UN RULES THAT ISRAELI BLOCKADE IS LEGAL
IN BLOW TO FAILING FLOTILLA
More bad news for the dwindling number of flotilla activists hanging around the ports of Greece. The now completed UN Inquiry on last year’s Gaza flotilla incident aboard the Mavi Marmara found that Israel’s blockade of Hamas-ruled Gaza is legal and the Israeli government owes no apology or reparation to Turkey.
The UN investigative committee, headed by former Prime Minister of New Zealand and internationally renowned jurist, Geoffrey Palmer, actually criticizes Turkey for not doing enough to prevent the flotilla from setting sail and for also providing a somewhat anaemic and lacking investigation into the events of May 2010.
Now the part that is going to really take the starch out of the flotilla activist’s kafiyehs is that…the Turkel Committee’s report—the committee conducting Israel’s official investigation—conclu[ded] that the Israeli investigation (in stark contrast to Turkey’s) was conducted in a professional and independent manner.…
The Palmer UN inquiry has exposed the singular defining characteristic of the flotilla activists and those who support and fund them; it’s not about human rights, it’s all about an idiotic campaign to bully and delegitimize Israel. They’re failing, and miserably.(National Post, July 8, 2011.)
WHY FREEDOM FLOTILLA 2 DIDN’T FLOAT
Hadar Sela
Pajamas Media, July 3, 2011
Since its inception the organizers of the Freedom Flotilla 2—a group of ship-borne activists seeking to break Israel’s partial sanctions on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip—have encountered a broad range of largely unrelated technical, legal, bureaucratic, and political difficulties.
While participants claim that they are undertaking a humanitarian mission, since the flotilla is largely organized by radical Islamists and anti-Israel activists at a time when sanctions have shrunk to the minimum designed to limit the weapons and military power of Gaza’s rulers—it seems more of a Hamas support group.
Initial announcements that a 15 to 20 vessel flotilla—including two large passenger ships—carrying 1,500 activists from 100 countries would set sail dwindled, as of the time this article is written, to 327 passengers (over 10% of whom were journalists) from 20 countries sailing on 9 small boats. Lack of funds and public interest may have played a role…but undoubtedly the major factor was the sudden and unexpected pull-out of the vessel the “Mavi Marmara” (which also took part in the 2010 flotilla) in mid-June.
The IHH is a radical Islamist group based in Turkey with ties to terrorist groups. In the first flotilla, IHH activists armed with iron bars attacked Israeli soldiers and kidnapped two of them. An Israeli rescue attempt resulted in nine of the Turks being killed.
While the IHH cited technical problems as the reason for the refitted ship’s withdrawal, there is reason to believe that diplomatic pressures and internal Turkish political factors as well as difficulties in obtaining insurance for the voyage may have played a part. Having just won the parliamentary elections, the Turkish government has no need to provoke a major new crisis with Israel and antagonize a U.S. government that seems content to tolerate its other policies.
The UN secretary general’s appeal to the governments of countries in the Mediterranean region to use their influence to discourage the flotilla and the announcement that the UN’s investigation into the previous flotilla has concluded that the naval blockade of Gaza is in keeping with international law no doubt encouraged the European Union and the many individual Western governments which issued subsequent statements dissuading their citizens from participating in the project. Such concerns were not raised prior to the previous flotilla.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went further and described the intended voyage as “not helpful” and provocative after the State Department had issued repeated official warnings to the 36 American participants that they should not attempt to make the journey to the “dangerous and volatile” region, together with reminders regarding penalties under U.S. law for providing support to foreign terrorist organizations.
Legal problems facing the flotilla organizers included severe difficulties in securing insurance for the boats due to major insurers having been approached by the NGO Shurat HaDin (Israel Law Center), which also filed a complaint with the Greek coast guard regarding the suspected lack of seaworthiness of seven of the boats comprising the flotilla. In addition, Shurat HaDin approached the maritime communications company Inmarsat, warning of the potential for damages suits and charges of aiding and abetting terrorism.…
Public exposure of the connections of some of the flotilla’s organizers to Hamas also caused significant problems for its organizers. Just Journalism detailed the alleged Hamas connections of the European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza official Mohammed Sawalha, and four Dutch journalists pulled out of the flotilla after having discovered the extent of involvement of the Hamas-linked activist Amin Abou Rashed in the organization of the Dutch-Italian boat.…
The internal economic and political crisis situation in Greece, where most of the flotilla’s boats had grouped, brought about a general strike which contributed to the delay in the flotilla’s departure as ports and marinas closed down as a result. In addition, a possible case of sabotage to the propeller of the Swedish-Norwegian boat in Greece and a similar (though disputed) incident concerning the Irish boat in Turkey incurred heavy expense for repairs and necessitated further postponement of departure.…
By the beginning of July, some of the journalists had openly stated their intention to abandon the project rather than spend an unknown additional amount of time waiting.
This factor presumably contributed to the decision made by the flotilla organizers to set sail on the afternoon of July 1 with the U.S. boat—the “Audacity of Hope”—despite not having secured the relevant permissions. The journey was brought to an abrupt end by Greek authorities after some 25 minutes at sea when the Hellenic coast guard, aided by Greek commandoes, turned the boat back to a naval port near Athens.…
On July 1, the Greek cabinet banned all the vessels comprising the flotilla from leaving port. Apparently some of the flotilla movement’s organizers have now expressed pessimism not only regarding the ability of the current flotilla to get underway, but as to the future of the movement as a whole.
USING LAWFARE TO ANCHOR THE GAZA FLOTILLA
George JonasNational Post, July 6, 2011
Adam Shapiro, a board member of the Free Gaza Movement that sponsors the floating insult to human intelligence its organizers call Freedom Flotilla, was addressing supporters in New Jersey. As quoted by the British commentator Melanie Philips, Shapiro felt no need to mince words.
“Free Gaza is but one tactic of a larger strategy,” he explained, “to transform this conflict from one between Israel and the Palestinians…to one between the rest of the world and Israel.”
While it’s hardly news that the flotilla’s purpose is to de-legitimize Israel, rather than to relieve human suffering, it’s nice to have it confirmed by Mr. Shapiro. A flotilla is not required to bring food or medicine to Gaza. The blockade, in place since 2007, is to keep out things that go bump in the night. Israel is trying to reduce the flow of war material: the stuff of which rockets, mortars, bombs and underground tunnels are made.
The Free Gaza Movement is misnamed, unless it wants to free Gaza from Hamas. The strip’s inhabitants need to be liberated only from corrupt and dysfunctional fanatics who mask their own inability to govern with stubborn efforts to wipe Israel off the map, or goad it into acts of self-defence that make its bad press worse and increase its isolation.…
Israel has to be very, very careful. It’s the one country that isn’t quite entitled to defend itself. Never mind bad press. Israel could get in trouble with Judge Richard Goldstone or one of his brethren. Its defenders could face war crime charges faster than you can say International Criminal Court.
Israel’s dilemma is a bit like a homeowner who is confronted by a home invader in a country like Canada. If the homeowner does nothing, the intruder gets his silver; if he pulls a gun, the police get him for improper storage of a firearm—or worse. “You chambered a round, sir? You keep your ammunition in the same room as your weapon?”
This is how civilization ends up protecting barbarity. But if the law is a genie, ready to serve anybody who lets it out of the bottle, it occurred to a bright group of Israeli lawyers that they can rub a bottle as well as the next guy. They founded Shurat HaDin (Israeli Law Centre) whose motto is “bankrupting terrorism—one lawsuit at a time.…”
Accordingly, in a Manhattan court two weeks ago, a suit was launched by an American victim of a Palestinian suicide bomber to confiscate 14 seafaring vessels, which were allegedly outfitted by funds illegally raised in the United States, contrary to 18 U.S.C. section 962. What’s that section? Never mind. The legal jungle is littered with bottles, and any one may contain a genie.
One of the plaintiff’s attorneys, the founder of Shurat HaDin, described the case as the first of its kind. “We intend to seize the Gaza Flotilla ships and turn them over to a victim of Palestinian terrorism,” Nitsana Darshan-Leitner was quoted as saying.…
Then, on June 6, the U.S.-based global satellite company Inmarsat was put on notice that it may be liable for “massive damages and criminal prosecution,” if it provided communication services to the blockade runners.
Shurat HaDin’s lawyers were rubbing the bottles and, lo and behold, genies started emerging. Some insurers bowed out. Greek authorities stopped ships from setting sail to the Gaza Strip last Sunday.…
Our times are savagery plus paperwork. We set out for hostile shores as readily as Viking raiders, except the style of Erik the Red wouldn’t be cramped by his inability to obtain insurance, and ours might be. Lawfare is clever, but before we applaud dressing politics in judicial robes, we should remember that, just like warfare, it’s a game two can play.
Living by the law carries the same caveat as living by the sword. One must be prepared to perish by it.
SHIP OF USEFUL IDIOTS?
Margaret Wente
Globe & Mail, July 7, 2011
I regret to report that this year’s Freedom Flotilla to Gaza is a bust. The hardy band of activists—including a couple of dozen Canadians and the novelist Alice Walker—failed to break Israel’s…blockade and deliver their cargo of humanitarian relief to the suffering Gazans. In fact, they barely made it out of port. The Canadians’ boat, the Tahrir (Arabic for “liberation”) was immediately intercepted by the Greek coast guard. An early alert that the boat might be sinking proved to be a false alarm. It was merely gouged when the coast guard took it back to the marina and ran it into the dock.
The Canadians didn’t really expect that their effort to run the blockade would succeed. They hoped for something better—martyrdom, perhaps. Maybe there would be a repeat of last year’s debacle, when Israeli forces killed nine people on the Mavi Marmara. “We’re expecting to be tasered,” said Kevin Neish, a white-haired B.C. activist who enjoys volunteering as a human shield. Mary Hughes Thompson, another white-haired activist who co-founded the Free Gaza Movement, was serene. “If anything should happen to me—if I should die—I can’t think of a better cause,” she told the CBC.
Despite their best efforts, nothing happened.…
This year’s useful idiots included the usual aging peaceniks, left-wing university types, a few Jewish radicals, and the kind of people who show up to protest against logging and genetically modified foods. It doesn’t seem to bother them that Gaza is controlled by Hamas, widely regarded as a terrorist group. Hamas is dedicated to the destruction of Israel. It endorses The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a notorious anti-Semitic forgery that describes Zionist plans for world domination. (Too bad the journalists didn’t ask about that.…)
Israel’s blockade exists to stop rampant weapons-smuggling into Gaza. But the activists are unruffled by the Hamas connection. To them, the terrorists are all in Israel. They regard the suffering of Gazans as equivalent to the suffering of southern U.S. blacks under segregation, and the Gaza flotilla as the moral equivalent of freedom marches in Alabama. One of the passengers aboard the Tahrir was David Heap, a university professor whose father took part in the civil-rights movement. Mr. Heap says his father, too, was “ridiculed when he went to Selma to join Martin Luther King.…”
Gaza is a wretched place. But Gazans are not the most wretched of the Earth. Flat-screen TVs, new cars, lavish weddings, and Israeli mineral water are abundant. If the activists really cared about people in desperate need of humanitarian relief, they’d be sailing to North Korea or Sudan. If they really cared about murderous dictatorships, they’d be protesting against Bashar al-Assad. Instead, they’d rather martyr themselves to enable terrorists. They wouldn’t be the first, or the last.
GREECE SIDES WITH ISRAEL
Benny Morris
National Interest, July 8, 2011
Back in the 1950s, Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion adopted what came to be known as the “Peripheral (or Peripheries) Policy” regarding Israel and the Middle East.
In 1948 the surrounding Arab states had invaded the newborn Jewish state. In the latter stages of that war and in its immediate aftermath, Israel tried to make peace with them on the basis of the post-war territorial status quo. But Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon, and the other Arab states beyond, and their societies, refused to agree to peace principally because they continued to oppose a Jewish state, whatever its territorial configuration.
So Ben-Gurion, to reinforce Israel’s security and political standing, resolved to reach out to and forge alliances with the region’s non-Arab or non-Islamic states and groups, including Iran and Turkey, and the Druse of Syria, the Kurds of Iraq, the Christians and animists of southern Sudan, and the Maronites of Lebanon. These states and groups, on the “periphery” of the Muslim Arab world, all had conflicts with Muslim Arab states and groups.…
Here lay the origin of the Israeli-Turkish relationship. In 1949 Turkey, with a tradition of bad relations with the Arabs, was the only Muslim country to extend de jure recognition to the State of Israel and in the 1990s the ties burgeoned into a special relationship, with full diplomatic relations and hefty defense ties running into billions of dollars annually.…
[But] the rise of the Islamist government under Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the massive growth of the Turkish economy resulted in a radical reshaping of Turkey’s foreign policy. While still officially a member of NATO and while still officially seeking membership in the EU, the country has steadily distanced itself from the West…include[ing] a steady erosion of Turkey’s ties with Israel (but not to the point of formally severing diplomatic relations) a steady growth of its ties, political and economic, with Syria and Iran and very public patronage of the Palestinian national cause.
This was the background to the dispatch last year, from Turkish harbors, of the first “humanitarian aid flotilla” to the Gaza Strip, besieged by Israel since its 2007 takeover by the Islamist Hamas Party. The flotilla tried to break the naval blockade of Gaza’s coastline and Israeli naval units responded by boarding the boats. On the flotilla’s “flagship,” the “Mavi Marmara,” the Israeli commandos killed nine Turkish activists who had attacked them with crowbars, knives and bottles.…
A second flotilla, largely based this time in Greek ports, was due to set sail last week for Gaza, but most of the boats remain in harbor and it is not clear at the moment whether the flotilla will ever set out. In part, this is due to mechanical failures on at least two of the boats…which an Irish activists’ spokesman was quick to attribute to Israeli saboteurs.…
But the chief reason for the hold-up or cancellation of the flotilla is undoubtedly the realignment of political forces in the Eastern Mediterranean during the past year or two. Last week the Greek Government officially prohibited the boats from sailing to Gaza and proposed that the cargo of food and medicine they intended to convey be transferred to Greek government ships, which would offload the cargo in Ashdod, Israel, or El Arish, Egypt, for eventual trans-shipment to Gaza. Indeed, the Greek coast guard even chased after an American vessel, “The Audacity of Hope,” that set sail from Piraeus without permission and forced it to return to Greece after arresting its captain.
Over the past year, Netanyahu, extending, as it were, Ben-Gurion’s Peripheral Policy, possibly with some assistance from Washington (which is unhappy with the turn Turkey has taken in recent years), initiated this realignment, with Israeli interest and favor shifting from Ankara to Athens. Israeli-Greek relations, traditionally extremely cool—Greece was the only European democracy to have voted with the Arabs in 1947 against the UN General Assembly partition resolution, which endorsed the establishment of a Jewish state, and Greece only established full diplomatic relations with Israel in 1990—have now warmed considerably, with Netanyahu and Georgios Papandreu exchanging visits last year and with Israeli tourism to Greece rising from 100,000 in 2009 to 250,000 in 2010 (the Israelis who commonly sojourned in vast numbers in Turkey now boycott that country). Israeli-Greek military cooperation and joint exercises have similarly increased.
Without doubt, the current, deep Greek economic crisis, in which Greece needs support from Washington and Western investments, is also playing a part in the improved Greek-Israeli relationship as is the prospect of Israel turning in the coming decade into a major natural gas exporter, following the recent discovery of vast natural gas fields off the Israeli coastline. Greece’s “friendship” with the Arabs during the past sixty years was largely a function of its need for Arab oil.
THE INVISIBLE PALESTINIANS
Caroline B. Glick
Jerusalem Post, June 27, 2011
…The media could have a reporter spend an hour researching the Israeli and international self-described human rights community’s silence on [Gilad] Schalit’s plight and the shameless absence of any concerted demand by the self-proclaimed human rights community for his immediate release. Over the weekend, Israeli and international “human rights” groups B’Tselem, Amnesty International, Israel; Bimkom; Gisha; Human Rights Watch; International Federation for Human Rights; Palestinian Center for Human Rights, Gaza; Physicians for Human Rights, Israel; Public Committee Against Torture in Israel; and Yesh Din all got together to release a statement about Schalit. They failed to call for his immediate release.
Certainly a banner headline reporting this outrage would have sold papers. All of these stories and journalistic stunts are low-cost and would sell newspapers. And at a minimum, none of them would harm Schalit’s chances of getting released.
Yet the media have opted to sell the tale of the government’s culpability for his suffering due to its failure to bow to Hamas’s ever-escalating demands.
The media’s behavior is puzzling not merely because they have options besides supporting Hamas. It is puzzling because their obsessive coverage of Schalit arguably hurts their tireless efforts to sell the public on the notion that it is a terrific idea to give Judea and Samaria and parts of Jerusalem to Schalit’s captors. By reminding the public of Schalit, the media are also reminding the public that the Palestinians are not interested in peace and that they use the land Israel gives them to attack us. That is, their Schalit campaign undermines their appeasement campaign.
Finally, their demand that Netanyahu “release” Schalit is alienating their readers. In the face of their intense campaign, “for Gilad” according to a poll published last month by Maariv, only 41 percent of the public agrees with their surrender at all cost strategy and 51 percent opposes it.
So by any rational measure, the media are acting against their own interests by pushing the pro-Hamas line. The only explanation that remains is irrational. But it is also consistent with the media’s serial irrationality on everything concerning Israel’s relationship with the Arab world generally and the Palestinians in particular.
The explanation is that like the rest of the Left—in Israel and worldwide—the media hold Israel responsible for Hamas’s imprisonment of Schalit because they perceive the Arabs generally and the Palestinians specifically as objects rather than actors. The only actors they see are Israel and the US.
Just as the international Left sends ships to aid and comfort Palestinian terrorists in Gaza to fight the so-called “occupation” which ended six years ago, so the Israeli media says the government is holding Gilad Schalit hostage. In both cases, the Palestinians are invisible, and inert.
To its credit, after five years of inaction, last Thursday, the Red Cross finally asked Hamas to prove Schalit is still alive. Gazans reacted to the move by attacking the Red Cross office in Gaza. This major story received little mention in the media. And that makes sense. How can they cover a story about a group of people they can’t be bothered to notice?