Whether there are big changes afoot regarding the Palestine issue is yet to be seen, but there appears to be little doubt that pressure from the Obama Administration is having an effect on Israel's current Netanyahu administration. A day before Netanyahu is to meet with US president Barack Obama, the government is preparing to announce a significant easing of restrictions on Israel's blockade of Gaza. Obama, along with EU leaders, has long been a vocal critic of the blockade and numerous times has called it “unsustainable”. The deaths caused by Israel's hijacking of an aid flotilla vessel a few weeks ago only served to ratchet up the criticism. And there is a fitting irony to the fact that Netanyahu was in the US at the time of the flotilla attack but was forced to leave to deal with the incident before his meeting with Obama. We should not, however, fool ourselves into thinking that Israel has simply put an end to the blockade. That is far from fact, at this point. True, more foodstuff will be allowed into the strip, but there will still be some restrictions on construction materials, which the Gazans need badly to repair the damage to infrastructure inflicted by the Israeli invasion earlier this year. Also, although more raw materials will be allowed into Gaza, there has been no word on lifting the restrictions on exports of Gazan products. In other words, the lives of individual Gazans may receive a temporary peace of mind through the availability of retail products, but the economy itself will continue to struggle as both the physical and organizational infrastructure still face significant shortages. The world must continue to be made aware of the real price of Israel's blockade of Gaza. The easing of the blockade is welcome. But until Israel resolves to allow Gaza to build an economy, the easing of restrictions will have minimal long
