Some Inconvenient Truths In Response to the "Gaza Is an Open-Air Prison" Argument (Part II)

Last week, I began to scrutinize the argument that "Gaza is an open-air prison." In the first part, I pointed out a few inconvenient truths:

1. The purpose of Israel's blockade and border fence is not to collectively punish Gazans, but rather to protect Israeli citizens from terrorist attacks.
2. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, which means that the "Israel was occupying Gaza" argument can readily be dismissed. 
3. Hamas has been governing Gaza since 2007. As such, Hamas is responsible for the day-to-day well-being of Gazans, not Israel.
4. Egypt shares a border with Gaza. Egypt chose to build a border wall on the Egypt-Gaza wall for the same reason as Israel: national security. 
5. Neither Egypt nor Jordan are accepting Palestinian refugees, thereby closing off options to Gazans. 

I am going to continue with some other inconvenient truths in Part II, with particular focus on mobility, economic growth, and Hamas' corruption. Part of what makes a prison a prison is a [near] non-existent flow of people in or out of the confines. As such, net migration is another metric to determine whether or not Gaza is an open-air prison. Looking at data from the World Bank and the United Nations, what we see is that there is a net migration out of the country, which implies that Gazans have been able to leave the country. Gazans looking to emigrate to Turkey, for example, have to deal with Hamas' slow bureaucracy that makes it more difficult to leave Gaza.

It is not only in terms of migration or emigration in which the prison argument does not withstand scrutiny. As previously stated, the responsibility for governing the Gazans is Hamas', not that of Israel. Even so, Israel still helps out, which is impressive given the circumstances. Prior to the current Israel-Hamas War, Israel issued over 18,000 work visas for Gazan citizens to earn up to 10 times what they could in Gaza. This finding can be confirmed with data from the United Nation's Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs (OCHA). If someone is in a prison, that person is not allowed to leave and come back. Yet there had been a flow of Gazans entering Israel for work purposes prior to Hamas initiating a war against Israel.

It is not only people that are allowed to enter Israel to work, but also goods that are allowed to enter Gaza (see OCHA data below). During the current war, Israel has allowed humanitarian goods to enter Gaza. As we see from UN data, more goods were allowed to flow to Gaza in 2023 than it did in previous years. Here is another consideration. Israel providing what it does exceeds any expectations set in the Fourth Geneva Convention (Article 23) and the First Protocol of the Additional to the Geneva Conventions (Article 70). International law notwithstanding, on what planet is it normal or reasonable to ask a country to provide water and electricity to its enemy when that enemy has been using water pipes to create rockets that then kill Israelis? This brings me to my next point.....

Considering the adversarial nature of Hamas, it is generous that Israel would provide an economic lifeline at all. If Gaza were a true prison, Israel would have either greatly confined the flow of people and goods, or alternatively, completely shut off movement of labor or goods. Hamas refuses to "accept any international laws or set of rules that would allow peaceful interaction with its neighbors." Imagine what economic development there would be between Palestinians and Israelis if most Gazans did not hate Israel or Jews. My educated guess is that Gaza would not be nearly as prison-like if it were able to maintain positive relations with Israel instead of wanting to kill Jews. As I like to say, "those who trade together stay together." 

Speaking of economic development, Gaza's economy was on par with the West Bank's before Hamas got into power. Once Gazans elected Hamas, United Nations data (see below; UN, p. 2) show that economic growth in Gaza declined. The U.S. State Department recognizes that "businesses in Gaza have reported instances where Hamas courts and officials have employed coercion or have otherwise acted outside the legal system when engaging with private business." In layman's terms, an economy with corruption, bribes, fear, and intimidation break down economic growth. The fact that corruption erodes economic growth is commonly understood in the public policy world, as is illustrated by this research from the International Monetary Fund and Transparency International (also see Gründler and Potrafke, 2019; Bai et al., 2013).

If there is a reason that Gaza has prison-like conditions, look at how Hamas rules Gaza. Per this report from Freedom House that examines Gaza's political freedom, Hamas is a corrupt organization that quashes the people's political and civil rights. Women, gay people, and whatever non-Muslims that may exist in Gaza's borders are oppressed. If Hamas did its job of governing over the Gazans instead of pouring its resources to kill Jews, maybe, just maybe conditions in Gaza would not be so dire. 

Postscript: Before there was the alleged "open-air prison," the argument over settlements, or so-called "occupied territories" (they are actually disputed territories), the majority of Arabs in the Levant region have hated Jews. As I brought up before, there have been multiple times where the Arabs were offered "land for peace." Palestinian statehood has been offered in exchange for recognizing Israel's right to exist and renunciation of violence. Apparently, co-existing with Jewish neighbors was and remains to be too big of an ask for most Arabs in the Levant region. 

Yes, Israel imposed a blockade and beefed up its border security. However, Israel did so in response to Hamas' terrorist activities that have become more and more of a national security threat to Israel. Labeling Gaza an "open-air prison" ignores Hamas' raison d'être of destroying Jews to the point of neglecting the needs of everyday Gazans. It neglects that most Gazans still support Gaza enough where Hamas has a higher approval rating in Gaza than President Joe Biden has in the United States. It avoids the reality that Egypt also has a border wall on its border with Gaza because Hamas is a threat to all of its neighbors, not only Israel. 

Calling Gaza an "open-air prison" is nothing more than a cudgel that attempts to shift all the blame to Israel while attempting to render Hamas and Gazan citizens as guileless victims. Yes, Gazan citizens lamentably face high levels of unemployment, poverty, and less mobility than other citizens in the world. Conversely, it is not so immobilizing to constitute as a prison, as is seen by mobility data of Gazans to and from Israel, Gazan migration data, and data of goods flowing in and out of Gaza. The extent to which Gaza is prison-like is primarily due to oppressive rule of Hamas, followed by the Gazans who voted Hamas in power and the Arab nations that refuse to help the Palestinians. While there is enough blame to go around, we should shift most of it to where it is due: in the direction of Hamas.