Luxury in the world’s largest prison ! - Gaza

Luxury in the world’s largest prison !

Posted on 16/02/2014 by Shirlee Finn

4

The Arab world and Leftists would have you believe Gaza is a living hell, with every commodity and necessity of life absent.

Gaza Park 2012

When one looks however, it is a whole different scenario.

Peter Hitchens in the Mail Online writes:

”It is lunchtime in the world’s biggest prison camp, and I am enjoying a rather good café latte in an elegant beachfront cafe. Later I will visit the sparkling new Gaza Mall, and then eat an excellent beef stroganoff in an elegant restaurant. “

This piece started out as a ‘sort of’ fun-cum-sarcastic piece being aware of the quantity of 5-star hotels, the nightclubs, shopping malls, restaurants and more in Gaza.  However, as I searched for images and information, I came across a whole other side of Gaza which I don’t think many people know exists.

Gaza City

Roots Club is an up-market restaurant and catering company in Gaza. Critics said at its opening they expect the restaurant to bring “a new era of hospitality and dining experience”

The club is located on Cairo Street in the Gaza district of Rimal. It features three different dining venues, the informal, outdoor Green Terrace Café, the Ambassador catering hall and the air-conditioned Roots Restaurant. One restaurant reviewer described the atmosphere as “vaguely reminiscent of the Anglo-Indian country-clubs of the colonial era.”

A reviewer called the menu, which features twelve different meat dishes, chicken prepared thirteen different ways, and eight pasta preparations in addition to an array of salads, appetizers, desserts, and nine kinds of soup served “only in winter,” truly staggering.

Lonely Planet calls the Roots Club, “the best” restaurant in Gaza

There is now also a ‘Roots Hotel’  facebook here

Roots Hotel overlooking Gaza Beach. 9th Feb 2014

There is  plethora of restaurants and coffee shops, too numerous to list and most with their own facebook pages.

The Mazaj – Restaurant – Coffee shop – Express (take away) has an extensive menu and is a splendid example of what one would never expect to see in Gaza.

Something which certainly surprised me were the horse riding establishments in Gaza.

The Faisal Equestrian Club (نادي الفيصل للفروسية‎) is an equestrian club and upscale restaurant in Gaza. According to the Australian newspaper ‘The Age’, the Club’s restaurant is

                          “The place to be seen for Gaza’s teenage elite.”

The Club serves non-alcoholic Bavarian beer to a wealthy, young, secular crowd, among whom

                            “Headscarves are frowned upon.”

Inside the  Jabaliya riding club in the north of Gaza, there are neat lawns and stalls for 40 to 50 horses, many of which are privately owned. Like the villas and luxury cars, they are proof that not everyone in Gaza is poverty-stricken.

And yet, the only images brought to us by the international media are those of death and destruction by the ‘Zionists’ read ‘Jews.’

Call it a wealthy side, call it an elite side.  It certainly is a privileged side and certainly not the ordinary image. The side which the media presents is no doubt in existence, but choose for propaganda reasons only to show the bad.

Luxury hotel overlooking Gaza Beach

This brings something back a friend told me after a visit to Israel a few years ago. She had been staying with a family member in Jerusalem. Late one afternoon, he told her that he had invited his foreman with his wife to dinner.  She was however surprised when the foreman turned out to be an Arab, complete with hijabbed wife. Still no issue. She speaks no Hebrew, but being raised in Egypt, she speaks Arabic and so was able to converse with him.

The conversation was quite an eye opener. For lack of a name, let’s call him Malik. Malik told her how proud he was to be an Israeli, what a good life he and his family have. How his children have free education, free medical needs and the chance for further education, though not before completing their IDF service. Malik however became quite angry when he spoke about ‘do-gooders & leftists’ from the West who interfered. He told her about Gaza. He told her how parts of Gaza are deliberately left in ruins, so that when the  ‘do-gooders & leftists’ come to look at the shocking condition people live in thanks to the ‘Zionist entity’, they can take home the negative images we see in the west.

What we hear about the misuse of international aid fits in here very nicely.

Admittedly this is not new, 2002, but “Paying for Terrorism” by Rachel Ehrenfeld says plenty and there is no reason to believe anything has changed since the Arafat days, who left quite a money trail behind him.

Since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, the international community has donated approximately $5 billion to the Palestinian Authority. The European Union alone has donated approximately €1.4 billion during that time, including grants to United Nations Relief and Work Agency. Since the start of the Palestinian Authority’s campaign of violence against Israel in September 2000, the EU has transferred at least €330 million to the Palestinian territories.

More recent news here at Middle East Forum. U.S. Foreign Aid to the Palestinians. The Jewish Chronicle on line – £2bn in aid that the EU has given the Palestinian Authority over the past five years has been squandered through corruption and mismanagement.

This article from 2012 “How Many Millionaires Live in the “Impoverished” Gaza Strip?” by Khaled Abu Toameh throws a good deal of light on Gaza.

The world often thinks of the Gaza Strip, home to 1.4 million Palestinians, as one of the poorest places on earth, where people live in misery and squalor.

But according to an investigative report published in the pan-Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, there are at least 600 millionaires living in the Gaza Strip. The newspaper report also refutes the claim that the Gaza Strip has been facing a humanitarian crisis because of an Israeli blockade.

And

The Palestinian millionaires, according to the report, have made their wealth thanks to the hundreds of underground tunnels along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt.

Informed Palestinian sources revealed that every day, in addition to weapons, thousands of tons of fuel, medicine, various types of merchandise, vehicles, electrical appliances, drugs, medicine and cigarettes are smuggled into the Gaza Strip through more than 400 tunnels. A former Sudanese government official who visited the Gaza Strip lately was quoted as saying that he found basic goods that were not available in Sudan. Almost all the tunnels are controlled by the Hamas government, which has established a special commission to oversee the smuggling business, which makes the Hamas government the biggest benefactor of the smuggling industry.

Gaza City

Gaza boasts some eight universities as well as other institutes of learning all having curriculums equivalent to any international university.

• University of Palestine
• Al-Aqsa University
• University College of Applied Sciences
• Al-Azhar University – Gaza
• Al-Quds Open University
• Islamic University of Gaza
• Universal Studies Academy
• Palestine Technical College

Gaza Islamic University

Al-Aqsa University

The beaches in Gaza are some of the finest in that part of the world, where according to ynet news we have a definite class distinction issue. Those with money clearly having an advantage regarding luxury

A new class division has emerged with the adoption of the Israeli model of closed beaches, which have turned into status symbols

A Beit Hanoun resident told Ynet that he and his family spend the afternoon on the beach, bringing with them food, drinks, and blankets and paying only for the travel fare. However, he noted that his wife’s dream is to spend one day in the newly-introduced beach cabins.

 As a way of tackling the financial state, the Strip has begun renting out beaches to private owners for up to thousands of dollars.

Parasols and chairs. Beach for the middle-class.

The Beit Hanoun resident explained that there are a variety of closed beaches, the cheapest of which charge NIS 10 ($ 2.63) upon entry and provide parasols and chairs. Others charge NIS 15 ($3.94) per person, while all other services are subject to payment.

“You would have to pray to get away with less than NIS 200 ($ 52.53) for such an evening and that’s something that few can afford,” he noted.

 Finally, there are the expensive canopied beaches which offer giant TV screens and a waiter serving food and drinks.

TV screens and waiters in expensive bungalows
“An evening with the family there would cost you several hundred shekels. It’s a distant dream.”

Consequently, three groups emerged on Gaza’s beaches:

“The poor ones who sit on blankets with food from home; those who can afford renting out chairs and parasols; and the very few, the spoiled rich, who sit in roofed cabins with giant screens and a waiter serving food and drinks.”

Gaza – Festival of the kites

Then for the wealthy, we have luxurious beach side hotels catching the beautiful ocean views, far, far superior to  the image the Leftists would have us see of Gaza.

5 star Al-Mashtal Hotel – Video link

Al Deira Hotel

                                                                                                Al Deira Hotel – pps

The hotel has received a number of very positive reviews in Time magazine, by British journalist Alan Johnston and by Lonely Planet which describes the Al Deira as “swish, stylish and tightly run,” and “without question the best hotel in town.”

Journalist Jeffrey Goldberg has said that in the evenings

“it brimmed over with members of haute Palestine, that small clique of Gazans who earned more than negligible incomes. The men smoked apple-flavored tobacco from water pipes; the women, their heads covered, drank strong coffee and kept quiet.”

Grand Palace Hotel

To cap it off what about one of the Water Parks? I might add newly refurbished, because some time ago Hamas, in its infinite wisdom, caused massive damage to it as they didn’t like the fact men and women were associating with one another. The mind boggles.!

Dolphin Resort: facebook

                                                          Good photos at IsraellyCool

The Elder of Ziyon blogspot tells us there are 5 amusement parks in Gaza, amongst other things.

We hear about the food shortages and yet the markets appear to have ample supply of fresh produce……

… with no shortage of food in the shops either.

The Other Side of Gaza is a writing programme that provides students with an opportunity to showcase their own personal view of Gaza.

Abdallah El-Khoudary describes the best things a good restaurant can give you, and nowhere is better for him in Gaza than the Avenue Restaurant. From the delicious scallopini and the wonderful waiters to the free internet and complimentary chocolate; the Avenue is a perfect retreat.

I’m proud to be in my country, and to rise the Palestinian flag, and to give the real image of Gaza to the people who visit it. Gaza is not just the damage and the shelters we see in the media. Gaza is a city, like any city in the world, with its own landmarks and places, it just needs its freedom.

Sunrise in Gaza.

1. Well, to judge from these photos and texts it appears that the Gazan Arabs will experience quite a drastic decline in their standard of living if they start another war.
   Reply
• 
  

  Shirlee Finn

  16/02/2014
  A great deal of that has been in place for a good number of years Leon. There’s heaps more. I cold have gone on for ever.

  I also know there is a huge amount of corruption there. A report from the EU was released a few weeks ago.
  Reply
2. 
   

   JayinPhiladelphia

   17/02/2014
   They also, by virtue of being on the Mediterranean, share the world’s greatest native cuisine(s).

   “Gaza is a city, like any city in the world, with its own landmarks and places, it just needs its freedom.”

   They need to free themselves from Hamas and Islamist hate, first and foremost. Just for one timely example, I just came across this brief history of my own city’s officially-recognized “Gayborhood”…

   http://hiddencityphila.org/2014/02/the-roots-of-the-gayborhood-the-eve-of-a-milestone/

   …and got to thinking that the Palestinian Barbara Gittings would either 1) be murdered and dragged from the back of a motorcycle through the city’s streets or 2) have moved to Tel Aviv long ago.

   My fellow Western ‘liberals’ really need to drop the humanitarian racist ‘support’ and cover they give to those who are perpetuating and enabling such oppression.

Gaza is booming, but SBS blames Israel all the same!

Posted on 24/09/2013 by Pam Hopf

14

On September 17^th 2013, SBS’s Dateline ran a piece on Gaza. Instead of the usual propaganda portraying poor innocent Palestinians ground down by the ‘Zionist entity’, it reported that many Arabs had become millionaires in a Gaza property boom.

Reporter Seyi Rhodes said there was a very different side to the Gaza Strip, the increasing number of millionaires, cashing in on the demand for lavish villas. He interviewed one such millionaire, real estate agent, Essam Mortja.

Lest we start to think all is well, Seyi reminds us:

”But this is Gaza, under Israeli siege and every few years there is a war. Essam says forget about all of that. The property business is on a roll… In downtown Gaza, the prices have trebled in four years.”

Now why would Gaza be under siege? Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, removing roughly 8,000 Israeli citizens from their homes, only to be rewarded by constant rocket attacks, as Hamas took control.

Yet no mention of that, leaving viewers with the impression that Israel is threatening Gaza.

Seyi continues:

”Essam deals with some of the most expensive properties around, apartment buildings and luxury villas. But there are complications. Israel considers Gaza’s government Hamas, terrorists and has imposed an economic blockade, restricting the movement of people and goods in and out. There was all-out war in 2008 and again in 2012.”

Hang on! It’s not just Israel that considers Hamas a terrorist organization. America does, so too does the EU – not known to be particularly pro-Israel, while Australia has proscribed the military wing of Hamas as a terrorist organization. And maybe, in the interests of balance, Seyi could have mentioned the reason for the two wars.

Seyi asks Essam:  

“Doesn’t the conflict have an effect on people’s willingness to buy around here? A few months ago the Israelis were bombing targets all over the strip?”

No mention of exactly WHY the Israelis were bombing targets or that the targets were from locations where Hamas terrorists operated.

Essam explains that the 2008 war started prices rising and

“There are the newly rich, who’ve become millionaires in 6 months. They have become rich from the war. Thanks to God, they’re rich.”

Seyi continues

“Rising property prices have sparked a building frenzy in Gaza. … The Israeli blockade restricts building materials. Israel says Hamas uses them to build military bunkers. The Gaza’s property developers have found a way around this – they are smuggling building materials through tunnels.

It’s estimated that around half a billion worth of goods pass through these tunnels every year. The Hamas Government benefits by taxing the trade. But the tunnels have also created 1,000 millionaires in the last five years – New wealth that is helping to fuel the property boom.

Gaza’s property boom has made small group of people very wealthy, but in this economy under blockade, the majority of the population depends on United Nations food handouts. Rising property prices haven’t been good for everybody.

This neighbourhood behind me, Shijaia …has some of the lowest house prices in Gaza City …Shijaia is home to Ahmad El Rabai, a police officer. He lives in a one bedroom flat with his wife Uma Rafat and their family. They have been living here for nine months and hated it had from day one.

They are looking for a bright sunny house with at least two bedrooms but the property boom has seen the rents for apartments quadruple.

And for Ahmad El Rabai an additional complications – he works as a Hamas policeman and some landlords are afraid that the Israelis may bomb them as a consequence. “

Well, how unreasonable can some landlords be, given Hamas’ propensity to use homes to store and manufacture weapons, making them legitimate targets in Israel’s defensive war. Remember, Ahmad isn’t just your average local policeman – he’s a Hamas operative! Yet that doesn’t stop SBS portraying the family in a sympathetic light, quoting his wife:

“People are afraid for their building. I once told a woman that my husband works for the Hamas government. She did not want to rent to me.”Link:

So the blockade – which is of course legal – enables Hamas to accumulate massive wealth, while exploiting UN aid. Surely that was worthy of emphasis by SBS ?

The UK’s Jewish Chronicle reported Seyi’s story from a more realistic angle:

Seyi Rhodes travelled to the Gaza Strip…But rather than reporting on a region torn apart by conflict, the programme focuses on the property market and booming construction taking place there

Mr Rhodes said the experience confounded his expectations.

“Before I started researching, I thought the region was destitute – people living literally hand-to-mouth on aid, with constant security threats. I took it for granted that people would be living in temporary accommodation provided by the UN.”

In fact, he found “a growing wealth gap”, with ordinary families struggling even to rent but new flats being sold for up to $3 million to wealthy Palestinians with money from abroad or from jobs with the Hamas government.

“As a left-wing student, I was given one view of Gaza/Palestine. But I realise now that many of those representations were entirely politically motivated.

Even Gazans wouldn’t recognise the image that is portrayed of them sometimes. The woman crying over her dead son, the man throwing stones at tanks.”

He added that such stereotypes were “frankly offensive as most of these people live their lives with the same concerns as you and me… getting on the housing ladder, educating your children. People didn’t even talk about Israel unless I brought it up.”

Why didn’t the SBS give a more nuanced account? Perhaps a clue lies in the credits at the end, where SBS lists a fixer, Azmi Keshawi, who might not be entirely impartial, judging by a 2009 article from the UK:

Local man Azmi Keshawi told of the terror inside Gaza City as residents struggle to stay alive.

He fled his home with his wife and four kids – the youngest aged just eight months – to find safety before Israel’s invasion.

Cameraman Azmi said:

“We are barely surviving…We have seen waves of attacks and violence for years but this time it went to unprecedented levels.

From midnight until 6am it was continuous, almost one blast every second. There is no electricity so the Gaza Strip was pitch black. Only the lucky ones with generators could find out what was going on through the news.”

The fresh fighting brought the death toll in the Gaza Strip to more than 500 since the escalation of the conflict on December 27.

The grim figure, from Palestinian health chiefs and UN officials, is believed to include at least 100 civilians – around a third of them kids.

In Gaza, there are no shelters. Azmi said:

“With the strength the Israelis are using, there would be no point using one anyway

As long as you are not in a shelter you can run with your life. Inside, you would be buried.”

Yesterday’s casualties included a paramedic with an Oxfam-funded group – killed as an Israeli shell struck a civilian ambulance in Beit Lahiya just north of Gaza City. Oxfam claims Israel’s insistence that it is only targeting Hamas militants rings hollow.

Azmi went even further as he raged:

“Civilians are the target in this war. It is punishment for the people of Gaza for backing Hamas.” Link:

So why did SBS use a fixer who was a Hamas sympathizer? As for Oxfam, they are notoriously anti-Israel, so their accounts are always suspect.

The Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs recently explained the role of fixers in the Palestinian propaganda war:

Palestinian administrations…strictly enforce the branding of Palestinians as blameless victims through the outright intimidation of journalists. In addition, Palestinian reporters on whom the West relies are often openly partisan and hostile to Israel.

Even Palestinian fixers and journalists not on Fatah or Hamas payrolls “often function overtly or covertly as ‘minders’ in the manner of old Soviet KGB media ‘escorts.’Indeed, Hamas’ charter explicitly calls on “media people…to perform their role,” adding that “[t]he effective word, the good article, the useful book, support and solidarity…all these are elements of the Jihad for Allah’s sake.” Palestinian fixers commonly see their job as fighting Israel and operate under “an unspoken but firm set of rules” not to impugn the Palestinians.

In the words of Jay Bushinsky, a veteran member of the Foreign Press Association, Palestinian stringers upon which the West increasingly depends are rarely “fair-minded reporter[s]. They have a mission and they don’t give anything detrimental to their leadership.”  HERE:

Surely SBS, a media outlet in a free country like Australia, has a duty to report objectively, rather than follow the rules set by Hamas, to show support for “the Jihad for Allah’s sake”?

Editor’s note :This programme is still on-line at SBS. I have no idea how long  for.

http://www.sbs.com.au/dateline/story/about/id/601735/n/Gaza-s-New-Millionaires
WATCH – Click to see Seyi’s story. Apologies, but this video is not available outside Australia and New Zealand for copyright reasons.

TUNNEL VISION – Dateline also reported on the smuggling trade through the Gaza Tunnels in 2010.

Replay the story.

1. Terrific piece, Pam. Thank you for this.

   Ultimately, of course, we are in a propaganda war.

   The Arabs within the Land of Israel portray themselves as innocent victims of Jewish aggression – as we continually see from Pallywood – and, yet, they have more civil liberties and human rights and economic potential within land controlled by the Jewish people than any place else throughout the Middle East.

   Gaza, of course, is not controlled by the Jewish people, yet Hamas still pretends that alleged Jewish aggression is the source of all their problems.

   The Arabs do nothing but point fingers at the tiny Jewish minority in the Middle East, despite the fact that they, and their leaderships, have persecuted the Jews for 14 centuries and are, currently, the greatest persecutors of the Jews since the demise of Nazi Germany.

   We must change the nature of the discussion and we must change the terms.

   We can do it and the first way to do it is to forego any language on the conflict that derives from the Arab side. Thus we should no longer talk about “Palestinians” or the “West Bank” or the “Occupation” (with a capital “O”).

   We need to take our own side in a fight and I am exceedingly happy to see that you are doing so.
   Reply
2. 
   

   Hilary

   25/09/2013
   I saw this, and it started off well, the studio anchor introducing it with the comment “Some well-known destinations are not what they seem or how they’re reported” (I can’t imagine the BBC introducing the segment like that) before adding that they were taking a look at “the world’s most unlikely property boom”.
   Reply
3. 
   

   Okey

   25/09/2013
   SBS=shallowness; laziness; herd mentality;naivete; AND attitudes to / about Jews grounded in centuries-old European and Islamic traditons= also ABC.
   Reply
4. 
   

   Shirlee Finn

   25/09/2013
   Wish I’d seen the programme in question. Someone needs to alert me ‘Pam and Hilary’, as I rarely watch TV.

   I knew about this building/property boom a good while ago. I made comment at the time on a few pro-Palestinian sites, but was ignored!! I have a site with literally hundreds of photos.

   Equestrian schools
   Sports arenas
   Olympic swimming pools
   Health spas
   Luxurious hotels
   Night clubs and more, much more

   Oh and BTW there are 4 universities in the Gaza strip and 8 in Judaea and Samaria
   Reply
• 
  

  Michael Lumish

  25/09/2013
  Shirlee, I wonder how many universities were in Gaza, Judaea, and Samaria prior to 1967?

  Perhaps none?
  Reply
• 
  

  Shirlee Finn

  25/09/2013
  Here’s your answer Mike

  Islamic University of Gaza

  The Islamic University of Gaza, also known as IUG, IU Gaza, or The University of Gaza, is an independent Palestinian university established in 1978 in Gaza City, Palestinian territories.

  Al-Aqsa University

  al-Aqsa University is a Palestinian university established in 1991 in the Gaza Strip region of the Palestinian territories. Wikipedia
  Enrollment: 15,000 (2012)
  Founded: 1955

  Al-Azhar University

  Gaza is a Palestinian university established in 1991 in Gaza City, Palestinian territories. Wikipedia
  Enrollment: 18,156 (2010)
  Founded: 1992

  Al-Quds Open University

  is an administratively, academically and financially independent public university. Wikipedia
  Founded: 1991
• 
  

  Harvey

  25/09/2013
  Its still online at
  http://www.sbs.com.au/dateline/story/about/id/601735/n/Gaza-s-New-Millionaires
  Reply
• 
  

  Shirlee Finn

  25/09/2013
  Thank you very much for that Harvey. I’ll add it at the bottom of the Article.
5. 
   

   Shirlee Finn

   25/09/2013
   BTW The second picture from the top which was labelled apartments, and I posted it as such, is in actual fact the Islamic University of Gaza
   Reply
• 
  

  Michael Lumish

  25/09/2013
  So, in other words, there was virtually no higher education in Gaza, Judaea or Samaria before Jordan attacked Israel in 1967 and lost a bit of land that didn’t belong to them to begin with.

  It was only when the Jews entered those regions that universities became available to the local Arabs.

  Yes?
  Reply
• 
  

  Shirlee Finn

  25/09/2013
  I don’t have time now, but it would be worthwhile seeing what higher institutions of learning were in situ in Israel at that time.
6. 
   

   Pam Hopf

   25/09/2013
   Not sure if you can call the Islamic University of Gaza a university as we know it – more like a terrorist training school: http://hnn.us/article/59958

   Mind you, most humanities departments in Western universities have descended into angenda-driven institutions, where learning takes second place to propaganda. Students are no longer taught how to think, but what to think.
   Reply
• 
  

  Shirlee Finn

  25/09/2013
  Oh dear Pam, you are funny!!!
  Reply
7. 
   

   Shirlee Finn

   25/09/2013
   The Technion is Israel’s oldest university founded in 1912 or 1924 depending on which web site you read it on!! I tend to think it’s 1912. Typical Jewish business!!.

   The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 1925

   Bar-Ilan University 1955

   Tel Aviv University 1956

   University of Haifa 1963

   Ben-Gurion University of the Negev 1969

Share this: