Gaza blockade and the flotilla incident

I would much rather try to form my own opinion regarding what is true and what is falsehood, than be misled by the media moguls. I would like to urge us all to try and establish fact for ourselves. The following links might be a help towards establishing a more informed opinion.

Bren Carlill from Australia gives us a short introduction:
SOME people are still writing about Israel's May 31 raid on the Gaza flotilla. But the debate has largely moved on, for two reasons.
First, the activists involved know they lost the first debate. Footage proves they used metal poles, knives, Molotov cocktails and live ammunition against Israeli soldiers, blowing out of the water claims of non-violence.

The Turkish group behind the flotilla is linked to Hamas and other jihadi organisations. Various activists, describing themselves as jihad fighters, told Arab television they were seeking martyrdom and wanted to attack Israelis.

Second, the flotilla was never about delivering aid; its organisers refused to co-operate with Israel, Egypt or the UN to have the goods delivered. Rather, the flotilla was about embarrassing Israel and bringing to light Israel's Gaza blockade.
So why does Israel blockade Gaza? Put simply, Israel is at war with Hamas-ruled Gaza, and maritime blockade is an accepted action of war.

This raises two questions. One, Hamas is not a state; how can Israel be "at war" with it? Two, how can a blockade possibly be acceptable practice?

Hamas violently took control of Gaza in 2007. That it won the 2006 elections thus became irrelevant, because from the time of the coup against Fatah, Hamas began operating outside Palestinian Authority parameters. Hamas was no longer just a terrorist organisation - it was the de facto sovereign of a self-ruled entity. And when it continued its policy of attacking Israel, Israel declared itself as being officially at war with Hamas-ruled Gaza. Peaceful relations will ensue when Hamas ends its war against Israel.
Blockade is a valid military option because it denies the enemy the ability to fight effectively, as per Article 23 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

A blockade isn't a siege. A siege prevents any supplies, including food and medicine, going in. For instance, Arab forces besieged Jewish Jerusalem in 1948, and Serb forces besieged Sarajevo in the 1990s. A blockade is different. In a blockade, food, medicines and anything that doesn't help the enemy's war effort is allowed in.
That's why Israel, under UN supervision, sends humanitarian goods into Gaza. Last year, 738,000 tonnes of aid went in; that's 14,000 tonnes every week, compared with the 10,000 tonnes the Gaza flotilla was carrying.

The maritime blockade ensures aid crosses land borders, enabling Israel to check it for weapons before sending it through. Because Hamas has previously stolen aid, items with both military and civilian uses, such as cement, are allowed, but only if designated for specific purposes under UN supervision.
All blockades have an impact on civilians, and Gaza is no exception (nor were Germany and Japan during World War II, under Allied blockade). But don't believe a word of those who claim Gazans are starving. Photos taken in December last year by someone who broke the blockade revealed a market overflowing with produce.

The Financial Times wrote last month of Gaza being "flooded (with) Korean refrigerators, German food mixers and Chinese airconditioning units".
In October last year, Fairfax correspondent Jason Koutsoukis reviewed the delicious food at Gazan restaurants he'd been frequenting. Gazans live longer (73.68 years) and have a higher birth-rate (36.26 births/1000 people) than neighbouring, non-blockaded Egypt (72.40 and 25.02, respectively). These are not the statistics of a starving people.

Articles 93-104 of the San Remo Manual on maritime warfare dictate how maritime blockades are conducted. (By refusing to be searched by Israel, the flotilla broke these laws.) Article 102b says that blockades are legal if the impact they have on the affected population is less than the dangers they prevent. Thus, we must determine what the blockade is blocking, and if that is worth its impact on Gazans.
Lebanon provides the closest parallel. It is not blockaded, and Hezbollah has imported about 40,000 rockets and long-range missiles, including Scuds.

Added to this are sophisticated anti-aircraft, -tank and -ship missiles, along with mines, guns and more, and all despite the presence of a UN force supposedly committed to disarming Hezbollah.
Like Hamas, Hezbollah is religiously committed to fighting Israel, which makes future war with Hezbollah a near certainty. Because of the blockade, Hamas is less dangerous. It is vital Israel keeps it that way.
If Israel is forced to lift the blockade, the unintended result will be the death of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

If Hamas "beats" Israel and successfully arms like Hezbollah, ordinary Palestinians will believe violence (the Hamas path) is better than negotiations (the Fatah path). Fatah will either collapse or return to wholesale violence, putting peace efforts back 30 years.

Is this what the flotilla's supporters want? Palestinian Authority President and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas is publicly decrying the Israeli action, but it's a safe bet he's privately begging the US not to force Israel to end the blockade, because that will mean his end.

The Gaza blockade is not nice, but it is necessary and legal. It will stop when Hamas agrees to live in peace. The real questions are: why does Hamas put its futile religious war against Israel ahead of Gaza's prosperity? And why do the flotilla supporters want Hamas, which is against everything humanitarians claim to be for, to succeed?
Bren Carlill is an analyst at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/blockade-will-end-when-hamas-wants-peace/story-e6frg6zo-1225876635908

This extract from an article by Andrew Bolt from the Herald Sun (2 June 2010) in Australia brings up a couple of important points:

……   Only on one of those six ships did the Israelis meet a resistance that clearly - and fatally - caught them by surprise. This was not on one of the ships manned by the Western politicians, aid workers and other useful idiots brought along for camouflage.  It broke out instead on the Mavi Marmara, a ship bought and supplied by a Turkish "humanitarian relief fund" known as IHH.
IHH may boast about its good works, but intelligence agencies warn that it is in fact tied to Islamist terrorists.  The CIA as long ago as 1996 noted it was linked to "Iran operatives" and gave "support for extremist/terrorist activity", including in Bosnia.

In 2001, Jean-Louis Bruguiere, the prominent French counter-terrorism magistrate, said at the trial of the "millennium bomber" that IHH had played "an important role" in the plot to blow up Los Angeles airport.  He said the charity was "a type of cover-up" to infiltrate mujahideen into combat, get forged documents and smuggle weapons.

In 2006, the Danish Institute for International Studies reported that Turkish security forces had raided the IHH's Istanbul bureau and found firearms, explosives and bomb-making instructions, as well as records of calls to an al-Qaida guest house in Milan.   The Turkish investigators concluded this "charity" was sending jihadists to Bosnia, Chechnya and Afghanistan, where Australian soldiers serve. IHH has also been a long-time supporter of Hamas, listed in many countries as a terrorist group.

But this time it planned something more effective than an explosion. It decided to destroy Israel's moral standing among its more fickle friends. Its Mavi Marmara would now head a flotilla to break through the Israeli blockade of Gaza - or, rather, to provoke Israel into stopping it by force.

IHH head Bulent Yildirim gloated that this would be seen as "a declaration of war" against all the countries that supplied the flotilla's passengers, which is why so many foreigners, and particularly sympathetic journalists such as the Sydney Morning Herald's Paul McGeough, were on board, having been recruited from Australia, Britain, the US and many other countries that IHH and its allies hoped could be turned into enemies of Israel.

It was obvious Israel would stop the convoy. It had to: to relax the blockade once would be to open a corridor to yet more ships, giving Gaza yet another conduit for the smuggling of jihadists and militarily useful supplies.

Oh, and ignore soothing claims now that Hamas, which runs Gaza, should actually be negotiated with, rather than blockaded. Hamas fires rockets at Israeli civilians, and has a charter that calls for the destruction of Israel, declaring "there is no solution for the Palestinian question except through jihad".

INDEED, jihad was also the spirit on the Mavi Marmara as it sailed for Gaza.
Those on board refused offers by Israel that they dock at an Israeli port so their aid could be checked and forwarded to Gaza. They rejected warnings to turn back. They prepared instead for a deadly confrontation.
Arab television showed one woman on board exulting: "We await one of two good things - to achieve martyrdom or reach the shore of Gaza."

Added another passenger, Yemeni professor Abd al-Fatah Nu'man: "These are people who wish to be martyred for the sake of Allah. As much as they want to reach Gaza, the other option is more desirable to them."
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/dont-fall-for-islamist-hype/story-e6frfhqf-1225874185912

Let us try to answer a couple of questions:
1 Did Israel obey international law in the way they handled the situation?
A The Helsinki Principles on the Law of Maritime Neutrality

Israel was well within its prescriptions in forcibly stopping the Gaza-bound flotilla.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/137863

B Top US Democrats: 'Israel Has Right to Defend Itself'
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi went on the offensive Wednesday to defend Israel's right to protect its territorial waters.
Biden told reporters on Wednesday that Israel was within its legal rights in stopping the Turkey-sponsored six-ship flotilla from violating its territorial waters and breaking its naval embargo on Gaza.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/137861

2 Does Israel refuse to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza?
The article on the MFA website, entitled “Behind the Headlines: The Israeli humanitarian lifeline to Gaza,” begins with this introduction: “Despite attacks by Hamas, Israel maintains an ongoing humanitarian corridor for the transfer of food and humanitarian supplies to Gaza, used by internationally recognized organizations including the United Nations and the Red Cross.”

The list of Israeli aid to Gaza is so impressive that the question has been asked why Israel is doing so much for an entity with which it is in a state of armed conflict. The question is made more acute in view of the promises the Israeli government made regarding “total separation” in order to make the 2005 Disengagement from Gaza more palatable to the Israeli public.

• Large quantities of essential food items like baby formula, wheat, meat, dairy products and other perishables are transferred daily and weekly to Gaza. Fertilizers that cannot be used to make explosives are shipped into the Strip regularly, as are potato seeds, eggs for reproduction, bees, and flower industry equipment.
• Photos in local newspapers show local markets aplenty with fruit, vegetables, cheese, spices, bread and meat.
• In the first quarter of 2010, 94,500 tons of supplies were transferred in 3,676 trucks to the Strip: 48,000 tons of food products; 40,000 tons of wheat; 2,760 tons of rice; 1,987 tons of clothes and footwear; 553 tons of milk powder and baby food.
• At holiday times, Israel increases transfers. During the Muslim holy days of Ramadan and Eid al-Adha, Israel shipped some 11,000 heads of cattle into the Strip.
• No Palestinian is denied medical care in Israel. However, if the Hamas regime does not grant permits for medical care, the Israeli government can do nothing to help the patient. Israel will facilitate all cases of medical treatments from Gaza, unless the patient is a known perpetrator of terrorism.
• Since 2005, Palestinians exploited medical care arrangements more than 20 times to carry out terror attacks.
• While the import of cement and iron has been restricted into Gaza because they are used by Hamas to cast rockets and bunkers, monitored imports of truckloads of cement, iron, and building supplies such as wood and windows are regularly coordinated with international parties. In the first quarter of 2010, 23 tons of iron and 25 tons of cement were transferred to the Gaza Strip.
• On May 13 of this year, Israel allowed approximately 39 tons of building material into Gaza to help rebuild a damaged hospital.
• The UN report of May 2010 states that while 10% of Gaza’s electricity comes from Egypt and 18% is home-made, nearly 3/4 of Gaza’s electricity needs – 72% - is supplied by Israel. Since January 2010, the supply of electricity has deteriorated because the Hamas regime is unwilling to purchase the fuel to run the Gaza City power station.
• Israel transferred 41 trucks of equipment in 2009 for the maintenance of Gaza's electricity grid.
• In 2009, 127 trucks containing more than 3,000 tons of hypochlorite entered the Gaza Strip for water purification purposes, with Israel-UN coordination.
• The U.S., Israel, Canada, and the EU have frozen funds to the PA Hamas government since 2006, recognizing it as a terror organization. Israel has taken measures to support trade and commerce, the banking system, and the existing financial market in the Gaza Strip.
• During 2009, 7.5 million tons of flowers and 54 tons of strawberries were exported from Gaza with Israeli cooperation.
• In 2009, 1.1 billion shekels (close to $300 million) were transferred to Gaza for the ongoing activity of international organizations and to pay the salaries of PA workers. 40 million damaged bank notes were traded for new bills, and at the request of the Palestinian Monetary Fund, 282.5 million shekels were transferred from Gazan to Israeli banks.
• Israel transfers school equipment supplied by UNRWA including school bags, writing implements and textbooks. Israel is currently coordinating the transfer of 200,000 laptops for Gaza children and the shipment of 74 maritime containers for conversion into Gaza classrooms.
• In the first quarter of 2010, Israel transferred 250 trucks with equipment for the UNWRA summer camp, including arts-and-crafts equipment, swimming pools, inflatable toys, ice cream machines, musical instruments, clothing, sports equipment.
• About 20% of the population in Gaza owns a personal computer, more than in Portugal, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Russia. They have access to ADSL and dial-up Internet service, provided by one of four providers. About 70% of Gazans own a TV and radio and have access to satellite TV or broadcast TV from the PA or Israel. Gaza has well-developed telephone landlines, and extensive mobile telephone services. 81% of households in Gaza have access to a cell phone.
• Despite the inherent dangers involved, Israel permits Gazans and visitors to travel between Gaza and Israel, from Gaza to Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), and even abroad for medical treatment, religious pilgrimages, and business trips.
• In additional to medical travel, 21,200 activists from international organizations and over 400 diplomatic delegations were permitted entry into Gaza.

Swimming Pools and More

National Post correspondent Tom Gross revealed this week that the Gaza Strip is not at all as impoverished as is commonly believed. “Western journalists refuse to report on [this] because it doesn’t fit with the simplistic story they were sent to write,” he notes. He reported specifically on a new Olympic-size swimming pool recently built in a Gaza town, something that “most Israeli towns don’t have,” and on a popular Gaza City restaurant serving gourmet meals and whose owner says business is booming.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/137726
Hamas does not allow the aid to get to everyone, only to Hamas supporters:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/137896

Were the protesters on the Hamas boat innocent humanitarians?

[In the video in the link below] You see the Israeli commandos, at first brandishing just paintball guns, being grabbed by mobs as they landed, dragged to the ground, and beaten brutally with metal pipes and clubs.
On another clip, apparently shot by protesters, you see a soldier stabbed in the back, and then in the front.
Another soldier is shown being beaten and thrown over the side.
Photographs show two Israeli soldiers, one of them shot, being carried off with serious wounds.
This isn't what you'd normally expect from "peace protesters" or "humanitarian activists", even those armed merely "with a few knives".
http://player.video.news.com.au/heraldsun/#AFc6TbdpRMbznSd4kFIm9WM856PBGCJr
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/dont-fall-for-islamist-hype/story-e6frfhqf-1225874185912

Video material of the weapons found on board:
http://go.madmimi.com/redirects/7510e3f9914ac1ee05a8e69c1988ebc3?pa=1203981504


Photos published by Turkish papers document the assault on the soldiers:
The photos were a gruesome confirmation of the IDF’s documented evidence that the soldiers boarded the Mani Mamara ship virtually unarmed and were assaulted as they climbed down from ropes attached to a helicopter.

The Hurriyet newspaper showed some of the soldiers after being brutally beaten, some of them knocked unconscious under merciless attacks of Turkish citizens using metal clubs.
The Turkish daily claimed that the IDF did not publish the pictures that could easily be seen by enemies as a degradation of the Israeli armed forces. However, they also clearly contradicted flotilla organizers’ claims that the Navy commandoes attacked them as they boarded the ship.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/137897

The true nature of the “protesters” is seen in this shocking eye-witness account:
Below, a first hand account from Amir, an Israeli soldier who was there.

"Hello Uncle Erwin,

This is Amir writing you after reading what you sent to my father,
Eitan.

As you know, it was my unit and my friends who were on the ship. My
commander was injured badly as a result of the "pacifists" violence. I want to tell you how he was injured so you could tell the story. it shows just how horrible and inhuman were the activists. My commander was the first soldier that rappelled down from the helicopter to the ship. When he touched ground, he got hit in the head with a pole and stabbed in the stomach with a knife. When he drew out his secondary weapon-a handgun (his primary weapon was a regular paintball gun: "Tippman 98 custom") he was shot in the leg. He managed to fire a single shot before he was tossed from the balcony by 4 Arab activists, to the lower deck (a 12 feet fall). He was then dragged
by other activists to a room in the lower deck were he was stripped down by 2 activists. They took off his vest, helmet and shirt, leaving him with only his pants and shoes on. When they finished they took a knife and expanded the wound he already had in his stomach. They cut his ab muscles horizontally and by hand spilled his guts out. When they finished they raised him up and walked him on the deck outside. He was conscious the whole time. If you are asking yourself why they did all that, here comes the reason. They wanted to show the soldiers their commander's body so they will be demoralized and scared. Luckily, when they walked him on the deck a soldier saw him and managed to shoot the activist that was walking him down the outside corridor. He shot him with a special non-lethal bullet that
didn't kill him. My commander managed to jump from the deck to the water and swim to an army rescue boat (his guts still out of his body, and now in salty sea water). That was how he was saved. The activists that did this to him are alive, now in Turkey, and treated as heroes.

I'm sorry if I described this with too many details, but I thought it
was necessary for the credibility. Please tell this story to anyone who will listen. I think that these days you are one of Israel's best spokesman.

Thanks uncle Erwin, Shabbat shalom!

Amir"