Would your powerco keep you connected?

Unsurprisingly the anti-Israel mob have been surprisingly quiet about power supplies to Gaza being cut by Israel. In my local print media landscape there was only one reader letter excoriating the move. My rebuttal pointing out the facts - was not published.

Up until 2017, the Palestinian Authority met the cost of Israeli power supplied to their fellow Palestinians in the strip. At that point the PLO announced 'no more'.. Since then, Hamas has accumulated an unpaid bill of US$544 million to the Israel Electric Company. The latest move by Israel to cease supplies altogether, is to encourage Hamas to get serious about hostage return. It does beg the question as to why Hamas hasn't acted to build its own generators, in the near-20 years since Israel vacated Gaza and given the billions of aid they have received.

In one of those 'it would be comical if it wasn't so serious' moments that aboud in the ME, I recall the following story dating from after the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza around 2005. One night a big explosion wrecked part of Gaza's home power generator. Of course there was outraged comdemnation of Israel's perfidy until it was pointed out that the timing and trajectory meant that it was a Hamas misfire.

O tempora