Israel’s Naval Blockade of Gaza Is Legal, Necessary

Dore Gold
Bloomberg Business Week
10 June '10
Posted before Shabbat

The continuing demand that Israel should agree to an investigation -- with international involvement -- of its interception of a Turkish-led flotilla to Gaza last week presupposes that Israel did something fundamentally wrong.

At the United Nations, the Security Council issued a presidential statement which lent its political weight to calls for a full investigation into the Israeli military operation. The member states initiating these efforts in the UN system are simply trying to use the international bureaucracy in New York and Geneva to deny Israel its right of self-defense.

In Geneva, the UN Human Rights Council -- which gave birth to the infamous Goldstone Report that blamed Israel, and not Hamas, for the destruction caused by their 2008 war -- already decided that Israel violated international law by interdicting the Turkish flotilla and then called for another investigation to prove its point. There is always room to conduct an internal probe by the Israeli Defense Force. This happens in Israel even after a successful military operation let alone in the case when the results are controversial. In fact, the IDF has already begun an inquiry into this incident.

But Israel’s critics are raising other questions. Why is Israel blockading the Gaza Strip? What right does it have to board a ship in international waters? Why interfere with the humanitarian needs of Gaza’s Palestinian population? French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said he was “profoundly shocked” by Israel’s move against “the peace flotilla for Gaza.”

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