There’s a very useful piece by Jonathan Saul on Reuters AlertNet, which I reproduce below, examining the legal issues around Israel’s maritime blockade of Gaza. Its conclusion - yes, it is legal - echoes the key points made by both Israeli international law expert Robbie Sabel and the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but some readers may perceive added value in the fact that the article quotes two disinterested experts, in the form of a lawyer specializing in shipping disputes and a professor at the U.S. Naval War college. In any case, this amounts to an excellent rebuttal of media flotillistas like the Financial Times editorial writer who, in the kind of dunderheaded apologia for Hamas that has become all too typical of that newspaper, accused Israel of “a brazen act of piracy.”
Israel has said it will continue a naval blockade of the Gaza Strip despite growing global pressure to lift the siege after a navy raid on a Turkish ferry carrying aid killed nine activists this week.
What is the legality of the blockade and did Israel’s intervention breach international law? Below are some questions and answers on the issue:
You could hear the heartbreak in his voice. The shattered dreams of reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians, the lost opportunities for genuine global solidarity with that gallant cause - it was all there in Yossi Klein Halevi’s voice.
The Israeli writer David Grossman is a great artist but that condition offers no guarantees about his views on current events. At the end of an article in which he harshly criticizes Israel’s policy towards Gaza and the diversion of the Gaza flotilla he says,
As I write this the BBC is reporting that up to 19 people have been killed during the seizure of the Free Gaza Flotilla by the Israeli Navy. It also says that the “Mavi Marmara”, the flotilla’s flagship, is still not fully under Israel’s control so it’s not impossible that there will be further casualties. Some quick points…
1.
Turkey will probably break diplomatic relations with Israel over this. The convoy was supported by the Turkish government, the main charity behind the convoy is Turkish and most of the people on board the “Mavi Marmara” are Turkish. This will culminate the cooling in Israeli-Turkish relations that has been going on since the AK Party came to power in the latter country.
2.
I watched the live feed from the “Mavi Marmara” in the hours leading up to the arrival of the naval commandos. Judging from the pop-eyed rage expressed by some of those aboard towards the yahudiler I am not surprised matters have come to this. Some of the passengers were evidently longing for martyrdom. You can see one of them saying so before she left Istanbul:
Regardless of this, the deaths represent a PR disaster for Israel and it remains to be seen whether it was worth taking the inevitable risks associated with such an operation in order to keep Hamas isolated. And there’s also the question of what approach Israel will take to the next convoy, and the one after that.
3.
A number of European politicians were denied permission to board the convoy in Cyprus by that country’s legitimate government. Showing their profound concern for human rights, justice and equality they made their way to the part of the island under Turkish military occupation since 1974 - a zone which has been heavily settled by mainland Turks and from which the Greek population has been ethnically cleansed in its entirety - in order to join the flotilla from there.
Riad Malki, the PA’s Foreign Minister was in Buenos Aires yesterday and gave an interview to Pagina/12. With regard to the Hamas regime running Gaza he said the following,
Breaking that evil Israeli blockade of Gaza can leave you with a hefty appetite. Next time you’re confronting Zionism, why not pop in here for some r’n'r?
And no, I’m not minimizing the daily hardships faced by ordinary Gazans - but those who would have us believe that Gaza is a modern day Warsaw Ghetto might want to check these figures. As I’ve said before, if these numbers are fabricated, prove it.
Michael Mansfield is a renowned British criminal lawyer and in an open letter to Nick Clegg, Britain’s new Deputy Prime Minister, in today’s Guardian he writes,
Neve Gordon is not happy that Richard Goldstone’s alleged past as a hanging judge in apartheid South Africa has come to light. He calls it “character assassination” and identifies it as part of a “a well-orchestrated delegitimisation campaign by Israel”. At least he doesn’t say that it’s well-funded too…
As readers may be already aware, two Israeli soldiers and two Palestinian gunmen were killed in clashes just inside the Gaza Strip today. Writing in El País Juan Miguel Muñoz says that the dead Israeli soldiers were killed “during one of their habitual incursions into Palestinian territory”. He also parrots a Hamas statement that the fatal clash occurred when the IDF “invaded” Gaza.
Catherine Ashton, the EU’s High Representative for foreign affairs, paid a visit to Gaza and wrote an op-ed about her experience. She didn’t mention Hamas, which rules the strip with an iron fist, once. That omission wasn’t picked up by the New York Times sub-editors either. Let’s be thankful that the Elder did.
This blog, like so many others, devotes a lot of its efforts to questions arising from the Israel-Palestine conflict. Open any newspaper and you’ll find hectares of news and opinion about the current tension between Israel and the United States. The death of one Thai worker in Israel yesterday, killed by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, has made the front pages of today’s New York Times and the Times of London, to name just two of the many important papers that have prominently covered it.
This article includes a guest contribution by habibi from Harry’s Place.
A group of friends in London alerted me to this grubby little piece by a British Labour Party Member of Parliament, Bob Marshall-Andrews, concerning his recent visit to Gaza. Upon reading it, I was struck by various thoughts, not least the degree to which Marshall-Andrews words will be welcomed by the Hamas cheerleaders who compose the Palestinian solidarity movement, in marked contrast to the fierce condemnation with which this blog, and others like it, will greet his compendium of antisemitism-laced falsehoods. Why bother to refute such lies, one might ask, when those of us who defend Israel are at irreconcilable odds with those who demonize her, when any charge of antisemitism we make is bound to be dismissed as another tired attempt to muzzle debate? The most satisfactory answer I can come up with is that some things - and Marshall-Andrews article is one of them - are so odious that they cannot pass without rebuke.
