Juan Cole 9 July by Julie Poucher Harbin -- In practice, Gaza has become a huge, let me be blunt, concentration camp for right now 1, 800,000 people. This is not a novelty. This is not something new. This did not start, unlike what many people think, with the rise of Hamas, Hamas being elected in 2006, or Hamas taking over the security agencies and apparatus in Gaza in 2007 after the short civil war. We can almost trace it to the moment when it started, and this is the 15th of January 1991 -- long before Oslo, long before Madrid, and of course long before the suicide attacks inside Israeli cities and against Israeli civilians. This policy of sealing off Gaza, of making Gazans into prisoners, defacto prisoners, started then. I’ve written extensively about it and yet I know it always surprises. In 1991 Israel started a policy, which you can compare to the past system in South Africa. Israel started to oblige Palestinians to have a permit in order to move from one place to another within the country. Until 1991, Israel more or less acknowledged the right of Palestinians to freedom of movement ... Until 1991, the country (Gaza and the West Bank) was occupied, but for Palestinians they were occupied in the entire country, so they could travel in the country as a whole. Israel respected the right of freedom of movement of all of the Palestinians except for a few, except for some exceptions, like mostly for political reasons -- people who were put under house arrest, town arrest, etc. But in general the entire Palestinian population of the West Bank and Gaza had freedom of movement.(From) 1991 until today, it is the reverse. The right of freedom of movement of all the Palestinians is not respected, except for some exceptions; except a few categories. In different times it’s different numbers and different categories but yet this is the rule. No freedom of movement for Palestinians....
http://www.juancole.com/2015/
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