BBC Discovers Gaza Needs Rebuilding — While Bombs Still Fall
BBC World's 'Worse than starting from scratch' meticulously details the $70bn price tag and decades of effort needed for Gaza's reconstruction, a 'humanitarian crisis' of staggering proportions. One might wonder if the same rigor could be applied to tracing the provenance of the bombs and missiles that necessitated this Herculean repair job. In 2023 alone, the U.S. sent $3.8 billion in military
aid to Israel, a figure maintained annually for decades (Congressional Research Service). This commitment remained unwavering even as the destruction of Gaza accelerated, with the President recently sidestepping Congressional review to rush over 100 JDAM bomb kits to Israel (Washington Post). As Gaza faces its third major rebuild since 2008, after wars in 2014 and 2021 also left vast swathes of
destruction, the BBC's framing suggests an almost natural disaster had occurred. Perhaps their 'Verify' team could verify if any of the politicians who just approved another $14 billion in aid to Israel (HR 815, April 2024), like Senator Chuck Schumer (who received over $100,000 from pro-Israel PACs including AIPAC in 2022, per OpenSecrets.org), will be chipping in for the reconstruction. Or is
the international community expected to fund both the demolition and the subsequent cleanup? It appears some nations pay for the hammer, and then pay again for the nails to fix what the hammer broke.