As a boater, I'm aware that the Coast Guard has the right to board and inspect my vessel at any time and that I'm required to comply. Upon probable cause and perhaps just suspicion, they have a right to impound and literally disassemble my boat looking for drugs or contraband. Sometimes, as I'm given to understand, they've been known to be rather demanding in their searches, and other completely innocent, law abiding yacht captains I know have complained of dirty footprints on the ivory carpeting or greasy hand prints on the cherry paneling and have suggested that too much protest or grouchiness can earn one an extra careful inspection of safety equipment that might entail a ticket.
Of course we have a real problem in our coastal waters and particularly on the Atlantic coast with illegal immigrants arriving rather often, and then there's always the drug smugglers, so when the Coasties hail you it's best to heave to and not make waves, so to speak. In fact the US has a policy of stopping and boarding vessels anywhere on the high seas and at any time they suspect contraband. For an honest captain or crew, the idea of going after the Coast Guard with a boat hook or marlinespike is pretty much as unthinkable as it is counterproductive.
Yesterday however, when I read about the Israeli raid on the blockade runners attempting to bring supplies to Gaza, I was truly angered at what seemed like a pointless and brutal attack on unarmed civilians, and the video then available seemed to confirm that first impression. The media were making charges of piracy and it seemed less than hyperbolic at the time. Then I saw the rest of the video.
Aside from the question of the embargo itself, it has to be mentioned that the "relief" expedition was required to pass inspection before landing in Gaza, there being good reason for Israel to make sure no weapons or explosives or ammunition were being carried, or fugitives, or any persons wanted for questioning. The word of some Turkish political group that it's a peaceful enterprise is scarcely enough, although reports so far seem to gloss over the obvious with a coat of shiny outrage. Of course the flotilla had no intention of complying or of allowing themselves to be boarded peacefully and inspected, which carries the implication that they had indeed something to hide. The Israeli Navy did what any country would have done and boarded them.
The video that was not shown, of course, was the brutal attack by the passengers, who mobbed the inspectors, threw them to the deck and began beating them with clubs and metal rods. One Israeli was thrown overboard. They were vastly outnumbered. They began to defend themselves. There were casualties. It started to look less and less like piracy or even aggression. It began to look like deliberate provocation. It began to look like assault. It began to look like a mission of strategic martyrdom designed to turn Israel's ally Turkey against them. It looks like a success so far.
As usual, those who have their reasons for hating Israel will not compare the incident to trying to run through passport control at the airport and complaining about being tackled and detained. Those who are quite sure Hamas is justified in any act whatsoever that brings about the total annihilation of all Israelis wouldn't care and might rejoice if the ships had been blown out of the water without warning.
There's not much middle ground, there's not much changing of minds and a fortune is being spent on further polarization. This, in my opinion, is just part of that enterprise. The drums of manufactured outrage will continue to boom about mistreatment of "peaceful" passengers so long as doubt remains as to whether their mission had anything do do with anything but creating provocation against "Zionist Aggression." To some, the passengers will continue to be "tourists" and the haters of Israel will use any opportunity to appear as martyrs, but try this, if you dare: load up a flotilla of ships and announce your destination as Turkey and your cargo as aid for Islamist patriots resisting secularist aggression and when it comes time for customs inspection -- refuse to stop and be boarded. Set your "tourists" on the Turkish coast guard and customs inspectors with fence posts and bits of deck railing and furniture and claim that the secular Turkish government is attacking Islam and peaceful Islamists. Go on -- I dare you.
Okay, Captain, its one thing to discuss the Coast Guard or Custom Inspectors and its another to discuss having Navy Seals board your ship.
ReplyDeleteOf course this was a staged event and the minute that ship left the Turkish port everyone knew where this one was headed and what the outcome would be.
Personally, I think Israel is losing its touch. With the assisination of the Hamas leader in Dubai, which was done without any regard for the obivous fact that there would be video cameras all over the place.
You cannot sit there and just isolate this boat boarding incident without dealing with the fact that Israel has turned Gaza into a Ghetto.
Neither side wants a settlement and I think that all the shuttle diplomacy in the world is going to change that...
So, let them fight it out, let Iran and Israel hurl their missles at each other and let the blood bath begin because THAT is the only solution available.
They want war, they want to aniliate each other....its time to quit buying our way to an unsettled peace....
Let them go at each other and let them drag us into another war...
Its the only realistic option.
The subject of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be a contentious subject even within Jewish families, and I have a personal account to share.
ReplyDeleteAbout 25 years ago, when I was living in London and attending LSE at the time, I returned to the U.S. on holiday and was forced to endure a discussion around the family dinner one night. I was asked about the first Infitada and how the European press was reporting the uprising. I mentioned watching a video clip on the Beeb, specifically an Israeli soldier trying to break the arm of a subdued Palestinian teenager as one would snap a twig over one’s knee. What I said at the family dinner table (rough paraphrase):
“If fate had put me on the other side of the ethnic divide, if I were the kid’s father and saw my kid being brutalized in such a manner, knowing my children had no future without self-determination, I would probably throw rocks too.”
After a moment of stunned silence, this was said to me: “Son, I always knew you were a closet anti-Semite.” My reply:
“In Israel, unlike my own family, there is at least a peace movement where one enjoys freedom of conscience without being called an “closet anti-Semite.”
Even within families, accusations are leveled, hurtful comments are made, and unkind hyperbole is hurled to disabuse you of your opinion and shut down an honest debate. There is no such thing as an honest answer to a baited question.
I am not pleased with Israel’s behavior over the years. They have stalled peace negotiations, complicated relations with their staunchest ally, made us even appear foolish at times … such as when Israel embarrassed VP Biden during his last visit.
Worse still, Israel knows damn well Turkey is a NATO ally; that according to the terms of the alliance, the U.S. is honor bound to defend any member nation that comes under attack … which means the U.S. would be forced to defend Turkey in the event of an Israel attack against Turkish naval vessels. Any failure to defend a NATO ally would put the alliance at risk … thus putting our own military at risk.
There are ultra-orthodox and ultra-conservative political elements in Israel that make our own neo-cons look like flower children. Netanyahu is one of them.
There is also a moral argument lost in the process. My ancestors were a persecuted minority who perished in the Holocaust. Oppression of a minority and opportunistic brinksmanship accords them no honor.
I have always tended to side with Israel given their lonely status as the only Jewish nation surrounded by Muslim countries that hate them. I think they must defend themselves vigorously as any sign of weakness would be fully exploited but I too have found myself disappointed in some of their actions of the years.
ReplyDeleteThis boat disaster was probably staged by Turkish militants wishing to turn the tide of alliance. But I think the thing that bothers me the most is that this took place in international waters. Had they entered Israeli waters then I could defend the action but to break treaties and agreements with the world powers is really pushing the limits.
The way I see it, dropping commandos out of the sky in international waters is hardly a routine inspection.
ReplyDeleteThe short video, ripped from context, explains nothing. We need a far more complete explanation.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you TomCat. Interviews with Israeli defense types I've heard on the radio refer to this as a 'police action'.
I think not.
This is a major blunder on the part of the Israeli military.
Israel is a country controlled by the religious right and continues to claim a religious right to territory it does not possess. I'm no friend of this policy and I'm no friend to the religious right on either side. I'm a constant critic of their settlement policy and other acts of intransigence. As I said, I was prepared for condemnation until I saw what happened. Even the Palestinian commenter on CNN last night agreed that Israel was being played and that these people were running a blockade, looking for a violent conflict and not to bring aid.
ReplyDeleteIsrael is in a shooting war with Hamas, which will not accept any peace treaty or cease fire and has no choice but to keep them from getting more explosives, more rockets and more guns. Egypt, recognizing this, also won't allow anyone across their border with Gaza. Think they're on Israel's side?
Just how would any of you make sure they weren't loaded to the gunwales with weapons? Seriously - how? They had every opportunity to be inspected peacefully and they responded with a murderous attack. Now why the hell did they not allow inspection? Because they wanted to provoke and did provoke violence. As I said, try walking through the airport security zone with a gun case and call it a commando raid when they come at you with assault rifles and pretend to be a victim. Any other country would have blown them out of the water if they refused to change course.
The US boards ships in international waters all the time whether we are operating a blockade or not and the purpose of a blockade is to prevent blockade runners like these young Turks. We have been asserting our right to do so since I can remember.
When the USCG boards a small boat like mine, they are armed and their boat has at least one machine gun mounted on the bow. Navy Seals? That's not how the seals act, nobody swam under the boat with a mine -- that's how the Coast Guard acts. When boats run from the coast guard they are fired upon from gunboats and airplanes until they surrender or are killed.
It is very difficult to use a small craft to board a larger ship at sea. They would have to climb a ladder let down by the boarded ship - one by one and of course, these guys didn't comply and lower any boarding ladders. Don't try it yourself, BTW even if the ship isn't hostile. If it is -- and it was -- you'll be ground to pieces instantly. A helicopter was the safest choice.
Just what the hell were they supposed to do? Drop leaflets? launch a missile? sink it with a gunboat? They did not come aboard shooting. They did not do anything but tell people to sit down while the boat was searched. The first words on the tape were "Shalom, please be calm" and yet they were attacked instantly. You're saying they should have used unarmed customs inspectors?
Regardless of how Israel has treated Gaza, it's in the control of a terrorist organization recognized as such by everyone and with the stated purpose and the uninterrupted practice of killing Israeli civilians at every opportunity regardless of the cost to their own civilians. Any armaments entering will be used for that purpose and no country including ours would allow enemies to gain weapons without interference. Again, take a flotilla to Iraq and tell everyone you're loaded with chocolate but you won't be inspected -- and see what happens.
Captain, I'm trapped at the office and haven't had time to pujrsue this story, so I thank you very much for the enlightenment. Whenever I hear such stories, I always wonder what's the complete picture. Seldom is anything as simple as first impressions would lead us to believe.
ReplyDeleteI think that your points about the need for careful inspection of the ships is valid. There is a war going on and humanitarian aid has been used as a pretext in other armed hostilities for carrying weapons. I have also been critical of some of Israel's policies and actions but the more I learn abojut this confrontation the more I agree with you that Israel was played to create negative PR for Israel in the eyes of the world.
Have to get back to work; my boss is loking at me strangely!
Seems to me that there was no way the ship was going to get to its destination without a search, given the explosive situation in Gaza. If the Israelis were simply trying to do that, it's hard for me to see how they were at fault. I would agree that a lot of the outrage is of a knee-jerk quality: it follows the too easy storyline, "Big Bad Israeli military machine abuses poor defenseless opponents." The people you see on board with poles and other heavy or sharp objects are not "unarmed" or nonviolent by any sane definition. I've sometimes thought that the Israelis tend to respond to provocations with disproportionate force, but I'm not easily convinced that this was one of those times.
ReplyDeleteI used to think the Israeli/Palestinian conflict would be solved one day, but over the years I've become more and more pessimistic.
Awesome post and comments here.
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering what'll happen to the Rachel Corrie from Ireland on its way to Gaza now?
Unfortunately, we never hear the real story or get all the details and as the Captain says, the outrage machine starts incredibly easy.
It's damned hard to watch the brutality of either side.
Captain, the video footage is indeed awful. But it has no before or after. It's not exactly clear what happened in this case and it will take a while (if ever) to get a full account of the events. I would not put my trust in the official version presented by Israel -- after all, they also maintain that their commandos came aboard the ship armed with... paintball guns. (I mean, c'mon -- paintball guns? Seriously?)
ReplyDeleteWhat we do know is that, before leaving, the ship was inspected by Turkey (member of NATO and Israel's friend) and cleared as a humanitarian aid mission.
During his interview with Charlie Rose on Tuesday, the Israel's Minister of Information(!) and Diaspora stated that there were weapons found on the ship, but when pressed by Rose to name specifically what weapons, he faltered, mentioned something about "small weapons and ammunition," and reluctantly admitted that the ship was really carrying medical supplies and cement. (But he managed to intimate that Palestinians would use cement to unholy, terrorist ends -- like building homes, I suppose? Or bunkers, in the Minister's understanding of things.)
There are eyewitnesses who state that Israeli soldiers fired at passengers either immediately after boarding the ship, or even before:
First eyewitness accounts of raid contradict version put out by Israeli officials
By Dorian Jones in Istanbul and Helena Smith,
June 01, 2010 "The Guardian"
Survivors of the Israeli assault on a flotilla carrying relief supplies to Gaza returned to Greece and Turkey today, giving the first eyewitness accounts of the raid in which at least 10 people died.
Arriving at Istanbul's Ataturk airport with her one-year-old baby, Turkish activist Nilufer Cetin said Israeli troops opened fire before boarding the Turkish-flagged ferry Mavi Marmara, which was the scene of the worst clashes and all the fatalities. Israeli officials have said that the use of armed force began when its boarding party was attacked.
"It was extremely bad and very tough clashes took place. The Mavi Marmara is filled with blood," said Cetin, whose husband is the Mavi Marmara's chief engineer.
She told reporters that she and her child hid in the bathroom of their cabin during the confrontation. "The operation started immediately with firing. First it was warning shots, but when the Mavi Marmara wouldn't stop these warnings turned into an attack," she said.
"There were sound and smoke bombs and later they used gas bombs. Following the bombings they started to come on board from helicopters."
Cetin is among a handful of Turkish activists to be released; more than 300 remain in Israeli custody. She said she agreed to extradition from Israel after she was warned that conditions in jail would be too harsh for her child.
There is also at least one Turkish-speaking person who has this to say about the Israel's video footage and other tapes released so far:
ReplyDeletePerhaps even more importantly, what happened after the moment in time captured by the tape? When did the commandos start firing on the passengers? When did they stop firing? In the tapes made on board, you can clearly hear that the ship has surrendered and the captain has put up the white flag - and there is still gunfire in the background.
I can speak Turkish, so having watched all the tapes, I can tell you that over the loud speaker the people in charge of the ship are saying, "We have surrendered, the white flag is up, people are lying on the ground and they are still firing." And you still hear the gunfire as they are saying this on tape.
When did the commandos start shooting and, maybe even more importantly, when did they stop shooting? Was it all in the heat of an active confrontation or were there any shootings after people had already laid down and surrendered completely? That would seem to be a critical question.
I agree. Will see what transpires. Meanwhile, (nine, as far as we know) people are dead. Again.
And about that: eyewitnesses as quoted in the European press maintain that the number of fatalities exceeds ten. Israel refuses to release the names of victims and right away has imposed an informational embargo on the situation. The obvious question is why?
Bloggingdino - I used to think the Israeli/Palestinian conflict would be solved one day, but over the years I've become more and more pessimistic.
ReplyDeleteThis sums up my frustration with the whole bloody mess. It seems the conflict will never be solved because the participants prefer to have a constant oozing sore ... one they can exploit for political opportunity ... rather than have a successful resolution.
What angers me the most is that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is no longer about them. It is also about us ... such as when terrorism is inspired and fueled by it and spills across international boundaries and hits other world capitals such as New York, London, and Madrid, and citizens who are not even party to the conflict are suddenly victimized by it.
The Israelis and Palestinians are no longer the ones with sole rights in the matter. I believe the time is long past due for the international community to step in and impose a settlement because the parties can no longer do it themselves ... before this conflict metastasizes further and kills other innocent people.
"step in and impose a settlement"
ReplyDeleteWould that it were possible without opening a can of nuclear worms. We don't have the strength or the capability or the will.
I expected my post to be controversial, and whatever did happen will remain controversial, but as I see it, there is a worldwide love of hating Israel that goes beyond their stupidity, greed, paranoia and religious insanity.
No, I don't give a lot of credit to those eyewitness reports when the statement was issued before the boarding that
“A violent response from Israel will breathe new life into the Palestine solidarity movement, drawing attention to the blockade.”
I read this as an admission that they welcomed and expected violence. I believe everything was done to make sure that violence was inflicted because this was about the blockade, about sympathy for poor, oppressed Hamas not about humanitarian aid.
Yes, it's fair to criticize blockades, but you'll notice that criticism disappears in regard to Egypt's blockade. Yes, the blockade hasn't diminished Hamas' determination to exterminate Jews. Yes, it punishes civilians, just as our embargo against Saddam Hussein and our embargo against Castro, but then Hamas is uniquely in the business of slaughtering their own population in order to maximize their posture as innocent victims. I think this fatuous flotilla was simply aiding them in that pursuit and I have no sympathy at all.
Ok, so Turky promised they had no weapons, but you know that doesn't constitute Israeli or Egyptian permission to run the blockade. It certainly wouldn't get them through US customs. Israel has let other ships through, but this one refused to comply and be inspected.You can't absolve them of blame when they were looking for trouble and did their best to make it.
I can't just pass that over and excuse the bungled mission by calling a boarding, no matter how poorly executed, a "commando raid."
There's been enough inflammatory rhetoric to last a lifetime and one of the reasons this is never going to end well is that we're all such fire eaters and we just love playing this game.
An interesting (and Jewish) take on the events, by Uri Avnery:
ReplyDeleteON THE high seas, outside territorial waters, the ship was stopped by the navy. The commandos stormed it. Hundreds of people on the deck resisted, the soldiers used force. Some of the passengers were killed, scores injured. The ship was brought into harbor, the passengers were taken off by force. The world saw them walking on the quay, men and women, young and old, all of them worn out, one after another, each being marched between two soldiers…
The ship was called “Exodus 1947”. It left France in the hope of breaking the British blockade, which was imposed to prevent ships loaded with Holocaust survivors from reaching the shores of Palestine. If it had been allowed to reach the country, the illegal immigrants would have come ashore and the British would have sent them to detention camps in Cyprus, as they had done before. Nobody would have taken any notice of the episode for more than two days.
But the person in charge was Ernest Bevin, a Labour Party leader, an arrogant, rude and power-loving British minister. He was not about to let a bunch of Jews dictate to him. He decided to teach them a lesson the entire world would witness. “This is a provocation!” he exclaimed, and of course he was right. The main aim was indeed to create a provocation, in order to draw the eyes of the world to the British blockade.
What followed is well known: the episode dragged on and on, one stupidity led to another, the whole world sympathized with the passengers. But the British did not give in and paid the price. A heavy price.
Many believe that the “Exodus” incident was the turning point in the struggle for the creation of the State of Israel. Britain collapsed under the weight of international condemnation and decided to give up its mandate over Palestine. There were, of course, many more weighty reasons for this decision, but the “Exodus” proved to be the straw that broke the camel’s back.
I AM not the only one who was reminded of this episode this week. Actually, it was almost impossible not to be reminded of it, especially for those of us who lived in Palestine at the time and witnessed it.
Continue at the link above.