Rep. Ellison: ‘The Gaza Crossings Must Open’

Recently returned from a trip to Gaza, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) told a packed House conference room earlier today that “I only have one message for you, just one, and that is: The crossings must open.”

The crossings have to open for two reasons. One is, that when we open up the crossings we can cut down on the traffic in the tunnels, and therefore make sure that nothing goes through those tunnels that endangers Israeli security — or, by the way, Gazan security, because some of these rockets misfire and land in Gaza — but also to address the desperate humanitarian conditions that we saw in Gaza…We saw the industrial infrastructure bashed to the ground. We saw the American International School — and we actually have a tape on that — bashed to the ground.

Ellison said that, by creating a black market for basic goods, keeping the crossings closed boosted outlaw elements in Gaza who also controlled the tunnel traffic, which also includes weapons.

Ellison traveled to Israel and the Palestinian territories with his Congressional colleague Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA). The two spoke along with Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ), who visited Gaza separately, and Daniel Levy at an event sponsored by the New America Foundation and moderated by Steve Clemons, which I attended.

Rep. Baird noted that it was a challenge to “do validity and honesty to what we have seen and experienced, without at the same time being perceived, as is easy to do, as…taking one side against the other. There are clearly, in my judgment, wrongs on both sides, but that doesn’t necessarily justify one action or another…We witnessed destroyed schools, destroyed hospitals, an entire industrial area that had been leveled.” Baird also noted that the Congressmen had visited nearby Sderot, a frequent target of Hamas rocket attacks, which Baird called “unacceptable.”

The challenge, Baird said, is knowing “what the immediate humanitarian need in Gaza, and how do you get the support to people who need it.” Though he praised President Obama’s efforts over the last few months, which he said “gives a lot of people a lot of hope,” he stressed that “it’s not enough to throw money at the problem.”

The money itself will not be of use unless we find some kind of way to have rapprochement between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas…and unless you can get things back and forth across the border. And it won’t work in the long run, either in the West Bank or in Gaza, unless some other fundamental changes are made, and we believe those changes have to be made.

Baird referenced a clip from a video shot by his staff (also available on Ellison’s page) during his visit to the West Bank, talking to a Palestinian doctor who lives in Ramallah and commutes to work in Palestinian East Jerusalem, a trip that would normally take about twenty minutes, but currently takes between ninety minutes and two hours because of Israeli checkpoints.

On Gaza, Baird said he believed “what is happening there is a threat to our security — which, given this [Congressional] pin should be my highest priority…but neither do I think it is adding to the security or the prosperity of the people of that region. And therefore I think we need to seriously reevaluate the policies that we’ve seen played out.”

Rep. Holt stressed that “you can’t really in one day address the military doctrine of the Israelis that led to the kind of military action and really total devastation” in some places in Gaza — Holt noted “I have my own opinions on that” — but he did address “the need for humanitarian aid to get in now.” The United States must do more to make this happen, Holt said.

Responding to the suggestion that Gazans should be expected to rise up against Hamas, as some conservatives suggested they would in the wake of Israel’s bombardment, Ellison reminded the audience that neither Fatah nor Israel could dislodge Hamas from Gaza. “People, it won’t happen,” Ellison said. “We’ve got to find another way to deal with this issue.”