Metro

Active Defense

Israeli consul general says
state security is uppermost.

Alan Hitsky
Associate Editor

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he'd rather be talking about
Israel's achievements than
defending Israel's actions.
But Orli Gil, Israel's consul general for
the Midwest, left her Chicago consul-
ate last week to meet with local news
representatives. With resignation, she
knew Topic No. 1 would be Israel's May
31 stopping of six Turkish ships tying to
break Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Nine Palestinian sympa-
thizers were killed when
Israel's boarding parties
were attacked with poles,
chairs and weapons;
and Israel was roundly
criticized.
"I'm tired of reacting"
to world events, she told
the Jewish News. "Yes,
there is a closure in Gaza,
but you have to remem-
ber the context. Five
years ago, we pulled out
of Gaza completely. We
didn't have to do it',' she
said,"but we thought the
Palestinians would build
an economy and a state.
"Instead, they chose
another way — rockets"
Gil, a career Israeli
diplomat who became
consul general last year, said the Hamas
terrorists who control Gaza fired more
than 4,000 rockets into Israel. Before
January 2009, when Israel invaded Gaza
to halt the rocket fire, more than 1 mil-
lion Israeli civilians had been forced into
shelters.
Israel and Egypt have enforced a quar-
antine against Gaza to prevent weapons
and "dual purpose" goods from reaching
the terrorists. She said goods bound for
Gaza that flowed through Israel's port of
Ashdod could be inspected and Israel
had more control over who received
them.
Dual-purpose items like "cement
and steel are needed to build houses,"
she said,"but they can also be used for
arms-smuggling tunnels and bunkers"
She added that more than 1 million
tons of goods have been allowed into
Gaza by Israel since the January 2009
ceasefire.

Recent changes to the embargo by
the administration of Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu now list items
that are prohibited, rather than what is
allowed.
The situation in Gaza "is far from dire,'
Gil said.
Life expectancy there is 73.68 years
and the infant mortality rate is 17.7 per
1,000 births, lower than either Thailand
or Turkey. She said 20 percent of Gazans
own computers, compared to 1.7 per-
cent of Egyptians and 3.8 percent of

"People going
on regular
tours in Israel
are completely
safe. If they
are not looking
for trouble, they will not find
it. My family is in Israel; my
friends are there. There is no
— Orli Gil
fear in the streets."

Jordanians, and "the shops are full of
goods"
Asked why the world reacted the
way it did to the Gaza flotilla inci-
dent, Gil said she did not have a good
answer. "It is not the first time there
has been world hypocrisy," she said.
She said nobody talks about Saudi
Arabia, where women are not allowed
to drive; or about conditions in Iran
and North Korea.
"When U.S. forces killed 87 civilians
in Afghanistan, there was not the same
reaction. There is a double standard
when it comes to Israel;' she said.
She was surprised to learn about a
U.S. State Department travel advisory
on Israel that was issued June 22. There
have been no terrorism incidents; and
she and other observers wondered if
the U.S. was punishing Israel for the

Active Defense on page 26