Category Archives: Gaza

Egypt to Gaza: The road begins here

An editorial in Egypt’s Al-Masry Al-Youm says:

Egypt owes its unique history prior Mubarak to its pro-activeness in the region. A revolutionary Egypt must now reclaim its former prominence.

Perhaps the re-opening of Rafah border crossing and the success of the Palestinian reconciliation in Cairo are living proof that the Arab World’s national dignity following Egypt’s freedom from the grasp of the former regime, which succeeded in ripping the people of their sense of solidarity and responsibility for regional causes.

These positive changes come on the heels of years of the Egyptian state sponsoring the Gaza blockade under the Mubarak regime.

Today, the international community is tested – yet again – on its stance toward the Palestinian cause. The Freedom Flotilla II, a convoy of ships aiming to bring supplies and express support to the besieged people of Gaza, is now stuck in Greek waters following Israel’s pressure on Greece to prevent flotilla vessels from departing the port.

Following discovery that propeller shafts of two ships have been damaged, there are speculations that the Mossad may have sabotaged the boats.

Arab governments remain silent in the face of vehement international criticism of Israeli policy vis-à-vis the Palestinian people. Once more, we revert back to people – to our people – for only they can initiate an act of resistance.

As part of Egypt’s conscience and its rising revolutionary fabric, we at Al-Masry Al-Youm call for a public campaign to invite the Freedom Flotilla II to sail to the Gaza Strip from one of Egypt’s ports.

While we believe the Freedom Flotilla II is better off sailing from Egypt for logistical reasons, we also think the decision gives a strong political message. This is the political message of enacting popular solidarity with the Palestinian cause and challenging the incumbent naval blockade. This is also our chance to rewrite a shameful political history of Egypt sponsoring the blockade, especially during Israel’s war on the strip during the 2009 Cast Lead operation, when over 1000 Palestinians – mostly civilians – lost their lives.

Facebooktwittermail

Sabotaging Flotilla II: waging war against civil society

International law and international relations scholar, Richard Falk, writes:

The reports that two of the foreign flagged ships planning to be part of the ten vessel Freedom Flotilla II experienced similar forms of disabling sabotage creates strong circumstantial evidence of Israeli responsibility. It stretches the imagination to suppose that a sophisticated cutting of the propeller shafts of both ships is a coincidence with no involvement by Israel’s Mossad, long infamous for its overseas criminal acts in support of contested Israeli national interests. Recalling the lethal encounter in international waters with Freedom Flotilla I that took place on 31 May 2010, and the frantic diplomatic campaign by Tel Aviv to prevent this second challenge to the Gaza blockade by peace activists and humanitarian aid workers, such conduct by a state against this latest civil society initiative, if further validated by incriminating evidence, should be formally condemned as a form of ‘state terrorism’ or even as an act of war by a state against global civil society.

The Israeli Government has so far done little to deny its culpability. Its highest officials speak of the allegations in self-righteous language that is typically diversionary, asserting an irrelevant right of self-defense, which supposedly comes mysteriously into play whenever civil society acts nonviolently to break the siege of Gaza that has persisted for more than four years. From the perspective of the obligations to uphold international law it is the Flotilla participants who are acting legally and morally, certainly well within their rights, and it is Israel and their friends that are resorting to a variety of legally and morally dubious tactics to insulate this cruel and unlawful blockade from what is essentially a symbolic challenge. The behavior of the Greek Government, surely a reflection of its precarious financial and political situation, also violates the law of the sea: foreign flagged vessels can be detained in port only if they are acting in violation of national law or are proven to be unseaworthy and dangerous to international navigation. Otherwise, interference by detention or by seizing while en route within Greek territorial waters is an unlawful interference with the right of innocent passage. Greece would be very vulnerable to defeat and damages if the Freedom Flotilla victims of these encroachment on rights were to have recourse to the Hamburg International Tribunal for Law of the Sea.

The most relevant precedent for such government-sponsored sabotage is the Rainbow Warrior incident of 1985. There French agents detonated explosives on a Greenpeace (an environmental NGO) fishing trawler docked in the Auckland, New Zealand harbor prior to proactively challenging the French plans to conduct underwater nuclear tests off the shore of the nearby Pacific atoll, Moruroa. Fernando Pereira , Greenpeace photographer for the mission, was killed by the explosions, although the devices were detonated at night when no one from Greenpeace was expected to be on board the vessel. At first, the French government completely denied involvement, later as incriminating evidence mounted, Paris officially claimed that its agents who were identified as being near the scene were only spying on Greenpeace activities and had nothing to do with the explosives, and later still, as the evidence of French culpability became undeniable, officials in France finally admitted government responsibility for this violent undertaking to eliminate activist opposition to their nuclear test, even acknowledging that the operation had been given the bizarre, although self-incriminating, code-name of Operation Satanique.

After some further months of controversy the French Prime Minister, Laurent Fabius cleared the air by issuing a contrite statement: “The truth is cruel. Agents of the French secret service sank the boat. They were acting on orders.” (the decision to destroy the Rainbow Warrior were later confirmed to have come from France’s supreme leader at the time, the president of the Republic, Francois Mitterand) The French agents who had by then been arrested by the New Zealand police, charged with arson, willful damage, and murder, but due to pressure from the French government that included a threatened European economic embargo on New Zealand exports, the charges were reduced. The French defendants were allowed to enter a guilty plea to lesser charges of manslaughter that was accepted by the Auckland court, resulting in a ten-year prison sentence, and later supplemented by an inter-governmental deal that virtually eliminated the punishment. The French paid New Zealand $6.5 million and issued an apology, while the convicted agents were transferred to a French military base on Hao atoll, and were later wrongly released only two years after being genteelly confined in comfortable quarters provided by the base.

It is useful to compare the Flotilla II unfolding experience with the Rainbow Warrior incident. At the time, the French nuclear tests in the Pacific were considered legal, although intensely contested, while the blockade of Israel is widely viewed as a prolonged instance of collective punishment in violation of international humanitarian law, specifically Article 33 of the 4th Geneva Convention. Although Israel could argue that it had a right to monitor ships suspected of carrying arms to occupied Gaza, the Freedom Flotilla II ships made themselves available for inspection, and there was no sufficient security justification for the blockade as the investigation by the UN Human Rights Council of the 2010 flotilla incident made clear. The overriding role of the blockade is to inflict punitive damage on the people of Gaza. Even before the blockade was imposed in 2007 all shipments at the Gaza crossing points were painstakingly monitored by Israel for smuggled weapons.

Facebooktwittermail

Canadian flotilla ship intercepted by Greek coast guards

Al Jazeera reports:

A Canadian ship taking part in a planned aid flotilla to Gaza has been forced to return to harbour in Crete after an attempt to reach international waters was thwarted by coast guards, according to onboard activists.

Most of the vessels which hoped to sail to Gaza in an effort to break Israel’s blockade of the Palestinian territory have been stuck in Greek ports after being refused permission to embark on the journey by Greek authorities.

The Tahrir sailed 15 minutes out of harbour before it was intercepted by coastguards, activists told Al Jazeera on Monday.

The boat, carrying activists from Canada, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland and Turkey, was forced to turn back to Aghios Nikolaos port in Crete.

“We are just being pulled into docks as we speak right now … [the coast guards] are in complete control of the boat,” Jesse Rosenfeld, a reporter with Toronto’s Now Magazine, who was on board the Tahrir when it set sail, told Al Jazeera.

Rosenfeld explained how the vessel managed to leave port: “In a matter of minutes, the people on the boat turned on the engines while two of the activists kayaked, trying to block the coast guard in port. At that point, the Tahrir made an open break through the port, shooting for international waters.”

The coast guard ship pursued the Tahrir, using water cannons and eventually boarding the ship, Rosenfeld said.

Facebooktwittermail

Tahrir’s journey to Palestine

Helena Cobban writes:

The moment that Hosni Mubarak stood down from the Egyptian presidency and it was apparent that his hastily appointed vice-president, the long-time intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, would not be succeeding him, it was clear that much would be changing in Middle Eastern politics — including for Palestinians.

Easily the most populous Arab state, and one with a central location abutting Israel/Palestine, Egypt has always had the potential to play a huge role on the Palestinian issue. That role was lessened after Egyptian President Anwar Sadat split with the PLO leaders after the 1978 Camp David accords. But in recent years, Mubarak had become a linchpin in U.S. and Israeli efforts to steer Palestinian politics in a direction amenable to them.

Mubarak and Suleiman had two major ways to exert direct influence over Palestinian politics. First, Egypt has the only land border with the Gaza Strip other than the Strip’s much longer border with Israel. The sole legal crossing point on that border, at Rafah, years ago became the only way that most Gaza Palestinians could ever hope to travel between the Strip and the outside world. (Goods, by contrast, are not allowed through Rafah. Under the 1994 Paris Agreement between Israel and the PLO, all goods going into or out of Gaza must go through crossings that go to Israel.) Cairo’s control over Rafah has given it a huge ability to put pressure on Gaza’s 1.6 million people and the elected Hamas mini-government that administers the Strip.

In addition, in recent years, Egypt got the full backing of the United States and Israel to play the role of primary interlocutor in all efforts to heal the rift between Hamas and its main rivals in Mahmoud Abbas’s Fateh. But as Suleiman and Mubarak had long been firmly in Abbas’s camp, it surprised no one to see the reconciliation efforts that Suleiman periodically launched come to nothing — and Fateh and Hamas remained deeply divided.

So the departure of Mubarak and Suleiman from power in Cairo was huge for the Palestinians — especially those trapped for many years inside Gaza, which has been described by many as an open-air prison.

Facebooktwittermail

Gaza flotilla aims to leave Greece next week

The Jerusalem Post reports:

The fate of the flotilla to the Gaza Strip was in jeopardy on Saturday after Greek authorities prevented an American vessel from leaving Athens and issued a blanket order forbidding ships from sailing to the Gaza Strip.

Despite the order and additional setbacks, Adam Shapiro, an American co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement, and one of the organizers of the flotilla, told The Jerusalem Post on Saturday night that the group still planned to sail to the Gaza Strip in the coming days.

He said that the Greek- Swedish ship Juliano, which was allegedly sabotaged last week, was expected to be repaired by Sunday morning and that an Irish ship, also allegedly sabotaged in Turkey, was set to begin repairs soon.

“We are still arranging to go and are working on different fronts to get permission to leave,” Shapiro said by phone from Athens.

He also denied reports that organizers were considering canceling the flotilla since they had already achieved their goal by raising awareness regarding the sea blockade on the Gaza Strip.

“Gaza is still blockaded and there is still a need to sail there,” he said.

Al Jazeera adds:

Members of the Dutch-Italian boat issued an open letter to the Greek Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou on Sunday, expressing outrage over his “government’s decision to close the ports of Greece to our humanitarian initiative, even by force if needed”.

The letter demanded that they be allowed to sail and said, “It is totally incomprehensible to us and fills us with just wrath that the Greek government closes the ports to our ships…

“You and your government acting as an ally of Israel in the Palestinian question means you also seem to have forgotten the struggle against the military dictatorship in your own country.”

Joe Meadors, a US Navy veteran [and survivor of Israel’s attack on the USS Liberty], is one of the roughly 100 passengers on board a flotilla vessel that finds itself standed. Meadors, however, still expects to sail.

“We are waiting for the Greek government to release us,” he told Al Jazeera, “We are here for the long haul, and we’re ready to go just as soon as the Greeks say we can go. We’re pleased we can do something for the Palestinians and remain excited to go.”

Khalid Tuhraani, an American Palestinian activist whose ship is stuck in the port of Corfu, is also frustrated and feels that it perhaps would have been better if the flotilla had orginated from a port in an Arab country such as Tunisia or Egypt.

“However, many of the Arab countries have, like Greece now, become hostages of the political will of the United States and Israel,” he said.

Tuhraani said he remained committed to doing what was necessary to end the Israeli blockade against Gaza, but he expressed disappointment at the Greek government.

“We chose Greece because this country has a history of support for the Palestinian struggle for freedom,” he said.

“Unfortunately we did not expect the Greek government to just roll over and die. But the Middle East Quartet issued a statement against our flotilla, so I think the pressure on the Greek government just might have been too enormous for it to bear.”

Facebooktwittermail

Why every flotilla succeeds and the siege of Gaza will end

Is it possible to break the siege of Gaza if no one notices?

As an exercise in directing global attention to the plight of a population subject to collective punishment, the first flotilla in August 2008 was a bit of a flop — even though it reached Gaza.

In the Jerusalem Post, Herb Keinon cynically wrote at the time:

Ever since the Free Gaza Movement made known its intent a few weeks ago to set sail for the Gaza Strip to “break” the Israeli blockade, it was clear that the two boatfuls of professional left-wing demonstrators and tag-along journalists were after one thing: a huge media event.

Nothing, therefore, would have given them a greater media buzz than if a couple of Israel Navy boats stopped them on the high seas, arrested the protesters (hopefully, from the point of view of the organizers of the protest, with some gratuitous brutality), and dragged the Greek-registered vessels into the Ashdod port.

Imagine the footage, imagine the images, and imagine the public relations bonanza for those few “brave souls” on the sea-weary vessels. Israel would, undoubtedly, have faced a public relations drubbing. So by deciding to let the boats through, the government deprived the protesters of the huge media event they so obviously wanted.

Indeed, instead of footage of heavyhanded Israelis stopping boats carrying an 81-year-old American nun and the sister-in-law of former British prime minister Tony Blair leading the nightly news broadcasts in the West on Saturday night, the story of the boats’ arrival in Gaza barely made a blip on the CNN, Fox, or Sky news broadcasts. With the world’s eyes still glued to the Olympics in Beijing, and the media focusing on US presidential candidate Barack Obama’s choice of Joe Biden as his vice presidential nominee, the Gaza blockade-running story didn’t register in the electronic media.

And in the written press, the protesters didn’t fare that much better. The New York Times ran a small piece on page 16 on Sunday; The Washington Post on page 12; and The St. Louis Post-Dispatch relegated it to a three-paragraph brief. As media events go, this one was not particularly successful.

But — as Keinon also noted — the story was not over. Indeed.

What the flotilla organizers understood was that whatever the outcome, each challenge to the siege could in fact never fail. Ships could succeed by reaching Gaza, or succeed without reaching Gaza by exposing Israel to the eyes of the world as a cowardly bone-headed bully.

The only solution to Israel’s problem was and remains the one that it refuses to entertain: backing itself out of a dead-end policy that by any metric one wants to use, has been a demonstrable failure — a policy which hasn’t weakened Hamas; hasn’t turned Gaza’s population against its rulers; hasn’t made Israel safer; and above all has brought Israel’s global image to an all-time low while callously inflicting yet more suffering on the Palestinian people.

The Israeli columnist, Asaf Gefen, suggested this week:

If the Marmara that took part in the previous sail sought to present Israel’s brutality to the world (and managed to do so, thanks to our kind assistance,) it appears that the current flotilla was meant to present Israel’s stupidity.

At this time already, when it’s still unclear whether and when the ships shall arrive, it appears that this objective had also been fully achieved.

But now that the flotilla appears stuck in Greece, can’t Netanyahu claim victory? Some Israeli reporters seem to think so:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sometimes seems almost too arrogant and self assured for his own good. However, unlike in most instances, this weekend he actually has justification for his haughtiness.

Really?

Look at The Audacity of Hope as it chugged out of a Greek harbor yesterday and ask yourself: what kind of prime minister and what kind of nation could feel threatened by this kind of challenge?

The need to subjugate others; the obsession with existential threats; the insatiable hunger for loving affirmations; and the fear of equality between Jews and non-Jews — all of this exposes Israel’s intrinsic weakness, a weakness that cannot be overcome by belligerence, isolation or warfare.

In truth, nothing threatens Israel more than its own fear of the world.

It’s time not just for Israel to end the siege of Gaza but for Zionists to break out of their own self-made prison.

Facebooktwittermail

The blockade on Gaza began long before Hamas came to power

Mya Guarnieri writes:

The second Freedom Flotilla is slated to set sail by the end of the month in an attempt to challenge the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. The act will call attention to the closure that the United Nations and human rights organizations have decried as a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits the collective punishment of civilians.

According to the Israeli government — and most of the mainstream media — the blockade began in 2007, following the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip. The aim of this “economic warfare” was to weaken Hamas, a group that the Israeli government had once supported. Israel also sought to stop rocket fire and to free Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who has been held in Gaza since 2006.

Four years on, none of these goals have been achieved.

Israel has achieved a minor victory on one front, however. Even critics use 2007 as the start-date of the blockade, unintentionally legitimizing Israel’s cause-and-effect explanation that pegs the closure to political events.

But the blockade did not begin in 2007, following the Hamas takeover of the Strip. Nor did it start in 2006, with Israel’s economic sanctions against Gaza. The hermetic closure of Gaza is the culmination of a process that began twenty years ago.

Facebooktwittermail

The power that we have to make change when our governments are silent

Huwaida Arraf, Gaza Freedom Flotilla organizer, interviewed by PalestineStudiesTV:

I’ve talked a lot with the Israeli media and told them that for their viewers/listeners/readers, this should not be perceived as anti-Israel or anti-Jewish. There are Israelis on our action; there are Jews from different countries. Part of our action — a quarter of the American boat are Jewish Americans that are participating, because this is about equality of people — respecting everybody’s human rights irrespective of race, religion or ethnicity, and so we reject Israel’s efforts to make it about “us” or “them” as if we want to attack Israelis in any way. No, they can very much stand with us and it’s for their future as well as it is for Palestinians’ future…

While we are sailing towards Gaza, this action is not just about Gaza. Yes we want to open it, we want to end this prison-like closure of Gaza, but what’s happening in Jerusalem — the ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem, Palestinians being kicked out of their homes so that Jewish families can move in — that’s not any less severe. The continued confiscation of property in the West Bank; the demolition of large areas of land; the building of the apartheid wall — this is illegal, this is also repressive. And the situation of Palestinians inside Israel, inside the 1948 territories where — I also am an Israeli citizen, a Palestinian-Israeli — I am not treated as an equal because I am not Jewish. This is all part of what I call a colonial apartheid regime, and this needs to be dismantled if we are going to ever see peace in the region.

So while we are sailing towards Gaza, this more than just about Gaza. And I’ll go so far as to say this more than just about Palestine — it is about what people can do. Because this is very much a grass-roots, global civil society action. It is the power that we have to make change when our governments are silent. It’s about what we do every single day to create the kind of world that we want to live in. And so I hope that everyone that listens or sees what we are doing can recognize that and can decide in their own way how they can contribute.

Facebooktwittermail

Alice Walker on ‘the freedom ride of this generation’

Jesse Rosenfeld interviewed American author, Alice Walker, as she waits to depart as a passenger on The Audacity of Hope heading for Gaza.

Reflecting on her years of activism, it is clear that Walker sees a connection between civil rights in America, liberation from apartheid in South Africa and the Palestinian cause.

“Without the international community coming to the aid of the South African people they may very well still be under apartheid, and [without the support of progressive white people] we might still be under segregation in the United States.”

The comparison doesn’t end there: “settlers are the Klan,” she says definitively, referring to the notorious white supremacist terror organization. “They don’t have their white sheets because I guess they don’t need them.”

I mention to her that the leaders of the Palestine’s Arab Spring are discussing a campaign of attempted freedom rides on settler busses in the West Bank.

“I’m very pleased to hear that,” she says breaking into a big smile.

She then returns to the freedom ride conversation from the previous day. “I think the tactic on the Palestinian side is to draw attention to the Klanishness. It’s been so difficult for the world to understand who the settlers are and the problem with them taking more and more of the land,” she says, arguing that it’s a modus systemically rooted in the way Israel was founded.

“That’s the history of the settlement of Palestine; it started in 1948 and is continuing,” she adds connecting Israel’s creation of 750,000 Palestinian refugees in the founding of the state and current settler evictions of Palestinian families in Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Although blunt and unequivocal in her analysis, Walker switches gears, once again displaying her optimism. In a recent article, she details commitments and sacrifices made by white Jewish Americans in the civil rights movement. She says she detailed these to send a message directly to Israelis.

“It’s a way to remind them that their Jewishness can stand for something else, it doesn’t have to stand for beating up people, taking their land and destroying their culture,” she says. “[Israeli’s Jewish identity] could actually be about something very fabulous.’’

Facebooktwittermail

Mossad saboteurs attack Gaza flotilla?

Last week suspected Mossad agents showed up at the US boat, The Audacity of Hope, currently waiting to depart from Athens and now another flotilla ship has had its propeller cut off. It’s not wild conjecture to suggest that the Israeli government is responsible for the sabotage.

Haaretz reports:

One of the ships due to participate in the Gaza flotilla was deliberately tampered with while it was docked in Greece’s Piraeus port, Gaza flotilla activists told Haaretz on Monday.

The ship, due to carry Greek, Norwegian, and Swedish passengers to Gaza, was found with its propeller shaft broken, the ship’s spokesman Israeli activist Dror Feiler told Haaretz.

A scuba diver who examines the ship on a daily basis discovered Monday that the ship’s propeller shaft, which connects the transmission inside the vessel directly to the propeller, was cut off.

According to Feiler, there is no doubt that the action was a deliberate attempt at sabotage, which he believed also violated Greece’s sovereignty.

Even though the problem can be fixed, it is still unclear how long it would take, especially with Greece’s recently declared general strike on Tuesday and Wednesday.

This action adds to a series of delays that have kept the Gaza flotilla from sailing, including Greece’s determination to carry out additional non-routine examinations on several of the ships.

Facebooktwittermail

Why the flotilla matters to people in Gaza

Ashley Bates reports from Gaza:

To most Gazans the flotilla mission is not really about bringing in a small amount of humanitarian aid. Rather, it is about drawing world attention to Israel’s continued entrapment of 1.6 million people who are just as human as people everywhere else in the world.

“All the international people who [were] coming [in] the flotilla [last year], the Turkish people, … they lost their life to reach Gaza, they really … reached not only to Gaza; they reached … all the heart[s of] the human and the free people in the world — their message really reached and they succeed[ed],” says a Gazan fisherman. “And even the second flotilla we hope to reach safely to Gaza, but if even they didn’t succeed and Israel stop them, really their message [will] succeed and they reach actually.”

Awaiting the Flotilla in Gaza from Ashley Bates on Vimeo.

Facebooktwittermail

Flotilla ready to set sail for Gaza

Joseph Dana reports:

According to recent tweets from the US boat “The Audacity of Hope,” which is part of the flotilla waiting to depart from Greece towards Gaza any day now, “the boat successfully completed its sea trials – there is no reason for any further delays on this matter, we are ready to sail.”

Speaking to a packed room of over 70 international journalists in a sweltering Athens conference room, organizers of Freedom Flotilla II said that the flotilla will set sail from various Mediterranean ports in the “coming days.” Organizers informed the international press corps that the purpose of the flotilla is both humanitarian and political in nature. Despite, clear safety warnings to both journalists and passengers by the Israeli government, flotilla representatives said that they will sail to Gaza in solidarity with the people of Palestinian. New York Times journalist Jim Roberts recently tweeted that he WILL cover the flotilla.

Max Blumenthal adds:

On June 24, Joseph Dana, a journalist who will traveling aboard the US boat to Gaza, discovered that an anonymous private legal complaint had been filed against the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. The complaint alleged that US boat, “The Audacity of Hope,” was not sea worthy and therefore was unfit to sail. In response, the harbor master in Athens, Greece, where the boat was docked, told the crew that he could not allow them to leave until the complaint was resolved.

Two days later, the Israel Law Center, Shurat Hadin, accepted responsibility for the complaint, which was essentially a baseless but startlingly successful exercise in legal harassment. Who is Shurat Hadin, and what is their agenda? According to the group’s website, Shurat Hadin is a Tel Aviv-based law center that specializes in lawsuits against “terrorists.” Its founder, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, describes herself in her bio as a “human rights activist.”

Darshan-Leitner began her harassment of the US boat to Gaza began weeks ago when it filed a civil action against “perceived supporters of Hamas” on behalf of Alan Bauer, an American doctor who was injured along with his son in a 2002 Jerusalem bombing attack. The action also threatened maritime insurance companies with legal consequences if they insured any of the boats involved in the flotilla.

I have discovered that a major donor to Shurat Hadin is the homophobic far-right Pastor John Hagee. In March 2010, I reported that Hagee appeared beside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a major rally in Jerusalem to denounce the two state solution and announce the financial contributions he and his supporters were making to Israeli organizations. Among the organizations Hagee said he had bankrolled was Shurat Hadin.

Haaretz reports:

Monday marked the second day of discussions by senior ministers on the planned Gaza flotilla. On Sunday, Netanyahu told the inner cabinet that Israel would not allow any ships to breach its maritime blockade of Gaza.

Security officials and Foreign Ministry representatives informed the cabinet on Sunday that Israel has no information indicating that terrorists or anyone affiliated with a terror group is planning to take part in the flotilla, said a government source. Nonetheless, there may be clashes between Israeli forces and some Arab activists aboard the ships.

“The critical mass of participants will include human rights activists from European Union countries, Canada and the United States,” said a senior security official.

Some 10 ships are planning to set sail on Tuesday in an attempt to breach Israel’s blockade of the Strip. The government and army are hoping the ships will stop on their own, possibly early Thursday, and that the Israel Navy will not have to board them, a move that would not be well received in the world.

Some 500 people are expected to be aboard the flotilla, which will include six or seven ships currently docked in Greece.

Assuming the ships do sail from Greece, they will meet up with two or three that have already set sail from Spain and France, and continue toward the Gaza coast.

The announcement two weeks ago from the Turkish group IHH that the Mavi Marmara ship will not take part in the flotilla has changed the security establishment’s views regarding the anticipated resistance. IHH members violently resisted the naval takeover of the Mavi Marmara in the flotilla of May 2010, and nine of them were killed in the clashes. In addition, since the Mavi Marmara won’t be part of this flotilla, only smaller ships will be involved, increasing the likelihood that Israel will not have to board them to force them to turn back.

Cabinet ministers were told on Sunday that after IHH announced that the Mavi Marmara would not be in the flotilla, there was less reason for concern about possible violent confrontations.

Government and defense sources said the fact that most, if not all, the flotilla participants will be European peace activists presumably not interested in violence will present a “more difficult public diplomacy challenge,” and Israel wants to avoid clashes with the activists.
In contrast to the decision last year to deploy naval commandos onboard the ships when they ignored Israeli warnings not to continue to Gaza – this year Israel will try other methods to stop the ships and direct them toward Egypt’s El Arish port.

Reuters reports:

Israel said on Monday it was rethinking its threat to bar foreign journalists from entering the country for 10 years if they board a new aid flotilla that plans to challenge the Israeli naval blockade of the Gaza Strip.

“(Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu) heard about it on the news and asked to re-examine this issue because it’s problematic,” Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon said, referring to Sunday’s warning from Israel’s Government Press Office (GPO).

“I know the prime minister was as surprised as I was to hear this,” he said, without disclosing who had made the decision to deliver the threat.

“There’s no way to stop the media in this day and age if they (are on board) anyway. It’s better not to clash with them.”

Facebooktwittermail

Passengers on the US boat to Gaza speak out

As the Israeli government does everything it can to prevent the second flotilla to Gaza from setting sail and while the US State Department has effectively given Israel a green light to use any means — peaceful or violent — to prevent the flotilla from reaching its destination, passengers on board the American boat, The Audacity of Hope, describe why they are going.

Facebooktwittermail

No effort being spared by Israel to sink the flotilla

“Dear IDF: If you end up shooting any Americans on the new Gaza flotilla — well, most Americans are cool with that. Including me” — a provocative tweet from Joshua Treviño, co-founder of the popular conservative blog RedState.

“How do you feel about the IDF shooting journalists on board the flotilla?” asks Joseph Dana (@ibnezra) who is reporting for The Nation.

“As you’ve fairly clearly aligned yourself with the flotilla’s goals, @ibnezra, I don’t care what happens to you,” comes the response.

There’s little doubt Treviño wants to bait supporters of the flotilla. The question is: are most Americans cool with the prospect of Israeli soldiers shooting unarmed American protesters?

That’s a loaded question, Treviño would no doubt retort: “the aim of the Flotilla is not humanitarian, but political: to open up supply lines to Hamas, so it can wreak further violence,” he claims.

The Obama administration could be perceived as sharing his view.

“We underscore that delivering or attempting or conspiring to deliver material support or other resources to or for the benefit of a designated foreign terrorist organization, such as Hamas, could violate U.S. civil and criminal statutes and could lead to fines and incarceration,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland warned on Friday.

What the State Department and others have failed to note is that the goal of The Audacity of Hope and the Americans on board, is to break the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza simply by reaching the Palestinian enclave. The ship is not carrying any humanitarian aid.

The idea that the goal of the flotilla is to open up supply lines for Hamas is absurd for two reasons.

Firstly, throughout the duration of the blockade of Gaza, Hamas’ supply lines have never been severed. Thousands of tunnels have operated running under Gaza’s southern border throughout the siege.

Secondly, the borders that need opening are those controlled by Israel. Does anyone imagine that when this happens, the Israelis will be opening up new supply lines for Hamas?

Having flattened much of Gaza during Operation Cast Lead in late December 2008 and early January 2009, Israel has long argued that it cannot allow the free flow of construction materials into Gaza because they could be used by Hamas to construct bunkers and bombs.

But since the fall of Mubarak, such materials have been streaming into Gaza unimpeded by Egyptian authorities — a steady flow of 3,000 tons a day.

The New York Times reports on how these materials are being used:

Streets are being paved and buildings constructed.

“Mubarak was crushing us before,” said Mahmoud Mohammad, a subcontractor whose 10-man crew in Gaza City was unloading steel bars that were carried through the tunnels and were destined for a new restaurant. “Last year we were sitting at home. The contractor I work for has three major projects going.”

Nearby, Amer Selmi was supervising the building of a three-story, $2 million wedding hall. Most of his materials come from the tunnels.

Karim Gharbawi is an architect and building designer with 10 projects under way, all of them eight- and nine-story residential properties. He said there were some 130 engineering and design firms in Gaza. Two years ago, none were working. Today, he said, all of them are.

As Israel prepares for a showdown on the high seas and the potentially embarrassing prospect of detaining a shipload of mostly middle-aged American Jews, its latest threat has been directed at the press.

Israel’s Government Press Office issued a letter Sunday to foreign journalists, warning them that participating in the upcoming flotilla sailing to Gaza is illegal under Israeli law, and could result in anyone who joins the convoy being barred from Israel for up to 10 years.

The letter, signed by GPO director Oren Helman, states that the flotilla “is a dangerous provocation that is being organized by western and Islamic extremist elements to aid Hamas.”

Helman asks editors to inform journalists that the Israel Defense Forces have been ordered to stop the convoy of ships from reaching Gaza, given that “The flotilla intends to knowingly violate the blockade that has been declared legally and is in accordance with all treaties and international law.”

Furthermore, the letter says, “participation in the flotilla is an intentional violation of Israeli law and is liable to lead to participants being denied entry into the State of Israel for ten years, to the impoundment of their equipment and to additional sanctions.”

The Foreign Press Association today urged the Israeli government to reverse its threat to punish journalists covering the Gaza flotilla, saying that the move “sends a chilling message to the international media and raises serious questions about Israel’s commitment to freedom of the press.”

There are now suggestions that Israel’s hysterical fear of the flotilla has reached such heights that for the sake of avoiding another public relations debacle, Israel is willing to threaten the future of Greece.

A press release from US Boat to Gaza issued today says:

Passengers on the U.S. Boat to Gaza, The Audacity of Hope, are asking Greek government officials to clarify whether the boat they are leasing is being blocked from leaving Greece because of an anonymous request of a private citizen concerning the seaworthiness of the ship or whether a political decision has been made by the Greek government in response to U.S. and Israeli government pressure. They specifically want to know if the U.S. is using its leverage at the International Monetary Fund over the implementation of an ongoing bailout of European banks with massive Greek debts to compel the Greek government to block the U.S. Boat to Gaza from leaving Greece.

On the morning of June 23, the American passengers learned that a “private complaint” had been filed against the U.S. Boat to Gaza, which is part of an international flotilla scheduled to sail to Gaza in the next few days. This complaint, its origin still unknown to the Americans, claimed that the boat is “not seaworthy” and therefore requires a detailed inspection. On June 25 a police order declared that until the complaint is resolved the boat will not be permitted to leave.

The passengers are wondering if Israel, which has extensive economic trade and investments in Greece, is using its clout to pressure the Greek government. “Israel has said openly that it is pressuring governments to try to stop the flotilla, and clearly Greece is a key government since several of the boats plan to leave from Greece,” says passenger Medea Benajmin. “It is unconscionable that Israel would take advantage of the economic hardship the Greek people are experiencing to try to stop our boat or the flotilla.”

The Greek government is already fighting for its life in the face of widespread opposition to imposed austerity measures. It can hardly afford to be seen to be bowing to Israeli pressure.

Evangelos Pissias, one of the Greek members of the Flotilla II steering committee, says:

From our side, we are not aggressive. But we are a proud people. We have self-respect. We think that dignity is beyond everything. And the Israeli government hurts our dignity… We are sure that the Greek people will not accept any action that will put obstacles in the way of our project, because they supported our project. Our project is among the most grass-rooted of campaigns, regarding all the partners that worked together to build the Flotilla II. The Greek people will not accept any kind of interference, and they will not accept any subordination from our government.

Facebooktwittermail