Apartheid, A Ghetto And Another Atrocity

So many words have been written this week about the act of war committed by the Israeli State. It isn’t the first. Sadly, I doubt it will be the last. As I write another ship is sailing toward Gaza. The ship stocked with food and medicine, manned by people from all walks of life including a Nobel Peace Prize medallist is named after Rachel Corrie. At the age of 23 Rachel was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer as she tried to protect a family who were living in conditions most of us could never imagine. Her parents attended a ceremony where the residents named a street in Ramallah in honour of their beautiful daughter while they were in Israel and the Occupied Territories as they pursue a wrongful death lawsuit against the State of Israel.

I’m being optimistic despite myself. Democracy Now! broadcast the American Vice President, Joe Biden on the 3rd June speaking in response to the boarding of the ship and the deaths that followed. His words are extraordinary. Joseph Biden: "You can argue whether Israel should have dropped people onto that ship or not, but the truth of the matter is, Israel has a right to know—they’re at war with Hamas—has a right to know whether or not arms are being smuggled in. And up to now, Charlie, what’s happened? They’ve said, 'Here you go. You're in the Mediterranean. This ship, if you divert slightly north, you can unload it, and we’ll get the stuff into Gaza.’ So what’s the big deal here? What’s the big deal of insisting it go straight to Gaza? Well, it’s legitimate for Israel to say, 'I don't know what’s on that ship. These guys are dropping eight—3,000 rockets on my people.”

On the same day the UN Human Rights Council voted for a probe into the attack. The US Ambassador Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe said: "Unfortunately, the resolution before us rushes to judgment on a set of facts that, as our debate over the last day makes clear, are only beginning to be discovered and understood. It creates an international mechanism before giving the responsible government an opportunity to investigate this incident itself and thereby risks further politicizing a sensitive and volatile situation."

I had naively hoped the Americans would do the right thing but they didn’t. The Americans opposed the vote but the vote passed by 32:3. I’m being optimistic that the Americans will change their stance. I said optimistic not realistic. Let’s face it, she didn’t see the need to call for an independent inquiry! Does she mean the Israeli government should investigate their own armed foces?  Does she actually think an Israeli probe may reveal useful information? The British Government wasn't much better; they abstained. 

The Israeli forces boarded a boat sailing through international waters and used armed force to do so. After assaulting, those onboard, assault that led to the deaths of some of those heroic activists, they then took command of the ships and took them to Israeli ports. Are we to assume the Israeli Authorities have left all the forensic evidence in tact?

All of us on this earth should applaud each of the heroes on board those ships and should always remember the brave actions of those who gave their lives in trying to help the residents of Gaza. I can think of no suitable words. Let me give you these words, taken from Democracy Now! programme broadcast on the 3rd June 2010.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, we also have on the line also someone else who was on that boat. Ann Wright is a retired Army colonel, a former US diplomat. She spent twenty-nine years in the military and later served as a high-ranking diplomat in the State Department. In 2001, she helped oversee the reopening of the US mission in Afghanistan. In 2003, she resigned her State Department post to protest the war in Iraq. She was on the Freedom Flotilla and just deported to Turkey.

ANN WRIGHT: Well, I was also on the Challenger 1 with Huwaida. And let me just give a great compliment to Huwaida and all of the Free Gaza Movement. It’s a tremendous, tremendous thing that they have done in creating this movement of boats that had six large vessels that went toward Gaza. And let me tell you how thrilling it was to see all of those boats steaming, those civilians trying to challenge the governments of the world that say there must be a siege to strangle the 1.5 million people in Gaza, and yet the citizens of the world are challenging that with everything they’ve got.

And in response to the words of Vice President Joe Biden…

ANN WRIGHT: Well, I think our vice president needs to take another look at this thing. The ships were open to inspection beforehand, and I’m quite sure Mossad had their little agents that were all over that place. These groups are humanitarian groups that are bringing in goods that are needed for the people of Gaza. They’ve had plenty of inspections on them.


If you talk about violence, it’s not 3,000 rockets Hamas is putting on Gaza; it’s a twenty-two-day attack that the Israelis did that killed 1,400 people, wounded 5,000, left 50,000 homeless. And here we are a year and four months later, and the Israelis will not let any sort of reconstruction materials in. And then, when reconstruction materials start coming that way, instead of waiting until—if they have a zone that they are trying to protect, let ships come into it and stop them.


But I would say that there are ways that you can stop them without killing people. There are ways you can stop even passenger ship like that ferry boat, and certainly like our little thirty-foot craft. You don’t have to use commandos with—I mean, you can use commandos with excessive force, which they do, but there are other ways to do it, if you want to kind of preserve a sense of civility, humanity, and meeting the international law, quite honestly.

Perhaps it is time Israel experienced a blockade to ensure the Israelis are unable to obtain materials that could be used to attack their neighbours.