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Speechless in Gaza

Posted May 31st, 2010 by Lesley Hazleton

Seventy miles off the coast of Gaza, “at least 10”  more lives now need to be remembered on this USA Memorial Day.

I am all but speechless.

Military commandos dropped from helicopters onto a Free Gaza civilian ship in international waters and, per an Israeli government spokesman, were astonished when some people on deck stood their ground and attacked them with knives and iron bars. The commandos, he said, were unprepared for such resistance.  They had no option but to use guns.

No option?   Did nobody consider teargas?  Is Israel really going to claim that it was the victim here?

The simplest solution would have been for Israel to stand back and let the flotilla through.   But that would have been to acknowledge that the three-year siege of Gaza — let alone the three-week ‘Operation Cast Lead‘ assault on it eighteen months ago — has been self-defeating.    As Bradley Burston put it  in Haaretz:

Here in Israel, we have still yet to learn the lesson: We are no longer defending Israel. We are now defending the siege. The siege itself is becoming Israel’s Vietnam.

Indeed.  By laying siege to Gaza,  Israel is only laying siege to itself.  Perhaps now, under the rapidly building storm of international condemnation (this time, after all, it was not “only Palestinians” who were killed), the Israeli government will finally have  no option  but to use words instead of bullets, and face reality — the need not just to lift the blockade, but to start negotiating with the Hamas-led government of Gaza.

———————

End of the day postscript:   The deaths on the largest ship in the Free Gaza flotilla may yet achieve the goal that the flotilla itself could not — forcing Israel to lift the siege.  I can’t see how Israel can continue it now (though this may be simply a failure of my political imagination).  If indeed the siege/blockade is lifted or at least eased, could Israel finally come to terms with the reality of Hamas?  Or am I just desperately looking for a silver lining to this very black day?

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File under: Middle East | Tagged: Tags: assault, blockade, flotilla, Free Gaza Movement, Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Palestine, siege | 4 Comments
  1. Ted Blackwell says:
    June 2, 2010 at 6:52 am

    I must admit that my reaction was very different than yours in that I was not, in the least, surprised at the Israeli commando interdiction of the lead ship. From what I have read, the commandos did not open fire (even though they were under physical attack) until they received permission from their tactical commander. I am surprised that their rules of engagement did not already give them the right of self-defense. While I agree that the Israeli political decision to isolate Gaza is a topic that could generate hours of debate, I would say that it is totally unreasonable to think that Israel would allow anyone by any means (land, sea, air) to breach that siege. That is not how they operate. Tear gas on the deck of a ship at sea would be “blowing in the wind” as Bob Dylan might say.

  2. Lesley Hazleton says:
    June 2, 2010 at 1:05 pm

    Ted — I don’t think the issue is “rules of engagement.” This was a military assault on a civilian vessel at night in international waters, and even in Israel, military experts acknowledge that it was bungled. Politically, the assault was clearly ill-conceived, or to put it another way, idiotic. But arguing over who is ‘right’ and who ‘wrong’ will get nobody anywhere. Self-righteousness only digs the rut deeper. The real issue here is not even the siege itself, which has placed one and a half million impoverished people for three years (plus a year before that under slightly less stringent conditions) in what is essentially a 140-square-mile internment camp, and which is highly questionable under international law. The real issue is the refusal to negotiate. The Israeli government and the Hamas-led government of Gaza hate each other, but in the long term, they have no option but to talk to each other. The terrible question is how many more people have to die before that happens.

    • Ted Blackwell says:
      June 2, 2010 at 5:02 pm

      Lesley, I’m not raising the “rules of engagement” to the issue level, it was more of a side comment. The biggest issue, as you said, is how to get Hamas and Israel to talk and negotiate … an almost impossible task, given that Hamas’ goal is the destruction of Israel. What is absolutely confounding to me is: why did any of those activists believe Israel would allow them to pass, and why did they believe they could attack commandos and not be engaged? The Turks are sending a larger vessel to challenge the blockade. This is “upping the ante” with much larger consequences for both nations, as I know you understand. I’m hoping Turkey and Israel can avoid an escalation. They are two nations with huge military resources.

      • Lesley Hazleton says:
        June 2, 2010 at 10:22 pm

        It’s hard to say for sure right now, but it appears (per a report in The Guardian quoting Turkish news sources) that among the loose alliance of groups on board there were a dozen or so radical Islamists who were determined to fight no matter what, though that still does not explain the Israeli use of such disproportionate force. As for the expectations of the vast majority of the Free Gaza activists, their point, as I understand it, was not so much to actually reach Gaza as to draw world attention to the siege and blockade. That’s why I wrote in my previous post, Heading for Gaza, that I wished I were on board. The next boat aiming to run the blockade, within the coming week, is apparently from Ireland, and presumably will also be stopped, though this time without deadly force.

        Meanwhile, re Hamas and Israel talking — I know, I know, it seems impossible. But then, when a well-informed friend called me one morning in 1977 and told me to turn on the radio for the next newscast because Egypt’s Anwar Sadat would announce that he was going to visit Israel, that was impossible too. Seriously, I thought he was joking. And then I turned on the radio.

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