Was Gaza Strip from 2010 to 2020 like a concentration camp?

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Some media commentators, academics (e.g. Norman Finkelstein^[1]) and activists are likening Gaza Strip to a concentration camp or outright equating it to one. Are they right?

Items: concentration camp, definition, core of the concept, evoked images and contexts, tunnels and rockets, cities in the alleged camp, shopping mall, descendants of Arab refugees, population expansion, sum of parts interpretation of the name of the concept, Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza Strip, fence around Gaza Strip

Gaza Strip from 2010 to 2020 was like a concentration camp

Arguments for

Pro As per Merriam-Webster, a concentration camp is "a place where large numbers of people (such as prisoners of war, political prisoners, refugees, or the members of an ethnic or religious minority) are detained or confined under armed guard—used especially in reference to camps created by the Nazis in World War II for the internment and persecution of Jews and other prisoners".^[2] The "used especially ..." is optional because of "especially", and it is the part before "used especially" that is to be investigated for application. And Gaza Strip is a place where a large number of people is confined under the armed guard of the border patrol of Israel and Egypt, where, per Wikipedia, entry and exit via air and sea are prohibited and only three land border crossings are operated as part of blockade.
- Objection The intent of "confined under armed guard" was probably different; Merriam-Webster failed to create a 100% bullet-proof definition of the phenomenon defined. They are perhaps not to blame since dictionary definitions are often mere approximations rather than tools of legal or legal-like reasoning.
- Objection Expanding on the above: by the Merriam-Webster's definition above, when a country confines illegal immigrants into a guarded camp, they create a "concentration camp". That seems implausible.
- Comment The term "concentration camp", whatever the quandaries of its definition, evokes the horrors of Nazi German-run extermination and forced labor camps. To use the term in a political discourse and mean by it something far less evil/sinister, e.g. some place where refugees are stationed under a guard, is highly problematic, even if possibly technically accurate. If all that happened to Jews during World War II was that they were imprisoned but not killed and not driven to death by malnutrition and bad working conditions, that would not have been the unspeakable horror that took place. (German Nazis did bring certain non-Jews to Germany for forced labor, but that was a different phenomenon.)
- Comment Expanding on the above, the phrase "open-air prison" is sometimes used in reference to Gaza Strip and does not connote/evoke Nazi horrors. (Whether this phrase is applicable is for another debate.)

Arguments against

Con In a concentration camp, there are two main classes of people: those who run the camp, and those who are involuntary inmates. If Gaza Strip is a concentration camp, the class running the camp would have to be Hamas (originally elected by the inmates but then turned against them), but that does not fit the concentration camp claim, according to which it is Israel that is running the putative camp. Israel is not governing Gaza Strip; in particular, neither Israeli military nor Israeli police force have significant presence in Gaza Strip.
Con It is atypical for a concentration camp to experience significant population expansion of the putative inmates. In 2010, approximately 1,600,000 people lived in the Gaza Strip per CIA World Factbook; as of 2023, the estimated population is over 2,000,000^[3] This amounts to 25% growth in 13 years.
Con In a German Nazi concentration camp, the inmates were robbed of almost all of their possessions/belongings, and were either killed or subjected to forced labor in bad labor condition. Nothing of the sort happens in Gaza Strip.
- Objection Nazi concentration camps are not the only kinds of concentration camps.
Con A concentration camp is not a place so poorly run by the guards that portion of the putative inmates build tunnels and import materials and fuel to build and launch rockets at the guards on a long-term basis.
Con A concentration camp is not a place where a shopping mall is built.
Con If we interpret the term "concentration camp" very loosely as a camp with high concentration of people (which is not a standard analysis of application of a term), we still obtain this. A camp is not a place that has multiple cities with population over 30,000 people, one of whose cities is shown in Commons: Category:Gaza City. (As for high concentration of people, it is really there in Gaza Strip, as well as in e.g. Singapore.)
- Objection Since Gaza Strip historically hosted Arab refugee camps, one must not only focus on Gaza City and other cities but have a careful look at living conditions of various population subgroups. One needs to clarify what portions of Gaza Strip inhabitants live in cities and outside of cities and in what conditions.
  - Objection A place with cities is not a camp, regardless of how many people live in slum-like conditions.

References

↑ Academic Norman Finkelstein on Gaza, "the World's Largest Concentration Camp" by Jeremy Scahill, 20 June 2018, theintercept.com
↑ concentration camp, merriam-webster.com
↑ CIA World Factbook, cia.gov

Gaza Strip from 2010 to 2020 was like a concentration camp

Arguments for

Arguments against

References

Further reading