BLOCKADING AID

It seems that the Israel Defence Force has managed to keep international humanitarian aid from Gaza, but in the process killing up to twenty civilians onboard vessels in international waters.

The heavily armed Israeli commandos are claiming that the deaths were as a result of self defence. During the course of their assault on unarmed civilian vessels in international waters, they are saying they were attacked by people wielding sticks, knives and hand guns.

The evidence one way or the other is not clear. However, the following Al Jazeera video (via War in Context) gives an account of what happened on one vessel:

Israel is one country above and beyond international law. The calculation of the Israeli Government is that they can get away with it. They may be right. The problem is that the crew and passengers in the Freedom Flotilla were multinational. One immediate consequence it that diplomatic relations between Turkey and Israel are likely to be severed. The problem for Israel is not so much what governments might decide to do, but what those governments driven by public opinion in the various countries will demand.

Would it have been possible for Israel to lift the Gaza Blockade and allow the maritime aid through? This is another example of violence generating violence. How is this cycle to be stopped?

ELSEWHERE:

There is no shortage of commentary, and I cannot begin to do justice all that is available.

Christoph Schult at Spiegel Online notes there are some questions to answered:

Why did Israeli soldiers shoot at the passengers from helicopters flying overhead?
What did the Israeli navy board the ship when they could have simply blocked the ships’ paths?
And why did Israel strike in international waters, long before the fleet had arrived in Israeli waters?

And, if Israel is not effectively an occupying power, why does it regard the waters offshore of Gaza as an Israeli zone, especially as it has already stolen Palestinian resources, including water rights?

The question that arises that by shining a light on these issues whether nonviolence works, given that nonviolence does not preclude the use of violence in specific circumstances – the madman and sword case. While the passengers on other ships may have had training in nonviolence, that possibly was not true for the Turkish passenger ship, onboard which most of the deaths occurred. Nathan Schneider, at Waging Nonviolence covers many of the relevant issues.

Jonathan Cook writes at CounterPunch, “Israel’s Attack on us All”. He is the source of the news blackout and the control of the narrative, aided and abetted by the exercise in the propaganda outlets – especially the televisual media – of churnalism.

Juan Cole provides an excellent overall summary of the situation – “Historic UNSC Condemnation of Israel, and of Gaza Blockade; World Body Demands release of Aid Activists, Ships”. Go to Informed Comment, which can be linked via my blogroll to the right. I would link except that I do not want to be pinged.

Glenn Greenwald covers the Israeli media blackout, and makes the link with the use of the same tactic in the Gaza assault. Ha’aretz also carries a fuller account of the happenings when the Israelis boarded.

If the report carried by Winnipeg Free Press is accurate, the situation on the Turkish ship created by the Israeli commandos is truly appalling, via Juan Cole at Informed Comment.

Clearly the blockade of Gaza by Israel will come under increased scrutiny. In a major development, Egypt according to Ha’aretz has opened up the Rafah Crossing to the consternation the paper reports of “Israel and its Western Allies”.

The Israelis had a different perception and experience, as reported in Ha’aretz, including the revealing observation that the passengers who attacked them for boarding their vessel international waters were “terrorists”.