Britannia Radio

So much for the 'humanitarian' fig-leaf

FRIDAY, 4TH JUNE 2010

So now we learn from the Israeli navy that an attempt was made to kidnap three of its marines on board the Mavi Marmara by beating them unconscious and dragging them below deck before their fellow commandoes killed nine terrorists and took control of the ship. This account puts the whole flotilla operation in a rather different light to the way it has been presented:

The commanders of the first unit were hit by the mob as they landed. One of the soldiers managed to fix another rope, after there were problems with the original one, for 10 more soldiers to land. The commandos cared for the wounded and took over part of the upper deck of the ship.

At this stage, six minutes into the operation, another force landed from a second helicopter, led by a major. At that point they realized that three commandos were missing and they began looking for them. A short while later the naval commando chief landed along with dozens more soldiers, some of whom climbed from boats. Others landed from a third helicopter.

The search involved limited shooting, in the bridge and on the lower deck, until the three men were recovered. The head of the naval commandos gave orders by radio to use live fire, two minutes after the incident had begun.

... After the incident, 9mm bullet casings were found - a kind not used by the naval commandos. The Israel Defense Forces says that during the operation a number of pistols and an M-4 rifle were taken from soldiers, but they believe that the Turkish activists had other weapons. The captain of the ship told the naval commando chief that the guns were thrown overboard before the ship was completely taken over.

The more we know about this incident, the more apparent it becomes that this was a carefully pre-planned terrorist operation by the IHH to kill and capture Israeli soldiers. The ‘humanitarian aid’ was a total fig-leaf.

The threadbare, indeed ludicrous claims by the west’s terrorist supporters --aka Orwellian ‘peace protesters’ -- that the Israelis had conducted an aggressive and bloody assault upon a humanitarian aid convoy have fallen apart. Indeed, even on BBC Radio’s Today programme this morning Sarah Colborne, director of campaigns at the Palestine Solidarity Campaign was reduced to squirming and equivocating under some unusually pointed questions from the normally vapid Sarah Montague; read part of the exchange here courtesy of the increasingly impressive Just Journalism site.

In another piece in Ha’aretz, respected correspondent Aluf Benn writes that, in the light of what has happened, Israel should now impose a real blockade of Gaza – as every single other country would do with a belligerent on its border trying to murder its citizens. As Benn observes, Israel has made itself the butt of world outrage precisely because it does not enforce a blockade. The world wants Israel to sever itself totally from Gaza? Fine. It should do it. Benn writes:

Israel would inform the international community that it is abandoning all responsibility for Gaza residents and their welfare. The Israel-Gaza border would be completely sealed, and Gaza would have to obtain supplies and medical services via the Egyptian border, or by sea. A target date would be set for severing Gaza's water and electricity systems from those of Israel. The customs union with Israel would end, and the shekel would cease to be Gaza's legal tender. Let them print their own Palestinian currency, featuring portraits of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

Israel would also make it clear that it will exercise its right to self-defense by inspecting suspicious cargo on the high seas in order to thwart arms smuggling. That is also how the Western powers behave: They search cargo ships for nuclear weapons and missile components. And if we are shot at from Gaza, we will shoot back - with intent to cause harm. We have already proved that we can do so.

This scenario has a precedent: until the peace agreement was signed with Egypt, all of Israel's borders were sealed tight. Israel's foreign trade was conducted entirely via its air and sea ports. Even today, traffic over its land borders remains negligible. This isn't pleasant, but it is legal. A sovereign state has the right to close its borders, especially when its neighbors are hostile and hate-filled.

As for the cats’ chorus that Israel was in breach of international law, Alan Dershowitz makes short work of that one:

The second issue is whether it is lawful to enforce a legal blockade in international waters. Again, law and practice are clear. If there is no doubt that the offending ships have made a firm determination to break the blockade, then the blockade may be enforced before the offending ships cross the line into domestic waters. Again the United States and other Western countries have frequently boarded ships at high sea in order to assure their security.

Third, were those onboard the ship simply innocent noncombatants? The act of breaking a military siege is itself a military act. And let there be no mistake about the purpose of this flotilla; it was decidedly not to provide humanitarian aid to the residents of Gaza, but rather to break the entirely lawful Israeli military blockade. The proof lies in the fact that both Israel and Egypt offered to have all the food, medicine and other humanitarian goods sent to Gaza, if the boats agreed to land in an Israeli or Egyptian port. That humanitarian offer was soundly rejected by the leaders of the flotilla, who publicly announced: "This mission is not about delivering humanitarian supplies, it's about breaking Israel's siege on 1.5 million Palestinians."

But for the BBC, none of this can disturb its settled view that Israel is in the dock. On BBC1 this Sunday The Big Questions—a show about religious themes (sic) – is asking ‘Is Israel Acting Immorally?’

No prizes for guessing what answer the BBC would give. But the BBC is not alone. To repeat once again – the British government, in demanding an end to Israel’s ‘blockade’ of Gaza which is solely directed at preventing the import of weapons to wage war against Israel, is tacitly supporting the arming of Hamas to wage that war. Cameron and Clegg should be held to account for this at all opportunities.