10-Sep-17: Someone turned on the lights in Gaza. Will news editors see?

Gaza's Nusseirat power station, June 2017 [Image Source: AP]

If the news reporting industry had more integrity, there would be blaring headlines this morning focused on a simple decision taken by the thuggish Hamas terrorist regime who rule the Gaza Strip.

Hamas ponies up for fuel from Egypt, seeking to boost power in GazaSources says terror group has recently purchased $25 million worth of diesel, giving enclave six hours of electricity between blackouts and possibly staving off protests
By AVI ISSACHAROFF
September 10, 2017, 9:43 am | Times of Israel 

Hamas has recently bought large volumes of diesel fuel from Egypt in an effort to increase the output of the Gaza Strip’s only power station, after months of refusing to shell out money to provide electricity to the Strip’s residents. 

Already limited power supplies in the Palestinian coastal enclave have been further squeezed amid a spat between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority led by Mahmoud Abbas over who should pay for the fuel. The purchase of some 30 million liters of diesel from Egypt, at a cost of NIS 90 million ($25 million), indicates a change in attitude on the part of Gaza’s rulers, likely indicating a bid to stave off a repeat of street protests that roiled the enclave last winter. 

Most Gazans — aside from some areas in the north of the Strip — now get six hours of electricity instead of the previous four, but still must wait through the periodic 12 hour blackouts. 

Hamas, a terror group that is the de facto ruler of the Strip, has refused to pay for the Israeli electricity, claiming the PA is responsible for the funding. Earlier this year the PA reduced the amount of electricity it was pay for and as a result electricity supplies in Gaza were reduced from six hours to four hours followed by a 12-hour blackout. 

In June, former Fatah strongman Mohammed Dahlan struck a deal between Egypt and Hamas by which Cairo would begin trucking in fuel, paid for by the UAE. In a shift, Hamas will now begin paying the fuel and bring more of it in, sources told the Times of Israel...

Until now, Hamas had refused to pay for the fuel, insisting it was the responsibility of the PA, while spending millions of dollars of military infrastructure...

The cynicism of the two rival Palestinian Arab regimes - the one ruled by president-for-life Mahmoud Abbas and the one run by Hamas - is almost unfathomable.

The lives of the Gazan population - since 2006 following the savage blood-letting between fighters of the two that enabled Hamas to expel the Palestinian Authority and take control - have been held hostage to their aggressive ambitions and couldn't-care-less approach to the consequent suffering.

Indispensable to the whole unconscionable process has been the willingness of reporters, photographers and editors from almost all parts of the global news media to play along. There's nothing new in that. See for instance two of our posts from 2008, replete with photographs: "26-Jan-08: Humanitarian crises and dark manipulation" and "10-Feb-08: The lies that pictures can tell" and especially the photos embedded in each of them.

In the latter, we noted how

AFP photographer Mahmoud Hams and the Agence France Press newsagency concocted this piece of nonsense on January 22, 2008. His evidently-staged picture, published throughout the world the following day, shows Gaza "law-makers" meeting to do their vital legislative business in the Israeli-created dark... while bright daylight is blocked out by the drawn curtains. Hams obviously knew he was taking a snapshot in the full light of day. It's evident to anyone with eyes that he is a willing participant in a dangerous charade, a deliberate distortion of reality, a lie. And so are are his AFP masters.

And much more recently this from AFP 11 days ago: "When electricity comes on, life in Gaza begins" in which Hamas is mentioned but in effect exonerated of substantive responsibility. Today's developments make clear how materially misleading that view is.

Now let's sit back and wait as the news sites and blogs that have systematically concealed the manipulative cruelty of the Hamas jihadists against their own people own up to how Hamas could have solved Gaza's problems a decade ago and at every moment since then by making the decision to do what normal governments are expected to do for their people. They have the cash, they have the ability, they could have bought diesel fuel, they could have repaired the power station, they could have provided electricity at any and every point along the way.

But it made more sense for them to showcase a population suffering for the lack of enough electrical power. And to feed those news outlets that are predisposed to present a twisted reality, no questions asked. Literally.

Of course, reporting this would be to throw into the garbage the bogus convention by which the rocket-infested Gaza Strip is depicted as Israel's victim. That's not going to happen soon.