  The authors’ misinformation is instantly exposed by a minute or two of internet research. Since 2010 the only materials “blockaded” are dual use items, meaning those that can easily be converted to military uses, including terror rockets and terror tunnels. As held by the panel of experts appointed by UN to examine the legality of Israel’s interdiction of the Turkish aid flotilla of 2010 (the “Palmer Report“), under international law (and common-sense morality), Israel has every right to keep munitions out of the hands of an organization that openly proclaims its intent to kill all Jews (see Article 7 of its 1988 “Covenant”).

  Thus, in its March 3, 2020 report, Gisha, a Israeli NGO dedicated to advocating for Palestinian rights, stated the following:

Today, Israel allows everyday goods to enter Gaza but still severely restricts and often forbids entirely the entry of items it defines as “dual-use.” The dual-use list contains civilian goods that are vital for industry, construction and other expressly civilian needs, which Israel believes could potentially be used for military purposes.

The UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs (“OCHA”), no friend of Israel’s, said exactly the same thing in its September 18, 2023 report and helpfully added that in the first eight months of 2023 over 110,000, 5% of Gaza’s total population (!), had left for Egypt via the Rafah crossing and, further, that in that same timeframe almost 79,000 truckloads of goods entered, 63% through Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing and the balance transiting via Rafah.

  Because of legitimate security concerns, Israel generally restricts Gazans’ entry to Israel to workers (see below) and those traveling on to the “West Bank” for medical care. However, ALL of its residents could leave Gaza without Israel’s consent if Hamas would let them and Egypt would accept them, but neither wants to because this population funds Hamas and Egypt sees them as a net liability. However, rather than discuss this dynamic, Malamet/Dalima choose instead to place all the blame on Israel.

  As for exports, this same source reports that they have increased sequentially every year from 2015 to the present, with 4,852 truckloads exiting through August, via both Kerem Shalom and Rafah.  I wouldn’t expect a society governed by a murderous, highly corrupt 7^th C. barbaric theocracy to produce much in the way of high-value exports, but this explanation doesn’t appear to have occurred to Malamet/Dalmia.

  Contrary to the assertion in this essay, Gaza is not “one of the poorest societies on earth,” nor is this Israel’s doing. I have not found any distinct data on the Gaza Strip, but according to the IMF, on a purchase power parity basis, the notional state of “Palestine” ranks 139^th in the world, at $6,642, just one spot behind Pakistan, and ahead of 53 of the 192 states listed.  I am gratified that the authors do not blame Israel for global poverty. Of equal importance, immediately prior to the October 7th massacre, in a futile effort to promote peace, Israel raised the number of Gazans admitted as daily workers from 15,500 to 17,000; a development that Hamas probably saw as a threat to its absolute power.

   The important lies and omissions do not end here. The authors assert, again without benefit of argument or authority, that: “Unsurprisingly, the West Bank—not Gaza— is where Hamas had been gaining popularity because the Fatah government has come to be seen as too weak and feckless to deal with Israel’s illegal—and increasingly violent—occupation. (my emphasis).”  However, there is a strong argument that until there comes to exist an internationally recognized state of Palestine, Israel maintains sovereignty over all of Mandatory Palestine under the doctrine of Uti Possidetis Juris, as explained by two experts here. Moreover, even if you were to hold that this doctrine no longer applies because of the Oslo Accords, these agreements grant Israel plenary authority over “Area C” of the West Bank, which includes all the settlements and 60% of its land mass, but where only some 10% of the “West Bank” Palestinian population lives. There is more I can say, but I will leave it here.

    As mentioned above, the modern world in all its bloody history has rarely witnessed an atrocity as monstrous as the one Hamas just perpetrated. We have also just seen in this country and globally an appalling indifference to Hamas’ mass slaughter or even a rush to blame the victim. This is the product of influential people, who should know better, describing Israel’s action as “cruel,” accusing it of jailing an entire population, letting in just the minimum level of goods, acting illegally, and so on. The article, while purporting to be objective and neutral, represents a shameful example.[1]

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[1] Sadly, not at all unprecedented in the annals of “libertarian” writing, as discussed here.