I think it is or, at least, comes close.
Hamas’s terrorists’ murder of about 1,400 Israelis on October 7 was horrible. Nothing can justify it.
In subsequent discussions, I’ve seen an issue raised about Gaza. There are many comments on the web to the effect that Gaza is an open-air prison. I’ve also seen many comments that it isn’t.
What’s the truth?
First, the open-air issue is settled: Gaza is in the open air.
Second, and more controversial, is the prison part. Most of us think of a prison as something you can’t escape from. So, for example, if the government were to build a chain-link fence around a certain population of people, forbid them from going through it, and enforce that prohibition with the threat of force, the area surrounded by the fence would be a prison for those inside.
There are four sides to Gaza: (1) two sides that border Israel, (2) the side that borders Egypt, and (3) the side that borders the Mediterranean Sea.
The Israeli government prevents people from entering Israel. The Egyptian government prevents people from entering Egypt.
What’s left is the Mediterranean. I have heard over the years that the Israeli Navy patrols the sea to prevent people from leaving Gaza by sea. But when I go on the web to confirm that, I can’t. All I can find is that the Israeli government has tight restrictions on the area of the sea in which people from Gaza can fish and also harsh restrictions on flotillas taking goods into Gaza. But I can’t find any evidence that the government prevents them from leaving. And a friend who was in the Israeli Defense Force tells me that he has never heard that the Navy prevented people from leaving.
That would seem to suggest that Gaza is not an open-air prison.
But then I think of the novel and the movie King Rat. It has been 30 years since I’ve read the novel and, of course, the key word is “novel.” But one part that seems realistic is that in the POW camp in Singapore run by the Japanese military, the Japanese didn’t need any walls or fences to prevent prisoners from escaping because the surrounding physical landscape is so forbidding that the prisoners wouldn’t try to escape. No one would say that the lack of physical barriers to prevent escape means that the POW camp was not a prison. The Mediterranean comes close. If people in Gaza escaped in a boat (if they could find or build a boat) they would be in a pretty harsh physical situation, possibly not as forbidding as the Malaysian jungle, but forbidding, nevertheless.
So my conclusion is that Gaza is, or is close to being, an “open-air prison.”
Reminder: The Hamas murder of 1,400 people in Israel was horrible. The post above is on a separate issue.
READER COMMENTS
Dylan
Oct 27 2023 at 9:27am
There’s also the issue of where they would go, even if they could cross the sea. The world isn’t known to be particularly welcoming to refugees from anywhere, but my suspicion is that those from Gaza likely face an even harder time.
David Seltzer
Oct 27 2023 at 9:34am
Sadly, you make the case for Gaza being an open air prison. Politically, militarily how can Gaza coexist with Israel where both are better off? From Ben-Gurion to today, an intractable problem.
CSK
Oct 27 2023 at 10:14am
What bugs me is the commonly heard formulation “world’s largest open-air prison.”
Sure, the fact that you can’t escape from something makes it more prison-like, but that is only one element of what we associate with prisons. At the extreme, Earth is like a prison in that respect, but we consider the entire planet very different from a prison.
Noting that Gaza is “large” tends to cut against identifying it as “prison-like”. It hints that Gaza may offer its residents a scope of choices and options that make it not like a prison. Or at least that it has the potential to offer such things. Noting that it is “open-air” is similarly dissonant with Gaza being prison-like. To tie this back to your post, Gaza may be equally as hard to leave as the POW camp in King Rat, or equally open air. But is it equally bad in general? I’ll have to watch the movie to decide.
My guess is that Gaza would be a lot less prison-like if it were not at war with Israel, and even less so if it could maintain positive relations with its neighbors, even if people still could not leave. Of course, being able to leave would be even better.
One further point on this theme. We commonly hear that Hamas is demanding Israel release Palestinians held in Israeli prison. But if Gaza is just a prison, then imprisoning Gazans is minimally bad, compared to imprisoning those not in a Gaza-like prison. Of course, I suspect most Gazans in Israeli prisons would strongly prefer to be “free” in Gaza, which would suggest a strong difference between Gaza and literal prison.
David Henderson
Oct 27 2023 at 12:51pm
Thanks, CSK. I’ll respond to your points seriatim.
You write:
True.
You write:
True. But keep in mind that when Martha Stewart went to prison, it was a minimum-security prison with lots of options, but no one claimed it wasn’t a prison.
You write:
Probably not equally bad but since about October 8, I think it’s close. But we need to distinguish between whether it’s a prison and how bad it is.
You write:
I agree on all these points.
You write:
You make a good point. But it’s still a matter of degree. What if, hypothetically and unrealistically, the Israelis gave Gazans in Israeli prisons the option of moving to a Gaza-run prison that you would recognize as a prison. Many would probably take the option. That doesn’t mean the prison they chose in this hypothetical is not a prison.
One last point. When I moved from a small town to Winnipeg at age 16 (in 1967), I was given a chance to smoke marijuana. Even from an early age (single digits), I thought through consequences. Two things stopped me from smoking it. The first, and less important for this discussion, is that I thought it might turn me into a mush mind. (I later figured out that it was probably mainly self-selection: A high percentage of the people I observed at the University of Winnipeg who used it regularly were probably already mush minds.) The second reason relates to this. I thought that if I got caught, I might get a criminal record since I didn’t have enough money to hire a good lawyer. And if that happened, I might not be able to move to the United States, which, even then, had a pull for me. If that had happened and if other countries’ governments had prevented me from traveling, then, I thought at the time, Canada would be one gigantic prison for me.
Ben Y
Oct 27 2023 at 10:15am
If the entire world refuses to take hypothetical refugees from Australia, whether by air or sea, is Australia an open-air prison?
Is Earth an open air prison?
This is silly semantics. We all know what a prison is. This isn’t it. Gaza has schools, theme parks, hospitals, businesses; pretty much whatever you find in any other society.
Again, would blockading Japan turn it into an open air prison?
Dylan
Oct 27 2023 at 10:57am
The answer to all of your questions is yes, just to different degrees.
Ben Y
Oct 27 2023 at 11:01am
That just makes a mockery of the word prison then. May as well call these all an open-air resort, since it has elements of all the above.
Dylan
Oct 27 2023 at 12:53pm
I’d also note that prisons have schools, libraries, hospitals, and businesses, and in at least one case a pool, nightclub, and zoo. Still a prison though.
David Henderson
Oct 27 2023 at 4:52pm
Good point, Dylan.
carl
Oct 27 2023 at 1:54pm
Australia would be an open air prison if it were run by Hamas and people couldn’t leave. That is, I guess, the irony of David’s article. The thing that most makes Gaza a prison isn’t what Israel is doing to Gaza. If that were the case, you could claim that any country that has a closed border with a neighbor has turned their neighbor’s country into an open air prison. What makes Gaza an open-air prison is that they can only leave by sea and their own rulers are brutal prison guards.
David Henderson
Oct 27 2023 at 5:03pm
You write:
As I said in my post, I don’t know if they can leave by sea. You seem certain that they can. I’ve been searching for days on this and talking to people who know Gaza better than I do. Can you give me a cite?
Carl
Oct 30 2023 at 6:34pm
I stand corrected about sea access:https://ochaopt.org/content/movement-and-out-gaza-2022. Regarding the worst part of Gaza’s civilians’ predicament being Hamas, I stand by what I said.
Roger McKinney
Oct 27 2023 at 10:25am
Gaza is a prison in another way: prisons house criminals. No country in the world admitted Gazans to even work except Israel. And no country in the world will let them immigrate because so many are criminals. That’s unfair to many who aren’t. They suffer from the reputation of those who are.
Emily
Oct 27 2023 at 10:36am
I don’t think this is really what the argument is about, though?
The implication of “open-air prison” is not just “they’re not allowed to leave”, but rather the idea that Israel is the warden and that the terrible living conditions in Gaza are Israel’s fault. That’s what people mean by this, which you can tell, because the rhetoric surrounding it never involves calling Egypt an apartheid state or calling for it to be eliminated.
The argument against the “open-air prison” comment is not “they’re totally allowed to go wherever they want”, but rather “Gaza is terrible because Hamas is a violent authoritarian government which prioritizes the murder of Israelis over its own peoples’ safety or welfare.”
David Henderson
Oct 27 2023 at 5:05pm
You write:
That is an implication that many people draw but, as you can tell from my post, it’s one that i have not addressed. The Israeli government has made things much more difficult for people in Gaza, and so has the Hamas government. And so, for that matter and, as I pointed out, has the Egyptian government.
TMC
Oct 27 2023 at 10:38am
This made me wonder if they can travel by air.
Used to be able to. Seems to be by choice. If they only used the concrete for runways instead of tunnels….
David Henderson
Oct 27 2023 at 6:05pm
It’s hard to know from the short write-up whether it was by Gazans’ choice. It’s possible that once the Israeli government destroys the Yasser Arafat airport, Gazans were skeptical that they would be allowed to use this one, especially since the Israelis control the airspace.
You write:
Good point, but maybe they thought it was important, given their scarce resources, to use land for a sewage treatment plant.
Fazal Majid
Oct 27 2023 at 10:44am
It’s closer to the cult movie “Escape From New York” in more ways than one. Enclosed, highly urbanized and densely populated, run by the baddest thugs inside. The main difference is, the majority of the population is under 18, so it’s a also a juvenile prison for over 1M innocents.
johnson85
Oct 27 2023 at 12:49pm
The gaza strip is larger than the maldives. If someone wants to volunteer to imprison me in the maldives, let me know.
Gaza is a tragic situation. All they have to do to have a much better life is to decide they want a better life more than they want to kill the jews. But of course, everyone there has been indoctrinated since an early age to hate the jews and blame them for the conditions in Gaza. It’s somewhat understandable that they can’t overcome the indoctrination. Unless somebody can convince residents in the Gaza strip that Hamas is their enemy, not the jewish people (which the chances of that seem slim to say the least), there’s no real solution.
David Henderson
Oct 27 2023 at 4:55pm
You write:
We agree that it’s tragic. Unfortunately you write about the people in Gaza as if they all are in on this. That’s absolutely false. I think you fail to understand the difference between individual people and a government that claims to represent them.
Mark
Nov 24 2023 at 3:11am
Fine post! Appreciate your diligence with the comments – Not so sure about the will of people in Gaza: In the last free election in 2006 they voted 43% for Hamas (which turned into an absolute majority in seats). And the huge number voting for Fatah seem not really that forward-looking either. As a German: Our forefathers voted 33% Nazi party in the last free election 1932, and even in 1933 after the “Machtergreifung” – “just” 42%. And yet, we had it coming. No matter the Scholls or Stauffenbergs.
You won’t hear me or most Germans arguing that massive bombing of Hamburg or Dresden or the dozens of other bombed cities were war-crimes or even unjustified (though Vonnegut kinda did in “Slaughterhouse 5”). Still waiting for ex-inmates of Gaza in to protest against Hamas, against Oct. 7. Instead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWOw7YI7vzo (Nablus, West Bank, but still)
BC
Oct 27 2023 at 3:51pm
“If people in Gaza escaped in a boat (if they could find or build a boat)…”
One way that Gaza might not be a prison is that European and Arab nations, who keep telling us how sympathetic they are to Gazans, might be allowed to evacuate Gazan residents by boat via the Mediterranean Sea. That would eliminate the “harsh physical situation”. I say “might” because I’m not sure whether the Israeli authorities would stop boats sent by sympathetic nations for evacuation purposes. I suspect not as long as those boats could credibly demonstrate that they weren’t delivering arms into Gaza.
If one was sympathetic to inmates in a real prison, one couldn’t just show up to offer those inmates a ride out of there. One would be stopped by the prison guards. If the Viet Cong would have allowed the US to helicopter POWs out of their prison camps, I’m sure that we would have evacuated all of them.
BC
Oct 27 2023 at 3:57pm
On the other hand, even if Israelis would allow sympathetic nations to evacuate Gazan residents, Hamas might not. In that sense, Hamas might very well have turned Gaza into an open air prison.
David Henderson
Oct 27 2023 at 4:59pm
You write:
That’s a good point, except overstated. Hamas has helped turn it into a prison but it is not the only set of prison guards.
David Henderson
Oct 27 2023 at 4:58pm
You write:
Like you, I’m not sure the “the Israeli authorities would stop boats sent by sympathetic nations for evacuation purposes.” I suspect they would not. You suspect they would.
But it seems fairly clear that European and Arab countries’ governments aren’t trying to do this. So we’re back to my point: it’s a prison or close to a prison.
BC
Oct 27 2023 at 5:44pm
“I suspect they would not. You suspect they would.”
Actually, I also suspect that Israelis would not try to stop evacuation boats, so long as the boats were credibly demonstrating that they weren’t trying to sneak arms into Gaza.
“But it seems fairly clear that European and Arab countries’ governments aren’t trying to do this. So we’re back to my point: it’s a prison or close to a prison.”
No, as long as European and Arab countries (or anyone else) are permitted to evacuate Gazans, then Gaza is not a prison. Prisons don’t allow people to evacuate inmates. Suppose you were released from a real prison located in a remote area but no relatives or friends came to pick you up. So, you were stranded there. Question: Were you truly released from prison? Answer: Yes, your sentence ended because the prison authorities were no longer preventing anyone from taking you out of there. Being stranded is different from being imprisoned.
Vivian Darkbloom
Oct 29 2023 at 6:54am
I hesitate to wade into this semantic debate. It’s the facts that matter, not the words we attach to them.
That said, I could make the case that Gaza is an “open air prison”. The question you raise, it seems to me, is who is preventing the evacuation from Gaza and, therefore,”who are the wardens”?
James W Oliver
Oct 27 2023 at 3:53pm
Here is some video of Gaza well before October 6th.
David Henderson
Oct 27 2023 at 5:59pm
Nice video. Thanks, James. Will watch the whole thing later.
Alex
Oct 27 2023 at 4:21pm
No, Gaza is not a prison. Gaza has a demographic growth of about 3% per year. Prisons dont have demographic growth. Japanese POW camps didnt have demographic growth.
Also, Gazans can leave. Sure, emigrating is not easy, but emigration is not easy for anyone. Is it more difficult to emigrate from Gaza than from, say, subsaharan Africa? And in any event, why is that Israel’s fault any more than it is your fault. Im sure you could find a way to use your savings and bring two or three Gazans to your home and feed them, why dont you do it David?
Your post is very disappointing and totally insensitive to what happened in Israel two weeks ago, implying that Israel is a criminal state in the passive aggressive form. I dont know to what extent Gazans support Hamas, Im pretty sure that many of them secretly resent them. But Hamas has the effective control of Gaza and can cause a lot of harm to Israelis, do you have any idea on how Israel can stop them minimizing civilian casualties?
David Henderson
Oct 27 2023 at 5:19pm
You write:
Your examples are correct. But there’s nothing in the nature of prison that says that the inmates can’t give birth.
You write:
Absolutely.
You write:
Because I’m not using force to keep them in. And, as I wrote, it’s not just the Israeli government. It’s they Egyptian government too. And, as some commenters have suggested and are more certain than I am, it could be Hamas also.
You write:
I don’t know where your certainty comes from. You have more certainty than I do. Also, I don’t see why I would need them in my home. I would quite happily kick in $5K or so to get 3 innocent Gazans out. And that’s probably the order of magnitude of what they would need to get a good start here and get jobs that would pay a multiple of what they earn or get in subsidies in Gaza.
You write:
I’m sorry that you’re disappointed. As I said in my post, these issues are separable. We get further in understanding things if we parse them out.
I think it’s a tough call to say whether a state is a criminal state as opposed to a state some of whose officials commit crimes.
You write:
I think you’re right.
You write:
I inserted “while” because I think that’s what you mean.
I don’t have a really good idea. That’s why I’m trying to deal with it in pieces. I would like for any innocent Gazan to be able to leave and I think there are well over 1 million of them. That’s why I’m addressing the “open air prison” issue in the first place.
Mactoul
Oct 28 2023 at 1:08am
Do the Gazans wish to leave Gaza?
People migrate from all corners of the world, from deepest Africa, they migrate in sealed container trucks, in unseaworthy boats. Millions moved out from wars in Iraq Afghanistan and Syria.
But Palestinians are not among them.
TGGP
Oct 28 2023 at 4:15pm
A prison usually has prison guards inside of it to manage the inmates. Would we consider Hamas to be that?
The sea around Gaza does not seem so menacing that any boat out of it would be doomed. I expect in better times there were lots of ships going in & out. Once someone left Gaza in a boat, there would then be a question of whether other countries would let them enter via that boat.
MarkW
Oct 29 2023 at 6:37am
No — Gaza is not an open air prison. Gazans may leave if they can find a place to go. Their problem is that their bellicosity makes them generally unwelcome guests, but that problem is under their own control. Remember that Hamas was elected — Gazans have clearly not prioritized peaceful relations with their neighbors (Israel OR Egypt). But even so, are Gazans unwelcome even in Iran (their state’s main ally and sponsor)?
Hazel Meade
Nov 2 2023 at 4:28pm
If it is a prison, it is largely one of their own creation, because the main thing blocking Palestinians from having an independent state is that they refuse to recognize Israel’s right to exist, refuse to settle for less than the dissolution of the Israeli state, and continue to engage in terrorist attacks on civilian targets. They’ve had multiple opportunities over the years, starting in 1947 with the UN partition proposal, to get an Arab state in Palestine. They have rejected it each time, because they have always wanted more – for Israel not to exist, for it’s borders to be redrawn back to 1948 boundaries, for all Palestinians to have a “right of return” to Israeli territory. If they gave those things up and stopped attacking Israel, then Israel would not have to control the border with Egypt or patrol the Mediteranean and might actually be willing to allow Palestinians to cross the border into Israel on visitor visas.
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