"Man's stupidity has no bounds at all." W.H.
Auden.
"When bad men combine, the good must associate,
Else they will fall, one by one,
An unpitied sacrifice, in a contemptible struggle."
Edmund Burke, 1729-1797.
No matter how Israel attempts to dress up piracy on the
high seas, in international waters - described by legal
experts and politicians as state terrorism, resulting in
nine confirmed deaths, claims of more, and up to sixty
reportedly injured; the abduction and hostage taking of
the passengers on six vessels - an act from a country
given unique legal latitude, which might prove a final act
of political suicide.
The ships are illegally impounded, hi-jacked to a country
for which they were not headed. (Although the majority of
those abducted have been released, those still held,
remain unclear. Israel has not released names and has
denied access by those held and injured.)
As the US Sixth Fleet patrols off Somalia to prevent
piracy, Israel, compounded acts of breathtaking
criminality, by boarding and diverting Ireland's MV Rachel
Currie, in international waters, loaded with aid, just
five days later.
Speaking at Istanbul airport, on return, Bulent Yildirim,
chairman of the Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms
and Humanitarian Relief (IHH), stated: "We were handed
nine dead bodies, but we have a longer list of missing
people."
The storming of the Marvi Marmara, by heavily armed
Israeli troops, largest vessel of the international
flotilla, carrying building materials, cement, chocolates,
sweets, toys, pasta, crutches, wheelchairs and medical
aid, a complete dental kit, funded by months of inventive
fund raising, in many countries, for Gaza, in the grip of
what the UN has described as a "Mediaeval siege."
Also on board was a consignment of marbles, for the
children of the tiny twenty five miles long, by seven
mile wide, besieged territory. One could be forgiven for
thinking there are some in high places in Israel, who have
lost theirs.
Ironically, Bristol Fire Brigade (UK) donated quantities
of protective clothing and equipment, for Palestine's
emergency authorities, tackling hazardous situations.
The response from London and from America's Nobel Peace
Prize winning President is still muted to mute. Israel's
Ambassador to Britain, Ron Prosor has been given copious
air time, to explain that his country was under constant
threat, omitting its sixty plus year addiction to
unprovoked threats and attacks on its neighbours and the
lives, land, livlihoods and homes of its Palestinian
citizens.
The response from London and from America's Nobel Peace
Prize winning President has been muted to mute. Israel's
Ambassador to Britain, Ron Prosor has been given copious
air time to explain that his country was under constant
threat, omitting its sixty plus year addiction to
unprovoked threats and attacks on its neighbours and the
lives, land, livlihoods and homes of Palestinian citizens.
The BBC which some allege increasingly resembles an
outpost of Israeli State Radio, continues to reiterate
endlessly that Hamas, elected under UN-monitored and
approved polls, "seized power."
The attack on Gaza by Israel, in December-January 2008/9,
which left nearly fifteen hundred Palestinians dead and an
estimated five thousand wounded, many maimed for life, and
the subsequent blockade, denying rebuilding or repair of
decimated infrastructure, was the flotilla's genesis.
Also included were ninety eight generators, ninety pre-fab
homes, six hundred tonnes of iron bars and one hundred and
fifty tonnes of iron for building - with a glimmer of
childhood normality in sixteen entire playground kits,
sports equipment, footballs and basketballs, for a child
population considered uniquely traumatised. Volunteers,
including Israelis, who risked the journey of compassion,
were from forty countries and included thirty politicians,
with Hanin Zoabi an Israeli parliamentarian (now with
other Palestinian law makers receiving death threats)
sixty journalists; professionals, medical practitioners, a
Nobel Peace Prize winner, Edward Peck, former US
Ambassador, US Colonel Anne Wright, who resigned in
protest at the Iraq invasion.
According to Greta Berlin, an organizer and spokesperson,
twenty percent of passengers were over sixty, the oldest
eighty eight, the youngest under two.
At the organization's media centre in Cyprus, the four
manning the ever ringing telephones, twenty four hours a
day,had a total age of two hundred and ninety six.
Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein, 85, Greta, 69 and a 76
and 66 year old. Strange "hard line terrorists", as
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev has told the BBC.,
were attempting the voyage to beleaguered Gaza's 1.5
million residents.
"By sailing directly to Gaza, outside of Israeli waters,
with cargo banned illegally by Israel ... the flotilla
(was) exercising international law and upholding article
33 of the Geneva Convention which clearly states that
collective punishment is a crime against humanity", stated
Dr Mona El Farrer, in Gaza.
World leaders commenting on the Israeli attack expressed:
"shock"; "condemned", "deplored", cited a "terrorist act",
a "massacre", a "grave act", and "state terrorism."
International law expert Anis Kassi cites: "cold blooded
assassination", and Sabah al Mukhtar, President of the
Arab Lawyers Association, says it: ".. is the exact
definition of piracy."
Coincidentally, President Barack "Nobel" Obama, "Middle
East Peace Envoy", Charles Anthony Lynton Blair, QC., and
Israel's spokespeople, originally used the same inadequate
word, limp and lacking as as their integrity and spine :
"regret."
Nilufer Cetin, with her one year old son and whose husband
was engineer on the Marvi Marmara, described the
"regrettable" violence as: "... extremely bad and brutal.
The ship turned into a lake of blood.
"I was one of the first victims to be released because I
had a child. They confiscated everything, our
telephones, laptops are all gone.
"We were aware of the possible danger [in joining the
trip] but there are thousands of babies in Gaza. If we
had reached Gaza we would have played with them and
taken them food."
Ms Cetin would surely resonate with the people of Ramalla,
who gathered in Al Manara Square, on the evening of the
onslaught: "with a thousand paper ships, like we made when
we we little kids, in support of the Flotilla .... in a
silent, non-violent and non-political action."
In an attempt at damage limitation, beyond laughable and
bordering on the psychologically challenged - were the
circumstances not so criminally tragic - Michael Oren,
Israel's Ambassador to the US., likened vicious attacks -
by armed Commandos in balaclavas, who, allegedly, also
fired on the vessels before illegally boarding, murdering,
injuring and committing grand theft - to the US fighting
Nazis in World War 11. He told Fox News: "The US acted
under similar international law when (they) fought the
Germans and the Japanese in World War Two."
A saner view might have been that the committed
compassionate passengers, were today's equivalent of
those who, at great personal risk, attempted to feed, aid
and protect Jewish people, under threat in occupied
Europe. Gaza has many times been described as today's
Warsaw ghetto.
It is Turkish Prime Minister, Tayyip Erdogan, in an
impassioned speech to his Parliament, who blazed the
significance of Israel's actions: That ship, he said,
might finally have done more than over sixty years of
hollow condemnations of Israel's actions - which John
Pilger has described as those of a "criminal state", with
a near unique "record of lawlessness", defiance of
numerous UN Resolutions, defiance of the right of
Palestinians right to return to their homeland, affirmed :
"... at least 135 times as 'the will of the international
community' " - and ignored.
As Israeli Ambassadors, worldwide,were summoned by
governments, to explain their country's actions, and
protesters still daily, demanding the closure of Israel's
Embassies, maybe finally Israel's successive governments'
heartless, lawless behaviour toward citizens and
neighbours are to be called to account.
The currency of those who use the inhuman horror of the
Holocaust's vast bloodstain on history, to get away with
murder and deny the most basics of normality to others,
maybe finally approaching bancrupcy.
Incredibly, the passengers, hi-jacked at gunpoint, were
asked to sign a document declaring that they had entered
Israel illegally.
As the self declared "only democracy in the Middle East",
deny access to Barzilia Hospital in the Israeli city of
Ashkelon, where still unaccounted for injured lie with :
"every patient (having) a soldier next to the bed",
according to spokeswoman, Leah Malul (that should aid
recovery) it is people of Jewish origin, worldwide, who
have been some of the most vocal in their condemnation of
the attack.
In the (London) Guardian, (3rd June) political and social
commentator Adhaf Soueif writes: "... young Jewish
Israeli activists told me they saw that the only hope for
their country lies with the international community.
Israel is on a path to self-destruction, they said, and it
will take the region with it. It will not stop, they said,
until the price it pays for its actions becomes too heavy.
This price has to be a moral and economic price imposed by
the world."
"Israel is a lunatic state", wrote political scientist,
Professor Norman Finkelstein.
"The Israeli image took a mortal blow ..... deep in
international waters (rendering) Israel a pirate state",
commented Ben Caspit, in the Israeli daily, Maariv.
In Haaretz, where Gideon Levy rises eloquently beyond
ballistic, his colleague, Ari Shavit, laments that in
Israel's 2006 onslaught on Lebanon: "... my sixteen year
old daughter could have conducted it more wisely than the
(government.) We've progressed. Today it is clear that my
six year old son could do better than our current
government."
Sir Gerald Kaufman, in the (UK) Parliament (2nd June)
called Israel's actions: "Piracy, kidnap and murder."
Professor of International Law, Richard Falk, demanded: "
.. Criminal accountability"; whilst Israeli born and
raised Avigail Avarbanel comments on: "Israel's growing
insanity."
That the Commando who shot several passengers on the
Marmara in cold blood, is to be rewarded for valor,
according to numerous reports, seemingly confirms this
viewpoint.
Professor Avi Shlaim, refers to: "Israel's insane attack."
(http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=19505)
"Israel has always complained, condescendingly, that the
neighbors it is forced to deal with are Arabs rather than
'Norwegians and Swedes.' Now, when it is dealing with
Europeans and the entire world, Israel can see how it
itself is perceived − and blush furiously. If it still
can", wrote Doron Rosenblum.
Condemnation in newsprint, by the Jewish diaspora alone,
has felled woods, probably forests.
Other aid-giving voyages, including from neutral
Switzerland, an entirely Jewish manned and organized one
from Germany, are planned for the near future, as
international donations pour in. Turkey's Prime Minister
has indicated he may travel on an aid ship, with Israel
threatening to attack the NATO country vessel, again.
Iran's aid plan has also raised tensions and concerns.
As shipping Unions refuse to load or unload Israeli
vessels and other Unions from Australia to Britain join
numerous organizations, in boycotting Israeli goods, with
performers, authors and intellectuals calling for a
cultural boycott, Israel has declared it will impose
penalties world wide against those who promote such
action. A move, seemingly, not through with resounding
clarity.
With vociferous demands that Israel's UN Membership and
that of the OECD are suspended or rescinded, that it is
barred from the 2012 London Olympics, and numerous
professional Bodies call for the country's isolation,
might Israel finally change direction?
Being asked is, also, should a country, so apparently out
of control - believed with the world's fifth largest
nuclear arsenal - be subject to the unthinkable, until it
complies with international norms?
Iraq with a third world, decimated army, no meaningful
weapons, was subject to air, sea, even postal, isolation.
Spare parts, construction materials, even educational
provisions, toys, personal hygiene materials, newspapers,
newsprint, magazines, were all denied. Telephone,
electricity, infrastructure of every kind, vehicles,
factories, hospitals, collapsed or fell in to disrepair.
Sanctions on Iran tighten, with Israel amongst the
strongest proponents, toward a country which undergoes
ongoing inspections by the International Atomic Energy
Authority.
As Israel subjects a Palestinian teritory to an identical
deprivation as Iraq, contrary to all humanitarian law,
sanctions are becoming a topic which will not go away .
Already isolated in mentality, as it hi-jacks and impounds
vessels, demands to inspect cargo not even bound for its
shores, obtained by brigandry and looting, checking that
such threatening items as cardamon and jams (denied to
Palestine) are not present, should a State which has
consistently refused to ever have its vast weapons and
nuclear arsenal checked, finally be forced in to
accountability?
A country which also demands to investigate itself over a
lawless act of enormity.
Not to be forgotten, as analysts have pointed out, is that
the naval blockade of Gaza's waters, may have less to do
with "terrorism" and much to do with the presence of
considerable fields of natural gas offshore. There has
long been speculation as to lateral drilling by Israel, in
Gaza's water.
Yet, in the week "the world became Gaza", maybe, a
flotilla of committed people, ill-treated, injured and
those who gave lives, in solidarity with the humanity of
others, are bringing successive Israeli governments' sixty
two year ram-raid through international norms - and
neighbouring countries - to and end?