by Felicity Arbuthnot
June 11, 2010
from
GlobalResearch Website
"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 neighbors and the lives, land, livelihoods 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 neighbors and the lives, land, livelihoods 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 traumatized.
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 2.
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 behavior toward citizens and neighbors 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 bankruptcy.
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."
"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 territory 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 neighboring countries -
to and end?