I've had a few questions about the current Gaza Strip/Israel situation. I should note the whole purpose of the MFO is to defuse situations that arise between Egypt and Israel; the Gaza strip is part of Israel, although it's administered by Hamas, which is an openly terrorist administration. The border between Gaza and Egypt has a massive wall manned by Egyptian soldiers/police, and the Fijian contingent of the MFO. In the past week, one Egyptian border guard has been killed by a Hamas gunman. Egypt and Hamas aren't currently getting along very well, although Egypt and Israel have no love for each other. Overall, Hamas does try to avoid angering Egypt too much, because all the smuggling tunnels into the Gaza Strip come from Egypt; Egypt does try to suppress this, which led to several dead Bedouin smugglers a few months ago, resulting in over 50 Egyptian border guards being taken prisoner by the dead men's tribe (yes, tribes are still important over here in the Sinai Peninsula). In brief, we aren't at much risk at all here, as Hamas would have to launch missiles into Egypt, and that would be very, very bad for Hamas shortly after that. We do get to listen to several explosions a day, and occasionaly see a large mushroom cloud from something really explosive getting hit.
The image above shows where North Camp is (this is open source information, Google Earth in this case) and it's relation to Gaza. The post has been here for 26 years, so it's certainly not a secret to anyone over here, and the MFO's own website notes the camp position.
3 comments:
What struck me on first view is the fields in Israel. They've invested in infrastructure like irrigation in stark contrast to their neighbors. The CSR rating can't be that much worse outside of their borders.
S in IA-
I've driven several times from here to Israel. The difference is agricultural ability is striking. In the North Camp area, most of it is barely above subsistence farming. The area around North Camp actually has large areas of formerly Israeli orchards, but maintenance of the original watering systems seems non-existent. Additionally, farm equipment is minimal, an occasional ancient small tractor (the type with very small front wheels, no cab, etc. that you see in films from the '50s). Without continuing outside support, I don't think the population level here could feed itself.
I can't understand the hatred involved. They would rather rule over thousands of acres of rubble, than maintain and improve their own plot of ground.
Zimbabwe also comes to mind. It's a sad shame.
I cultivated with my grandfather's Farmall C (a tractor like you descibed) in the late 70's and it took all day to cover 15 acres - 2 rows at a time. My brother still uses it to cut and rake hay. It's one of my favorite tractors.
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