Today, 78 miles in international waters, Israel Defense Forces boarded a small flotilla of six ships bound for Gaza with food, building materials, medical equipment, books, and toys – killing 19 on board with live ammunition, according to Israel’s Channel 10 and the BBC. Most of the deaths occurred on the Mavi Mamara, a Turkish ship.
The “Freedom Flotilla” consisting of 700 people from 40 different countries, including many Americans, a Nobel Peace laureate, European parliamentarians, and non-violent peace organizations, was again attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza. In the past, many of the same organizations and individuals found similar ships boarded, contents inspected, passengers brought to Israeli jail, then deported. This time, Israel displayed the same callous disregard for the lives of Western civilians that it has previously shown toward Arabs.
Since Israel’s siege of Gaza in 2008, which killed thousands of civilians, Israel has maintained a clampdown on imports and exports in Gaza – punishing Gazans collectively for supporting the political wing of Hamas in elections – and creating hardships which have predictably increased support for the military wing of Hamas. Despite initial promises to investigate the situation in Gaza, such as Senator John Kerry’s visit shortly after the siege, the United States has turned a blind eye to the resulting hunger, homelessness, poverty, and unemployment in Gaza. Israel has been permitted to impose capricious bans on imports such as pasta and spices and on exports such as fish and Gazans have had to rely on a network of tunnels to survive. Israel’s actions are in violation of numerous human rights principles and international law. The flotilla was intended to raise awareness of this and the hopelessness of life in Gaza.
The flotilla attack comes at a time when Israel’s rightwing government has clamped down on civil liberties, barred foreign critics from entering Israel or the West Bank, arrested journalists, banned NGOs, placed numerous non-violent Palestinian leaders in prison without laying charges, proposed stripping some of its own citizens of their citizenship, and stepped up harassment of peace organizations.
Despite Israel’s recent entry into the OECD – a club for the world’s wealthiest nations – and despite our own financial difficulties – the United States continues to pamper Israel with $3 to $5 billion a year in military aid, loans, military and energy development projects, and occasional splurges like last week’s “Iron Dome” boondoggle which gave one of Israel’s state-owned military industries, Rafael Systems, $205 million for a missile shield system that in 2008 was judged to be useless against Qassams.
It is high time to pull the plug on aid to Israel and to make that nation accountable for its attacks on American citizens. It has long been clear that Israel has used US aid to finance racist settlement programs, build separation walls, private roads for settlers, maintain checkpoints, and to inflict casualties on civilians in the West Bank, Lebanon, and Gaza. Now this military aid is being used against our own citizens.
In the long run, the leverage this will apply on Israel will actually benefit it. Unless the United States stops asking “pretty please” and applies meaningful pressure on Israel to coexist with a Palestinian state, its 62 year occupation will continue until the same fate befalls Palestinians as American Indians – where they live in isolated reservations within Greater Israel. When that happens, Israel will be in precisely the same position that white South Africans found themselves. It will be the end of either Israeli democracy or a Jewish state.
This was published in the Standard Times on June 3, 2010
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/20100603/opinion/6030329
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