On Tue, 13 Jan 2009, Doug Henwood wrote:
>> Israel believes the current invasion will have achieved nothing unless
>> this time it regains absolute control of the Rafah border, undercutting
>> Hamas's claims to be running the Strip.
>
> I.e., turn Gaza into a hellhole under total lockdown.
Actually IIUC, if this solution is fully implemented, Gaza would become less hellish than its been the last 18 months. Cook expects an increase in fuel, food and medical shipments through above-ground checkpoints if the weapons flow through the tunnels was decisively cut off, and I suspect that's right.
But I hasten to add that (as you well know as a Sara Roy fan) that in the last 18 months, Gaza's malnutrition situation has been literally worse than Darfur (in part because Dafur has gotten so many medical missions). In the 18 months prior to that (after Hamas won but before Fatah was kicked out) the lockdown was already the worst it had ever been. And before that, even during the fat years of Oslo, the Gazan economic situation never improved above awful.
So it could get 200% better than it is now and still be hellish. But closing the tunnels has just as much chance to make it better as worse.
Michael