EDITOR: The Evidence Was Highjacked With the Survivors…
On kidnapping the Mavi Marmara and other passengers to Israel, not only were a large number of laws broken, as is usual with all Israeli behaviour, but the evidence collected by the survivors about the massacre was itself illegally confiscated and removed by the Israeli authorities. How useful is the law, international and even the Israeli law, when Israel’s behaviour is concereed? Lawyers will argue, justifiably, that we must use what law we have, to bring criminals to justice; in this case, however, the criminal government is breaking its own laws all the time, and refuses to carry out its own Supreme Court decisions, so the use of law as an efficient vehicle of bringing justice to bear must be extremely limited, especially as other governments, and especially those of the US and UK, thremselves involved in war crimes, are supporting and abetting the Israeli regime.
Below, Daniel Machover, of Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights, is proving that not only the murders were illegal, but that the whole operation broke a number of laws, and so did the treatment of the survivors. Let us hope that this helps to persuade some in government that thir continued unprincipled support of mass murder should come to an abrupt end…
Freedom Flotilla attack – Daniel Machover of Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights
Full video of Daniel Machover from press conference organised by Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Also appearing was Sarah Colborne who was on the ship stormed by Israeli commandos.
Turkey is not an enemy: Haaretz Editorial
Compared to Egypt, Turkey has for years maintained close and cordial ties with Israel at all levels. Israelis have considered it a sister nation, trade with Turkey has expanded, and military cooperation has been perceived as a given.
Of all Israel’s ties with Muslim countries, those with Turkey are the oldest. Until recently, in terms of strategy, that country was considered no less important than Egypt. The affair of the Gaza aid flotilla and the harsh and excessive comments by Turkey’s prime minister against Israel have dramatically shaken the stability of these ties. Israelis now perceive Turkey as an enemy that should be denounced, or at least boycotted.
But it should be pointed out that compared to Egypt, Turkey has for years maintained close and cordial ties with Israel at all levels. Israelis have considered it a sister nation, trade with Turkey has expanded, and military cooperation has been perceived as a given. Visits by the leaders of both countries have also become a standard part of our political lives. Turkey’s involvement in the indirect talks between Syria and Israel helped forge understandings between Damascus and Jerusalem, and normalization was not a subject Turkey and Israel disagreed on. Normalization actually preceded official ties between the two countries.
The change did not happen because of the victory of the Justice and Development Party and the election of Recep Tayyip Erdogan as prime minister. That party has been in power since 2002, and despite the dark prophecies that accompanied its rise to power, relations between the two countries continued normally. Turkey’s anger exploded when its prime minister felt betrayed by former prime minister Ehud Olmert, who allowed Turkey to try to mediate between Israel and Hamas on the eve of Operation Cast Lead. Turkey realized then that Israel considers it a given; that it has to agree with all of Israel’s whims.
Erdogan’s criticism of Israel is not different in substance than the criticism by other friends of Israel in Europe and the United States. But his style is more blatant and direct. Erdogan does not agree with Israel on continuing the blockade of the Gaza Strip, and he is finding hard to understand, like many Israelis, the logic behind the blockade after four years in which it has not achieved Israel’s goals. Erdogan’s backing of the flotilla was just a continuation of the view that the blockade cannot go on.
Israel can ignore Turkey’s serious arguments, slander its prime minister and describe the flotilla’s activists as terrorists. This will not be enough to remove the stain of the operation that dragged Israel’s image − not Turkey’s, eight of whose citizens were killed − into the mud internationally.
Israel, which is now struggling to save its good name, considers public relations the sole means for achieving its goals. But without wise policy, public relations will prove empty of substance. The first step is to rehabilitate relations with Turkey, especially with its prime minister.
For this, political courage is necessary, which will lift the blockade on Gaza Strip and bring Turkey closer to the region’s political process. Without all this, Israel can only continue being pleased with itself under the political blockade imposed on it.
The Gaza Flotilla and Israel’s Many, Many Right: Takimag
by Charles Glass, June 03, 2010
Anybody can support Israel when times are good and The Timeses in London and New York write about Israeli entrepreneurs in Herzliya, Nobel prizes for physicians, and the blooming desert. That’s easy. How about now, though, when Israeli forces have blasted a humanitarian convoy at sea and killed nine people bringing food, medicine, baby clothes, and building supplies? When the going gets tough, only a few get going. God bless Les Gelb, Alan Dershowitz and the other singular champions of Israelism for standing up now, when nine Turkish citizens lie dead and Israel’s reputation is once again, for a moment, in tatters. Gelb bravely asserted on The Daily Beast, “Israel had every right under international law to stop and board ships bound for the Gaza war zone late Sunday.”
Even if no international law, and certainly no Law of the Sea, actually permits armed soldiers to board unarmed merchant ships in international waters, it is good that Gelb had the guts to say there’s one. Israel can rely as well on Dershowitz, the Harvard Law professor who years ago proposed that Israel destroy Palestinian villages in retaliation for suicide bombings—his own “Lidice” solution for which the Nazis who destroyed the Czech village of Lidice in retaliation for the murder of Rheinhard Heydrich were hanged. His counsel on the Huffington Post will soon have the Israeli army storming Gaza, devastating Lebanon, nuking Iran, and sinking cruise liners. When push came to the shove of ethnically cleansing the entire West Bank of its Arab population, Les and Al would be there to tell us all that it was right and, of course, legal. That’s what lawyers, I mean real friends, are for.
I now list the rights that Israel is entitled to exercise now and forever with the full support of its true friends, mainly in America, but wherever else they may be found. Perhaps not, at the moment, in Turkey.
Israel has the right to kill anyone, anytime, for any reason it chooses. This includes those it designates as terrorists or terrorist supporters in Israel itself, in the occupied territories, in Dubai, on airplanes, in cars and on ships. No other state is entitled to this right for reasons that I now forget, but which I am sure Al and Les can remind us about.
Israel is entitled to at least $5 billion a year from the American taxpayer, however hard-pressed he or she may be, during the good times as well as in the midst of financial crises. Israel’s government may spend the money as it sees fit, without oversight or audit by the US Treasury, the Government Accounting Office or the Congress. If a few million bucks go astray or pay for allegedly illegal activities, like displacing Palestinians from their homes and building Israeli settlements on them, that is nobody’s business. If Congress doesn’t like it, it can go to the White House and ask for more.
Israel may use the weapons the United States gives it in any way it chooses, whenever it chooses, and wherever it chooses. US-Israeli treaties limiting their use to defense and prohibiting the deployment of cluster bombs on civilians may be ignored as having no legal force. I defer to the experts at the Harvard School of Law for an exact exegesis of this proposition, but it should be self-evident to all who truly support Israel and not just the whining ninnies who only support it when it is not breaking the law—which, as I said, it is never really breaking anyway.
Israel has the right to spy on and attack American institutions and military installations. The precedents for this obvious assertion are many—Israel’s bombing of American cultural centers in Egypt in the 1950s, its attack on the American naval ship Liberty in 1967 with thirty-two American sailors killed and another 17 wounded, and the many instances when agents like Jonathan Pollard steal American defense secrets and Israeli intelligence passes the information onto America’s enemies. (Read my old colleague James Bamford’s Body of Secrets for the details. You’ll need Les and Al to help you finish the book without having a certain patriotic fury at some of Israel’s breaches of American security.) Bombing American cinemas in Egypt and an American communications ship may seem illegal (and certainly hostile) to the people Les Gelb courageously calls “knee-jerk left-wingers and the usual legion of poseurs around the world.” To the rest of us, the illegal is obviously legal when done by Israel.
“Stand by Israel now. Stand by the real Israel and not those cry babies who defame the state from within. If you don’t, you lousy left-wing, knee-jerk poseur, you’re nothing but an anti-Semite.”
United Nations resolutions do not apply to Israel. The UN should pass a resolution immediately to make this clear. Israel has been in contravention, at least on paper, of more UN resolutions than any other member state. It has consistently refused to adhere to Security Council and General Assembly resolutions on the refugees who fled or were expelled by its forces in 1948 and 1967, on its occupation of territories seized in 1967, on its seizure of land in those territories, on its transfer of its own civilians into occupied territories, on the construction of settlements in the same territories and on its treatment of indigenous civilians in those territories. Let’s get this straight. The UN can say whatever it likes, but it cannot expect its resolutions to apply to Israel—except, of course, the one that recognized Israel as a state in 1948. Non-compliance with UN resolutions may be used as a justification for invading Iraq, but they cannot possibly justify criticism of Israel in the knee-jerk, left-wing press or among the blogs of the Legion of Poseurs. (Perhaps there really is an organization called the Legion of Poseurs. If there is, I am sure Les will let us know about it.)
Israel can bomb and invade Lebanon whenever it wants, but we all know that.
Israel can discriminate between its Jewish citizens and non-Jewish citizens, as well as between its settlers and those stateless souls in the occupied lands. Jews can own land in Israel, and (except for about eight per cent of it) Arabs may not. Israel can make the distinction between Jewish and non-Jewish people without knee-jerk left-wingers and legionary poseurs calling it apartheid. Apartheid was what the South African whites did, which was to discriminate between white and non-white people. There is a big difference between dividing society into whites and non-whites as opposed to dividing it between Jews and non-Jews. I am sure Harvard Law has published many papers to clarify the distinction.
Israel can put Gaza under siege whenever it likes. If the Palestinians in Gaza don’t like it, they can go home. Well, actually, the ninety per cent of them who are refugees can’t go home, because Israel won’t let them. And that too is Israel’s right. Do not forget it is always legal for Israel to prevent shipments of food, medicine, children’s toys, light bulbs and anything else it likes from entering Gaza, even though international law says that collective punishment and deprivation of life’s necessities are illegal.
Israel may stop any ship bound for Gaza (or anywhere else) whenever it wants. Les Gelb found a precedent for this: the Allied blockade of Germany. Germany was at war with the British, and German U-boats were as effective at besieging the British as the Royal Navy was at blockading Germany. Israel cannot be in a legal state of war with territory it occupies. If it were, it would be obliged to treat Palestinian anti-occupation fighters in its custody as prisoners of war with rights under the Geneva Conventions. And we all know how likely that is and what Israel thinks of the Geneva Conventions. You guessed it, right up there with treaties and UN resolutions. The German-British siege is about as good a precedent for the siege of Gaza Les is likely to give us, even if he is free to reject its other implications. Thus, on the high seas, Israel can ram aid ships like it did last year or drop armed commandos on them as it did last week. And those bloody Turkish civilians have no right to take away the Israeli soldiers’ pistols. That is pure aggression. Les concedes that, while Israel can board ships in international or, presumably, Gazan waters, it cannot do the same in the territorial waters of another state. He writes, “Thus, for example, if the Israelis stopped the ships in Egyptian waters, that would have been a violation.” Frankly, Les, that’s trimming. Of course, it can stop ships in Egyptian or Lebanese (which it does all the time) or American waters. And I’ll bet ten to one that, whenever it does stop a ship in Egyptian waters, you’ll change your mind.
Israel can demand that Hamas and every other Palestinian group recognize Israel and its “right to exist” (even though, in any other context, the concept “right to exist” has no existence in law), while Israel refuses to recognize the state of Palestine within the 1947 borders set by the United Nations or the 1949 ceasefire lines that became the first, albeit temporary, borders of Israel. Not only does Israel not have to recognize such a state, it may physically prevent it from coming into being (as it has done since 1967). Let me repeat: Israel has the right to recognition without giving recognition in return. No other two states in the world have relations on that basis, but those states are not Israel. Professor Dershowitz can no doubt have one of his students (at least one who wants a job when he graduates) prepare a thesis giving the rationale behind what knee-jerk left wingers and poseurs contend is an extremely odd state of affairs.
There you have it. Stand by Israel now. Stand by the real Israel and not those cry babies who defame the state from within. If you don’t, you lousy left-wing, knee-jerk poseur, you’re nothing but an anti-Semite. Al and Les can explain why anyone and everyone, even Jews, critical of any Israeli action should be called anti-Semitic. I used to know why, but I’ve forgotten.
Attorney Tsemel brings Testimonies of Gaza Freedom Flotilla Detainees
Live from the Only Democracy: 43 Years of Occupation
June 3rd, 2010, by Jesse Bacon
Israel has stopped one boat, but it can’t stop the movement. Readers of this blog know the struggle has been going on long before the Gaza Freedom Flotilla set sail, and it continues and will only grow in strength. The protests commemorating the anniversary of the 1967 Occupation of the West Bank including East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip are carrying on, as more boats set sail for Gaza.
We’ll have live tweets so night owls and early risers in the United States can follow this protest over at Jewish Voice for Peace’s twitter feed. Then come back here tomorrow for a recap.
Palestinians and Israelis will demonstrate tomorrow, Friday, June 4th, near the village of Beit Nuba, which was demolished by Israel in 1967, near Route 443. Similar demonstrations, also denouncing the massacre aboard the Freedom Flotilla will take place across the West Bank.
Dozens of Israeli anti-Occupation organizations will join the Palestinian Popular Committees for a demonstration marking 43 years of occupation tomorrow. The protesters will denounce the killing aboard the Mavi Marmara, and call to end the siege over Gaza, to dismantle the Wall and settlements, and for freedom of movement for Palestinians.
MK Haneen Zouabi, who was aboard the Mavi Marmara,(the boat attacked by Israeli commandoes with at least 10 deaths) Mustafa Barghouti, head of the Palestinian al-Mubadara Party, Maher Ghuneim, Minister for the Wall in the Palestinian Authority, former MK Uri Avnery, and Palestinian Legislative Committee Members Qais Abd el-Karim (Abu Laila) and Mahmoud al-Aloul – will participate in the demonstration.
Additional demonstrations will take place in the villages on Nabi Saleh, north of Ramallah, Deir al-Ghussoun, north of Tul Karem, Ni’ilin – where demonstrators will also mark a year to the death of protester Aqel Srour by sniper-fire shot at him during a demonstration, and in the villages of Bil’in, West of Ramallah and al-Ma’asara, south of Bethlehem, where demonstrators will carry mock ships and will try to break the siege on their own villages.
Road to nowhere: During the occupation of the West Bank in June 1967, the Israeli army destroyed the villages of Yalu, Beit Nuba and Amuasse in the Latrun enclave. “Canada Park” and a number of settlements were built on their lands.
Most of the residents of these three displaced villages currently live in villages near Highway 443, such as Beit Liqya, Beit Sira and Beit Ur. In the eighties, thousands of acres were confiscated by Israel along the road, claiming that the road will serve as the main traffic artery for these villages to Ramallah.
However, the road has been closed for years for Palestinian vehicles. Following the High Court ruling on Route 443, a small section of the road was opened last week for Palestinian traffic, but is still nearly useless for the villagers, as access to Ramallah from it is disallowed, turning it into a highway to nowhere for Palestinians.
Israel’s commando complex: Haaretz
Recently an intelligence official actually called the absence of Palestinian terror a ‘propaganda problem.’
By Doron Rosenblum
Tags: Gaza flotilla Gaza Hamas IDF
It’s impossible to understand or explain Israel’s passive-aggressive responses to the “flotilla crisis” without reference to the ground from which its current leaders emerged. Both the prime minister and the defense minister are dyed-in-the-wool “creatures of military operations.” Both were steeped in the instant-heroism mentality and the commando spirit − the ethos in which a military force shows up at the height of a crisis like a deus ex machina and in a single stroke slices through the Gordian knot.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s public image grew out of the 1972 rescue of a hijacked Sabena passenger plane, during which he was seen standing on the wing of the aircraft waving his pistol. And one cannot imagine the political career of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu without Operation Entebbe and the myth-cloaked death of his brother Yoni − a mission so glorious and electrifying that its inspiring charge alone could turn his brother into a star, both as “Mr. Terror” and as a veteran of Sayeret Matkal, the Israel Defense Forces general staff’s elite special-operations force.
Those 1970s rescue operations were seen as the continuation of the largest and most miraculous one of all, the Six-Day War. Although decades have passed since the moral “high” was injected into our veins our leaders have never stopped trying to reconstruct it in order to atone for their ineffectiveness as statesmen. And the greater the number of successive failed missions, the greater the longing for the next redemptive mission that would “heal” the trauma and the bad trip of its predecessor. The next “jackpot” always appeared to be around the corner: if not in Lebanon, then in Gaza; if not in Gaza, then in Iran.
Netanyahu and Barak came into power for the second time, despite each man’s record of failure, on the wings of two contradictory, or complementary, hopes: First, that in combination they would deliver the goods and create the redemptive “operation to end all operations,” the smartest one of all. Second, that they of all people − and not civilian leaders such as Ehud Olmert, Shimon Peres or Amir Peretz, who felt a need to overreact militarily − could gain the maturity necessary for an act of diplomatic courage. But so far they haven’t fulfilled either hope. They have demonstrated both a total absence of courage and inspiration in the diplomatic sphere and an absence of creativity in the use of force. So what’s left?
The failure of the flotilla operation is less troubling than the national “jonesing” that has followed it: the frenetic flitting between the poles of reflexive victimhood − Oy oy oy they resisted, they had knives, swords and other weapons, the activists who were killed were “big-bodied” − and of inert heroism (praise for the restraint and sensitivity that resulted in only nine and not 600 deaths; the desperate attempt to cling to the vestiges of the myths of military prowess and the increased stifling of criticism with the slogan “Quiet, we’re saluting”). All of these, together with a great sense of missed opportunity: the illusion that a “successful” operation − difficult to define and to imagine in any event − would have relieved, even temporarily, a certain existential angst.
All these responses were more intense this week, although in fact they are constant. They are the responses of addicts who are repeatedly denied their fix: the perfect IDF “operation,” or the decisive war, which will stifle any question and complaints (and any need for statesmanship).
Some point to a sea change in the Palestinian, and even the Hamas, leadership, saying that they have finally discovered the advantages of propaganda and statesmanship over violence and terror. Instead of encouraging and wholeheartedly adopting this approach, Israel, which hasn’t changed its thought patterns for decades, is “caught by surprise” and even dismayed. (Recently an intelligence official actually called the absence of Palestinian terror a “propaganda problem”). In the absence of statesmanship, all Israel can offer is another clumsy operation in which it comes off looking like some relic from the 1970s and ‘80s with a commando knife between its teeth. Even worse: It looks like Avigdor Lieberman, Eli Yishai, Moshe Ya’alon and all the rest.
Israel has always complained, condescendingly, that the neighbors it is forced to deal with are Arabs rather than “Norwegians and Swedes.” Now, when it is dealing with Europeans and the entire world, Israel can see how it itself is perceived − and to blush furiously. If it still can.
EDITOR: A tough demand for Peres to comply with…
Sasha Polakow-Suransky is asking Peres to tell the truth about Israel’s relationship with the apartheid regime; this is difficult for Peres – a man who even his political close partners described as apathological liar… Don’t hold your breath for his admission of guilt…
Time to come clean: Haaretz
It’s time for Shimon Peres to tell the truth about Israel’s military cooperation with Apartheid South Africa.
By Sasha Polakow-Suransky
NEW YORK – The revelations in my book, “The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Alliance with Apartheid South Africa,” have angered Israelis across the political spectrum. Israeli politicians from Dan Meridor to Yossi Beilin, and writers from Haaretz’s Anshel Pfeffer to the blogger Emmanuel Navon, have denounced my findings regarding cooperation between Israel and South Africa on nuclear issues, and dismissed them as false or inaccurate.
President Shimon Peres has said “there exists no basis in reality for the claims” put forward in my book. Beilin, despite praising the book on its back cover, has decided to stand by his former boss when it comes to the subject of nuclear weapons. As he told The New York Times: “The president’s denial puts an end to the subject.”
It does not.
Peres is being evasive. Although his signature does not appear on the minutes of a series of meetings that took place in South Africa and Switzerland between March and June 1975, the documents confirm his presence and record the statements he made there. They also show that one topic discussed at the meeting was nuclear-armed Jericho missiles. Peres’ signature appears on a document dated just days after the first discussion of Jericho missiles took place, pledging to keep these and all other defense discussions secret.
To my knowledge, Peres has not denied his presence at these meetings, nor has he claimed that the South African documents are fake. If Peres is so adamant that his version of events is true, he should encourage the government to immediately release all Defense Ministry documents concerning Israeli-South African military cooperation between 1975 and 1990. The Israeli people deserve to see the historical evidence and draw their own conclusions.
A memorandum from the South African chief of staff at the time, R.F. Armstrong, written on the same day as the first Jericho discussion – March 31, 1975 – confirms the South Africans’ exclusive interest in nuclear-tipped Jerichos. A South African who joined Israel Defense Forces’ then-chief of staff Rafael Eitan at a 1979 missile test launch in Israel reiterates this narrow interest, writing that the Jerichos would only be worth the price if the warheads were extremely advanced, “with a nuclear warhead as the ideal.”
The 1975 deal was never consummated, but there is no doubt Peres took part in the discussions and that the South Africans perceived Israel’s proposal as a nuclear offer.
The Jericho missile program continued as a joint project based in South Africa throughout the 1980s, when Israeli rocketry experts went to the coastal town of Arniston. South Africa had by then successfully developed its own nuclear weapons and was seeking to miniaturize them for use as warheads. The Israelis helped with the missile development.
Furthermore, in 1976, Israeli intelligence officials approached Pretoria requesting that the safeguards be lifted on a 500-ton stockpile of South African yellowcake uranium that had built up in Israel over a period of 15 years. The South African minister of mines, Fanie Botha, traveled to Israel that July, where he met with Peres, then-prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and top army officials and nuclear scientists. Botha admitted to me in a 2006 interview that during this trip he lifted the safeguards, freeing Israel to use the yellowcake for military purposes.
In exchange, Israel provided South Africa with tritium – a substance that boosts the yield of thermonuclear weapons. Moreover, Israel funneled money to the nearly bankrupt Botha through a middleman in order to keep him in office until the deal went through.
Fanie Botha’s visit to Israel is confirmed in a 1976 Israel Ministry of Defense document and in the records of a 1988 trial held in camera in South Africa’s Supreme Court.
Haaretz columnist Anshel Pfeffer has criticized what he believes is “shoddy detail” in my book and conclusions that are “convoluted and tenuous at best” (May 28, 2010 ). He adds: “There are much more plausible explanations to Peres’ cryptic reference to ‘three sizes’ of missile payloads, if that is indeed what he said in those secret meetings 35 years ago.”
But Pfeffer does not offer us alternative explanations. Presumably, he believes that the phrase refers to the missile’s range rather than its warhead. The documents themselves reveal this to be absurd, because in the same meetings Peres and Botha openly discussed the range of other missile systems. The term “payload” in English is not an ambiguous one: It refers to a warhead and not a missile’s range.
Pfeffer goes on to misrepresent nuclear program expert Avner Cohen’s views, suggesting that he “dismisses the claims” in my book. In reality, Cohen has praised my research and backed my conclusions. On May 25, he told The Independent: “The discussions between Israel and South Africa referred to in the documents seem to me authentic and refer, I believe, to nuclear weapons, even if euphemisms like ‘correct payload’ were used.”
Thirty-five years later, it is time for Peres to come clean.
Sasha Polakow-Suransky is a senior editor at Foreign Affairs, and author of the recently published “The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Alliance with Apartheid South Africa” (Pantheon ).
Divide grows over Israel and Gaza: The Guardian Letters
We applaud Iain Banks’s decision to refuse book translation deals with Israeli publishers (Letters, 3 June). The mentality behind Israel’s tortuous attempts to justify nine murders and many injuries on the Mavi Marmara was exposed for all to see outside the Israeli embassy in Kensington on Wednesday night.
Waving Israeli flags, bringing shame upon the Star of David that it carries, supporters of the Zionist Federation lined up alongside fascist hooligans from the English Defence League to praise the commando killers and damn the dead and injured. Like the rapist seeking justification for his crimes, Zionism blames its victims for “provocation”.
Although we know that Palestinians who protest against Israel’s apartheid system may face death at any moment, we did not at first believe reports of international activists being killed bringing aid to Gaza. It is now clear that their deaths fit the general pattern of Israel’s contempt for human life, for international law and for world opinion.
This is unacceptable to us as Jews true to our traditional respect for equality and justice for all. A just peace for Israelis and Palestinians must begin with Israel ending its siege of Gaza, its illegal occupation and settlement of Palestinian land, its discrimination against non-Jewish citizens and its denial of the right of return to the hundreds of thousands it has expelled.
We have seen proof this week that Israel will not yield unless an international campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions obliges it to do so.
Ruth Clark, Mike Cushman, Deborah Fink, Sylvia Finzi, Tony Greenstein, Selma James, Michael Kalmanovitz, Michael Kendall, Leah Levane, Rachel Lever, Bruce Levy, Beryl Maizels, Miriam Margolyes, Martine Miel, Simon Pirani, Roland Rance, Alexei Sayle, Inbar Tamari, Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, Ben Young
Passengers of ‘Rachel Corrie’ reject Israel-Ireland deal: Haaretz
Irish government offers MV Rachel Corrie ship to divert to Israeli port of Ashdod instead of Gaza; Foreign Ministry: Israel doesn’t want a confrontation with the Gaza-bound ship.
Passengers on board the MV Rachel Corrie ship have rejected a proposed agreement made between the Israeli and Irish governments to divert the ship to the Israeli port of Ashdod instead of the coast of Gaza.
Following the passengers’ rejection of the agreement, the forum of seven high ranking ministers decided to go ahead with the plan to stop the ship and take it over, as was done with the previous Gaza flotilla.
Over the last few days the Foreign Ministry has been trying to come to a diplomatic solution with the organizers of the ship, under the Irish government’s mediation.
During negotiations, the ship’s passengers emphasized that they were willing to undergo a security check by the Israel Defense Forces in the ocean to verify there were no weapons on the ship, but demanded they then be allowed to pass to the coast of Gaza.
Israel refused, and demanded the security check take place in the Ashdod port and that the ship’s cargo would be transferred from there to the Gaza Strip, under the supervision of passengers and Irish diplomats.
Ireland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Micheal Martin, issued a statement on Friday on the failed agreement.
“On Friday morning, an understanding was reached with the Israeli government whereby the Rachel Corrie would have approached the Israeli exclusion zone before accepting diversion to the Israeli port of Ashdod. At Ashdod, the cargo would have been unloaded and inspected under the supervision of UN and officials from the Irish Aid Division of my Department.
“The entire cargo, including what is understood to be 550 tonnes of cement, would then have been transported to Gaza. Two persons from the Rachel Corrie would have been permitted to accompany the cargo to the Israeli border crossing into Gaza at Erez.
“In my view, such an arrangement would have offered a useful precedent for future humanitarian shipments, pending the complete lifting of the blockade,” he said.
Martin then said that those on board the MV Rachel Corrie, “after careful consideration,” rejected the agreement, and emphasized that he “fully respects their right to do so and to continue their protest action by seeking to sail to Gaza.”
He also called on Israel to refrain from using force on the passengers of the Rachel Corrie ship.
“If, as is their stated intention, the Israeli government intercepts the Rachel Corrie, the Government demands that it demonstrate every restraint. Those on board the Rachel Corrie have made clear their peaceful intentions and have stated that they will offer no resistance to Israeli forces. Based on these assurances, there can be no justification for the use of force against any person on board the Rachel Corrie.”
Israel’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Friday emphasizing that Israel does not want a confrontation with the Gaza-bound ship the MV Rachel Corrie.
“We have no desire for a confrontation. We have no desire to board the ship. If the ship decides to sail the port of Ashdod, then we will ensure its safe arrival and will not board it,” said the Foreign Ministry Director-General Yossi Gal.
The MV Rachel Corrie is headed directly for the Gaza Strip with hundreds of tons of humanitarian aid and is expected reach Israel’s 20-mile exclusion zone within the next day, a spokesman for the pro-Palestinian group organizing the mission said on Friday.
“Israel is prepared to receive the ship and to offload its contents.After an inspection to ensure that no weapons and war materials are on board, we are prepared to deliver all of the goods to Gaza,” the Foreign Ministry’s statement read.
“Representative of the people on board and relevant NGOs are welcome to accompany the goods to the crossings. We will work with the UN and international organizations to ensure that all the goods are used for the benefit of the people of Gaza.”
The Foreign Ministry’s statement was issued following a discussion between the ministers of the forum of seven on Friday afternoon in Jerusalem. The statement seems to hint that Israel’s attempts at coming to a resolution with the ship’s passengers have reached a dead end.
According to a government source in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed the foreign ministry’s director-general Yossi Gal to invite the foreign press and to issue the statement, in order to make Israel’s stance perfectly clear to the ship’s passengers and to the international community.
The MV Rachel Corrie had initially planned to reach the Gaza Strip sometime this week, despite an Israel Navy raid on the first six ships in the humanitarian aid convoy on Monday that left nine people dead and several more wounded.
Despite reports that the 1,200-ton ship was heading back to Ireland due to technical difficulties involving its two accompanying vessels, Free Gaza Movement spokeswoman Greta Berlin said the ship was on schedule and had no plans to stop in any port along the way.
Free Gaza’s legal adviser, Audrey Bomse, earlier Friday said that the ship was planning to return to Ireland in the coming days due to Israel’s “sabotage” of the two passenger boats meant to carry journalists. Bomse told Army Radio that the vessels sustained such serious technical damage while docked in Greece last weekend that they would not be able to sail for weeks.
Bomse was quoted by Army Radio on Friday as saying that the ship would only attempt to breach the Gaza blockade once accompanied by the two passenger vessels. She also said that the activists would refuse any diplomatic solution offered by Israel.
The legal adviser reportedly told Army Radio that her movement’s goal was not just to bring aid to Gaza, but to send a message to Israel. Activists would not stop sending these ship to Gaza until Israel agree to lift its blockade, the radio quoted Bomse as saying.
The Rachel Corrie’s trip to Gaza is sponsored by two non-governmental organizations, from Ireland and Malaysia. On board is Irish Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Maguire and former United Nations deputy secretary-general Denis Halliday. Also on board are Malaysians from a group sponsored by the former prime minister of Malaysia.
The ship was to have been part of the flotilla that was stopped at sea early Monday morning, but was delayed due to the technical problems. Its cargo includes cement and medical equipment such as a tomograph (CT ), as well as toys and printing paper.
Gaza flotilla: Turkey threat to Israel ties over raid: BBC
Turkey says it might reduce economic and defence ties with Israel following the deadly raid on a Gaza aid flotilla.
Deputy PM Bulent Arinc said Ankara was “assessing deals with Israel”, once its close ally.
Nine people, mostly Turkish activists, died when Israeli troops stormed a ship trying to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza on Monday.
Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he did not view Hamas, which runs Gaza, as a terrorist organisation.
In Friday’s televised speech, which analysts say will anger Israel, Mr Erdogan described Hamas as “resistance fighters who are struggling to defend their land”.
“I have told this to US officials… I do not accept Hamas as a terrorist organisation,” he said.
Hamas, which seized power in Gaza in 2007, is designated a terrorist organisation by Israel, the US and the EU.
Street protests
In Istanbul on Friday, thousands of people waving Turkish and Palestinian flags and shouting anti-Israeli slogans joined a rally at a memorial service for one of those killed in the raid.
Israel has been widely criticised over the incident, which took place in international waters.
There are conflicting reports as to what happened – the activists say they were attacked, while Israel says its commandos opened fire in self-defence.
Israel says it will not allow aid ships to dock at Gaza, fearing the cargo might contain weapons and other items it wants to prevent reaching Hamas.
Mr Arinc said on Friday that all military and economic deals made with Israel were now being re-evaluated, although he suggested no action would be taken immediately.
“We are serious about this subject,” he told broadcaster NTV.
“We may plan to reduce our relations with Israel to a minimum, but to assume everything involving another country is stopped in an instant, to say we have crossed you out of our address book, is not the custom of our state.”
The BBC’s Jonathan Head in Istanbul says Mr Arinc has made it clear that there will be long-term consequences over what happened on the aid ships.
The government will be able to consider what action to take against Israel once the emotions of recent days – as Turkey mourns the dead activists – calms down, our correspondent says.
Friday’s rally in Istanbul centred on a memorial service for journalist Cevdet Kiliclar, who was shot in the head during the Israeli raid.
Thousands turned out in Istanbul on Thursday for the funeral services of eight other victims.
The youngest of the dead activists, 19-year-old Furkan Dogan – who was born in the US but moved to Turkey as a child – is being buried in his hometown of Kayseri in central Turkey on Friday.
Banned materials
Meanwhile, the MV Rachel Corrie aid ship is heading towards the coast of Gaza, aiming to break the Israeli blockade.
The MV Rachel Corrie is carrying items banned by Israel
Activists on board told the BBC’s Andrew North in Jerusalem by telephone that they aimed to arrive just outside Israel’s 20-mile (30km) exclusion zone off Gaza by Saturday morning.
They said there were 20 people on board, including five Irish nationals, six Malaysians and nine crew members.
One of the activists, former Nobel peace prize winner Mairead Corrigan Maguire, said their humanitarian aid shipment included cement and construction materials – items banned by Israel.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Friday that the Rachel Corrie would not be allowed to arrive.
“We will stop the ship, and also any other ship that will try to harm Israeli sovereignty,” he said on Israel’s Channel 1 television.
“There is no chance the Rachel Corrie will reach the coast of Gaza.”
The Rachel Corrie is named after a US college student who was crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer as she protested about house demolitions in Gaza.
The Israeli government has offered to take the aid it is carrying in by land, once it has checked there is nothing in the shipment that can be used for weapons.
“We have no desire for a confrontation. We have no desire to board the ship,” said Israel’s Foreign Ministry Director-General Yossi Gal on Friday.
“If the ship decides to sail to the [Israeli] port of Ashdod, then we will ensure its safe arrival and will not board it.”
After Monday’s deadly assault on the other aid ship, Israel’s response is being closely watched, our correspondent says.
Mairead Corrigan Maguire told him that they planned to sail all the way into Gaza, but would show no resistance or violence if Israeli forces stopped them and boarded the ship.
Erdogan tells Israel in Hebrew: Thou shalt not kill: Haaretz
Turkish PM defends Hamas, calling them ‘resistance fighters’; Turkey mulls cutting Israel ties to ‘minimum’ over Gaza flotilla.
Turkey accused Israel on Friday of breaking biblical commandments against killing and said it could cut ties with its one-time ally to a minimum after nine Turkish activists died in a raid on a ship bound for Gaza.
“I am speaking to them in their own language. The sixth commandment says ‘thou shalt not kill’. Did you not understand?” Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said in his harshest words yet since Israeli commandos raided the Mavi Marmara on Monday.
“I’ll say [it] again. I say in English ‘you shall not kill’. Did you still not understand? So I’ll say to you in your own language. I say in Hebrew ‘Lo Tirtzakh’,” he said in a televised speech to supporters of his Islamist-leaning AK Party.
Erdogan also compared the Israeli actions to those of Kurdish militants in Turkey and stood up for Hamas, calling them “resistance fighters fighting for their land”.
“The fate of Jerusalem is not different from the fate of Istanbul,” he said, in language reflecting the significance of the holy city to Muslims throughout the world. “The fate of Gaza is not different from the fate of Ankara.”
Earlier on Friday, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said that Turkey may reduce its relations with Israel to “a minimum” over the Israel Navy’s deadly raid of a Turkish-flagged humanitarian aid ship bound for the Gaza Strip.
Arinc told NTV broadcaster that Turkey was “assessing deals with Israel” in the clearest sign yet that Muslim Turkey may significantly reduce its ties with once close ally Israel after nine of its nationals were killed in clashes with the Israeli commandos who stormed their ship.
“We may plan to reduce our relations with Israel to a minimum, but to assume everything involving another country is stopped in an instant, to say we have crossed you out of our address book, is not the custom of our state,” he told NTV broadcaster.
The incident has brought their relationship to the brink and Turkey has already recalled its ambassador to Israel. Speaking on television Wednesday, Turkish President Abdullah Gul said relations between the two countries “will never be as they were before.”
“Israel has made one of the biggest mistakes in its history,” he added.
Also Friday, Turkish media reported that a prosecutor in Istanbul has started collecting evidence for a possible case against Israeli officials in the wake of Israel’s commando raid.
The reports said the prosecutor has been gathering testimony and evidence from Turks who returned from Israel in order to determine whether Turkey should open a case demanding compensation from Israel or even pursue criminal charges against Israeli leaders.
Eight of the victims were laid to rest Thursday in a highly- charged joint ceremony at an Istanbul mosque.
Israeli-Detained Activists from Freedom Flotilla Released, Palestinian Citizen Participants Released to House Arrest: AIC
Israel is finally releasing all those detained from the Freedom Flotilla. Israeli State Prosecutor Moshe Lador said Wednesday evening (2 June), “All the foreign detainees from the aid convoy have been released; some are at the airport and some are already on board airplanes. There is only one injured person that cannot be flown for medical reasons, but Israel has not detained even one passenger from the ship.”
Planes carrying hundreds of activists, along with the bodies of the nine killed in Israel’s raid, flew to Turkey and Greece, as others were released through Jordan, according to an article in the New York Times. Relatives and well-wishers cheered outside the airport in Istanbul as the activists landed.
Passengers from the Freedom Flotilla have been in detention since Monday, 31 May. The activists were given the option of immediate deportation upon arrival to the Israeli port of Ashdod. Greek citizen Aristides Papadokostopoulos, who was on board the Free Mediterranean, said Israel’s message was clear: “’We deport you now or you go to prison’. We chose, some of us, to leave earlier, so that the matter becomes known in Greece. The others chose to stay there, because they do not recognise any sovereignty of Israel in international waters. The hostages were not illegal; Israel arrested them defying the maritime and international laws.”
Lawyers for those detained were first allowed to visit on Tuesday. According to Lea Tsemel, one of the Israeli attorneys representing the activists, because the authorities limited visitation time to an hour and a half, the attorneys were only able to speak with about 250 of the more than 600 internationals being held.
“Nobody was expecting in a given moment that there would be such an aggressive attack on them. They all clearly state that they never, never prepared any weapons. They never prepared any violence. They didn’t even think about a violent reaction to the soldiers. They knew very well that they would be stopped, but they believed it would be a cultural dialogue. They thought there would be some negotiations. They thought they would be asked to get off the ship, or to tow the ship to Ashdod,” Tsemel said of the activists in an interview with the AIC.
She said those aboard the Mavi Marmara, the Turkish boat that was attacked, testified that they saw people coming down from a helicopter on a rope, shooting at them without warning. Speaking about the accusation that activists attacked Israeli navy commandos, Tsemel commented, “At that stage it is not impossible that they did not obey. It is not impossible that they did not feel they need to defend themselves from the sudden attack of the soldiers.”
Today (3 June) it was announced that the four Palestinian citizens of Israel are also being released. Sheikh Raed Salah, the Head of the Islamic Movement in Israel (north); Sheikh Hamad Abu Daabes, the Head of the Islamic Movement in Israel (south); Mr. Muhammed Zeidan, Chairman of the High Follow-up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel; and Ms. Lubna Masarwa of the Free Gaza Movement and Al Quds University, were supposed to remain in detention for another 8 days. According to the newspaper Haaretz, they were released on NIS 150,000 bail. “They are to remain under house arrest for five days and will be prevented from exiting the country for 45 days. Police had initially requested a 10-day house arrest and to block them from leaving Israel for six months,” the news daily stated.
An AIC interview with Lubna Masarwa conducted approximately two weeks before the Freedom Flotilla may be seen here: http://www.alternativenews.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2606:free-gaza-flotilla&catid=152:jerusalem-diaries&Itemid=899
No change at the UN: Al Ahram Weekly
The United States remains Israel’s staunchest defender, writes Graham Usher at the United Nations
A night of negotiations by the United Nations Security Council finally produced a response to Israel’s murderous attack on a Turkish flotilla ferrying aid to Gaza. On 1 June the council condemned the “acts” that caused 19 civilian deaths, requested the immediate release of ships and passengers held by Israel and called for a “prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation”.
An activist seized during the raid on the Gaza-bound aid convoy is greeted by a relative in Jordan after being deported by Israel
The statement fell short of the one first drafted by Turkey and Lebanon and supported by the Palestine Liberation Organisation, that had “condemned in the strongest terms the attack by the Israeli military forces” and called on the UN to launch “an independent international investigation”.
The final statement also inhabited a different realm to the rage with which the Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu introduced the UNSC emergency session the day before. Representing the nation four of whose citizens had been killed and whose ships impounded, he called the Israeli raid “murder conducted by a state”.
None of the other permanent and temporary UNSC member states went quite so far, even though most condemned the raid. Yet it was only the United States that articulated the Israeli position.
Regreting the loss and “working to ascertain the facts”, US Deputy Ambassador to the UN Alejando Wolff still felt he had enough in hand to criticise the flotilla’s attempt to run the Gaza’s blockade as “neither appropriate nor responsible and certainly not effective”.
America’s handwriting is all over the statement. Diplomats said the most arduous tussle was whether the word “act” should be singular or plural. “Act”, wanted by Turkey, Lebanon and the Palestinians, would imply Israel alone was responsible for the killings. “Acts”, wanted by the US, casts the net evenly over lethally armed commando and stick wielding activist alike.
The US also battled hard for an “impartial” investigation rather than an “independent” one. An independent investigation could be international or at least one not carried out by Israel. An impartial investigation on the other hand means a “full investigation”, clarified Wolff. “And we think the Israelis are capable of doing a full investigation.”
America’s all but unconditional defence of Israel hurt Turkey, a NATO ally whose support is far more critical than Israel’s will ever be to Washington’s regional priorities of leaving Iraq and waging war in Afghanistan.
Relations had already soured after Washington responded to Ankara’s recent effort to end the crisis over Iran’s nuclear programme with a draft resolution for another round of UNSC sanctions. With the attack on the flotilla they have dipped further. “Some of our allies [the US] are not ready to condemn Israel’s actions,” said Davutoglu on 1 June. “It should not be a choice between Turkey and Israel. It should be a choice between right and wrong.”
So far all his government has got are condolences for the dead from Barack Obama and flannel from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who held a private conference with the Turkish foreign minister on 1 June. It’s not clear if either cut the ice. It won’t certainly freeze the rage felt by most Turks at America’s complicity in an act he described as “tantamount to banditry and piracy”.
Other American ties have been stretched by Israel’s lawlessness. At the council session powers like Russia, China and France condemned the raid on the flotilla but also said the root cause of the violence was Israel’s four- a-bit-year blockade of Gaza, variously described as “unacceptable”, “counterproductive”, “untenable”, “illegal” and “immoral”.
The Obama administration supports the blockade, which is why the UNSC statement does not call on Israel to lift it (as did the Turkish and Lebanese draft) but rather for the “unimpeded provision and distribution of humanitarian assistance throughout Gaza”.
Nor is Washington alone in the belief that isolating Gaza, and quarantining Hamas, will somehow spark regime change or enable a West Bank only peace process. Israel too views the siege as a core weapon in its war with Hamas and Egypt and the West Bank Palestinian Authority, for their own reasons, have no desire to see a Hamas government prevail.
But the blockade has been a colossal moral, political and diplomatic failure. Not only has it wrought a humanitarian catastrophe on Gaza’s 1.5 million people: it has so strengthened Hamas that it alone could claim the high ground in the wake of the flotilla debacle. It was that moral weight that compelled Egypt to open Gaza’s Rafah crossing into the Sinai on 1 June.
And it might also be stirring a rethink in the Obama administration. “The international blockade of Gaza is not sustainable,” Martyn Indyk, a former US ambassador to Israel, told The New York Times on 31 May. Instead, he advocates a Hamas-governed ceasefire in return for the blockade’s end and a mutual exchange of political prisoners. Forgotten are the US long-insisted but useless demands that Hamas recognise Israel, renounce violence or adhere to past agreements.
Un-stated, but as important, would be an end to American interference that has blocked agreement between Hamas and Fatah on new elections so that the two wings of the Palestinian national movement and the slithers of territory they rule can be united under one Palestinian government.
However, such a change that would mean Obama insisting Israel does things it doesn’t want to do; and America’s reluctance to so insist has only increased with time.
One year after Obama’s landmark outreach to the Muslim world he has yet to walk a substantially different road than his predecessor.
Interior Minister seeks to strip Israeli Arab MK of citizenship: Haaretz
Israeli Arab MK Hanin Zuabi took part in Gaza aid flotilla, in what Eli Yishai calls a ‘premeditated act of treason’ under protection of parliamentary immunity.
Interior Minister Eli Yishai petitioned Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein to help him revoke the Israeli citizenship of Israeli Arab MK Hanin Zuabi, who took part in efforts to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza on a flotilla of aid ships earlier this week.
On Monday, Israeli navy commandos clashed with activists aboard the flotilla’s largest ship, sustaining severe injuries and leaving 9 activists dead and dozens more hurt. IDF videos show activists attacking the commandos with sticks, chairs and even throwing a soldier overboard. Activists say that they were brutally attacked by the troops, while the IDF maintains that activists wrestled the soldiers’ weapons away from them and fired at them, forcing them to defend themselves.
“In recent days,” Yishai wrote to Weinstein on Thursday, “Israel’s citizens have witnessed how an Israeli member of parliament, Hanin Zuabi, headed a group of terrorists who aimed to hurt Israel Defense Forces soldiers, under the protection of her parliamentary immunity.”
Yishai asked Weinstein for his help as the Supreme Court had ruled that an interior minister cannot revoke a person’s citizenship without the written authorization of the attorney general.
“MK Zuabi used her immunity as a cloak to protect her from the law, although she was undoubtedly aware of the activists’ preparations for the attack against IDF troops,” Yishai wrote. “This is a premeditated act of treason, and there is documented proof of this.”
“I must say that since this is an issue having to do with the security of the state, and especially since we’re likely due for more such flotillas, I ask that you study the laws that would allow stripping the immunity from any member of Knesset that would try, under the protection of immunity, to aid and cooperate with terrorists that have made IDF soldiers and citizens of Israel their targets,” Yishai continued.
The minister concluded his letter by once again requesting Weinstein’s cooperation in stripping Zuabi’s immunity, in order to facilitate the revocation of her citizenship.