Vacationers, refugees

Two world-class beaches, occupied for very different reasons

The view from atop the dunes in the Cape Cod National Seashore has inspired me since I was 13 years old.

With wonderful holiday weather, this year was no different — until it was. Here’s why.

This photo is mine, Wellfleet:

This photo is Associated Press, Gaza:

This is the edge of a refugee camp, “Deir al Balah,” reportedly among the smallest of many such camps.

Children strike the same poses playing at surf’s edge, even a few umbrellas are in similar locations. The blue ocean is the blue ocean, waves churning white as they advance, ribbons of brown sand between surf and dunes invite people to linger.

You can see why the Trump family imagines a near-future in which a resort bearing their name towers over this place — once these annoying, inconvenient, unprofitable Palestinian refugees have been removed. Makeshift shelters of course bear no resemblance to what a real developer could create on a world-class beach like this.

My photo was taken July 3, the photo from Gaza more than a year ago. The camp has grown since, more and more congested. Combined with other camps along the coast, and the ancient city, the footprint covers about 10 miles.

If Deir al Balah were superimposed on Cape Cod National Seashore, it would extend from where I took my picture through Wellfleet, cover all of Eastham’s shore into Orleans, and reach Nauset inlet.

Spreading away the beach toward Route 6, it would look like this — another Associated Press photo:

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