Five-Star Flotilla

Great news for would-be Gaza Flotilla participants.

While you are completely ignoring Syrian calls for genocide and instead carrying on about "Israeli genocide" (which curiously has resulted in the exponential growth of the Palestinian population), now you have somewhere to stay.

Introducing Gaza's first five-star hotel.

The Gaza Strip's first five-star hotel gleams with marble floors, five luxury restaurants and a breezy cafe overlooking the territory's white sandy beaches and sparkling blue Mediterranean Sea.

Why it's just like Auschwitz!

Nearly all of the newly opened hotel's 222 rooms, decked out with ornate metal-worked lamps, flat screen televisions, oversized beds and sea views, sit empty. The tourists whom the developers expected to flood to Gaza when they launched the project 13 years ago are nowhere to be seen. Local residents, most of them living in poverty, can only dream of staying in the gleaming complex.

Join them in condemning Israel while sitting around the hotel pool sipping cocktails.

Women cannot swim in the pool, in a nod to conservative Gaza tradition. There is no alcohol banned by Hamas in line with Islamic law.

Or not...

The tale of the $47 million Al-Mashtal has mirrored the plight of the Gaza Strip over the past decade.

Padico began construction of the hotel in 1998, a time when Gaza was awash with optimism. The Palestinians had signed interim peace agreements with Israel, and a final deal to end decades of conflict appeared to be in reach.

But the area had collapsed into violence by 2001. Despite fierce fighting with Israel, the hotel's shell was in place by 2006. But it was badly damaged during a brief civil war the following year as Hamas battled the rival Fatah faction and seized control of Gaza.

Palestinian militants smashed some 180 windows during the fighting, Agha said.

Clearly also Israel's fault.

What is it with Jew-murderers and smashing windows?