[Article on] Gaza Aid Goes Nowhere

"At a Border Crossing, Drivers and Truckloads of Aid for Gaza Go Nowhere"
A5, Wednesday 1/28/09
By Michael Slackman

A news brief is more befitting the amount of relevant information here, where the only conclusion one should draw is: Israel is irrationally obsessed with security, at the risk of Gazans’ health and alienating Egyptian truck drivers.

Slackman cites the problem of stalled Gaza aid sitting at an Israeli border crossing when he writes that “Egypt is unprepared to meet strict Israeli packing requirements, which would allow the goods to be passed through security scanners and onto Israeli trucks for delivery to Gaza.”

This is the only reference to Israel’s security concern. Are Israeli packing requirements more strict than say the United States at one of its border crossings? Or is it that Egypt is unprepared and ill-equipped for security scanning? Does Israel have cause for concern about mass aid shipments containing weapons? Are these concerns based on experience? What do Israeli officials say?

The above questions would only take up valuable space in this article, which Slackman devotes to more important issues, like amply quoting truck drivers and other aid facilitators [who, go figure] “blame the Israelis”. Slackman even devotes a paragraph to describing truck drivers laying down to share small glasses of tea. Great. Now, what's really holding up this aid?

Most egregious is that by focusing on this border crossing, and not putting into perspective how much aid Israel has facilitated into Gaza through other crossings, Slackman misleads readers. Over 35,000 tons of aid, including raw materials, have passed through the Kerem Shalom, Kissufim, Karni, Nahal Oz and Erez crossings since the end of the ceasefire.

Citing this information might render this a non-story. Looked at another way, it would put the burden on Slackman to explain why all these other crossings are operational and the one he's covering isn’t. Why burden yourself with investigative reporting, when you can just..."blame the Israelis"?