Nael Barghouti was part of a Fatah squad who killed an Israeli officer in 1978. Although under international law occupying military forces are legitimate targets for resistance to occupation, Nael has been imprisoned since 1978 for life and is the longest-serving political prisoner held by Israel. Nael is regarded by Palestinian people as the dean of Palestinian political prisoners.
Fellow detainee, Hilal Jaradat, reportedly rushed to his aid and was subsequently put together in a cell with Nael where they were both beaten by the guards, Al-Ashkar told Ma’an.
The lawyer for Al-Barghouti, Muhammad Al-Shayed, said in a statement that Nael is being punished for the incident and has been banned from receiving visitors for a period of four months, in addition to being fined 500 NIS and prohibited from buying from the prison cafeteria.
Nelson Mandela, now universally honoured, spent 27 years of his life from 1964 to 1982 imprisoned on the evil Robben Island, incarcerated by the apartheid South African regime for resisting its oppression. Current South African President Jacob Zuma who was imprisoned there for ten years. Over 3,000 political prisoners were banished to Robben Island between 1961 and 1991.
In Israel’s dungeons, there are many Palestinian Mandelas and Zumas, who await freedom after years of steadfastness.
According to B’tSelem, at the end of April 2011 there were around 5,380 Palestinian political prisoners, 4,381 are serving sentences and 1,002 are detained. These prisoners include 217 Palestinians children, 37 of whom are under the age of 16. 121 imprisoned children are detainees. Some prisoners haven’t seen their families for years.
The Israeli Occupation Forces take particular delight in disrupting the education of Palestinian children. During the present round of final year Tawjihi examinations, several children were detained near Bethlehem on the way home and told to report to the Israeli intelligence office. Often when children report, they are detained for hours or days, miss their exams and fail their final year.
Since the beginning of this Intifada in September 2000, over 2500 children have been arrested. Currently there are at least 340 Palestinian children being held in Israeli Prisons.
According to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted on 20 November 1989 and entered into force on 2 September1990 (to which Israel is a signatory), and to relevant Israeli law, a child is defined as every human being under the age of 18 years. This is reiterated in the UN Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty, adopted by General Assembly Resolution 45/113 of 14 December 1990. However, Palestinian children from the age of 16 years are considered adults under Israeli military regulations governing the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
As is the case with adult prisoners, child detainees are transferred to prisons located within Israel. The primary prisons in which Palestinian child male detainees are held are Hasharon (Telmond), near Netanya, and Megiddo, near Haifa. Girl child prisoners are transferred to Neve Tertza Prison (Ramleh). Interrogation of child detainees takes place at Beit El and Huwarra Interrogation Centers, and occasionally other interrogation centers, and Palestinian child administrative detainees are held with adult administrative detainees at both Ofer and Negev Military Prison Camps. Palestinian children are primarily arrested at Israeli military checkpoints, from their homes, or from the street.
Since children 16 years and older are regarded by Israel as adults, they are not offered an education whilst in detainment or prison, are subject to medical negligence and are in many cases placed in the general criminal prison population where they are subject to harassment.
According to Addameer, Israel fails UN Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty.
Palestinian child prisoners are held in inhumane conditions of detention, made to live in overcrowded and filthy cells. Often, children are placed in small solitary confinement cells, measuring 1.5 square meters, that are extremely humid and have no windows for natural light, or with bright artificial light that is continuously kept on. This forces prisoners to remain awake at all times, depriving the prisoner of sleep for days in some cases. Prisoners do not receive sufficient food to meet the daily nutrition requirements for children, are prevented from going to the toilet at their will, and are not allowed a change of clothing.
Australian flotilla participants ‘have been told by DFAT that Israel will deny and restrict consular assistance to them should Israel board their boats and detain them and the Government is accepting this without any protest. The Australian delegates are angry at the failure of the Australian Government to stand up for their rights or Australian sovereignty.’
Sylvia Hale, former Greens NSW MP and on board the Gaza Freedom Flotilla 2, said via satellite phone:
“I find it … perturbing that the Israeli Government should propose to deny consular access, not only to Australian nationals but also to nationals of other countries.
“….[C]ould you please explain why the Australian Government has remained silent in the face of the possible injury, imprisonment or deportation of Australian citizens from Israel, especially as they have absolutely no desire to set foot, willingly or unwillingly, on Israeli territory,” Ms Hale said.?
Audio recordings of Ms Hale’s comments are available on request.
Jake Lynch, Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at University of Sydney, said:
“The Australian government has a responsibility to protect its citizens against illegal military aggression, especially with prior knowledge of Israel’s plans.
“Both Australia and Israel are signatories to the Vienna convention, under which consular access must be allowed to detained persons. For Australia to waive this right at Israel’s behest shows our government places greater importance on supporting Israel’s flouting of international law than it does on the safety of Australians.
“With this decision, DFAT legitimises both the siege and naval blockade, both of which contravene Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, forbidding collective punishments.
“Australian diplomacy places our government on the extreme pro-Israeli fringe of world political opinion. The international community opposes the illegal siege of Gaza, the illegal occupation of Palestinian territories and the ongoing expulsion of the Palestinian population of East Jerusalem. On all these issues, Australia is one of a tiny minority of countries which routinely provide diplomatic cover”, Associate Professor Lynch said.
Our muppet politicians seem to have forgotten that even drug runners, rapists, murderers and ‘terrorists’ like David Hicks are supplied consular assistance. The four Australians participating in the flotilla are peaceful humanitarians engaged in a principled action to break the villainous Israeli blockade, collective punishment of a civilian population of 1.6 million people, half of whom are children. The blockade of Gaza is illegal under international law.
If Australian politicians want to put the wishes of Israel first before the welfare and lives of Australian citizens, then they should go live there.
Australians taking part in the second Freedom Flotilla to Gaza have been told not to expect consular assistance should they be detained by Israeli authorities.
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The Australian contingent of the Flotilla has been told through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) that Israel intends to deny or limit consular access to foreign nationals if they are detained during the Flotilla.
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DFAT said that Israeli authorities had told the meeting that, “if it appears that a vessel intends to breach the blockade, it will be seized and escorted to Ashdod Port.”
Further, DFAT said that the meeting was told:
“Ashdod Port will be declared a closed military zone and no consular access will be possible. Participants will either be deported or transferred to one of three prisons. Limited consular access will be afforded to Australian consular officials to participants at the prison and no consular access will be permitted to participants at the airport prior to deportation. Journalists will be considered to be participating in the Flotilla and will not receive special treatment.”
DFAT told Hale that the Australian Government felt “concerned” about the apparent lack of consular access, however concluded, “the extent to which we will be able to help you will ultimately be determined by the Israeli government.”
PM has seen emails from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade which say the department has contacted Israel but can’t do any more.
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STATEMENT FROM DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND TRADE (Voiceover): Australia will not be denying consular assistance to any of its citizens involved in the flotilla. On the contrary, Australia has made it clear to Israel that we expect that consular access will be made available in the event that any Australians are detained.
If any Australians are detained, consular officials will endeavour to provide appropriate consular assistance. However, access to those detained by Israeli authorities will ultimately be determined by the Israeli government.
CONNIE AGIUS: DFAT also advised PM that the Australian Embassy in Tel Aviv has written to Israeli authorities expressing concern following the briefing.
But that’s not good enough for Sylvia Hale.
SYLVIA HALE: The Australian Government says that it will do what it can but it’s inhibited by Israeli local laws. But I expect my government to at least, if it cannot physically intervene to ensure our safety, to issue a public statement saying that it finds the Israeli attitude offensive and one that is worthy of condemnation.
Australian activists sailing in a flotilla to Gaza have been told they will have little or no consular assistance if Israel detains them.
Four Australians will be aboard one of the vessels which aims to challenge Israel’s blockade of Gaza and deliver humanitarian aid to Palestinians.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) has contacted former NSW Greens Upper House member Sylvia Hale, who is one of the four Australians making the voyage.
She says she was told the department had been briefed by the Israeli government earlier in the month about plans to intercept the flotilla and limit consular access to the activists.
“I gather the Israelis more or less said what they were proposing to do, namely to intercept the flotilla, to force it to divert to the port of Ashdod, which would be declared a closed military zone, at which there would be no possibility of consular access,” she said.
“Then participants would either be deported immediately or they would be taken to one of three prisons, at which there might be the possibility of consular access.”
Last year a similar flotilla was intercepted by the Israeli Defence Force.
Nine people were killed and hundreds arrested.
Ms Hale and legal experts say they are critical of DFAT’s response to Israel’s plans.
ABC Radio’s PM program asked the department to clarify what it would do if Australians were detained.
A statement in response said Australia would not deny consular assistance to any Australians involved in the flotilla.
It also said the Australian embassy in Tel Aviv had written to Israeli authorities expressing concern over the flotilla briefing.
In emails from DFAT seen by PM the department said it had contacted Israel but could not do any more.
Ms Hale says that is not good enough.
“The Australian Government says that it will do what it can but it’s inhibited by Israeli local laws, but I expect my government to at least, if it cannot physically intervene to ensure our safety, to issue a public statement saying that it finds the Israeli attitude offensive and one that is worthy of condemnation,” she said.
Lawyer’s concern
Legal experts are also concerned about the Australian Government’s position.
Australian Lawyers’ Alliance director Greg Barns says activists may be subjected to abuse in the time it takes the Australian embassy to reach them.
“People could be held incommunicado for a number of days before seeing anybody from the Australian embassy,” he said.
“It could mean that people are subjected to physical and mental abuse; it could mean that people are subjected to interrogation which wouldn’t be allowed if they had access to lawyers or to consular access.
“And it could mean that those people then are forced to make false statements or seek to cut some form of deal so they can just get out of the detention they’re being held in.”
Mr Barns says DFAT should take a tougher stance.
“What we have here is Israel – which is a signatory to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, which is the international instrument that governs the way in which diplomatic relations are to be conducted between countries, and including it looks at the issue of consular access,” he said.
“Australia should not tolerate Israel simply saying, ‘well we will drag people into a closed military zone and have no consular access’.”
Israel has signed the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations but it has not been ratified.
The flotilla is scheduled to depart in the next few days.
What you can do
Contact your Australian Federal MP and demand they ask a question in Parliament regarding Australia’s abandonment of its citizens on directives from Israel.
Contact your local media and ask that they highlight the issue.
Viralise the issue through through your choice of social media.
Phone DFAT and your local Consulate and complain on behalf of the Australian flotilla participants.
Insist that the peaceful humanitarian activists must be protected from Israeli violence and piracy.
Sylvia Hale: “But whoever asks us ‘what about the Aborigines,’ are not the ones who are interested in their rights, and not the ones fighting for those rights. They are using this as a diversionary tactic for evading the debate over Israel’s policy, or to delegitimize criticism of Israel.”
We now have, thanks to Greens leader Bob Brown, the list of politicians and journalists who took the junket last year. The fact that so many were willing to be taken on a propaganda tour (and how many even thought of visiting the West Bank for longer than five minutes, let alone Gaza?) shows the level of obedience to the Zionist agenda in Australian elite circles. Thankfully, studies prove that the general public are increasingly supportive of the occupied Palestinians.
Israeli Hasbara Alert
Last night, the propeller of the Swedish ship with the Freedom Flotilla was sabotaged in Greece. This morning, Israel has obscured this crime with a barrage of propaganda alleging that some participants on the flotilla are intending to use chemical weapons against the Israeli military if (when) they attempt to board.
Notwithstanding that it is illegal for Israel to board vessels without permission in international waters and vessels under attack in such a manner have a right to defend themselves, this shameless rubbish, quoting the usual unnamed ‘defence sources’ that signify the mouthing of Israeli hasbara, projects Israel’s own persistent chemical crimes – its use of skunkwater and CS gas against non-violent protestors against Israel’s illegal apartheid wall in demonstrations held weekly in the West Bank, and its criminal use of white phosphorus in its Operation Cast Lead massacre in January, 2009. Israel also denies the people of Gaza access to clean water – an insidious form of chemical poisoning.
Navy commandos have developed new techniques on how to fast-rope down onto the ships’ upper decks quickly. They also have new equipment such as water cannons, attack dogs from Oketz and riot-control specialists from the Prisons Service’s elite Masada Unit.
Above: Video of the damage to the Swedish flotilla boat’s propeller.
Swedish author Henning Mankell, who took part in last year’s flotilla and is joining the currently planned one, said that the flotilla was not a declaration of war, but a declaration of peace.
This bill is politically motivated and unfortunately it is not the only bill promoted in Knesset these days that stands in contrast to democratic values. A boycott by consumers is a legitimate tool of protest and falls within the protection of freedom of expression. It is ironic that this bill will further enhance the criticism voiced against Israel”. A representative of Coalition of Women for Peace, who was present in the committee debate, quoted Rotem as saying “international law is not of my interest.”
inadequate at identifying and protecting labor trafficking victims, prosecuting and convicting labor trafficking offenders … Some agencies for migrant workers require recruitment fees from $4,000-20,000 : these migrants are vulnerable to debt bondage and sex slavery.
The Israeli government has dropped a threat to issue lengthy deportation orders against journalists aboard a Gaza-bound flotilla.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that he ordered authorities to find a formula for the reporters if they are on a flotilla that violates Israel’s entry laws.
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The Foreign Press Association, which represents hundreds of journalists working for international news organizations in Israel and the Palestinian territories, condemned the Israeli decision and urged the government to cancel the order.
“The government’s threat to punish journalists covering the Gaza flotilla sends a chilling message to the international media and raises serious questions about Israel’s commitment to freedom of the press,” the FPA said in a statement.
The association’s lawyer, Gilead Sher, sent a letter to Helman demanding that the threat be rescinded.
“The state of Israel must make a clear distinction between those who carry out an action and those who cover it (as journalists),” Sher said in his note. Israel’s local journalists association also condemned the government’s letter.
In another brilliant scoop, Max Blumenthal reveals that the anti-semitic crazed rightwing Christian Zionist Hagee and his loony minions are funding the Israel Law Center’s effort to stymy the flotilla.
Who is Shurat Hadin, and what is their agenda? According to the group’s website, Shurat Hadin is a Tel Aviv-based law center that specializes in lawsuits against “terrorists.” Its founder, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, describes herself in her bio as a “human rights activist.”
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I have discovered that a major donor to Shurat Hadin is the homophobic far-right Pastor John Hagee. In March 2010, I reported that Hagee appeared beside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a major rally in Jerusalem to denounce the two state solution and announce the financial contributions he and his supporters were making to Israeli organizations. Among the organizations Hagee said he had bankrolled was Shurat Hadin.
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As the researcher and reporter Bruce Wilson has documented, Hagee preaches that the Jewish Rothschild family controls the US economy through the Federal Reserve and conspires to attack the American middle class by devaluing the dollar. In his 2006 book Jerusalem Countdown, Hagee claimed that a lineage of “half-breed Jews,” descended from Esau and which included Adolf Hitler, have persecuted full-blooded Jews throughout history. Hagee prophesied that God intended to exterminate that “half-breed Jew” line.
It’s one thing for a foreign power to press the Greek government to delay our voyage with red tape. It is quite another thing for enemy agents to operate on Greek territory. It is high time for the international community to put their foot down and say: Enough!”
On Saturday, 25 June, the French boat, Dignity / Karama, left the port of l’ile Rousse in Corsica, France, to meet up with at least nine other vessels sailing to Gaza to challenge Israel’s illegal blockade. Israel’s best efforts to stop our boats at port, including pressure on governments, threats against insurance and communications companies, intimidation of human rights defenders, frivolous lawsuits and other underhanded tactics, have thusfar failed. The Freedom Flotilla has set sail.
The US state department is fully complicit with Israeli criminality, with similar contempt for international law and human life. Nor does it have any idea of the medical “diet” which Israel has malignantly inflicted on the people of Gaza and the state of medical emergency declared by the Gaza health ministry on the 8th June with shortages of medical supplies since January 2011 noted by the World Health Organisation this month. There seems no comprehension by the US State Department of the impact of Israel’s illegal blockade on the people of Gaza. The tawdry ‘special relationship’ is cemented in the negation of the human needs of the civilian Palestinian population which under the Hague and Geneva Conventions should be met by the belligerent occupier, Israel.
“The U.S. State Department said Friday that attempts to break the blockade are “irresponsible and provocative” and that Israel has well-established means of delivering assistance to the Palestinian residents of Gaza. It noted that the territory is run by the militant Hamas group, a U.S. designated foreign terrorist organization, and that Americans providing support to it are subject to fines and jail.
Israel’s ‘well-established means of delivering assistance’ are open to limited numbers of trucks with aid from Sunday to Thursday. Predictably, Israel ramped up deliveries yesterday (Thursday) no doubt to create a tenuous facade that 300 trucks a day are ‘normal’. Some weeks the crossings are completely closed. While Egypt opened the Rafah crossing for people several weeks ago, it closed it again after a few days. As revealed at Electronic Intifada:
There is no legal basis for Israel to intercept ships and prevent them from delivering humanitarian supplies, say experts in international law.
“Israel only has jurisdiction over its territorial waters of 12 nautical miles, and neither the waters off Gaza nor international waters are under its authority,” University of the Basque Country professor of international law Juan Soroeta told IPS.
“No UN resolution authorizes the Gaza blockade,” said Soroeta. “On the contrary, it is an illegal, unilateral measure imposed by force by Israel in the context of an equally illegal occupation of Palestinian territory.”
UN Security Council Resolution 1860, adopted on 8 January 2009, calls for “the unimpeded provision and distribution throughout Gaza of humanitarian assistance, including of food, fuel and medical treatment.”
But reports from the international humanitarian organizations working on the ground there confirm that this point is not being fulfilled.
The US State Department further rages:
Groups that seek to break Israel’s maritime blockade of Gaza are taking irresponsible and provocative actions that risk the safety of their passengers. Established and efficient mechanisms exist to transfer humanitarian assistance to Gaza. For example, humanitarian assistance can be delivered at the Israeli port of Ashdod, where cargo can be offloaded, inspected, and transported to Gaza.”
On past record, there is no guarantee that aid if delivered to Ashdod will reach Gaza.
The 10,000 tons of humanitarian aid carried by the first Freedom Flotilla was confiscated by Israel along with the personal effects of the passengers and the reporters’ equipment.
None of the items were ever returned, making it “booty in the best pirate tradition,” said Spanish lawyer Enrique Santiago, who was involved in preparing the charges against Israel for the assault on the flotilla in international waters.
Oren attacked the organizers of the flotilla as “radical anti-Israel organizations…known also for anti-American activities.” He cited statements by the US State Department and UN Secretary Ban Ki-Moon criticizing or condemning their actions. Then Oren claimed that the flotilla could simply deliver its aid through a “responsible organization” like UNRWA, or bring their materials through El Arish and allow Israel to offload it. “It’s not a fight between us and the people of Gaza,” Oren claimed. “It’s between us and the group Hamas which is determined to destroy the state of Israel.” (Never mind this Israeli government document). He went on to claim that Israel’s maritime blockade was “in full accord with international law,” though he did not explain how besieging a civilian population that was not actively engaged in a full-scale war against Israel comported with the 4th Geneva Convention or the San Remo Accords.
The US boat to Gaza is carrying letters of hope and compassion for the beleaguered citizens of Gaza, who have been subjected to Israel’s horrific collective punishment, a crime against humanity, for the past 1,473 days.
Author Alice Walker who is on the US boat writes “We will be carrying letters … expressing solidarity and love”. Other vessels with the flotilla will bear humanitarian aid, including construction materials, medical supplies and educational materials.
Such are the frightening things which according to Israel’s premier hasbara source, the IDF Spokesman, threaten Israeli civilians.
and since the world Establishment, including the US government, is enabling it, it is only natural that upstanding Americans and members of other nations want to challenge it. . It should be remembered that the Civil Rights movement in the United States was mostly illegal and its activists were frequently jailed, beaten, bitten by police dogs, and sometimes shot down by law enforcement.
Early this morning, I discovered that a ‘private compliant’ had been filed against the US boat to Gaza. The compliant, it is still unclear who filed it, stated that the US boat to Gaza is not ’sea worthy’ and requires a detailed inspection.The harbor master where the boat is in port has declared that until the compliant is resolved the boat is not permitted to leave. Currently, lawyers representing the US boat are looking into the origins of the compliant and weather it was filed as a result of Israeli economic or diplomatic pressure on the Greek government. The boat is US flagged and registered in the United States.
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10 ships are expected to sail as part of the Gaza aid flotilla. Currently three ships, including the US boat, have had complaints levied against them. US boat organizers believe that Greece will attempt to delay the ships indefinitely by using a serious of bureaucratic measures such as endless safety checks and cargo inspections.
despite overall calm over the past 10 weeks, two rockets and two mortars had been fired into Israel from Gaza in the past month. Israel had conducted six incursions and one air strike, a Palestinian civilian had been killed by mortar fire while approaching the border fence at night, and two others had been injured by Israeli forces.
However, Mr. Pascoe welcomed Israel’s approval, earlier this week, of $100 million to build 1,100 housing units in Khan Younis and Rafah, as well as 18 schools of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), among other construction projects. It had brought the total value of approved United Nations reconstruction in the past 15 months to $265 million. “We continue to stress that the market in aggregate, steel bar and cement can and should be liberalized by the Israeli authorities,” he said.
He noted that on 25 May, Egypt had announced extended working hours and eased procedures at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza, but the Egyptian and de facto Hamas authorities had faced difficulties in implementing the changes. Efforts to combat weapons smuggling through the tunnels continued. On illegal settlement activity, he said that, according to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, 1,774 units had been under construction in the West Bank during the first quarter of 2011, excluding East Jerusalem. In the past month, the Ministry of Defence had approved an additional 294 units in the settlement of Beitar Ilit, he said, adding that settlement activity also continued in East Jerusalem.
Expressing concern that continued demolitions in Area C were displacing Palestinians from their communities, he said the Israel Defense Forces had destroyed 81 Palestinian structures in the West Bank, including two in East Jerusalem, displacing 260 people. In addition, Israeli settlers had attacked Palestinians and their property in the West Bank, resulting in 13 Palestinian injuries and extensive material damage
commenting two days after Israel announced it would allow the UN to bring in material for school and housing construction, said the blockade is “a deliberate policy of collective punishment which is legally indefensible and morally reprehensible.”
On Tuesday, the Israeli Government approved the delivery of $100 million in building materials for 1,200 homes and 18 schools in UN-run projects in Gaza. Yesterday Robert Serry, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, called the announcement a “significant step.”
Referring to the recent media reports of widespread health problems in Gaza, Mr. Falk said the situation of health care there is “as nothing short of catastrophic.”
“Israel has pulled out the stops in trying to get the flotilla to stop before it begins by threatening the Greek economy,“ said Ann Wright, a retired State Department official and former Army colonel who is the main organizer of the US boat to Gaza. Sitting in the lobby of the noisy Athens hotel, she added, “Greece is caught in the middle. There is tremendous public support for the flotilla, but the government is getting pounded by the Israelis.” Not naming her sources, Wright, visibly exhausted from a year of organizing for the flotilla, contended that “Israel is going to try to sink the Greek economy if they allow the flotilla to sail from Greek ports.”
In response to the growing pressure, the Greek foreign ministry released a public statement on June 22 regarding its own citizens sailing with the flotilla. According to the statement, the ministry “urges Greek citizens as well as Greek-registered vessels not to participate in the new flotilla headed for the Gaza port.”
“Everything is explained in great detail,” foreign ministry spokesman Georgy Delavekouras told me over the phone from his office in Athens, referring to the statement. However, the statement is vague and does not say whether Greece will stop Gaza-bound ships registered in other countries.
Confirming that meetings between Greece and Israel have taken place recently over “many issues, including the flotilla,” Delavekouras said the Israeli government has not applied economic pressure. When pressed on the nature of the Israeli-Greek discussions, he simply referred to the statement.
Israel is doing everything possible to avoid a repeat of last year’s flotilla debacle, when Israeli commandos stormed the largest of six boats, the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara, and killed nine passengers, including one Turkish-American citizen, as they seized control of the ship.’
“Apparently, the State Department subscribes to the view that Israel’s anticipated violence against unarmed protesters is an immutable act of nature,” said Hagit Borer, a professor of Linguistics at the University of Southern California and a passenger on the U.S. boat. “This is a remarkable attitude, coming from a government that provides the Israeli government with billions of dollars in military aid…’
?’Does Israel have the right to intercept the expected flotilla?
As an occupying power in the Gaza Strip, Israel may prevent ships from reaching the Gaza shoreline. However, exercising this power imposes on Israel an obligation to allow the passage of goods and people through other means, in order to respect the rights of Gaza residents to a normal life, including the right to engage in dignified, productive work and economic, educational and cultural development. The overall closure policy, of which the maritime closure is part, is unlawful due to the restrictions it places on civilians.’
An expert legal opinion on International Maritime Law and the Gaza blockade’
‘”The legal position is plain. A vessel outwith the territorial waters (12 mile limit) of a coastal state is on the high seas under the sole jurisdiction of the flag state of the vessel. The ship has a positive right of passage on the high seas. The coastal state can regulate economic activity exploiting the resources of the seas and continental shelf up to 200 miles, the extent of the continental shelf, or the agreed boundary, but there is no indication of fishing, oil drilling or analagous economic activity in this case. The vessel is entitled to free passage.”
‘”This right of free passage is guaranteed by the UN Convention on the Law of the Seas, to which the United States is a full party. Any incident which takes place upon a US flagged ship on the High Seas is subject to United States legal jurisdiction. A ship is entitled to look to its flag state for protection from attack on the High Seas.”
“Israel has declared a blockade on Gaza and justified previous fatal attacks on neutral civilian vessels on the High Seas in terms of enforcing that embargo, under the legal cover given by the San Remo Manual of International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea.”
“There are however fundamental flaws in this line of argument. It falls completely on one fact alone. San Remo only applies to blockade in times of armed conflict. Israel is not currently engaged in an armed conflict, and presumably does not wish to be. San Remo does not confer any right to impose a permanent blockade outwith times of armed conflict, and in fact specifically excludes as illegal a general blockade on an entire population.”
“It should not be denied that Israel suffers from sporadic terrorist attacks emanating from Gaza.
However this does not come close to reaching the bar of armed conflict that would trigger the right to impose a limited naval blockade in terms of San Remo. To make a comparison, in the 1970’s and 1980’s the United Kingdom suffered continued terrorist attack from the Irish Republican Army, with much more murderous impact causing many more deaths than anything Israel has suffered in recent years from Gaza. However nobody would seek to argue that the UK would have had the right to mount a general naval blockade of the Republic of Ireland in the 1970’s and 1980’s, even though the Republic was undoubtedly the base for much IRA supply and operations. Justifications of Israeli naval action against neutral civilian ships by San Remo is based on special pleading and an impossibly strained definition of the term “armed conflict”.’
In a deliberate bid to co-mingle sex, violence, and nationalism — do these people plan to imitate the SS, or does it just happen? — Birthright’s planners self-consciously try to bind Jewish youth to Israeli youth in the most visceral way possible.
With acknowledgement to Professor Ran Greenstein from Witwatersrand University, Johannesburg ….
Naomi Chazan may wish for self-determination for both “peoples”, yet equal rights under the law – individual human rights – precede any presumed collective rights. This is the contradiction which to their discredit, liberal zionists cannot resolve. Yet typically, racism is full of contradictory anomalies. Is it reasonable to oppose equal rights for all as a basic principle of democracy?
There is no customary law which defines a collective “right to exist”. If Israel cannot institute equal rights for all its citizens and cease from being a racist state which entitles some people above others on the artificial basis of ethno-religious identity, it guarantees its own disintegration – such tyrannies of privilege inevitably collapse under the weight of the contradictions required to sustain them.
The two state solution which Chazan proffers is reminiscent of the ‘separate but equal’ propaganda pushed by white South African apartheidists when they attempted to justify their horrific bantustans.
The liberation movement at which liberal zionism baulks and casts as a chimera, BDS, is ethical, legitimised by its grounding in human rights as the unified grassroots call for global solidarity of people of conscience from oppressed Palestinians themselves. BDS addresses the apartheid perpetrated by Israel against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, the hideous Occupation, the lack of recognition of Palestinians’ right of return and the lack of equal rights for all in Israel. All these aims are supported solidly by international humanitarian law.
Like the apartheid South African state, Israel cannot halt the inevitable – boycotts, divestments and sanctions are an unstoppable non-violent means to ease the transformation of this belligerent oppressor and its supporters, be they rightwing or cognitively dissonant ‘liberal’ zionists.
Chazan’s efforts to undermine BDS need to be seen in context. At the end of the day, Chazan will go home to Israel where she is a privileged Jewish citizen with all her rights intact. She is part of and an enabler of the establishment that denies Palestinians their basic rights and freedoms, and as such, she is not in a position to be dictating to the Palestinians their methods of struggle or acting as gatekeeper for the international solidarity movements, preaching to them what is allowed and what is not in standing with the Palestinians. As in every human struggle for freedom, justice and equality, that right is the prerogative of those who live behind the walls, hindered by checkpoints and held captive to siege and military oppression.
