Wireless in Gaza: the young entrepreneurs beating the blockades
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
I wish that it were somehow possible for Israelis to help the Gazans in their attempts to build such businesses, but realize that this is (for now) sadly unrealistic.
For now, I wish them great success, and am excited to see them start the process of giving Gaza a flourishing civilian economy.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/29/technology/29compute.html
I wish both sides could be more vocal.
What Israel (and Egypt) are doing is - 1) blockading Gaza, 2) entering armed conflicts with the Hamas with high human casualties and vast damage to infrastructure
Israel is not occupying Gaza. All settlements in the Gaza strip were dismantled in 2005: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_disengagement_from_Gaza
The Israeli military absolutely does not enter Gaza frivolously as it does in the West Bank, and Hamas law is in full effect there, not Israeli martial law.
Supporting the project on Indiegogo is probably the best thing to do, as an Israeli: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/save-gaza-s-only-startup-...
Hamas, on the other hand, needs to act less like a terrorist organization and more like a mature government. I am certain that this last bit will not happen, but at least there are more sound arguments for why Hamas policy is foolish if Israel's peace-time policies are solid from a human rights perspective. Self-defense against terrorism and guerillia tactics is predictably destructive to the civilian population, so I'd rather not get into that bag of snakes. The only consolation is that international pressure holds the Israeli military to a relatively high moral standard; I shudder to think what would have happened under the military doctrines of the 1900s and before.
Finally, very happy to see that there is digital commerce going on in Gaza. Economic development is key to ensuring better lives and hopefully resolving this terrible conflict. So if the surveillance opportunity means that Gaza/West Bank internet traffic is relatively unhindered, that provides one sound channel through which commerce is possible (in spite of the perverted background of control and surveillance).
The tirades about Israel on popular television (of any arab-speaking country), or the calls for martyrdom by clerics — it's silly to try and appease those. Israel should hold itself to a higher moral standard, as you've said.
... a-a-nd, I think we've gone wildly offtopic for HN, so let's just call people once again to support the Indiegogo campaign: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/save-gaza-s-only-startup-...
Chompsky writes: "The policies are quite clear. Their roots go back to the 1967 war and they have been pursued with particular dedication since the Oslo Accords of September 1993.
The Accords determined that Gaza and the West Bank are an indivisible territorial entity. Israel and the U.S. moved at once to separate them, which means that any autonomy Palestinians might gain in the West Bank will have no direct access to the outside world."
I love the variation on his name. Sort of like an all-devouring linguist.
EDIT Less than a minute with google provided this. http://blog.unwatch.org/index.php/2012/01/27/un-we-still-con...
It also turned up a load of bluster. But that doesn't change the status in international law.
That is not a fact; it's a statement made by you, based on what some member of the U.N. Human Rights Commission said.
The UNHRC does not legislate international law, and arguably they do not interpret it very intelligently either; they spend an inordinate amount of their time focusing on Israel's supposed human rights abuses, almost to the exclusion of all the other problems in the world, e.g. China, Pakistan, Turkey, Syria, Africa, S. America, and Russia.
As to your statement that Israel controls the borders to Gaza, that is simply not true. Israel and Egypt control the borders, which is a significantly different situation. I don't notice the U.N. claiming that Egypt "occupies" Gaza, yet by your definition and, apparently, the UNHRC's, they do.
The fact is, Israel supplies Gaza with electricity and data services, and they allow about 16,000 tons a week of goods into Gaza. They are rightfully afraid of deadly arms being smuggled into Gaza that would be used against Israelis, so they inspect all cargo from land and sea.
None of this precludes entrepreneurial activity in Gaza, however, as this woman demonstrates. It would be nice if there were peaceful relations and an open border, but that is up to the Gaza people to figure out, when they are tired of war and would rather negotiate some kind of permanent deal with the Israelis. But to get to that point, they have to put down their guns.
Which makes what I said a fact.
We really had to break that down to bitesize pieces didn't we.
Ask for this great Deliverer now, and find him
Eyeless in Gaza at the Mill with slaves,
Himself in bonds under Philistian yoke;
(The title would be more than a clever but pointless allusion if, e.g., the article were about wireless networking use by Israeli spies in Gaza. But I can't imagine such an article surviving long without degenerating into the usual flamewar.)
[1] That is: famous among those among whom such things are famous.
[2] See [1].
As jacalata said they are doing a fundraiser that ends in about 20 hours if you want to help out:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/save-gaza-s-only-startup-...
While now we can't feed Syrian refugees because the UN is out of money. Not to mention the genocide on Christian Arabs, or kidnappings for sex-slavery of over 7000 female Yezidis by Arabic and Somalian islamists largely from Europe.
But hey... lets riot and collect money for Gaza.
http://www.svd.se/opinion/brannpunkt/sverige-okar-bistandet-...
Additional reading http://motbilder.blogspot.se/2007/12/dns-mrkliga-rkning-om-p...
May increased communication and ventures like the article mention bring Gazans the democracy they desperately need.
First, Israel is deeply suspicious of any construction projects in Palestine to the point of rigidly controlling imports of materials as prosaic as concrete. Underground tunnels for telecommunications, especially those crossing the border to Egypt, would be strictly verboten.
Second, it's in Israel's interests to supply Gaza with as much of their communications needs as possible. Internet, cable TV, cellular communications, etc.. If they have a branch similar to the NSA this makes monitoring much easier. Also, if it ever proves strategically advantageous, they have the ability to disrupt all these channels of communication and deny them to their enemy. (That they haven't so far during conflict suggests they do monitor communications.) If Israel simply refused to provide these services Palestinians would find ways to obtain them that Israel would not control and may find more difficult to monitor.
This woman's enterprise, established under the sparsest of conditions, is an example of what can be done if there were peaceful relations and if the government in Gaza were truly representative and dedicated to peaceful negotiations etc. A warlike government that caters to the militants in Hamas, Al Aqsa Martyrs, etc., is simply uninterested in economic development, nor does it have any native expertise in that area. Its only legitimacy is based on armed conflict with its neighbor and armed suppression of dissidents internally.
I would have assumed that it's via Egypt instead, as Gaza has a land border there as well.
Egypt is not as technological as Israel, plus the border with Gaza is very very far from anything much in Egypt. It would take a lot of effort to bring Internet there.
Israel also provides phone service to Gaza, both via lines to local towers and via towers located in Israel.
People assume Egypt helps Gaza, but even in the Mubarak days they really didn't care about them much at all - just lip service. And certainly not today. They are not much different from the rest of the Arab world in this regard.
Actually, I'm curious, how does Gaza get its internet? Any source/reference mentioning this?
I believe that in the case of electricity, Israel is obliged to provide power to the region under international law (since they control its borders).
My "logic" was not a value statement on whether the attack was justified - rather a suggestion that before you go posting certain events as fact, you should realize that not everything published is a definite fact.
As I said, it's via Israel. Same with phone service and postal mail.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/20/israel-gaza-interne...
But the problem for the internet in the Gaza strip is not Israel:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamization_of_the_Gaza_Strip#...
Now please keep in mind that "democratization" won't help. Over half of Gazans want this (and want to kill people who try to fix it - that seems to be what sharia ("the path of islam") demands). Democracy will make it worse.
There seems to be a huge misconception here. On a large scale, and on average (NOT talking about any individuals here, just "average" human behavior), people who have been hurt don't want help. They don't want to help. They want to hurt others in the same way they were hurt. People who were beaten by their parents, on average, beat their children. People who come out of abusive homes in general, are abusive spouses. People who live in violence, become violent.
This makes sense if you consider what algorithm the human mind must be running. One quickly arrives at the conclusion can only be an imitation algorithm (ie. what you do is copied from a past experience of what you saw someone else do), probably coupled with reinforcement learning and generalization mechanisms.
This of course means something really, really bad for places like the Gaza strip. Left to their own devices, they will only sink deeper into their obsession, and become ever more abusive and restrictive until they literally start dying or at least completely stagnate. There is no way out that doesn't involve blowing up their state, and going against the wishes of the large majority of their population. Not, of course, the way Israel is doing that.
Don't speak the politics language, when you do business or become an entrepreneur open your doors to everyone. I'm sure there would be people from Israel or any other region be willing to invest in your talents and skills.
Follow the dream & passion don't let the other trivial stuff staph! you.
Our crowdfunding campaign has been extended until January 8. If you haven't already supported and told your friends about it, please do! It's at http://www.gazastarts.com.
I'll also be in the Bay Area from Dec 22 - Jan 6, and while I'll be primarily focused on friends & family, I'd be happy to set up a coffee side chat if entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley want to hear what it's like to launch startups in Gaza.
For those of you in Israel, I pass through Jerusalem frequently and Tel Aviv occasionally, and can also meet up there.
When I arrived to Gaza over a year ago, I had no idea what I'd find. What's made me so dedicated to Gaza Sky Geeks is the untapped potential I see. As we nurture startups in Gaza, one of our goals is to develop expertise in launching startups in frontier markets more broadly. Do reach out to us at info@gazaskygeeks.com if you'd like to engage with our work.
As I said below:
This is not the time or place for raising the political issues. I'm keeping my political opinions out of it on this forum and I wish everyone else would have the good sense do the same.
If there's ever an article about Gaza on the front page of HN it's removed within a couple of hours because people start banging on about politics. I could quite happy argue about it all day long, but not here, and not now.
Many of the extremely intelligent people on HN are here because they want to change the world in some way. Hopefully for the better. Politics is one of the most powerful tools for improving the world. So not talking about politics makes no sense.
From the guidelines [0]:
"In Comments: Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them."
To understand why "talking about politics" is harmful on this site, let's review this excerpt from your post:
"if you are not allowed to mention Israel's complete blockade of the Gaza Strip"
Hacker News isn't a good place for me to point out my many disagreements with your analysis, but to illustrate my point, I'll point out that: 1) the blockade isn't "complete," 2) Egypt also shares a border with Gaza and enforces a blockade, and 3) that making a claim that you're "not allowed to mention Israel's ____" is either an instance of, or (very probably) merely resembles, bigoted, anti-Jewish narratives about Jewish control of speech, the press, etc. I assume it just bears resemblance to bigotry, but can you understand why to some people particularly sensitive to anti-Jewish prejudice, this would make them a little bit uneasy?
"Why are talking about politics so bad?"
It isn't bad to talk about politics, but based on my feedback, do you see why your comments above lead to off-topic discussions for Hacker News?
You know what really offends me, though? That damn auto-playing ad on the article!
Afaik, the blockade maintained by Egypt and Israel is almost "complete. " As in the amount of imports/exports are only a few percent of the pre-blockade levels. Computers and batteries are among the blockaded goods so the laptop the girl in the photo is using, is almost certainly smuggled through using one of the tunnels.
Now waxing on what I think about the blockade, that's pretty useless I agree. But stating that it is there, and it has a huge detrimental impact on the people of Gaza that's pretty useful to know, don't you think?
While it might be "pretty useful to know," about the blockade, you weren't helpfully stating a fact that someone might not know in order to be "useful." Given the blockade's prominent role in the article (the word "blockade" is in the title and it occurs 3 other times throughout the article), you weren't informing anybody; you were editorializing. Why didn't you mention Egypt's role in the blockade in your comment, singling out Israel as the lone offender?
If someone were relying on your comment to learn about the situation as you seem to be suggesting was your intent, they would be under-informed about the major actors in the situation and perhaps misinformed about the nature and severity of the blockade. Your use of the term "complete" to describe the blockade ranges from subjective to incorrect, depending on one's perspective.
Is the conversation we're having ideal for HN? I don't think so, but I think it is the inevitable consequence of "talking about politics." Talking about politics is quite different than merely informing people of facts requisite for understanding a given situation, despite your attempts to conflate the two.
The restrictions on shipments of goods into and out of Gaza vary pretty regularly, which is the main reason I found that term to be an instance of editorializing rather than informing.
Since what can cross into and out of Gaza changes so frequently, is it only sometimes a complete blockade? When massive shipments are allowed in, would the blockade have exited its status as a "complete" blockade? Then what level of restriction needs to be met before it resumes its status as a "complete" blockade?
If you aren't aware of the varying policies, exceptions, and pretty regular massive shipments of goods allowed during the blockade, you should be able to find plenty of instances with minimal Googling.
Note that I'm not calling it a "mild blockade" or a "partial blockade" or anything like that and I might even call it a "restrictive blockade" or even "very restrictive blockade." I don't seek to minimize the blockade, just to accurately represent it.
Regarding the anti-semitism - you really did make that connection to bjorne's comment, unfairly and dangerously, I would say. Bjorne said 'if you are not allowed to mention Israel's ___', which I took to relate to the restriction I imposed on discussion of politics. You made the leap that it was "bigoted, anti-Jewish narratives about Jewish control of speech". I see that you've technically distanced yourself from the actual accusation, but even raising it is implication enough.
I'd suggest that your comment provides a far more dangerous narrative; the one in which any criticism of a state is labelled as racist. I think that America's____(treatment of untried prisoners) is a total disgrace, that doesn't mean I'm anti-christian or anti-american. Let's leave race and religion out of it.
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip
ps I know I said we shouldn't talk politics, so it's hypocritical of me to get involved, but I feel it's not as big of a deal now this is off the front-page.