Seeing stripes in Gaza

October 11, 2009 - 11:24 AM by David · 2 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, Environment, General, coexistence

One of the painted donkeys at the Happy Land Zoo in Gaza.

Here’s an example that shows that efforts at cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians come in quite different stripes.

Reports abounded last week about the goings on at Gaza’s Happy Land Zoo, where, with a little masking tape and women’s hair dye, two donkeys were transformed into striped zebras.
The reason? A genuine zebra would have been too expensive to bring into Gaza via smuggling tunnels under the border with Egypt, said owner Mohammed Bargouthi. “It would have cost me $30,000 to get a real one,” who added that his zoo charges an entrance fee of only $15 for a busload of school kids.

Due to Hamas being still in a state of war with Israel, the Israeli government has kept an embargo imposed on Gaza, which has decimated the zoo that Bargouthi opened last year.
Other than the would-be zebras, lion and two ostriches, there’s only a camel and some birds.
According to an AFP report, the animals are often sick and the medicine they need is unavailable in Gaza.

“If there was an animal protection group here, they would have us all arrested for mistreating the animals,” said Bargouthi. “I tell myself that it’s a sin not to take care of them properly, but I try to do my best.”

“The zoo is meant for children. When they come here, they are happy, they run, they have fun. They want to see the lion and the zebra — they believe it’s real,” Bargouthi told AFP.

Nidal Bargouthi, whose father owns the zoo, told Ynet that the initial attempts at painting the donkeys didn’t turn out so well.

“The first time we used paint but it didn’t look good,” he said. “The children don’t know so they call them zebras and they are happy to see something new.”

When the mayor of Ramat Gan, Tzvi Bar, read about the zoo’s plight in the Ynet story, he said he was shocked. He called the director of the much more affluent Ramat Gan Safari and asked him to send two zebras to the Gaza zoo in hopes it will prevent similar occurrences in the future.

“The zebras will be transferred to Gaza under the official commitment of the Gazans, to take good care of the animals,” Bar told Ynet.

This week the Safari will begin the many arrangements involved in transporting the animals to Gaza, including permits from the Defense Ministry, IDF, Nature and Park Authority and the Palestinian Authority.

Whether the neighborly move will prompt Gazans to change their stripes in their attitude toward Israel remains to be seen.

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