Sabotage on the High Sea
Free Gaza Movement | 4 June 2010
Colonel Itzik Tourgeman told the Knesset Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday that two more ships are on their way to try and break the naval blockade of Gaza. The head of research in the operations division said, “The ships have not reached their target as of today because covert action was taken against them.”
We had suspicions about our two boats, Challenger 1 and 2 and their mechanical problems as they sailed toward the flotilla, but we were not going to say anything unless we could prove it. Turns out we didn’t have to prove it. Israeli mouthpieces did.
The Guardian ran a piece the same day, saying,
Israel gave strong indications today that its forces had secretly sabotaged some of the ships bound for Gaza as part of the freedom flotilla.
Matan Vilnai, the deputy defence minister, was asked on Israel Radio whether there had not been a smarter alternative to direct assault. He answered that “all possibilities had been considered,” adding: “The fact is that there were less than the 10 ships that were due to participate in the flotilla.”
An unnamed Israeli Defence Force source who briefed the Knesset’s foreign affairs and defence committee on the widely criticised armed interception of the flotilla at sea, also spoke of “grey operations” being mounted against the flotilla.”
We were lucky that our two captains were supurbly trained and able to offload the passengers safely.
So we are going to make sure the Rachel Corrie is well protected and that Israel is put on notice that anything that happens to her, the passengers and the crew will rest with Israel. As a result of these threats, we’re going to pull Rachel Corrie into a port, add more high-profile people on board, and insist that journalists from around the world also come with us.
And sabotage happens with more than deeds. It also happens with words. In today’s Haaretz, Barak Ravid reported,
“A diplomatic solution seems imminent to allow the humanitarian aid vessel the Rachel Corrie to dock without incident at the Ashdod Port. According to European diplomats and senior Foreign Ministry officials in Jerusalem, quiet messages have been exchanged over the past few days between Israel and the group operating the ship, to allow it to dock.”
This, too, is sabotage in writing. We called Haaretz and the reporter. He did not return our call.
We have no intention nor would we ever have any intention of ever docking in Ashdod.
Israel’s Dilemma
The Phony Claim of Self-Defense
By NADIA HIJAB | June 3, 2010
Israel is stuck. For decades, it has used the same strategy to achieve its objectives and to rout all challengers: overwhelming force. When it meets violence with violence — even when it uses disproportionate force as in Beirut in 1982 and 2006 and Gaza in 2008 — Israel claims self-defense and usually manages to spin the facts its way. And, as it has not yet been held to account in any meaningful way, it has seen no reason to change its strategy.
But when it meets non-violence with violence, the strategy backfires. Israel is pitching the self-defense line to try to shield itself from criticism of its attack on the Freedom Flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza convoy — but it’s not working.
You cannot claim self-defense when you have decided to send a thousand or so well-armed forces to board boats in international waters — vessels that were carefully searched before the voyage to make sure there were no arms. Or when you have killed up to 20 civilians and injured 54 others, while suffering no deaths yourself. If the situation were not so tragic, Israel’s spinning would be the stuff of comedy.
The visible crushing of peaceful activists usually has a powerful effect on world public opinion and this time it has pushed governments to take action to hold Israel accountable in a way that armed force has not. This is perhaps the most important contribution that those brave humanitarians have made to the Palestinian quest for justice.
And things will continue to unravel for Israel because it only knows how to use force to try to get its way. Ironically, Israel’s overkill has made the use of force so costly for those who favor armed resistance that the stage has been left clear for those who believe it is more effective to use civil resistance against a vastly superior armed force. It should be noted that Palestinian civil resistance is not new although it has recently been “discovered” by the mainstream media.
The first Palestinian uprising (Intifada) of 1987-1991 was almost completely non-violent and imposed itself on the world consciousness, making a powerful case for Palestinian rights. Unfortunately, the Palestinian leadership did not know how to translate the power it generated into diplomatic gains. And that uprising was just one of a series of major acts of civil resistance stretching back a century.
Today, acts of peaceful resistance are underway throughout Israel, the occupied Palestinian territories, and the rest of the world. And another outcome of Israel’s massacre on the Freedom Flotilla is that it will inexorably draw attention to the violent tactics Israel uses to counter these non-violent acts.
For example, many Palestinians and their international supporters have lost their lives and been injured in protests against the illegal Wall Israel has been building in the occupied territory since 2002. The most recent victim was May 31: 21-year-old Emily Henochowicz, a student at New York’s Cooper Union, had her eye knocked out by one of the tear gas canisters Israel’s armed force routinely fire at unarmed demonstrators. She and a group of Palestinians and internationals were demonstrating in the occupied West Bank against Israel’s assault on the Flotilla. An Israeli tear gas canister killed the peaceful anti-Wall activist Bassem Abu Rahme in April 2009 as he demonstrated against his village Bil’in’s loss of 60% of its land to Israel’s Wall and settlements — and critically injured American citizen Tristan Anderson just a few weeks previously.
Israel’s international standing is also further eroded by the violence it is using against its own Palestinian citizens as they pursue their non-violent quest for equality, most recently in its draconian arrest of community leaders Ameer Makhoul and Omar Saeed. Having incarcerated both for weeks without access to legal counsel and subject to such torture as stress positions and sleep deprivation, Israel now claims to have evidence through both men’s “confessions” of collaboration with Israel’s enemies — confessions they have since retracted as obtained under duress.
Israel’s word against Ameer Makhoul’s? When it weighs the word of a known user of indiscriminate force and terror against that of a prominent civil society leader, the world will know whom to believe.
The real dilemma for Israel is that all of the force it brings to bear is aimed at achieving the unachievable: Keeping the territories it occupied in 1967, illegal under international law; privileging Jews over non-Jews within Israel, in violation of the United Nations Charter and international conventions; and denying Palestinian refugees their right of return. There are only two alternatives for Israel: to make its peace with justice and equality, or to experience growing and costly isolation.
Nadia Hijab is a senior fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies.
Lies, damned lies, and Israeli propaganda
By Omar Radwan | Middle East Monitor | 02 June 2010
Following Israel’s murderous attack on the Freedom Flotilla taking humanitarian aid to Gaza, it is hard not to conclude that sections of the media in Britain and other Western countries have been desperate to find ways to justify the crime. On the BBC and Sky News, a frequent argument has been that Israel feels “isolated” by the international community and is in a “war” situation, and therefore feels that it has to take extraordinary measures to defend itself. To shore up this argument, these media outlets have, once again, repeated two tired fabrications; Hamas is committed to Israel’s destruction and Israel’s blockade of Gaza was imposed in response to Hamas rocket attacks.
The reality is, of course, very different. Israel is not isolated by the rest of the world. On the contrary, unlike, say, Iran and Syria (and before 2003, Iraq) in the Middle East, Israel has not been subject to sanctions in any way by the international community. It remains the largest recipient of US financial, political and military aid, despite the much-hyped rift between the Obama administration and the right-wing Netanyahu government and was recently co-opted to the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development with the blessing of the European Union Nations. Nor is Israel in a war situation. None of Israel’s Arab neighbours pose a military threat to its existence and two of them, Egypt and Jordan, have full diplomatic relations with the Jewish state; Egypt cooperates actively with Israel in the siege of Gaza.
Israel’s blockade of Gaza is usually said to have started in June 2007, when Hamas took control of the territory after pre-empting a coup by a faction within political rivals Fatah, but Israel had been limiting the movement of goods and people into Gaza long before that. The rockets fired from Gaza are not a threat to Israel and are not the reason for the blockade. Israel conducts frequent and deadly raids into the Gaza Strip and the rockets are fired in response to these raids. These rockets are very basic and inaccurate, capable of causing limited damage; they are very rarely lethal and are the only “serious” weapon available to a desperate people who have been brutalised by Israel for years. What about the claim that Hamas is committed to Israel’s destruction? Hamas has offered Israel an open-ended ceasefire if it withdraws from the West Bank and lifts the blockade of Gaza; Israel has refused. The very fact that this “hudna” has been offered is de facto recognition of the state of Israel.
It is still not known exactly how many fatalities there were during Israel’s assault on the flotilla. Most news reports claim that nine or ten of the passengers were killed by the Israeli commandos, but other sources suggest that the figure could be as high as nineteen. Israel has imposed an information blackout designed to make sure that only its version of events comes out. As part of this “hasbara” campaign, the Israeli military issued a grainy black and white video, labelled helpfully, showing some of its soldiers being attacked with iron bars and chairs, with one being thrown from one deck to another, as they stormed it from their helicopters. This film has been played without comment on Sky News, the BBC and other channels. In addition, Israeli claims that the activists were carrying knives and stun grenades on their ship have been taken at face value and reported without comment all too frequently. The Israelis would have us believe that helpless commandos were attacked by unarmed “terrorists” masquerading as activists and the main news channels in Britain and other countries have been more than willing to repeat this message.
In this way, the murder of at least nine unarmed people by soldiers armed to the teeth is made to look natural and justifiable. The Israeli video is so surreal and unbelievable that it is barely worth commenting on. Apart from the fact that there is another, better quality video of an announcement made by an activist to his fellow passengers telling them not to resist because there is nothing they can do against the Israelis’ live ammunition, suffice to say that Israel has used this tactic before. During the war on Gaza, in order to justify its attacks on civilians, the Israeli army posted videos of rockets being loaded or fired, which later turned out to be faked. Even if we suppose that the latest “attack” video is authentic, isn’t it natural for people under attack to defend themselves? And yet the activists are being portrayed as thugs, hooligans and terrorists for doing so.
Israel has called the Freedom Flotilla an “Armada of Hate” and said that the activists on board are linked with Hamas, al-Qaeda, and “global jihad”; again, these absurd claims have been taken at face value by sections of the media. The Turkish humanitarian organisation, IHH, which has played a leading role in the flotilla, has been smeared in the Daily Telegraph as a front organisation for al-Qaeda, without any evidence being proffered. This charitable society operates legally around the world apart from Israel where it is banned, as are many other legitimate charities which support Palestinians in the midst of a desperate humanitarian catastrophe; no credible evidence is ever provided for these bans. They are seen by many as just another tool used by Israel to deny Palestinians much-needed aid.
The same DailyTelegraph story mentions that the flotilla has been endorsed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the British Green Party MP Caroline Lucas. On board the flotilla were the Swedish bestselling author Henrig Mankell, the former United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, Dennis Halliday and the founder of Northern Ireland’s “Peace People”, Mairead Corrigan Maguire. Did the Telegraph bother to ask why all these people endorsed and took part in a project organised by IHH if it was indeed an al-Qaeda front organisation?
One very important aspect has been played down amidst all this hostile media coverage – the dire need of the people of Gaza for the items on board the ships of the flotilla. Among other things the flotilla carried cement, building materials, school supplies and medical equipment. The admittedly limited quantity of aid on the convoy would still have been of immense value to the people of Gaza. The homes and buildings that Israel destroyed in its December 2008 assault on the territory are still in ruins because Israel has since blocked the import of building materials. In fact, there is a long and arbitrary list of items that cannot be imported: pencils, computers and other educational items, for example, are banned, as are many food items, such as canned fruit. The volume and category of goods permitted to be imported into Gaza are kept at a level low enough to create poverty, malnourishment and suffering but not too low to create a humanitarian catastrophe that will make Israel look bad in front of the cameras. Despite this, the statement by Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman that there is “no humanitarian crisis in Gaza” and that Israel is allowing thousands of tons of food and equipment in has been reported without comment. The organisers of the Freedom Flotilla have also been criticised by some for not accepting Israel’s offer to unload their ships in Ashdod so that the Israelis can deliver their cargo “through the usual channels”. They were, of course, supposed to believe that the same “channels” which have made the people of Gaza suffer for so many years would suddenly and willingly help to alleviate that suffering.
Media complicity in Israel’s crimes has long been accepted by analysts, and Israel has spent a great deal of money on promoting its side of the long-running conflict narrative through a sophisticated propaganda machine. This latest episode, however, has exposed the double-standards and lack of genuine objectivity by the compliant sections of the media. On BBC Radio 5’s “Up all Night” programme on 2 June, Bruce Shapiro, the executive Director of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma at the Columbia University in New York City, said that in most cases, the “facts” which emerge within the first 24-48 hours of incidents like Israel’s hijacking of the flotilla are usually shown to be false with the passage of time. Should this happen in this case (and it has already been admitted by an Israeli military spokesperson that none of the passengers had any weapons on them prior to the assault), a lot of media outlets will be left with egg on their faces because they have allowed the Israeli side of the story to be pushed almost unchallenged. How long will it be before members of the public grasp the fact that they are being duped, say enough is enough, and demand a balanced media approach to this conflict?
Everyone Is NOT Released
By Free Gaza Team
(Cyprus, June 3, 2010) Yesterday, the The UN Security Council called for impartial, credible investigation of the Israeli attack on our boats. In addition, the council requested the immediate release of the ships as well as the civilians held by Israel. The media is reporting that all are being released which is simply untrue.
At least four Palestinian/Israelis, Free Gaza Movement board director, Lubna Masarwa, Sheik Raed Salah, leader of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, Mohammed Zeidan, Chairperson of the High Fellowship Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel and Hamed abu Dabis are facing multiple serious criminal charges for their participation in a peaceful voyage to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza.
After a full day in court represented by excellent attorneys from Adalah, they were remanded until June 8, evidence of how seriously the situation is for these four human rights workers.
This illegal incarceration is just another example of Israel’s draconian policies. First, they boarded our ships, traveling in international waters and loaded with supplies to Gaza. They murdered at least nine of our passengers, wounded dozens more, then hijacked our boats and forced them into the port of Ashdod. They threw 600 passengers into detention. None of these passengers had any intention of going to Israel but were dragged to the country under force and then deported.
Now they have thrown four well-known human rights, religious and political leaders into prison for expressing support for their beleaguered brothers and sisters in Gaza.
Please contact: Audrey Bomse, Lawyer 00 357 96 48 98 05
Greta Berlin, 00 357 99 18 72 75
###
See also:
Israel sends home last of flotilla activists
The Independent – June 2, 2010
The Sudden Koehler Resignation
By Doug E. Steil | Aletho News | June 1, 2010
Yesterday’s surprise resignation, effective immediately, by the German President, who maintained a ceremonial office, is highly peculiar in light of its timing.
An article by the news agency Reuters, referred to controversial comments made by Koehler, prompting criticism, which he then claimed was not sufficiently respectful of his office:
Koehler, in office since 2004, said in a radio interview on his return from a trip to Afghanistan this month that German military action abroad also served economic interests.
A country like Germany with a heavy reliance on foreign trade, Koehler said, must know that “in emergencies military intervention is necessary to uphold our interests, like for example free trade routes, for example to prevent regional instabilities which could have a negative impact on our chances in terms of trade, jobs and income.”
This attitude was regarded as imperialistic and not consistent with the German Basic Law. However, an alternative and more reasonable interpretation of these comments, given German consistency in international diplomacy and lessons learned from history prior to the Second World War might be along the following lines:
Since Germany is so strongly dependent on exporting manufactured goods to maintain its income, a media smear campaign or boycott effort, which the Anglo-American axis would readily instigate against it, if its leaders did not do as they are told, would have adverse consequences. Since the Anglo-American axis has ordered Germany to maintain a stronger military presence in Afghanistan and elsewhere in support of a doomed and senseless effort, we really have no choice but to play along with this highly unpopular policy rather than risk the alternative.
In other words, Koehler was likely sending a coded signal, that the usual suspects were once again blackmailing Germany. These suspects are of course the same policy movers, who insist:
(a) on maintaining a continued military presence of US troops and air bases on German soil;
(b) on Germany’s large gold reserves remaining under strict custody in Manhattan (what good is gold if it isn’t also in your physical possession?);
(c) on Germany making yet additional reparations payments under the perennial war guilt trip;
(d) on Israel getting even more state-of-the-art submarines at giveaway terms;
(e) on Chancellor Merkel obsequiously groveling before the U.S. Congress and its masters to make a public display of who is really in control.
To make up for this indiscretion, opaque and codified though it apparently was, the usual suspects presumably forced Koehler to suffer the consequences, even though the public criticism did not go into this alternative interpretation anyway, which would be strictly taboo. Doing them a great big favor, Koehler, who had just recently been re-elected to a second term in office by the German parliament, pointedly timed his unusual resignation announcement, which of course nobody had anticipated, in a manner that could not have been coincidental.
Koehler’s announcement came after the news, that the Israeli terror attack on a humanitarian ship in international waters just a few hours earlier was already causing a massive public outrage in Turkey, where the incident had been broadcast live, and would surely cause outrage among the public elsewhere, including in Germany. Something very drastic would be necessary, to divert media attention away from the Israeli attack, which was destined to become another self-inflicted public relations disaster. Koehler obliged, and we will surely soon see that he will be rewarded accordingly in his next job.
In the meantime, since German law stipulates the formal selection into office of a new president within thirty days, this sudden predicament will surely distract German politicians and the media for the next few weeks, which of course must have been the intent of this maneuver.
World Watches Raid on Relief Flotilla as Israel’s PR Machine Flails
By Siun | Fire Dog Lake | May 31, 2010
It’s been 24 hours since we began watching live video of the Freedom Flotilla as it attempted to deliver 10,000 metric tons of humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza, and much remains murky. With the Israeli government refusing to provide information on the killed, injured and detained passengers – who included European legislators, medical personnel and activists, all civilians – we are left in the dark.
Of course, Israel is quite happy to spread around the latest Israei videos which claim to show the events on the ships as Israeli commandos attacked. Left out of those video accounts is the essential, core fact that the ships were in international waters at the time – and had in fact specifically decided to alter their course to avoid just such a confrontation during the night.
Many of us watching the live feeds from Turkish TV heard the announcement of the captains decision to shift his course shortly after the Israeli warships made initial contact when the flotilla was still 100 miles off the coast. We then saw the passengers take off their life vests and relax after the initial preparations made with the first Israeli radio message. We thought that things would be calm overnight. We were oh so wrong.
The IDF – forgetting that in a wired world, they do not have total control of what we see and therefore think – has been flogging a set of videos purporting to show the boarding and also provided handy onscreen notes in case US media doesn’t see it the same way. They’ve also provided random shots of slingshots and a few boards or pipes – just lying on what appears to be a ship’s deck but note carefully that they provide no footage of these “weapons” being used nor proof they even belong to the passengers.
Now consider this PR effort in the conjunction with the pre-flotilla effort Israel launched and which is well documented in the video above. Along with multiple lies about conditions in Gaza, the Israeli Government Publicity Office sent round an “ironic” press release recommending that journalists going to Gaza dine at an upscale restaurant, a claim made to counter any concerns about the desperate conditions in Gaza which had just been reported once again by the UN Relief Agency.
But just as many of us know the lie of today’s Israeli spin which claims Israel’s murder of up to 19 civilians was justified, the lie of the restaurant video effort was shown clearly when viewers saw Mahmoud Abbas dining in the Israeli video. Abbas has not been in Gaza since the launch of the Israeli siege and the video was years old.
Did some passengers resist the Israeli attack – perhaps. In fact some of the Turkish TV video appears to show one or two passengers pushing a commando against a door as he drops from the helicopter onto the deck. So we have the elite Israeli commandos, trained for weeks to board these vessels pushed about – and this justifies the killing of up to 19 civilians? Repeat after me: the passengers were aboard a legal vessel in international waters – not attacking Israel in any fashion – and never intending to land in Israel at all.
Or as Dror Feiler, an Israeli organizer of the flotilla said before sailing:
In an interview with Israel Radio, he said he’s considered the various scenarios: “Either they take over our ships and force us to come to Ashdod, or intercept and sink us — or we’ll make it to Gaza. If we make it, we will have broken the siege. If they sink us, they will be showing the true face of a country gone insane. And if they force us into Ashdod, then they will be exactly like pirates in the Gulf of Aden . . . they’ll be the new pirates of the Mediterranean.”
As of now, there are reliable reports of a death toll of up to 19, with at least 50 wounded and numerous journalists held without the ability to contact their employers. The PM of Ireland has rightly accused the Israeli’s of kidnapping Irish citizens and governments around the world are demanding explanations and information on their citizens as well as an independent investigation. People around the word have gathered to protest this new Israeli crime – from Iraq to Times Square.
The US however is simply asking Netanyahu to investigate – and parroting Israel’s own language – expressing regret at the loss of life. As I write this, the UN Security Council is still conferring behind closed doors with CNN I reporting that the US is blocking efforts to launch an independent investigation into Israel’s actions on the high seas.
“Criminal pirate” Israel makes a fool of the OECD only days after it clasped the viper to its bosom
By Stuart Littlewood | My Catbird Seat | May 31, 2010
This morning I’m hearing reports of 20 or more dead and dozens injured after Israeli forces attacked the Free Gaza flotilla in international waters and gunned down unarmed crew and passengers.
This is no surprise. Israel had been threatening for weeks to use violence, as is its style, to intercept the peaceful mission.
And I have just watched Israel’s chief lie-monger, Mark Regev, on BBC TV. “We did everything we could to avoid violence,” he said. “They [the aid workers] chose the path of confrontation… This is elementary, we have to defend ourselves.” He claimed the Israeli boarding party was attacked! The week-kneed BBC failed to question this act of piracy in international waters and the blatant violation of maritime law.
Former British MP George Galloway, a mainspring behind the Free Gaza movement, called it “a murderous act of piracy” on innocent humanitarian aid workers and demanded a wholesale review of the international community’s relationship with “the criminal pirate state of Israel”.
When the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) just 3 weeks ago, made their woeful decision to admit Israel to their club, the Zionist regime’s plan to attack international ships attempting to bring relief to the 1.5 million innocent Gazans it had bombed and blockaded for 4 years, was already known. But the Organisation nevertheless went ahead… it does not, of course, explain what many would love to know: how Israel’s vile conduct is deemed to comply with the OECD’s fundamental values.
So I asked our ambassador. The office of Britain’s delegation to the OECD had to be prodded and goaded several times before making a half-baked reply to the simple question: Why did the British government give approval – in the British people’s name – for relaxing the rules to allow Israel to join?
Ambassador Dominic Martin was too lazy to issue a personal statement. Or maybe he was just too embarrassed by the thought of having to spout the sort of bilge I would receive 17 days later from one of his junior assistants.
When I finally got a reply it was from a lady who did not reveal her job title. But her previous job was with the Honours Unit in the Protocol Division so, clearly, here was somebody with deep background knowledge of Israel’s theft of the Holy Land and general lawlessness. This is what she said…
28 May: The rules for joining the OECD were not relaxed to allow Israel to join, and there was consensus among OECD members to admit Israel. Israel had to undergo a rigorous process of technical reforms to ensure that it met the standards of the OECD acquis in a wide range of diverse areas, from changing legislation in line with the Anti Bribery Convention to the environment. Israel has made commitments to bring its standards into line with those of the OECD in two areas, post accession – statistics (where it has been asked to disaggregate statistics for the Occupied Territories from those of Green Line Israel) and Intellectual Property Rights.
The UK has always been supportive of Israel’s application to the OECD and welcomes the successful conclusion of accession negotiations. Israel is a country with whom the OECD and its members have many natural synergies. We view the accession of Israel as a positive development for a number of reasons. It is significant that Israel believes that adherence to OECD values and standards is important and helpful in the country’s economic and social development, including its efforts to address high levels of poverty and deprivation, particularly among certain categories of the Israeli population.
The UK, together with EU member states, is confident that Israel’s accession to the OECD will open new areas of co-operation in our mutual interest. We do not believe that economic sanctions or boycotts are the way to engage or influence Israel.
You asked in your subsequent email about a statement or press release. Neither we, nor the FCO, issued a press release or statement when Israel joined the OECD.
– Tanya Collingridge, UK Delegation to the OECD
Who actually wrote that… Mrs Collingridge? Ambassador Martin? Or, more likely, some hack in the FCO’s Hasbara Unit quoting from the Israeli crapaganda manual?
- “The rules for joining the OECD were not relaxed…”
Its mission statement says that the OECD “brings together the governments of countries committed to democracy”. And in December 2007 a roadmap towards Israeli membership set out the OECD’s “fundamental values” to which members must adhere. These include “a commitment to pluralist democracy based on the rule of law and respect of human rights”.
Oh dear. Israel, as everyone has come to realize, is no western-style democracy and no respecter of the rights of others. It is an ethnocracy with deeply racist policies and criminal territorial ambitions. Since 1967 it has ruled over millions of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories without according them any democratic rights at all. It discriminates systematically against its Arab minority in numerous ways. For example, the OECD’s own report Israeli Child Policy and Outcomes finds that “government spending per child is much lower in the Arab sector than in the Jewish sector… average spending per child in the Arab localities is estimated to be 36.8% lower than in Jewish localities”.
Ongoing human rights violations are too numerous to list here – it’s latest murderous outrage has just been demonstrated on the high seas. Others range from preventing Gaza’s 3,500 licensed fisherman from earning a livelihood by shooting up their vessels whenever they put to sea, and preventing students from Gaza finishing their degree courses at West Bank universities such as Bethlehem and Birzeit, to what former prime minister Olmert himself described as “deliberate and insufferable” employment discrimination against their Arab minority.
Israel also operates discriminatory land laws that benefit Jews and prevent its non-Jewish Palestinian citizens (20% of the population) from exercising an equal right to own land. Palestinian spouses of Israeli citizens are denied full legal status, thus excluding some 16,000 women from exercising their social rights such as accessing health care.
Basic services such as water and electricity are denied to Bedouin citizens of the Negev/Naqab. Their homes are frequently destroyed.
Has the OECD turned a blind eye to the terror and havoc wrought by Israel’s military? The sanctions and blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip, and Israel’s ‘Cast Lead’ blitzkrieg launched in December 2008 against the tiny enclave’s citizens and infrastructure have caused a massive humanitarian crisis. Promised relief and reconstruction are cruelly obstructed.
Between 2000 and the start of Cast Lead (according to Israel’s B’Tselem statistics), Israelis killed 4,790 Palestrinian civilians in their homeland. Of these, 952 were children. In the same period Palestinians killed 490 Israeli civilians within Israel, including just 84 children.
Yes, 952 Palestinian kiddies snuffed in their own streets. Israelis slaughtered at least 350 more during Cast Lead and have kept Gaza under daily air attack ever since. So the “most moral army in the world” must have eliminated nearly 1400 youngsters by now. The number left maimed and crippled doesn’t bear thinking about.
Israel’s claim to sovereignty over all of historic Palestine has no basis in law, yet land confiscation and illegal settlement building continues throughout the West Bank in blatant breach of UN resolutions and previous peace accords, as do home demolitions and displacements, especially in East Jerusalem.
Doesn’t the OECD know about the severe restrictions on freedom of movement imposed by Israeli checkpoints and bypass roads, to the extent that Palestinians cannot easily reach their place of work or their farmlands, or even access the meagre healthcare facilities, and both Arab Christians and Muslims are prevented from visiting their holy places?
Isn’t the OECD aware of the torture and ill-treatment of Palestinians held in Israeli jails and detention centres, the widespread denial of children’s rights.and Israel’s refusal to allow Palestinian refugees the right of return?
Israel’s contemptuous disregard of international law, UN declarations and normal codes of conduct shows that it is not the slightest bit committed to the “attainment of the purposes of the United Nations”. Thanks to its never-ending aggression, the persistent expansion of its borders and refusal to end its illegal occupation, Israel has miserably – many would say purposely – failed to establish “peaceful and harmonious relations” with its closest neighbours. It regularly violates Lebanese and Palestinian airspace and makes armed incursions into Gaza whenever the mood takes it.
It has made no contribution whatever to the economic expansion of non-member countries and no attempt to abolish obstacles to the exchange of goods and services or enable the liberalisation of capital movements. On the contrary, it has used unrestrained military might to wreck and ruin its neighbours’ prospects and reduce them to permanent poverty.
The OECD surely knows these things.
- “Israel has made commitments to bring its standards into line with those of the OECD in two areas, post accession – statistics… and Intellectual Property Rights.”
Given the Israelis’ long crime sheet, are these the only commitments the OECD was able to wring from them? Why did it not, at the very least, insist on an end to the economic and military blockade of Gaza?
- “Israel believes that adherence to OECD values and standards is important…”
Israel believes quite the opposite, as its actions show.
- “The UK, together with EU member states, is confident that Israel’s accession to the OECD will open new areas of co-operation in our mutual interest.”
Has anyone explained what interests and values we could possibly have in common with the Israeli regime?
- “We do not believe that economic sanctions or boycotts are the way to engage or influence Israel.”
Since when have we been squeamish about slapping crippling sanctions on other countries… Iraq since 1990 and Palestine especially when we didn’t like the outcome of their democratic elections in 2006 or the’ flavour’ of their fledgling but perfectly legitimate government? We eagerly joined with the bully-boys to crush it and pile on the misery for innocent Gazans.
Now we’re itching to “engage and influence” Iran with tougher sanctions. None of these countries have posed a threat to the UK.
For 62 years normal diplomacy has failed with Israel. People with a grain of sense have concluded that it’s time to change tack. The British thumbs-up for Israeli membership of the OECD is an obscene reward for previous bad behaviour and the first act of lunacy on the watch of our new Foreign Secretary, William Hague. But we can expect many more. Hague is so passionately pro-Israel that he’s determined to make the UK a safe haven for that regime’s thugs. This will be achieved by ducking out of our legally binding obligation to exercise universal jurisdiction over persons accused of grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions.
He is reported in Haaretz as saying, “We cannot have a position where Israeli politicians feel they cannot visit this country and indeed not just Israel, but this could apply to many other nations as well. So this has to be put right. And that is well understood and agreed in the coalition government.”
How silly. Israeli politicians are welcome to visit the UK as long as their hands are clean. But Hague wants Mrs Livni, who is deeply implicated in the bloodbath in Gaza, and many more who are accused of crimes against humanity, to be able to come and do their shopping in London. I simply don’t believe that the entire coalition government shares Silly Willy’s protective attitude towards foreign war criminals. Besides, Hague’s coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, are not as hopelessly hoodwinked by Zionism as he is.
And the public, one hopes, would regard sheltering Israelis wanted for war crimes as totally unacceptable.
It might be worth mentioning that Foreign Secretary Hague became a Friend of Israel at the tender age of 15, when still in short trousers. How can he possibly be fit for purpose? How clever is it to allow signed-up, card-carrying admirers of the rogue state anywhere the levers of international power?
The stark reality of Israeli terror
As I write, the fate of that altogether more gutsy coalition, the international Free Gaza flotilla, and its humanitarian cargoes and brave passengers, is still unknown. But after the callous murders at sea it can’t be good.
Some 30 British nationals are believed to be aboard, along with £millions-worth of humanitarian supplies donated by British citizens, peacefully going about their lawful business. Where was the Royal Navy? The Government had been alerted to Israel’s threats.
According to Aljazeera, Israel claimed the Free Gaza boats were embarked on “an act of provocation” against the Israeli military, rather than providing aid, and the flotilla would be breaking international law by landing in Gaza,
Last night I wrote to Nick Clegg, Britain’s deputy Prime Minister, saying: “What action is Her Majesty’s Government taking, please, to guarantee freedom of the seas and protect those going about their lawful business from Israeli piracy? Ministers were warned of Israel’s threats so had ample time to prepare for this development. Let’s have no whimpish driveling from the Foreign Office this time, please. What’s needed is firm, decisive intervention. Just for a change let us see our Government do us proud on the international stage.”
This was only one of many angry messages he and Prime Minister David “I’m-a-Zionist” Cameron must have received.
Every decent person this morning will feel great sorrow – but also tremendous admiration – for those who lost their lives or were wounded in a noble effort to relieve the endless suffering inflicted by the foulest professional politicians on earth. I fully expect their sacrifice to be marked by remembrance services across the world.
Meanwhile, hands up anyone who feels sorry for the OECD, which has been so comprehensively pissed on by the delinquent regime it welcomed with open arms only days ago.
Footnote: The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is where a select group of 31 countries compare policy experiences, identify good practice and coordinate domestic and international policies. Its roots go back to 1947 and the reconstruction of Europe under the Marshall Plan. It is funded by its member countries to the tune of 328 million euros.
Israeli version doesn’t begin to pass laugh test
Moshe Yaroni on the Israeli response:
… every once in a while, things take a turn, and that turn is punctuated by a singular, stunning event. The murderous raid on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla this day was one such event.
I waited to start writing this until there was some official statement from Israel. I did that because I want to start off with Israel’s explanation for this horror. Here’s what the IDF spokesperson said, in part:
During the intercept of the ships, the demonstrators onboard attacked the IDF Naval personnel with live fire and light weaponry including knives and clubs. Additionally one of the weapons used was grabbed from an IDF soldier. The demonstrators had clearly prepared their weapons in advance for this specific purpose.
As a result of this life-threatening and violent activity, naval forces employed riot dispersal means, including live fire. Reports from IDF forces on the scene are that it seems as if part of the participants onboard the ships were planning to lynch the forces.
I am sure, as is always the case, there will be those who believe this version of events. But frankly, I can’t see how anyone can do so unless they are so desperate to justify Israel’s action here that they’ll believe anything. Let’s examine the IDF’s version of events.
We begin with the point that these were civilian ships and Israel boarded them with commandoes—soldiers who are disposed toward combat situations and are not meant to police unarmed civilians. They’re fighters, that’s their purpose. But the IDF claims that an assortment of international activists deliberately provoked a violent confrontation (using potentially deadly weapons, but which still leave them ridiculously overmatched) against heavily armed and trained soldiers in order to “lynch them.”
Does that seem remotely credible? It only seems so if you believe the activists on board these ships were willing to risk and actually sacrifice their lives in order to create a scandal for Israel. Of course, Israeli hasbara (propaganda) is well-practiced in casting all Arabs and Muslims as suicidal lunatics, aided by the suicide bombers who represent an infinitesimal percentage of those populations. But this collection of international activists, including many Jews, Americans and Europeans, apparently are also willing to give their lives, and rather cheaply, according to this story.
No, the IDF version of these events doesn’t begin to pass the laugh test… Full article
Pirates of the Mediterranean
By Jeremy Salt in Ankara on May 31, 2010
The Turkish aid vessel Mavi Marmara (Blue Marmara) was in international waters when it was attacked by Israeli ships and helicopter-borne soldiers on Monday morning. According to the Israeli government spokesmen, it was the Israeli soldiers who were themselves attacked, with knives, axes and guns, but it was 16 people on board who were killed, according to the estimates of the dead and wounded being made by midday. In fact, as film taken from the Mavi Marmara showed, it was the Israelis who attacked, swarming on the deck and wounding the captain as they took the ship over. The passengers were not armed. They were all checked before they boarded the ship in Istanbul and Antalya and none were carrying weapons. According to a Turkish customs official in Antalya: ‘Forty-two passengers boarded in Istanbul and 504 passengers got on the ship here. We spotted no weapons and there is no such record in our logs. We did not notice anything suspicious about the Mavi Marmara. Had our officers had any suspicions they would have reported it’.
In short, when the Israeli Foreign Minister, Danny Ayalon, said that arms were found on the ship he was lying. Even more hysterically, reaching even deeper into the barrel of falsehood, he accused the passengers of having links to Al Qaida and other ‘terrorist’ organisations. But there were no ‘terrorists’ on the Mavi Marmara, there was no live fire from the ship and there was no ‘lynch mob’ waiting for the soldiers, as the Jerusalem Post claimed. It was the Israelis who attacked. Heavily armed ‘soldiers’ swarmed on to the deck of the Mavi Marmara from naval vessels or were lowered on to it by helicopter. They began shooting straight away, terrorising the passengers as intended. If some of the attackers (three or four) were hurt it was because some passengers dared to defend themselves against armed assault. One soldier is reported to have been wounded by a passenger who grabbed his gun and turned it on his assailant but no passengers were carrying arms when they boarded the Mavi Marmara. The hundreds of people on board the ship are now on Israeli soil, having been kidnapped on the high seas. No doubt Israel will confiscate mobile phones and cameras, but it cannot hold these people for long and when they are free to tell their stories we will have a clearer idea of what happened on the Mavi Marmara.
Many of the dead were Turkish peace activists and in the coming days Turkey’s reaction to this attack on a ship flying the Turkish flag will be critical. Certainly nothing much can be expected from the US and European governments in defence of their citizens. In Ankara, however, the government issued a statement saying that the attack on a ship flying the Turkish flag may well have caused ‘irreversible damage’ to relations between the two countries. The relationship between the two countries has been deteriorating for years, reaching a low point several months ago when the last ambassador was summoned to the Foreign Ministry simply to be humiliated. For Turkey this might be the final straw. Why would it want to have any kind of relationship with a state that kills Turkish citizens? Thousands of Turks demonstrated in Istanbul’s Taksim Square on Monday afternoon. Basically Turks have had enough of Israel. They were shocked by Israel’s onslaught on Gaza in 2008 and stung by the humiliation of their ambassador and they will want very strong action from their government following this latest outrage.
To those who do not follow Middle Eastern history and politics Israel suddenly seems out of control. But it has been out of control for the six decades. It has never been in control. It has been allowed to run wild year after year. It is the embodiment of a rogue state. There is no country surrounding Israel that has not suffered a high civilian death at the hands of the Israeli ‘defence’ forces. Tens of thousands have died in Lebanon. Multiple thousands have been killed in Gaza and the West Bank. The killing of Arab civilians has been so normalised in Israel that individual deaths are scarcely mentioned. Israel will kill foreigners who get in its way but this slaughter of foreigners on the high seas is a new benchmark. This is a state that offers no hope for its own future and at this stage seems beyond redemption.
– Jeremy Salt is associate professor in Middle Eastern History and Politics at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey. Previously, he taught at Bosporus University in Istanbul and the University of Melbourne in the Departments of Middle Eastern Studies and Political Science. Professor Salt has written many articles on Middle East issues, particularly Palestine, and was a journalist for The Age newspaper when he lived in Melbourne.
Did an American Mine Sink South Korean Ship?
By Yoichi Shimatsu | New America Media | May 27, 2010
BEIJING – South Korean Prime Minister Lee Myung-bak has claimed “overwhelming evidence” that a North Korean torpedo sank the corvette Cheonan on March 26, killing 46 sailors. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton claimed that there’s “overwhelming evidence” in favor of the theory that North Korea sank the South Korean Navy warship Cheonan. But the articles of proof presented so far by military investigators to an official inquiry board have been scanty and inconsistent.
There’s yet another possibility, that a U.S. rising mine sank the Cheonan in a friendly-fire accident.
In the recent U.S.-China strategic talks in Shanghai and Beijing, the Chinese side dismissed the official scenario presented by the Americans and their South Korean allies as not credible. This conclusion was based on an independent technical assessment by the Chinese military, according to a Beijing-based military affairs consultant to the People Liberation Army.
Hardly any of the relevant facts that counter the official verdict have made headline news in either South Korea or its senior ally, the United States.
The first telltale sign of an official smokescreen involves the location of the Choenan sinking – Byeongnyeong Island (pronounced Pyongnang) in the Yellow Sea. On the westernmost fringe of South Korean territory, the island is dominated by a joint U.S.-Korean base for anti-submarine warfare (ASW) operations. The sea channel between Byeongnyeong and the North Korean coast is narrow enough for both sides to be in artillery range of each other.
Anti-sub warfare is based on sonar and acoustic detection of underwater craft. Since civilian traffic is not routed through the channel, the noiseless conditions are near-perfect for picking up the slightest agitation, for example from a torpedo and any submarine that might fire it.
North Korea admits it does not possess an underwater craft stealthy enough to slip past the advanced sonar and audio arrays around Byeongnyeong Island, explained North Korean intelligence analyst Kim Myong Chol in a news release. “The sinking took place not in North Korean waters but well inside tightly guarded South Korean waters, where a slow-moving North Korean submarine would have great difficulty operating covertly and safely, unless it was equipped with AIP (air-independent propulsion) technology.”
The Cheonan sinking occurred in the aftermath of the March 11-18 Foal Eagle Exercise, which included anti-submarine maneuvers by a joint U.S.-South Korean squadron of five missile ships. A mystery surrounds the continued presence of the U.S. missile cruisers for more than eight days after the ASW exercise ended.
Only one reporter, Joohee Cho of ABC News, picked up the key fact that the Foal Eagle flotilla curiously included the USNS Salvor, a diving-support ship with a crew of 12 Navy divers. The lack of any minesweepers during the exercise leaves only one possibility: the Salvor was laying bottom mines.
Ever since an American cruiser was damaged by one of Saddam Hussein’s rising mines, also known as bottom mines, in the Iraq War, the U.S. Navy has pushed a crash program to develop a new generation of mines. The U.S. Naval Mine and Anti-Submarine Warfare Command has also been focused on developing counterparts to the fearsome Chinese naval “assassin’s mace,” which is propelled by a rocket engine.
A rising mine, which is effective only in shallow waters, rests atop a small platform on the sea floor under a camouflage of sand and gravel. Its detection system uses acoustics and magnetic readings to pick up enemy ships and submarines. When activated, jets of compressed air or solid-fuel rockets lift the bomb, which self-guides toward the magnetic center of the target. The blast rips the keel, splitting the ship or submarine into two neat pieces, just as was done to the RKOS Cheonan.
A lateral-fired torpedo, in contrast, “holes” the target’s hull, tilting the vessel in the classic war movie manner. The South Korean government displayed to the press the intact propeller shaft of a torpedo that supposedly struck the Cheonan. Since torpedoes travel between 40-50 knots per hour (which is faster than collision tests for cars), a drive shaft would crumble upon impacting the hull and its bearing and struts would be shattered or bent by the high-powered blast.
The initial South Korean review stated that the explosive was gunpowder, which would conform to North Korea’s crude munitions. This claim was later overturned by the inquiry board, which found the chemical residues to be similar to German advanced explosives. Due to sanctions against Pyongyang and its few allies, it is hardly credible that North Korea could obtain NATO-grade ordnance.
Thus, the mystery centers on the USNS Salvor, which happened to be yet right near Byeongyang Island at the time of the Cheonan sinking and far from its home base, Pearl Harbor. The inquiry board in Seoul has not questioned the officers and divers of the Salvor, which oddly is not under the command of the 7th Fleet but controlled by the innocuous-sounding Military Sealift Command. Diving-support ships like the Salvor are closely connected with the Office of Naval Intelligence since their duties include secret operations such as retrieving weapons from sunken foreign ships, scouting harbor channels and laying mines, as when the Salvor trained Royal Thai Marine divers in mine-laying in the Gulf of Thailand in 2006, for example.
The Salvor’s presence points to an inadvertent release of a rising mine, perhaps because its activation system was not switched off. A human error or technical glitch is very much within the realm of possibility due to the swift current and strong tides that race through the Byeongnyeong Channel. The arduous task of mooring the launch platforms to the sea floor allows the divers precious little time for double-checking the electronic systems.
If indeed it was an American rising mine that sank the Cheonan, it would constitute a friendly-fire accident. That in itself is not grounds for a criminal investigation against the presidential office and, at worst, amounts only to negligence by the military. However, any attempt to falsify evidence and engage in a media cover-up for political purposes constitutes tampering, fraud, perjury and possibly treason.
Yoichi Shimatsu, former editor of the Japan Times, is an environmental consultant and a commentator on Asian affairs for CCTV-9 Dialogue.
Global Floating Ice In “Constant Retreat”???
By Willis Eschenbach | May 28, 2010
I don’t know what to make of this one. I was wandering the web when I came across a Reuters article about a scientific study called “Global Floating Ice In “Constant Retreat”: Study“.
The Reuters article opens with this arresting text (emphasis mine):
LONDON
Wed Apr 28, 2010 1:38pm EDT
(Reuters) – The world’s floating ice is in “constant retreat,” showing an instability which will increase global sea levels, according to a report published in Geophysical Research Letters on Wednesday.
Floating ice had disappeared at a steady rate over the past 10 years, according to the first measurement of its kind.
“Hello,” sez I, “how can the sea ice be in constant retreat?” I knew from my previous research that the global ice was not in any kind of retreat at all.
I was also suspicious because of the next part of the quote:
“It’s a large number,” said Professor Andrew Shepherd of the University of Leeds, lead author of the paper, estimating the net loss of floating sea ice and ice shelves in the last decade at 7,420 cubic kilometers.
I went off to find the actual paper, and discovered a curious thing.
So what did I discover … and why is their quote suspicious?
Let me start with why their quote is suspicious. It is their claim that the earth has lost 7,420 cubic kilometres of ice. As I have mentioned elsewhere, when I see numbers I automatically do an “order of magnitude” calculation in my head to see if they are reasonable or not.
I knew from my previous research that there is about twenty million square kilometres (km^2) of floating ice on the planet. I also knew that much of it out towards the edges is only a metre or two thick.
So if the ice averaged say 1.5 metres thick out at the edges where the loss happens, a seven thousand cubic kilometer loss would mean a total loss of ice area of about five million km^2, or a quarter of the area of the world’s floating ice. I think someone would have noticed that before now …
Of course, that made me wonder if the problem was in the study, or in the Reuters quote. However, that same number (7,420 cubic kilometres lost) appeared in no less than 81 other online publications. So I went haring off to find the article.
One of publications reporting the story, NewScientist, 5 May, 2010, gave the “doi:” for the article. The DOI is the “Digital Object Identifier”, and it should link directly to the article, which was supposed to have been published by Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) on Wednesday, April 28th … but the curious thing I discovered was that the DOI didn’t work.
Someone had commented on that, saying “The DOI doesn’t work.” This was replied to by someone called Marshall, from newscientist.com, who said:
Hi Eric, it’s because the article hasn’t been published on GRL’s website yet. The DOI is taken directly from our press copy of the paper, so once the article is published it should work.
OK, fair enough … although the original Reuters article was allegedly published on April 28, and today is May 28, and the DOI still isn’t working. So I went to the GRL web site to see what I could find.
I first did a search for any articles by “Shepherd” in “GRL” for “2010″, and I got this:
Figure 2. Ooooops …
Thinking it might have been misfiled, I searched through all of the May articles for anything by Shepherd. Nil. I looked through the May articles for anything regarding “ice”. Nada. I repeated both searches for April. Once again, zip. Niente. Nothing.
I thought “Well, maybe it appeared in another journal”. So I took a look on Google, but I found nothing. Google did find 32,500 instances of “ice in constant retreat”, of which 7,550 also contained “GRL”.
Google also revealed that the report of the study has been picked up by ABC News, NewsDaily, Yahoo News, New Scientist, Arab News, and ScienceDaily. It was featured on Joe Romm’s global warming blog “ClimateProgress”. It has been referred to in blogs and news reports from India, Australia, Russia, and China. It shows up on TweetMeme, Huffington Post, and Facebook. Even Scientific American has an article on it.
So at this point, it has gone round and round the world. It has been illustrated with all kinds of pictures of melting ice, and of global ice extent, and (inevitably) of polar bears. It has been discussed and debated and dissected around the web.
And with all of that publicity, with all those news reports, with all that discussion and debate … as near as I can determine, despite Reuters saying it was published a month ago, the study has never been published anywhere.
Not only that, but nobody seems to have noticed that the study has never been published.
Well, that’s not entirely true. Scientific American must have noticed, because they quietly removed the page where they had published the report … but it is still in Google’s cache.
One last thing. In all of that, in the frenzy to get out tomorrow’s news today, in the rush to report the latest scientific rumour, people seem to have forgotten to ask … how is the global sea ice actually doing?
Glad you asked. Here’s today’s information, from Cryosphere Today:
Figure 3. Daily global sea ice anomaly (red line) compared to 1979-2008 average. Link contains full sized image.
As you can see, as of today, the global sea ice is exactly on the line representing the 1979-2008 average. So over the last ten years, instead of a loss of 7,420 cubic kilometres, the loss has been … somewhere around zero. Go figure.
Israel’s Disinformation Campaign Against the Gaza Freedom Flotilla
Witness Gaza | May 28, 2010
Israeli disinformation cannot hide the siege of Gaza.
For over four years, Israel has subjected the civilian population of Gaza to an increasingly severe blockade, resulting in a man-made humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions. Earlier this month, John Ging, the Director of Operations of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in Gaza, called upon the international community to break the siege on the Gaza Strip by sending ships loaded with humanitarian aid. This weekend, 9 civilian boats carrying 700 human rights workers from 40 countries and 10,000 tons of humanitarian aid will attempt to do just that: break through the Israel’s illegal military blockade on the Gaza Strip in non-violent direct action. In response, the Israeli government has threatened to send out ‘half’ of its Naval forces to violently stop our flotilla, and they have engaged in a deceitful campaign of misinformation regarding our mission.
Israel claims that there is no ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Every international aid organization working in Gaza has documented this crisis in stark detail. Just released earlier this week, Amnesty International’s Annual Human Rights Report stated that Israeli’s siege on Gaza has “deepened the ongoing humanitarian crisis. Mass unemployment, extreme poverty, food insecurity and food price rises caused by shortages left four out of five Gazans dependent on humanitarian aid. The scope of the blockade and statements made by Israeli officials about its purpose showed that it was being imposed as a form of collective punishment of Gazans, a flagrant violation of international law.”[1]
Israel claims that its blockade is directed simply at the Hamas government in Gaza, and is limited to so-called ’security’ items. Yet When U.S. Senator John Kerry visited Gaza last year, he was shocked to discover that the Israeli blockade included staple food items such as lentils, macaroni and tomato paste.[2] Furthermore, Gisha, the Israeli Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, has documented numerous official Israeli government statements that the blockade is intended to put ‘pressure’ on Gaza’s population, and collective punishment of civilians is an illegal act under international law.[3]
Israel claims that if we wish to send aid to Gaza, all we need do is go through ‘official channels,’ give the aid to them and they will deliver it. This statement is both ridiculous and offensive. Their blockade, their ‘official channels,’ is what is directly causing the humanitarian crisis in the first place.
According to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter: “Palestinians in Gaza are being actually ’starved to death,’ receiving fewer calories per day than people in the poorest parts of Africa. This is an atrocity that is being perpetrated as punishment on the people in Gaza. It is a crime… an abomination that this is allowed to go on. Tragically, the international community at large ignores the cries for help, while the citizens of Gaza are treated more like animals than human beings.”[4]
Israel claims that we refused to deliver a letter and package from POW Gilad Shalit’s father. This is a blatant lie. We were first contacted by lawyers representing Shalit’s family Wednesday evening, just hours before we were set to depart from Greece. Irish Senator Mark Daly (Kerry), one of 35 parliamentarians joining our flotilla, agreed to carry any letter and to attempt to deliver it to Shalit or, if that request was denied, deliver it to officials in the Hamas government. As of this writing, the lawyers have not responded to Sen. Daly, electing instead to attempt to smear us in the Israeli press.[5] We have always called for the release of all political prisoners in this conflict, including the 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners languishing in Israeli jails, among them hundreds of child prisoners.[6]
Most despicably of all, Israel claims that we are violating international law by sailing unarmed ships carrying humanitarian aid to a people desperately in need. These claims only demonstrate how degenerate the political discourse in Israel has become.
Despite its high profile pullout of illegal settlements and military presence from Gaza in August—September 2005, Israel maintains “effective control” over the Gaza Strip and therefore remains an occupying force with certain obligations.[7] Among Israel’s most fundamental obligations as an occupying power is to provide for the welfare of the Palestinian civilian population. An occupying force has a duty to ensure the food and medical supplies of the population, as well as maintain hospitals and other medical services, “to the fullest extent of the means available to it” (G IV, arts. 55, 56). This includes protecting civilian hospitals, medical personnel, and the wounded and sick. In addition, a fundamental principle of International Humanitarian Law, as well as of the domestic laws of civilized nations, is that collective punishment against a civilian population is forbidden (G IV, art. 33).
Israel has grossly abused its authority as an occupying power, not only neglecting to provide for the welfare of the Palestinian civilian population, but instituting policies designed to collectively punish the Palestinians of Gaza. From fuel and electricity cuts that hinder the proper functioning of hospitals, to the deliberate obstruction of humanitarian aid delivery through Israeli-controlled borders, Israel’s policies towards the Gaza Strip have turned Gaza into a man-made humanitarian disaster. The dire situation that currently exists in Gaza is therefore a result of deliberate policies by Israel designed to punish the people of Gaza. In order to address the calamitous conditions imposed upon the people, one must work to change the policies causing the crisis. The United Nations has referred to Israel’s near hermetic closure of Gaza as “collective punishment,”[8] strictly prohibited under Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. All nations signatory to the Convention have an obligation to ensure respect for its provisions.[9]
Given the continuing and sustained failure of the international community to enforce its own laws and protect the people of Gaza, we strongly believe that we all, as citizens of the world, have a moral obligation to directly intervene in acts of nonviolent civil resistance to uphold international principles. Israeli threats and intimidation will not deter us. We will sail to Gaza again and again and again, until this siege is forever ended and the Palestinian people have free access to the world.
NOTES:
- Amnesty International, Annual Human Rights Report (26 May 2010); http://thereport.amnesty.org
- “The pasta, paper and hearing aids that could threaten Israeli security,” The Independent (2 March 2009)
- “Restrictions on the transfer of goods to Gaza: Obstruction and obfuscation,” Gisha (January 2010)
- “Carter calls Gaza blockade ‘a crime and atrocity,” Haaretz (17 April 2008), http://www.haaretz.com/news/carter-calls-gaza-blockade-a-crime-and-atrocity-1.244176
- “Gaza aid convoy refuses to deliver package to Gilad Shalit,” Haaretz (27 May 2010)
- “Comprehensive Report on Status of Palestinian Political Prisoners,” Sumoud (June 2004); Palestinian Children Political Prisoners, Addameer, http://www.addameer.org/detention/children.html
- Article 42 of the Hague Regulations stipulates, a “territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army,” and that the occupation extends “to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised.” Similarly, in the Hostage Case, the Nuremburg Tribunal held that, “the test for application of the legal regime of occupation is not whether the occupying power fails to exercise effective control over the territory, but whether it has the ability to exercise such power.” Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip, like those in the West Bank, continue to be subject to Israeli control. For example, Israel controls Gaza’s air space, territorial waters, and all border crossings. Palestinians in Gaza require Israel’s consent to travel to and from Gaza, to take their goods to Palestinian and foreign markets, to acquire food and medicine, and to access water and electricity. Without Israel’s permission, the Palestinian Authority (PA) cannot perform such basic functions of government as providing social, health, security and utility services, developing the Palestinian economy and allocating resources.
- John Holmes, Briefing to the U Security Council on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question, 27 January 2009.
- Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949, Article I stating, “The High Contracting Parties undertake to respect and to ensure respect for the present Convention in all circumstances.” See also, Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Advisory Opinion, I. C. J. Reports 2004, p. 136 at 138; http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/131/1671.pdf.
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Sam Husseini: The entire US establishment helped lie their way into the Iraq war
By Slava Zilber | American Herald Tribune | October 14, 2019
Sam Husseini is a senior analyst with the Institute for Public Accuracy, independent journalist and contributor to The Nation and FAIR.
Slava Zilber: Sam, three years ago, you appeared on Talk Nation Radio with David Swanson and spoke about the case of the GCHQ whistleblower Katharine Gun. You pointed out that the people involved in the spying on the UN and the people authorizing the Iraq War were not held accountable:
“Virtually everybody who went along with the war, whether it is Kerry or Clinton, of course, the Bush administration themselves has falsified their own records in terms of why, what they did, when they did, why they did it, to the extent that they’ve been scrutinised at all.”
You also address it in a recent article. And recently, Joe Biden has been lying about his position on the Iraq War. How can such an important issue escape meaningful scrutiny? … continue
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