Armies Still Travel on Their Stomachs

Yesterday, Aeneas left a link to the organization pictured. I procrastinated doing anything about it…and then a donation arrived from one of our Jewish readers who lives in another country. He often sends us something, knowing our feelings about Israel. Synchronicity and all that - I decided it was time to move on my idea to make a donation to Pizza Aid, using our reader’s donation and adding to it.

I’m all for food, especially hot soup. So M. and I are providing a few bowls. I hope you will do the same.

From the website:

Today, Monday, is the tenth day of the Channuka war, Operation Cast Lead. We are sending pizza to soldiers, regular and reserves, who have been relocated to the outskirts of Gaza. With your help, we can send them lots of Pizza, letting them know that they have global support. Thank you.

Please tell your friends about this way to show support for our combat troops.

You can now also send Pizza and Soda to families in Sderot baked in a Sderot Pizzeria. This way you can help the local Sderot economy while cheering up the locals.

During the last seven years we have delivered many thousands of pizza pies and other gifts to thousands of soldiers. It is hard for us to describe how happy they are to receive your “special treats” -- it goes well beyond getting a hot pizza late at night at a lonely post. It is as tremendous an experience for us to give them out as it is for the soldiers to receive them. They love to know that people everywhere support and care for them.

They have other things, too. Besides pizza there is soup, ice cream, and burgers (sorry, guys, even gentile moms send soup).

Speaking of food, one of the most destructive things the Palestinians did after the handover of Gaza still sticks in my mind as a measure of the extent to which the Palestinians have created a black hole, a behavioral sink…
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This is from October, 2005:

Palestinians looted dozens of greenhouses on Tuesday, walking off with irrigation hoses, water pumps and plastic sheeting in a blow to fledgling efforts to reconstruct the Gaza Strip.

American Jewish donors had bought more than 3,000 greenhouses from Israeli settlers in Gaza for $14 million last month and transferred them to the Palestinian Authority. Former World Bank President James Wolfensohn, who brokered the deal, put up $500,000 of his own cash.

Palestinian police stood by helplessly Tuesday as looters carted off materials from greenhouses in several settlements, and commanders complained they did not have enough manpower to protect the prized assets. In some instances, there was no security and in others, police even joined the looters, witnesses said.

“We need at least another 70 soldiers. This is just a joke,” said Taysir Haddad, one of 22 security guards assigned to Neve Dekalim, formerly the largest Jewish settlement in Gaza. “We’ve tried to stop as many people as we can, but they’re like locusts.”

The failure of the security forces to prevent scavenging and looting in the settlements after Israel’s troop pullout Monday raised new concerns about Gaza’s future.

By December of that year, the Palestinians were asking Israel for help with the greenhouses:

Prior to Israel’s August withdrawal, the residents of Gaza’s Gush Katif slate of Jewish communities ran greenhouses known for producing high-quality insect-free vegetables. The Gush Katif gardens featured some of the most technologically advanced agricultural equipment and accounted for more than $100 million per year in exports to Europe. The greenhouses also supplied Israel with 75 percent of its own produce.

[…]

Earlier this month, the Palestinians now running the greenhouses reportedly told the Israeli-Palestinian Economic Cooperation Fund they failed in their efforts to grow bug-free produce.

Now the Palestinian owners have asked the United States Agency for International Development, which has been involved in reconstruction efforts in Gaza, to hire former Jewish Gaza greenhouse owners as consultants for their declining vegetable businesses.

Eitan Hederi, a former Gaza farmer who represented Gush Katif residents in the Wolfenson greenhouse transfer told WND, “The Palestinians are privately turning to U.S. AID to hire us because we are experts in this kind of farming. It’s a really complex process that we engineered.”

Anita Tucker, an expelled Gaza resident and one of the pioneer farmers of Gush Katif, told WND, “I am not at all surprised the Palestinians are failing. When they worked in our greenhouses they needed to be monitored closely. Many didn’t understand certain things, like not using different kinds of chemicals.

Tucker explained she and other Katif farmers engineered agricultural technology specific to the dry, sandy Gaza conditions.

“We used different kinds of netting, also aluminum, since we knew the reflection of the sun kept bugs away,” she said. “We used colors because we knew certain kinds of bugs were attracted to or kept away from different colors. We used certain organic insecticides for certain plants, and were very strict about which chemicals we used. We kept our greenhouses as clean as possible. And we also had our own proprietary inventions and technology.”

Asked if she would serve as a consultant for the new Palestinian owners of her former greenhouses, Tucker said, “Probably not. We see the terror coming out of Gaza, coming out of the neighborhood I used to live in, and it’s just horrible. Hamas has taken over different parts of Gush Katif and are firing rockets into Israel. I am not saying the Palestinian farmers are involved, but it seems they are not doing enough to stop the terror.”

Haderi, who says he already has been asked by U.S. AID to consult on greenhouse technology, said, “I am still thinking about it. It’s a very difficult decision.”

I didn’t research any further to see if the Palestinians were able to undo their destruction of the greenhouses or were able to learn the necessary techniques to keep them up and running.

Maybe some of our readers know if that happened…

By the way, notice that this is just another example of the myriad ways in which the Palestinians have refined chutzpah. Breath-taking.