Page 1 of 2 Nothing new for Israel all at sea
By Victor Kotsev
Condemnation poured swiftly on Israel after Monday's botched naval operation,
despite protests that its forces had been "ambushed" and assaulted while
attempting to enforce the Gaza blockade. This event will have complex
ramifications, and it hurts the activists and the peace cause as well as
Israel.
"The Second Gaza War: Israel lost at sea," columnist Bradley Burston wrote
in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz. "It already has the makings of a huge
international fracas that will make the Goldstone Report look like small
potatoes by comparison," Blake Hounshell wrote for Foreign Policy, referring to
the United Nations-mandated report created to investigate war crimes during the
2008-2009 conflict in Gaza.
The boarding of the Mavi Marmara by Israeli marines in
international waters left nine pro-Palestinian activists dead and at least 43,
including six Israeli commandos, wounded. Most of the dead were from Turkey,
the home port for ships that were attempting to deliver humanitarian aid.
"Psychologically, this attack is like 9/11 for Turkey," claimed Turkish Foreign
Minister Ahmet Davutoglu as his country recalled its ambassador to Israel and
summoned a special UN Security Council session to censure the raid, calling
Israel's actions "state terrorism". UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon said, "I
am shocked by reports of killing of people in boats carrying supply to Gaza. I
heard the ships were in international water. That is very bad."
Greece called off a joint air force drill with Israel as the European Union
condemned the raid and called for an end to the Gaza blockade. World leaders
almost unanimously expressed their shock while demonstrations and riots broke
out in many places. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was forced to
cancel a White House visit and to return to Israel from Canada to deal with the
crisis.
The question of what went wrong quickly took center-stage. From videos and
materials released by Israel, it appears that a group of violent activists set
upon the commandos when they rappelled from a helicopter onto the lead boat,
the Turkish Mavi Marmara. [1]
"They wielded clubs, axes and knives," the commander of the Israeli force,
injured in the operation, said in an interview. "I was the second to go down
the cable, one of the guys from my group was already down there, and there were
a few people on him ... I cocked my weapon when I saw that one was coming
towards me with a knife drawn and I fired once. Then another 20 people came at
me from all directions and threw me down to the deck below." [2]
Most of the activists have so far remained incommunicado, as they were detained
by Israel following the raid, but a few accounts already available appear
contradictory. Some, such as a female Arab-Israeli lawmaker who was on board
the Mavi Marmara, Hanin Zoabi, denied the protestors used violence. "Not
a single passenger ... raised a club," she claimed, quoted by the Guardian.
Others, such as Norman Paech, a 72-year-old German activist, gave more nuanced
accounts:
The aggression came from the sky, from helicopters from which
soldiers came down by ropes. We waited in the fore room and saw them carrying
an Israeli soldier who looked to me like he'd had a breakdown. Then the second
and third came, but after these three injured soldiers then I saw a lot - maybe
10 - passengers who were severely hurt, injured, covered in blood. They were
treated in the salon next to me. One was so badly injured I am sure he must
have died soon after. I didn't even consider going upstairs as it was just too
dangerous.
In a telephone conversation on Wednesday, Free Gaza
organizer Hedy Epstein explained that it was unclear as of yet what had
happened, but that the values of the flotilla were entirely non-violent. "We
have to commit ourselves to non-violence," she said. Israel had attacked the
flotilla, she asserted, and speculated that the long knives shown in Israeli
footage might have been "kitchen equipment" used in self-defense.
Israeli analyst Ron Ben-Yishai offers an entirely different account. "Some 100
people infiltrated the peace and humanitarian aid activists making their way to
Gaza, with the explicit design to attack Israeli soldiers using cold arms," he
writes. "Some among that group are believed to have ties with World jihad
groups, mainly al-Qaeda."
For him, a central question is how come Israel walked into the trap and failed
to anticipate violent provocation. In a separate article, he opines: "It
appears that the error in planning the operation was ... [that] the soldiers
thought they will encounter Bilin-style violence; instead, they got Bangkok."
Attesting to the surprise of the Israeli military, according to some accounts
it delayed releasing footage from the incident, despite the Foreign Ministry's
pleas, because it thought images of commandos being beaten might damage army
morale. [3]
All perspectives considered, there is overwhelming evidence that the protesters
used substantial force against the Israeli marines. There is also evidence that
some passengers had prepared for the violent confrontation. "We are now waiting
for one of two good things - either to reach Gaza or achieve martyrdom," said a
female participant in the flotilla ahead of the sail, quoted by The Times.
Three of the Turkish casualties reportedly told their relatives that they
"dreamt of martyrdom" [4] and one Yemenite was allegedly photographed with a
dagger in his belt on the journey [5]. There is also indirect evidence that the
activists were prone to violence in the form of reports of misbehavior by some
after their arrest. [6]
Finally - and this is clearly something that Israeli planning should have
accounted for, but didn't - a recent precedent exists for violence on the part
of the pro-Palestinian activists. Earlier this year, the Viva Palestina convoy
trying to break the blockade by land ran into trouble with Egypt after killing
an Egyptian border guard in clashes [7]. According to Epstein, the Free Gaza
movement and the Viva Palestina movement "have a friendly relationship".
One thing that is not yet fully clear is the sequence of events, but so far a
coherent and documented narrative challenging the Israeli version hasn't
emerged. Against Israel stands the circumstance that the raid was conducted in
international waters and was therefore illegal according to maritime
conventions. "As far as I can see, there is no legal basis for boarding these
ships," said Robin Churchill, a professor of international law at the
University of Dundee in Scotland, quoted by the Huffington Post.
Nevertheless, the larger body of international law is more complex and open to
interpretation, and Israel has offered its own legal justifications for its
actions. "A blockade may be imposed at sea, including in international waters,
so long as it does not bar access to the ports and coasts of neutral states,"
the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs writes on its web site. "[Hebrew
University international law expert] Dr Robbie Sabel noted that there is a long
history of embargo activities in international waters," Israeli think-tank IMRA
reported. [8]
In turn, the legality of the Gaza blockade in itself is the subject of intense
debates. [9] In the absence of a clear normative legal framework, moral
arguments such as Israel's need for security and the humanitarian situation in
Gaza compete to shape global public opinion and ultimately to determine who is
right and who is wrong.
Predictably, Israel has argued that there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza,
that the flotilla was a violent provocation, and that the Israeli naval force
acted to protect the country's essential security. "There is no hunger in Gaza
and there is no humanitarian crisis ... the organization behind the flotilla is
not a humanitarian aid organization," said Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak
on Monday, quoted by Yedioth Ahronoth.
Israeli intelligence analysis website Debka offered the following defense of
the blockade: "without it, Iranian ships loaded with ballistic missiles would
be free to unload their cargoes at Gaza port - with the same ease as their
heavy weapons consignments reach Lebanon. Hamas would quickly grow into a
second Hezbollah. For Israel, lifting the blockade would be an act of suicide."
The Free Gaza activists, on the other hand, write on their website that "for
over four years, Israel has subjected the civilian population of Gaza to an
increasingly severe blockade, resulting in a man-made humanitarian catastrophe
of epic proportions", [10] and that they themselves are a humanitarian as well
as non-violent political movement. "We want to raise international awareness
about the prison-like closure of Gaza," they proclaim. Since the detainees are
currently being released by Israel, we can soon expect a more coherent position
by the organizers concerning the bloodshed.
Aside from what went wrong, another major question is what will be the damage.
It is still hard to say precisely, but estimates fall into several categories.
While most of the attention of the media has thus far been focused on Israel,
we should not overlook a number of other actors with high stakes in the
incident.
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