Israel and the Flotilla: Piracy on the high seas

The Israeli military attack on Gaza-bound humanitarian ships, the Freedom Flotilla, on international waters on Monday 30 May, has brought into sharp international focus the questions of piracy and violation of international laws. The Freedom Flotilla was a convoy of six ships with about 700 humanitarian activists on a mission of mercy with 10,000 tonnes of aid for the citizens who have been under siege from the Israeli state. It was a convoy organised by International Solidarity Movement comprising of citizens from many countries. The convoy was on international waters, sailing to Gaza with the aim of breaking the three-year-long Israeli blockade of Gaza that has meted untold hardship on the inhabitants of the area when Israeli military commandos attacked one of them, the Marvi Marmara, killing between 10 and 19 and arresting hundreds. This act is only one of the many deliberate efforts by the current political leadership of Israel to derail the realisation of peace in the Middle East and frustrate the endeavour to put an end to the dehumanisation of Palestinians. Acts of aggression and the dehumanisation of Palestinians and their sympathisers must be publicised, exposed and denounced. The activities of the enablers of the Israeli leaders must also be exposed and denounced by concerted efforts of peace-loving citizens all over the world, including Africans.

WHY AFRICANS HAVE TO BE CONCERNED ABOUT THE DIGNITY OF THE PALESTINIANS

Africans who have experienced enslavement, colonialism, apartheid and intense exploitation are dehumanised every day, and in fighting against our dehumanisation, we cannot support the dehumanisation of other people. It is an appalling twist of history that some of those who suffered dehumanisation at the hands of the Spanish Inquisition right up to Nazi Germany have forgotten about this dehumanisation, and are now willing to support a government in Israel that has a deliberate policy to dehumanise others.

The Israeli attack on the Freedom Flotilla is only the latest outrage in the policies of the Israeli government in their militaristic and aggressive policies to dehumanise the Palestinian people and those who are in solidarity with them. Indeed, the Gaza blockade and the attack on the Freedom Flotilla compound the clear crimes against humanity visited on the people of Palestine spelt out in the Goldstone Report of 2009. As one speaker noted on a broadcast on Democracy Now in the USA,
‘the failure to hold Israel accountable for the war crimes documented in the Goldstone report; the failure to hold Israel accountable for the act of international terrorism and murder in a hotel room in Dubai; the failure to hold Israel accountable for four years of murderous siege on Gaza that has killed, by itself, 400 Palestinians for lack of access to medical aid and other needed supplies. The failure to hold Israel accountable in all these ways has sent Israel the message: do what you like, get away with whatever you want to, until people hold Israel accountable.’

EXPOSING MILITARISTIC ALLIES OF ISRAEL

This policy of the dehumanisation of the Palestinians cannot be sustained without the active support of those who enable the militaristic leaders of Israel. The first enablers are those leaders of states in Africa and the Middle East, who are overtly and covertly allies of Israel. In this category, Egypt stands out because the present leadership of Egypt is complicit in the blockade against the people of Gaza.

The second enablers are members of the European Union who because of their guilt in the persecution and dehumanisation of Jewish people from 1500 to 1945 refused to take a principled stand against the dehumanisation of Palestinians. Another enabler, Turkey, whose citizens were on board the Freedom Flotilla, has stood at the crossroads of the military, political, and economic alliance with the conservative forces in Israel. Among these enablers of the Israeli military, the United States of America stands in a special category.

The subservience of US leaders reached the point where citizens of the United States are bombarded with distortions about the realities of the politics of the Middle East. Writers such as John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt who have openly discussed Israeli influence over US foreign policy in the book, ‘The Israeli Lobby and US Foreign Policy’, have faced ostracism by mainstream scholars of international relations. This book has provoked such polarisation in the US academy that one gets a sense of the self-censorship in the United States when it comes to a discussion of Israel. The alliance between the militaristic leaders in the United States and Israelis since 1948 ensures that many leaders of Israel believe that Israel can act with impunity and international law does not apply to Israel.

ISRAELI LEADERS’ INSULT ON OBAMA

Barack Obama became the president of the United States on the basis of the desire of many US citizens for hope and change. Yet, the cooperation and collaboration between the US military and the Israeli intelligence forces continue, so that war and instability dominate the Middle East. The US provides the international, political, and diplomatic cover for the state of Israel. Hence, even in the midst of international condemnation of the violation of international law, the US protects Israel in the Security Council of the UN. This is the same Israeli government that insulted President Obama and his vice president Joe Biden, when Biden visited Israel in 2010. The Israeli political leadership, which has internalised racist attitudes toward blacks and Africans, chose the moment of Biden’s visit to display their contempt for Barack Obama.

The Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who grew up in the suburbs in the USA, has exposed his white supremacist instincts and his racism has only been surmounted by the extremism of the Israeli foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman. Both the prime minister and foreign minister have thrown a challenge to the Obama administration so that the US government has to make a clear choice between the expansion of illegal settlement further into the Palestinian settlements, or a negotiated peace process.

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ISRAELIS TIPS THE BALANCE FOR A CLEAR CHOICE BETWEEN WAR AND PEACE

The attack on the Freedom Flotilla derailed the advanced military planning for coordinated military initiatives against the people of Iran. In the year when the UN Security Council was discussing ending the expansion of states with nuclear weapons, the silence about Israel’s nuclear weapons portrayed the double standards of Western Europe and the US in their opposition to Iran without dealing with the actuality of Israeli nuclear weapon. Peace activists want to reassert the fact that none of the nuclear powers have the moral authority to call for a nuclear-free world. The opposition to a potential Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapon must be accompanied by international denuclearisation so that we can move toward a world free of nuclear weapons.

We mourn with relatives of those killed by this Israeli military action. When acts of international piracy and terrorism are denounced, why does the United States maintain a double standard on terrorism? Who are the terrorists? To the citizens of Turkey who lost loved ones, we mourn with you as well. We encourage you to redouble your effort to ensure that Turkey heals itself from its militaristic past so that you work to transcend the silences on militarism and genocide. Your courage in supporting the peoples of Gaza and Palestine must be applauded with added efforts to move Turkey towards a peaceful future outside of NATO. This should include the agitation against future military exercises between Turkey and Israel. Patriotic Turkish soldiers ought to be in solidarity with Turkish citizens who died; and clarify what they understand when General David Patraeus (commander of the US Central Command, CENTCOM) said that all options, including military strikes, are on the table in relation to US engagement with Iran.

DISMANTLING ISRAELI OCCUPATION AND DISCRIMINATION THROUGH SHARED HUMANITY

The opposition by peace-loving Israeli citizens against apartheid Israeli leaders is a reflection of the people’s solidarity with those killed by the attack on the Freedom Flotilla and the Palestinians who continue to suffer the indignity of the occupation. This solidarity reinforces the essence of shared humanity – the fact that you are yourself dehumanised when your fellow human being is dehumanised.

The last thing that a Jewish person should support is the dehumanisation of others. Peace-loving citizens all over the world would have to join forces with peace-loving Israeli citizens and Palestinians who stand for peaceful coexistence to change the present apartheid leadership in Israel, which believes that the best way to achieve peace is through continuous war.

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* Horace Campbell is a peace activist who is working to realise the dream of the late Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem of building African unity by 2015.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at Pambazuka News.