Levick - Despite Palmer Report conclusions, Guardian still calls Israel’s blockade of Gaza ‘illegal’

Adam Levick..
CiF Watch..
17 June '12..






In September 2011, the UN released their long-awaited Palmer Report – a 105 page document based on research and hearings conducted over the course of more than a year.

The report concluded that Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza is “LEGAL“, “appropriate”, and consistent with international law.

The report stated:

“Israel faces a real threat to its security from militant groups in Gaza. The naval blockade was imposed as a legitimate security measure in order to prevent weapons from entering Gaza by sea and its implementation complied with the requirements of international law.”

“The Panel therefore concludes that Israel’s naval blockade was legal.”

I predicted at the time that the Guardian – whose coverage of the flotilla incident on May 31 represented a reckless journalistic rush to judgment (there were 71 separate reports or commentaries, almost exclusively critical of Israel over four days) – would either downplay or totally ignore the report’s findings.

True to form, the following is a section from the Guardian’s editor’s note, meant to introduce their Gaza Live Blog on June 8.

(Read full "...Guardian still calls Israel’s blockade of Gaza ‘illegal’")


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Berkowitz - The Gaza Flotilla and International Law

Peter Berkowitz
Hoover Institution
policy review no. 168
01 August '11



Further politicization of the global legal system

On May 31, 2010, in defense of a naval blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip, Israel seized control of the Mavi Marmara in international waters, detained the passengers, and towed the ship to the Israeli port city of Ashdod. During the previous three days and without incident, Israel had boarded, inspected, and brought to Ashdod the other five ships that had set sail from Turkey as part of the “Gaza Freedom Flotilla.” But on the Mavi Marmara, passengers wielding pipes, knives, and axes attacked Israeli commandos as they rappelled from helicopters down to the ship’s deck. Nine passengers were killed in the operation and several dozen were injured. Seven commandos were injured as well.

The flotilla’s ostensible purpose was to bring humanitarian goods to the Palestinian population of Gaza. In fact, humanitarian goods had been arriving in Gaza over land through Israel, and Israel had repeatedly volunteered to deliver the flotilla’s humanitarian cargo through the established land crossings. The flotilla’s real and obvious goal was, as one of the organizers put it, “breaking Israel’s siege.”

The international outcry in response to Israel’s raid on the Mavi Marmara was immediate. Little attention was given to the Turkish flotilla’s deliberate provocation or to the possibility that Israel had acted ineptly or unwisely. The focus rather was on the accusation, often couched as a conclusion, that Israel had acted unlawfully.

Little attention was given to the Turkish flotilla’s deliberate provocation or to the possibility that Israel had acted ineptly or unwisely.

On May 31, almost as soon as the news broke, un Secretary General Ban Ki Moon insisted that it was incumbent upon Israel to explain its actions to the world: “I condemn this violence . . . it is vital that there is a full investigation to determine exactly how this bloodshed took place . . . I believe Israel must urgently provide a full explanation.”

Also on May 31, Richard Falk, un special rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, immediately pronounced Israel in egregious violation of international law: “Israel is guilty of shocking behavior by using deadly weapons against unarmed civilians on ships that were situated in the high seas where freedom of navigation exists, according to the law of the seas.” Falk called for an investigation on the grounds that “It is essential that those Israelis responsible for this lawless and murderous behavior, including political leaders who issued the orders, be held criminally accountable for their wrongful acts.” He characterized the Gaza blockade as “a massive form of collective punishment” constituting “a crime against humanity, as well as a gross violation of the prohibition on collective punishment in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.” He insisted that failure to punish Israel’s lawlessness would itself be criminal: “As special rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, familiar with the suffering of the people of Gaza, I find this latest instance of Israeli military lawlessness to create a situation of regional and global emergency. Unless prompt and decisive action is taken to challenge the Israeli approach to Gaza all of us will be complicit in criminal policies that are challenging the survival of an entire beleaguered community.” Such was Israel’s “flagrant flouting of international law” that, to end its blockade of Gaza, Falk concluded, “the worldwide campaign of boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel is now a moral and political imperative, and needs to be supported and strengthened everywhere.”

Many nations promptly condemned Israel and some presumed its guilt that day. According to the bbc, within hours of the boarding of the Mavi Marmara French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner announced he was “deeply shocked” by Israel’s action and called for an inquiry, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy accused Israel of a “disproportionate use of force.” Sweden summoned the Israeli ambassador to discuss the “unacceptable action.” The Turkish foreign ministry issued a statement declaring the incident a “flagrant breach of international law” while Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan proclaimed Israel’s raid “totally contrary to the principles of international law” and an act of “inhumane state terrorism.” And the Arab League called for an emergency meeting the next day to discuss Israel’s “terrorist act.”1

On June 1, the un Security Council issued a presidential statement. By condemning Israel’s raid and by demanding a “prompt, impartial, credible, and transparent investigation conforming to international standards,” the Security Council indicated that there was sufficient evidence to be concerned that serious breaches of international law had occurred.

Not to be outdone, the notorious un Human Rights Council on June 2 issued resolution 14/1 on “The Grave Attacks by Israeli Forces against the Humanitarian Boat Convoy.”2 The hrc resolution “condemns in the strongest terms the outrageous attack by the Israeli forces against the humanitarian flotilla of ships which resulted in the killing and injuring of many innocent civilians from different countries.” And it authorized “an independent, international fact-finding mission to investigate violations of international law, including international humanitarian and human rights law, resulting from the Israeli attacks on the flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian assistance.”

The widespread accusations of unlawful conduct directed at Israel — coming, it should be said, not from some abstract international community, but from officers and official bodies of the un, European states, Turkey, and Arab states — were high on outrage and low on legal analysis. This is in keeping with the growing tendency in international affairs to transform hard political questions into conclusive legal judgments. The transformation increasingly yields gross abuses of law fraught with substantial political implications. The denunciations of Israel’s response to the Gaza Flotilla provide a case in point. To counteract the harm they can cause to a state’s interests when they gain international currency and exert worldwide influence, even far-fetched and perverse legal arguments must be addressed and refuted in legal terms.

In fact, the legality of Israel’s stopping and seizing of the Mavi Marmara and the other five ships of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla turned on the legality under international humanitarian law (a part of the international law of war governing the conduct of war, also known as ihl, the law of armed conflict, or the laws of war) of the naval blockade. If the blockade was legal, then Israel was perfectly within its rights to stop on international waters ships whose announced intention was to break it, and Israeli commandos were within their rights to defend themselves against the potentially lethal attacks to which they were subject as they boarded the Mavi Marmara. Israel’s blockade was legal given the state of armed conflict between Israel and Hamas, the de facto ruler of Gaza; the widely accepted use of naval blockades in war; and the conformity of Israel’s blockade to the requirements of maritime law — it was duly declared, effective, nondiscriminatory, and allowed the passage of humanitarian assistance to the civilian population of Gaza.

(Read full "The Gaza Flotilla and International Law")

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Dershowitz - Ships and Planes of Fools Pick Wrong Target

Alan M. Dershowitz
Hudson New York
11 July '11

http://www.hudson-ny.org/2260/ships-planes-of-fools

The recent attempts by anti-Israel extremists to break Israel's naval blockage of Gaza and to flood Israel's airports with troublemakers have failed.

The ships of fools, knaves hypocrites, bigots, and supporters of terrorism that tried to sail from Greece have now apparently been run aground. Most of the hard-left extremists have gone home following a decision by the Greek government to prevent the boats from leaving Greek ports. And those who tried to flood Israel's airports are being deported. The resulting fiasco, which was designed to discredit Israel, has succeeded only in discrediting the Israel bashers on the boats and planes by exposing their true purpose.

The alleged purpose of the ships was to feed the starving Arabs of Gaza. The problem is that the Arabs of Gaza are not starving. Nor are they in need of outside help.

According to reporting by The New York Times, Gaza has been thriving recently. Luxury hotels are being built; stores are stocked with food; beaches are filled with children; and life is far better than in neighboring Al Arish, which is across the border in Egypt.

In fact, according to news reports, the residents of Gaza are far better off than the residents of many Arab areas in the Middle East. Medical care is better, infant mortality is lower, longevity is higher, employment is increasing, cars are plentiful, food is more available and the quality of water and air is higher. The Gross National Product has risen dramatically over the past year.

To be sure, the citizens of Gaza do not have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, the right to dissent or the ability to join political parties that are out of favor. These limitations are the fault of Hamas, not of Israel.

Indeed, the only Arabs in the region whose lives, in every respect, are better than those who live in Gaza, are the citizens of the West Bank, which is controlled by the Palestinian Authority rather than Hamas.

So if the fools on the ships were really interested in helping Arabs who are truly in need of food, medicine and other provisions, they would set sail for ports in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and other areas of the Middle East. But these hypocrites have no interest in helping the downtrodden. Their only interest is in delegitimizing the Jewish state of Israel.

Many of those on the ships actually support the most oppressive regimes in the Middle East, such as the Syrian regime, which murders its civilians in cold blood; the Iranian regime, which brutally suppresses dissent; Hezbollah which murders its political opponents; and Hamas which subjugates women and executes gays.

Most of these "human rights activists" have no history of supporting human rights elsewhere in the world and many have records of supporting the worst abusers of human rights. The list of those on the boats is a dishonor role of human wrongs, blatant hypocrisy, and double standards.

A common virus among many on these ships is a hatred for Jews, the Jewish state, America, and the West. Some are self-haters, because they themselves are Jews, Israelis or Westerners. Others are Arabs who cannot abide the notion of the Jewish state, regardless of its size or borders, anywhere in the Middle East.

I am aware of none who applies a single standard of human rights to all countries in the world and prioritizes his or her activities in order of the seriousness of the human rights violations.

These sea and air efforts to delegitimize Israel by applying a double standard to its actions have failed. There will be others. They will include efforts to incite mobs to cross the border into Israel through Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan. The goal will be to provoke Israel into overreaction. Every government in the world has the right to prevent the law violators from illegally entering their country, but only Israel is condemned for its efforts to do so.

There will also be efforts in September to use the machinery of the United Nations, most particularly of the General Assembly, to delegitimize Israel. These efforts will include a vote to recognize the Palestinian state without requiring the Palestinians to sit down and try to negotiate a real peace with Israel.

It will also include efforts by the notorious Human Rights Council of the United Nations to condemn Israel for virtually everything it's done since it came into existence 63 years ago. None of these will succeed but they will encourage Israel's enemies to become even more intransigent, while at the same time discouraging them from making the kinds of compromises that Israel is willing to make in the interest of peace.

Those who really believe in universal human rights applied equally to all nations throughout the world should condemn these efforts to single out Israel for delegitimizing. They should join with other true supporters of human rights in prioritizing the human wrongs throughout the world and seeking to confront them by demanding the application of a single standard.

When a proper standard is universally applied, Israel's record on human rights shines in comparison with the records of nations and groups supported by the fools and hypocrites on these boats and planes.

A shorter version of this article appeared in Newsmax on July 10, 2011.

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Levick - What the Guardian won’t report: UN concludes that Israel’s blockade is LEGAL

Adam Levick
CiF Watch
07 July '11

http://cifwatch.com/2011/07/07/what-the-guardian-wont-report-un-report-concludes-that-israels-blockade-is-legal/

Type the words “Israel”, “blockade”, and “illegal” in the Guardian’s search engine and you get 194 hits.

As recently as yesterday Guardian contributor Ruqaya Izzidien quoted a flotilla “activist” describing Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza as “illegal”.

On Tuesday, a report by Jack Shenker, in a Guardian straight news story, casually characterized the blockade as “an act deemed illegal under international law.”

Yet, the UN (which, it is a profound understatement to say, is no friend to Israel) reportedly will issue a report on last year’s Gaza flotilla clash concluding that Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip is legal and that Jerusalem owes no apology to Turkey for the Mavi Marmara raid.

According to AFP:

“United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon will release a statement supporting the legality of the Israeli intervention against the 2010 ‘Gaza Freedom Flotilla.”

The UN report also will reportedly say that the Turkel Committee, which led Israel’s official flotilla probe, conducted a professional and independent investigation.

I’m willing to bet that the Guardian simply will not report this story, as it goes against volumes of Guardian stories, and CiF commentaries, since the May 31, 2010 incident, attesting to Israel’s guilt, but I’m even more confident that the countless number of contributors who were so quick to pass judgement on Israel’s blockade of weapons to Hamas will not apologize for their morally irresponsible rush to judgement.

As with Richard Goldstone’s recent mea culpa – acknowledging that, contradicting his initial conclusions, there was absolutely no evidence that Israel intentionally targeted civilians during Operation Cast Lead – this UN report exonerating Israel comes a year too late.

The damage to Israel has already been done.

Paraphrasing the immortal words of Ray Donovan, President Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of Labor, who, after a long ideologically driven campaign in the mainstream media which assumed his guilt, was (in the end) acquitted of corruption charges in a court of law after a prolonged trial:

Where does Israel go to get their reputation back?

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Backspin - The Guardian: Still Spinning the Flotilla

Pesach Benson
Honest Reporting/Backspin
06 July '11

http://honestreporting.com/the-guardian-still-thinks-the-flotillas-prime-goal-was-to-deliver-aid/


The flotilla movement never made it a secret that its second convoy was a political stunt to embarrass Israel. Pretentions of delivering humanitarian aid were always secondary.

And yet The Guardian implies otherwise:

Although some vowed to continue with their quest, no new date has been set for departure of the flotilla, which was supposed to be taking medicines, food, gifts and building materials to Gaza.

Let’s see how that statement matches up with the reality of the intentions expressed by the flotilla movement:

1. In a letter to President Obama, organizers of the Audacity of Hope said they would carry nothing but letters:

We will carry no goods of any kind for delivery in Gaza.

2. At least the American audacity of hype bothered with the letters. The Irish ship, MV Saoirse carried absolutely nothing:

Unlike the other ships in the flotilla, the Irish one will not be carrying any cargo or humanitarian aid.

3. Adam Shapiro, a prominent flotilla figure, told the Jerusalem Post:

He said the Rafah crossing “is not about aid, but then neither is our flotilla. It’s about raising awareness of the ongoing occupation in Gaza and the freedom of the Palestinians. The aid has always been secondary to the message of challenging the [Israeli] policy.”

4. Another prominent flotilla organizer, Greta Berlin, told the Irish Times:

This [effort] is not about delivering goods but breaking the illegal siege of Gaza,” said Greta Berlin, founder of the parent organization that made several successful voyages in 2008.

Need I go on?

While other ships did carry assorted items, The Guardian doesn’t need Israeli sources to figure out this convoy’s primary goal was never about the delivery of humanitarian aid. NGOs already in Gaza — Gisha, most notably – went so far as to say the flotilla’s deliveries weren’t needed, describing the kind of spin The Guardian fell for as “infuriating and misleading.”

Have the editors stopped reading Free Gaza’s own statements?

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Lidman - Question: When can a country intercept a vessel?

Melanie Lidman
jpost.com
30 June '11

http://www.jpost.com/Features/InThespotlight/Article.aspx?id=227211

Background: Answer: If it clearly intends to illegally enter another country’s waters – as soon as it leaves its port of origin.

A maritime blockade is a tool countries can employ during an armed conflict to stop the passage of weapons and other goods to a country or entity. Israel has imposed one on Gaza since January 3, 2009, during Operation Cast Lead.

One of the main arguments raised against the boarding of the six ships associated with May 2010’s flotilla was that the action reportedly took place 70 nautical miles (130 kilometers) from the coast, inside international waters.

Immediately following the raid, in which nine activists on the Mavi Marmara were killed, Turkey drafted a resolution at the UN Security Council that described the boarding of the ship as a violation of international maritime law.

Related article: Gaza, the Flotilla and the Blockade: Facts and Law

Under the San Remo Manual, a 1994 legally recognized but nonbinding document from the International Institute of Humanitarian Law dealing with blockades and armed conflicts – widely held to be the international standard for blockades – countries can intercept a vessel that is trying to breach the blockade as soon as it leaves its port of origin if the vessel is clear in its purpose to illegally enter waters, a legal adviser to the Foreign Ministry who is an expert in maritime law explained.

The official added that blockades are always imposed in international waters, and ships trying to breach the blockade are intercepted even further out, to give the military enough time to intercept it before it reaches land.

There are a number of conditions that a blockade must satisfy to be a “legal blockade” under the San Remo Manual. Countries imposing a blockade must give prior notice, and inform shipping companies and other countries where and when the blockade is being enacted, with ample time for vessels to alter their routes. Countries must also enforce the blockade in a nondiscriminatory manner, meaning that no ship, peaceful, commercial or otherwise, can enter the area of the blockade for any reason.

Additionally, the blockade must not block access to neutral ports or neutral waters – in this case Egyptian ports, for example, or major shipping lanes between countries not involved in the conflict. Finally, countries cannot use a blockade to deny the civilian population items essential to their survival.

Flotilla organizers seized on this last point to explain their reasons for trying to breach the blockade.

Blockades have been used throughout history, including in the Vietnam War, World Wars I and II, and recently in Sri Lanka as the country was struggling to control the Tamil Tigers terrorist group. Since the end of March, there has been an air and naval blockade imposed by NATO against Libya.

Gaza has no territorial waters, as it is not a country. Israel has sovereignty over the area up to 12 nautical miles from its coast. The Gaza blockade extends 20 nautical miles from the coast, or approximately 37 km. A nautical mile, the standard measurement of distance on the ocean, is 1.852 km.

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Elder's response to "Why is Israel afraid of little old ladies?

Yosef
30 June '11






As is her way, "Journalist" Mya Guernieri, uses Twitter to share her wit and wisdom with the world at large. Today's challenge was a a Twitpic showing ladies of the flotilla with the caption

yes, these #freedomflotilla2 people really look like they're baying for blood, don't they? #sarcasm

Elder of Ziyon has not let this one slide by, and has created this simple graphic for those who have a difficult time with a more complex arguments. Please read his full response by clicking here.

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Longing and loving... and standing up for the terrorists of Gaza

Frimet/Arnold Roth
This Ongoing War
26 June '11

http://thisongoingwar.blogspot.com/2011/06/26-jun-11-longing-and-loving-and.html

Under the title "Why Alice Walker shouldn't sail to Gaza", the celebrated British writer Howard Jacobson - who won last year's Man Booker Prize for his comic novel The Finkler Question - asks some questions of his fellow cultural icon.

Alice Walker, the Pulitzer Prize-winning African American author and poet, is best-known for her critically acclaimed novel The Color Purple.

Jacobson notes that the flotilla boats now sailing towards Gaza and intending to challenge and preferably break the Israeli-imposed naval blockade will be carrying, according to Walker "letters expressing solidarity and love." But...

Not, presumably, for Israeli children. Perhaps it is thought that Israeli children are the recipients of enough love already... What interest or aspiration do Alice Walker and her fellow travelers share with the people of Gaza? A desire for freedom? Well we all aspire to that. A longing to live in peace? If they have such a longing we must be solid with them in that too, though the firing of rockets from Gaza is not, on the face of it, an expression of such a longing. And what about the declared hostility of Hamas to the very existence of Israel? Hamas, we are often told, is the elected government of Gaza, a government that fairly represents the wishes of its people. In which case we must assume that Hamas's implacable hostility towards Israel fairly represents the implacable hostility felt by the people of Gaza. Are Alice Walker's letters of love and 'solidarity' solid with the people of Gaza in that hostility? [Source]

Alice Walker will be joined by other cultural figures on this week's flotilla boats, some of them Jewish. In making their decision, they ignore what the US government, to its credit, has warned them not to do:

The US State Department on Friday warned American activists planning to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza that they risk criminal prosecution if they go through with their attempt... “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 US civil and criminal statutes and could lead to fines and incarceration,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a statement. “Groups that seek to break Israel’s maritime blockade of Gaza are taking irresponsible and provocative actions that risk the safety of their passengers,” she said. “Established and efficient mechanisms exist to transfer humanitarian assistance to Gaza... We urge all those seeking to provide such assistance to the people of Gaza to use these mechanisms, and not to participate in actions like the planned flotilla.” [Source]

Alice Walker and her fellow travelers from several nations appear certain to ignore what Victoria Nuland said. And it's likely they have never heard of a sailing vessel of the same name - the Victoria - a container vessel (IMO 9290165) operated by Peter Döhle Shipping that made headlines here in Israel during March 2011. The affair of the Victoria was almost totally ignored elsewhere. This is a pity because it has some some instructive and relevant aspects.

That Victoria was a ship (like the flotillarati, having multi-national origins: German owned, French operated, Liberian flagged) whose journey originated in the Syrian port of Latkia. It docked in Turkey's Mersin port en route to Alexandria, Egypt. Shortly after it sailed from Alexandria, and acting on intelligence, the IDF forcefully boarded the Victoria on the high seas 200 nautical miles west of Israel. The ship's paperwork, the bill of lading, said the containers were filled with cotton and lentils.

Some cotton.

Though the ship's crew, innocents like Ms Walker and her pals, had no idea, 39 of its one hundred shipping containers held a massive stockpile of weapons, some 50 tons of C-704 anti-ship missiles, rocket launchers, radar systems, mortar shells and rifle ammunition [source, includes the full shopping list of arms]. Israeli sources say the Victoria was yet another joint Syria and Iran production, cooperating to send weapons to the terrorists of Hamas in Gaza.

We'd like to say 'happy sailing' to Ms Walker and her cultured and love-minded friends, but it would be insincere. We think they are naive and silly dupes whose actions are bound to produce more deaths and misery thanks to the relentless terrorism of the Hamas regime in Gaza.

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Baker: The Gaza Flotillas to Come - Some Ground Rules before Setting Out

Alan Baker
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Published June 2011
Vol. 11, No. 3
5 June 2011

Click here for original link

An ostensibly civilian, humanitarian flotilla was employed in May 2010 to demonstratively breach the Israeli naval blockade of the Gaza coast. This flotilla was organized by the Turkish IHH, which has extensive links to extreme Islamic terror groups. Provoking a confrontation with Israel continues to be the primary aim.


Since May 2010, the Israeli government has altered the manner in which it administers the limitations on the transfer of goods to Gaza. It now specifically prohibits only those materials that might be taken and directed by Hamas and other terror groups in furtherance of their hostile purposes.


There is no humanitarian emergency among the civilian population in Gaza, and hence there can be no justification for conveying emergency shipments intended to alleviate an emergency that clearly does not exist. Any genuine wish to provide materials to the Gaza population can be directed through Israeli ports and the relevant authorities.


Hamas routinely fires missiles randomly at Israeli civilian targets. Thus a situation of ongoing armed conflict exists between Hamas and Israel, which has the prerogative to institute a naval and land blockade to prevent the introduction of weapons and materials that could serve belligerent purposes. Such a blockade is well established in international law and practice.


It is internationally accepted that any attempt to breach such a blockade may be prevented by Israeli naval patrols. Such a process may take place outside the area of the blockade if the declared intention of the flotilla is to violate the blockade. Furthermore, any vessel refusing to respond to the demands of the naval forces may be stopped forcefully.

Aiming to Provoke a Confrontation

Since the May 2010 wave of "flotillas" organized by Turkish and other groups, ostensibly conveying cargoes of vital and indispensible aid intended to reach the population of Gaza, much has been written and televised as to the real intentions of the organizers. Additionally, several enquiries have been instituted in order to analyze the legal, military, and other aspects of the flotilla affair and the way it was handled.

What seems to have been made very clear by the groups that organized the flotilla, especially the Turkish-led IHH terror-related organization, is the fact that the use of an ostensibly civilian, humanitarian flotilla and a huge PR campaign in order to demonstratively breach the Israeli naval blockade of the Gaza coast and thereby challenge Israel's policy regarding the Gaza Strip and provoke a confrontation with Israel, was clearly and continues to be the primary aim.

From Terrorist Infiltrators to Arms Ships, Israel Has to Think of Everything

Shoshana Bryen
Senior Director for Security Policy
JINSA Report #1071
March 15, 2011

The Middle East is in political and military turmoil from Bahrain to Tunisia - some of which may one day benefit Israel, some of which will not. Hamas is firing again from the Gaza. The Palestinian Authority continues to spew Jew-hatred through its official organs and feign horror at the inevitable result. The UN is screening an anti-Israel movie (popcorn optional) for the General Assembly while Iran ascends to the UN Committee on the Status of Women and Western European countries on the Security Council throw Israel to the dogs assuming the United States will veto their folly. The United States does, because it declined to expend the necessary effort to gather the votes to defeat the resolution and couldn't prevail upon Abu Mazen (who relies on the United States for money and military training for this Praetorian Guard) to withdraw it. Israel can't even take the time to mourn its latest dead - three children and their parents gruesomely murdered in their own home on the Sabbath - because it might lose track of the two Iranian naval ships that passed through the Suez Canal under the eyes of the new Egyptian junta.

Remember those? Israel did. Israel had to.

American and Israeli intelligence assets kept the Iranian Alvand frigate and Kharg supply and replenishment ship in their sights after Egypt gave them a clean bill and permitted them to pass through the Canal. The ships went to Latakia, Syria where, apparently, they offloaded a shipment of weapons. The second ship, a German-owned-Liberian-flagged freighter named Victoria, stopped in Latakia to pick up the weapons and then went to the port in Mersin, Turkey, where it stayed for a few days for no apparent purpose (except to give people time to forget about the Iranian ships and focus their attention elsewhere?). Then the ship left Turkey and headed for Egypt, where the cargo could have gone to Gaza through the smuggling tunnels.

The Israel Navy tracked the ship, boarded it and had it dock in Israel. There was no resistance from the crew, who apparently were unaware of the cargo, as was the German owner of the ship. The Turkish government appears to have had nothing to do with anything. But someone did.

Early word is that the ship contained "tons" of weapons, possibly including Chinese C-802 anti-ship missiles - the ones Hezbollah used during the 2006 war to disable an Israeli ship and kill four Israeli sailors. Acquisition of the C-802 missile, according to Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, "Would have impaired the Israel Navy's freedom of operations in the Mediterranean Sea." Given recent Israeli gas finds in the Mediterranean and the fact that most of Israel's imports and exports are seaborne and that 80% of Israel's population lives in the coastal plain, the ability to secure Israel's "western border" is essential.

The Victoria joins the Karine A, the Santorini, the Francop, the Hansa India, the Monchegorsk and scores of smaller ships that Israel has intercepted with weapons intended for its enemies. This is in addition to Iranian military supplies to Hezbollah through Syria and Iran's own ongoing efforts to acquire nuclear weapons capabilities.

The point has frequently been made that Israel has to win every war while its Arab (or Iranian) enemies only have to win one. It may have been true that the Mavi Marmara flotilla ship, sponsored by the terrorist-linked IHH didn't have large weapons caches - it didn't have any humanitarian aid either - but the Government of Israel can't afford to miss even one.

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The art of deceit - terrorists' weapon route

IsraeliGirl
15 March '11

March 15th in the open waters of the Mediterranean Sea - an innocent looking commercial ship flying a Liberian flag is stopped by the Israel navy. The operation was approved by PM Netanyahu taking into account confirmed reports that the vessel was carrying illicit arms destined for terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip.

Nothing in the freight manifest of the Victoria revealed the true nature of the content of the ship's containers. The crew had no idea they were carrying illegal weapons intended for terrorists and were quite surprised when a preliminary search by the boarding party, found significant amounts of arms and military equipment.

(Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)

In addition to weapons, soldiers who boarded the "Victoria" also found a radar used to detect ships prior to the launching of missiles from the coast.

There is no doubt these weapons would have been used by Hamas against Israeli civilians. This attempt at smuggling large amounts of weaponry aboard the Victoria provides additional proof of Israel’s imperative need to examine all goods entering the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

Iran has been creative in its attempts to transfer weapons to it's allies in the region over the last 10 years. Weapons were transferred on board ships like Karine A (carried 50 tons of weapons), aerial convoys and trains. Weapons are often concealed as humanitarian aid. After the earthquake in southern Iran in January 2004, the world was sending in help to Iran. In return, Iran disguised aerial convoys as humanitarian aid and tried to smuggle weapons to Hezbollah. A few years after that an Iranian train carrying arms (mortar shells, light arms, rocket launchers and ammunition) was uncovered in Turkey. The arms were destined for Hezbollah. Again , the Iranians attempted to conceal and disguise the arms in order to avoid suspicion by the Turkish authorities.

The illegal smuggling of arms to the Gaza Strip poses a direct and imminent threat to the safety and security of Israel and its citizens. As Hamas keeps firing rockets from Gaza, Iran will do whatever it can to keep the weapon route alive. All of us in Giyus.org hope for peace but as long as terrorists control Gaza, Israel must maintain its naval blockade and ensure weapons will not reach their hands.

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UNHRC accuses Israel of war crimes

Just Journalism
23 September '10

On the June 23 2010, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) adopted Resolution 14/1, calling for an investigation into the events upon the Mavi Marmara, which left 9 Turkish nationals dead. Israel, which had boarded the ship in question, refused to co-operate with the investigation, citing its concerns that the UNHRC was prejudiced against the state, and had already decided that Israeli soldiers had acted unjustly. Today, there was widespread coverage of the UNHRC’s announcement that it had found Israel guilty of war crimes.

In order to evaluate the legitimacy of Israel’s concerns, it is important to note several points about the UNHRC and Resolution 14/1.

1) Despite being adopted several weeks after Israel had released video footage of its soldiers being physically assaulted aboard the Mavi Marmara, Resolution 14/1 stated that Israel was guilty of unjustified violence, before the investigation had begun:

‘The Human Rights Council…[c]ondemns in the strongest terms the outrageous attack by the Israeli forces against the humanitarian flotilla of ships, which resulted in the killing and injuring of many innocent civilians from different countries’.

Whilst it is true that the UNHRC Report, generated by a fact-finding Mission, states in its Introduction that it 'did not interpret its task as proceeding on any such assumptions' as those cited in the above resolution, it is at least arguable that the report's methodology as well as its conclusions -- which were extremely hostile to Israel -- were conceived in the interest of certifying that original UNHRC resolution. The questionable motives of the UNHRC in commissioning this report and overseeing its production deserved greater scrutiny at least equal to what has been written about Israel's own military and civilian investigations into the flotilla.

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Some Ideas On Stopping The Flotillas

Daled Amos
22 September '10

In the old world, in the old times, if such an incident were to take place, wars would follow," Gul said in an interview with The Associated Press from New York. "But in our world today, it is international law that has to be taken into consideration."
Turkish President Abdullah Gul, on the Mavi Marmara incident

But we live not in the old world but in the 21st century--and thanks to Emanuel A. Winston, Middle East Analyst & Commentator, we have another way of dealing with future flotillas:

1. Israel should formally declare such flotillas as an act of declared war.

2. Israel takes the right to defend herself by crippling such ships on the high seas or in their ports of embarkation.

3. Incoming ships, having been warned away and refused to turn back would have their propellers damaged and forced to stop, awaiting a tow. (Numerous methods can be implemented to disable a ship without sinking it.)

4. All ships so disabled will be towed to the Israeli port of Ashdod for unloading and military inspection for outlawed military weapons. Such ships shall be considered the property of Israel for re-sale or simply be dismantled for scrap. None will be returned. Large ships could be scuttled to make a beneficial false reef for fish.

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The Gaza Flotilla: Facts and Official Reactions

Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld
jcpa.org
Institute for Global Jewish Affairs
No. 102
15 September '10

The Gaza flotilla was a well-thought-out provocation against Israel. The flotilla was falsely presented as an enterprise of humanitarian aid to a needy population. If that were indeed the case the organizers would have accepted Israel's offer to dock the flotilla at the port of Ashdod. The main ship, the Turkish Mavi Marmara and two others, transported people only and no aid. Part of the aid, such as camouflage netting, was clearly meant for Hamas's military purposes. Some samples of the aid, such as medicines, were past their sell-by date. One of the undeclared aims of the main organizers was to support the Hamas regime that rules Gaza. In its charter Hamas promotes genocide of Jews.

The main organizers of the Gaza flotilla were the Turkish IHH, a body for which there are strong indications of having terrorist links. There were also others on board with terrorist links. Several of the participants on the Mavi Marmara were prepared for violence with weapons and attacked the Israeli soldiers. The weapons found were far from normal for a ship purporting to be bringing humanitarian aid. Seven of the nine dead had expressed their wish to die as martyrs before they departed on the journey.

Negative opinions about Israel were hastily expressed by senior officials of various countries and international bodies. They did not care to wait until a reasonable amount of facts were known. Today if one analyzes their statements one finds many fallacies in them. In view of many other far more violent actions by some Western countries on various occasions, the claims about disproportionality of the Israeli interception of the flotilla convey double standards.

The German response to the flotilla affair merits special investigation. On 2 July the German parliament issued a unanimous resolution with an anti-Israeli bias. Never in its history has the Bundestag issued a resolution against any rogue state. The Jewish Central Council in Germany adopted a statement saying that the Parliament's resolution was based on incomplete information and a mixture of half-truths and prejudices.

I. Introduction: The Flotilla

On 30 May 2010, a flotilla of six ships left Northern Cyprus heading to Gaza, carrying 718 people from thirty-seven countries and up to ten thousand tons of what the organizers called humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip.[1] The proclaimed intention of the flotilla organizers was to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza and break the blockade on the territory, which Israel imposed in 2007 to prevent arms from reaching Hamas, the Islamist terror organization that rules the Strip.[2] It later became clear that three of the ships were not for freight and were not carrying any humanitarian aid. Among these was the largest one, the Turkish Mavi Marmara. The other two were the Challenger 1 and the Sfendonh.[3]

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Will Obama Use His UN Veto?

Steven J. Rosen
MEF
Commentary
September '10

Just before dawn on May 31, 2010, a team of Israeli commandos boarded a Turkish ship to enforce a blockade against the terrorist organization Hamas in Gaza. As they came aboard, the Israelis were assaulted by a violent faction of Islamic militants. A melee followed in which several of the commandos were seriously injured and nine of the Turkish militants were killed. The clash was over before the sun came up.

It was still daylight when, 5,600 miles away, the Israeli delegation to the United Nations was summoned to appear before an emergency session of the Security Council to be chastised for the actions of the commandos. Convened just hours after the violence, the council spent the night of May 31, into the wee hours of the morning, absorbed in "a highly emotional emergency session...[to express] international anger over the Israeli attack," as the Washington Post described it.

The scene was a familiar one. In 1983, Ronald Reagan's ambassador to the UN, Jeane Kirkpatrick, described it thus: "What takes place in the Security Council more closely resembles a mugging than either a political debate or an effort at problem-solving....Israel is cast as villain...in [a] melodrama...that features...many attackers and a great deal of verbal violence....The goal is isolation and humiliation of the victim....The attackers, encountering no obstacles, grow bolder, while other nations become progressively more reluctant to associate themselves with the accused, out of fear that they themselves will become a target of bloc hostility."

The reenactment of this familiar drama on May 31 opened with a presentation by Oscar Fernandez-Taranco, the assistant secretary-general of the United Nations for political affairs. His job was to speak for the institution as a whole and to frame the issue objectively for the debate, on behalf of his boss, Ban Ki-moon. Fernandez-Taranco explained that the bloodshed had occurred because Israel had refused to end "its counterproductive and unacceptable blockade of Gaza," which was exacerbating "the unmet needs of Gaza's civilian population." For balance, Fernandez-Taranco took note of Israel's claim that the demonstrators on board the Mari Marmara had used knives and clubs against Israeli naval personnel.

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An Alternate Turkish View of the Flotilla Issue

Burhan Dogus Ayparlar
INSS
20 August '10
Posted before Shabbat

The writer is a Turkish law student.

Background and Legal Analysis
On May 31, 2010, Israeli forces intercepted the Turkish flotilla ship Mavi Marmara. The ship’s crew attacked Israeli forces, which resulted in the deaths of nine Turkish citizens. The following article offers insight into the issues that have not been touched upon before.

Mavi Marmara records reveal that the ship was registered in Comoros, a small island nation with a population of 800,000. Why would a flotilla organized by a Turkish humanitarian organization – The Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (IHH) – license a ship under the Comoros flag? When the IHH purchased the Mavi Marmara from the municipal authority of Istanbul, it applied to the Undersecretariat for Maritime Affairs, which specified a list of maintenance required for an international journey. However, the IHH decided that it would cost too much time and money so it registered Mavi Marmara under the Comoros flag while still flying the Turkish flag.

This is an important issue, because According to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, Article 110/d, a warship which encounters a foreign ship on the high seas can interfere if it has grounds for suspecting that the ship is without nationality, and according to Article 92 of the same convention, “A ship which sails under the flags of two or more States, using them according to convenience, may not claim any of the nationalities in question with respect to any other State, and may be assimilated to a ship without nationality.” Those laws should end the debates about intervention on international waters. Mavi Marmara was cruising under two flags and according to UN conventions Israeli forces had a right to intercept it.

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New York Times: Not Just Anti-Israel But Pro-Islamist.

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
21 July '10

The New York Times--with the exception of some honorable reporters in the field (you know who you are)--never ceases to amaze one in the spectacularly biased writings of those back at headquarters. Here's one that's particularly remarkable, a real piece of advocacy in which the reporter does everything possible to justify flotilla ships trying to run the blockade of the Gaza Strip.

He also selectively discusses the IHH sponsor of the previous flotilla, leaving out all the evidence (presented in my articles and elsewhere) of its radical and terrorist connections, including U.S. court documents. I explained this for the Times more than five weeks ago but they paid no attention and they still cannot find any of this evidence!

The article even includes a pro-IHH video without any balancing video, of which a number are easily available. There is virtually no hint that the militants on board had earlier shouted slogans advocating genocide for Jews, declared their intention to be Jihad martyrs, or attacked and kidnapped the arriving soldiers.

In addition, this article was written after Germany banned the IHH's local branch for supporting terrorism but doesn't even mention this fact. (Yes, I know the German government said it was a separate group but that is a purely formal organizational point.)

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