By John Ballard
Lindsay Beyerstein raises a couple of interesting questions regarding Israel's blockade of Gaza:.
The blockade is supposedly targeting Hamas, but Hamas controls the smuggling tunnels that supply the black market--so the group gets kickbacks on all the commerce through the tunnels. Ironically, Israel's blockade is lining Hamas's pockets.
Legal blogger Kevin Jon Heller raises another interesting question: The law allows nations to enforce blockades in international waters during international armed conflicts (IAC). But is Israel's blockade of Gaza an international conflict?
Israel claims that it's not occupying Gaza--to describe the coercion as "an occupation" would imply the Gaza is another country. Also, as Heller points out, if Israel conceded that it was occupying Gaza, it would therefore be bound by the Fourth Geneva Convention, which would drastically limit the amount of suffering Israel could legally inflict on non-combatants.
Legality aside, Israel's commando raid was reckless. They sent a handful of commandos to occupy a vessel carrying hundreds of keyed up activists. It was ridiculous to assume that everyone was going to meekly submit. The other boats in the flotilla surrendered peacefully, but as the old saying goes, hope is not a plan. Were these troops were prepared to quell a riot if they were met with anything less than unconditional surrender? If not, the Israelis were negligently endangering their own troops as well as the civilian passengers.
Should the "detainees" have been considered prisoners of war?
I'm reminded of that old lawyer's saw that when your client is innocent, argue the facts, but if he is guilty then argue the law.
The activists were "deported" to their respective countries of origin. When will the news media get around to interviewing them? I, for one, am looking for the stories they have to tell. I can't imagine they designated Edward Peck to speak for everyone.
Pictures on the news tonight of more products being loaded on the next ship, the Rachel Corrie which is expected to arrive tomorrow. The ship is named for a young martyr for the Free Gaza movement.
Rachel Aliene Corrie (April 10, 1979 � March 16, 2003) was an American member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). She was killed in the Gaza Strip by an Israel Defence Forces (IDF) bulldozer while attempting to prevent IDF forces from demolishing the home of local Palestinian Samir Nasrallah. The IDF has claimed that the death has been due to restricted angle of view of the D9 bulldozer driver. The New York Times said Corrie and others were acting as "human shields." A student at the Evergreen State College, she had taken a year off and traveled to the Gaza Strip during the Second Intifada.
Sorry John I think I'm having an attack of scrupulous word evaluation early in the morning brought on by watching Israel turn humanitarians into instant vicious jew hating terrorist who have their own copywrited war cries.
ReplyDeleteBoy words are funny things eh. A few slipped in here and there certainly change an impression [or try to]. I notice Lindsay Byerstein has done that: so Gaza is supplied by a "black-market" - not like our perfectly functioning free markets; Hamas controls the tunnels, aka highways or road system - not like our lovely ribbons of asphalt and concrete which have sprung forth spontaneous & are all toll & tax free and nary a sign of a copper; Hamas "lines-its-pockets" - unlike our gov'ts that impose taxes & politicians that accept small tokens of appreciation from grateful marketeers.
Back in 2008 Yonatan Mendel wrote about the particular brand of word fiddling that goes on in the beloved country: http://bit.ly/cCQ3LD
I'm going back to bed and hide 'til this fiasco blows away.
Good link. For sure we are seeing an escalation of word wars over physical encounters. "Reframing" is the new hegemony. Only yesterday I caught a report that the tired old "pro-choice" tag may be updated by "pro-freedom" so arguments might pit pro-life against pro-freedom rather than pro-choice (now getting stale, you know). And it was only a couple months ago that NPR decided to be more clear in that debate.
ReplyDeleteWhile we're at it, get a Kleenex. Here's a place accusing Wikipedia of cyber-bullying Israel.
As an aside, I continue to be puzzled by Egyptian complicity in the tunnel trade since the tunnels come from there.
My take on the I/P conflict is that Israel deliberately keeps Palestinians divided in order to maintain an upper hand. Hamas is valuable to Israel as in internal antagonist among Palestinians and occasional rockets are a small price to pay for that political advantage.