Photos: Meet the Real Gaza

Warning: some readers may find these photos shocking. They were all taken between 2008 and 2010 in Gaza. Most likely, you have never seen them before, because the international press doesn't want you to get the wrong idea about the Palestinians' plight.

Outraged by these photos, many anti-Israeli and pro-Islamic activists have pursued efforts to get aid into the country in defiance of the Israeli blockade. Here we see the lack of food currently available for Palestinians to purchase in Gazan markets.

From the Washington Post's Middle East Correspondent: “If you walk down Gaza City’s main thoroughfare – Salah al-Din Street – grocery stores are stocked wall-to-wall with everything from fresh Israeli yogurts and hummus to Cocoa Puffs. Pharmacies look as well-supplied as a typical Rite Aid in the United States.”

Hamas has made claims that not only are their people forced into starvation by the Zionists, but they have no equipment or supplies to build housing for the Palestinian people and water supplies are threatened. Just don't ask them to explain why they are bulldozing private residences or building Olympic size swimming pools like this one, which opened earlier this year.

The people of Gaza receive hundreds of millions of dollars in aid from the U.N., the United States, and Israel, yet many activists on the Left have described the conditions of Gaza as "an open-air concentration camp."

Here are some "concentration camp victims" taking in the beach, surfing, and flying kites. These are comparisons any Holocaust survivor would find insulting. The international media has unfortunately failed to report the truth about Gaza. They have become pawns in Hamas' PR game. They advance the agenda that Hamas wants them to advance, publishing only the pictures from Gaza's poorest regions and refugee camps. But where isn't there poverty? In the same fashion, I could make Houston or any city look like a third world country if I really set my mind to it.

You remember the flotilla with all that humanitarian aid that activists desperately wanted to get to the Palestinian people? After being inspected, the majority of it, including medicine and wheelchairs, was brought by Israel to the Gaza border. Hamas rejected it.

Now that's a picture worth a thousand words. Hamas never wanted the aid, they just wanted to use the interception of the flotilla as propaganda to stir up hate against Israel. And of course, they would love the blockade terminated so they can smuggle weapons in by sea. The bad news, with the help of a complicit media, is the campaign is working.

Hamas wishes the destruction of Israel. Hamas has a long history of launching rockets and sending suicide bombers into Israeli civilian neighborhoods. Hamas has dug tunnels to smuggle in weapons used to attack Israel. Hamas has used schools and mosques to stockpile weapons, putting innocent Palestinians at risk, knowing full well that an Israeli raid on a school or mosque makes great propaganda. There is no room in my heart for these type of monsters.

Hat tip: Tom Gross Media - you will want to bookmark his detailed, informative blog on the Middle East. 

UPDATE: Palestinian president opposes lifting blockade, questions any action that would bolster Hamas.