9 September 2011, Hurriyet Daily News http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com (Turkey)
Ibrahim Kalin*
The Israeli attack on the Mavi Marmara aid ship bound for Gaza on May 31, 2010, has proven to be a turning point in Turkish-Israeli relations. After the fundamentally flawed Palmer-Uribe report was leaked to the media on Sept. 1 and the Netenyahu government refused to apologize for the brutal execution of nine Turks, including one U.S. citizen whom Roger Cohen of the New York Times called “the forgotten American,” relations have hit a very low point. But the way the Israeli government has responded to the crisis and its refusal to respect international law and uphold the principle of justice has implications beyond bilateral relations and underscores Israel’s dismal failure to grasp the dynamics of the new Middle East. It is also a failure to understand Turkey’s resolve to protect the rights of its citizens.
The killing of nine people 78 nautical miles off the coast of Gaza in international waters is by any standards illegal and immoral. The Palmer Report acknowledges this by saying that Israeli commandos used “excessive force” and the government of Israel failed to provide any credible explanation for the killings from close range. Before a Cabinet meeting this week, Mr. Netanyahu said, “We need not apologize” for the killings, choosing a path of defiance that makes Israel all the more isolated and cornered in the world.
The Palmer-Uribe Report’s claim that the siege of Gaza is legal is essentially wrong and goes beyond its mandate. If the siege is legal, as the report claims, then the occupation of Palestine is legal too because the siege, which has been in effect since 2007, is an extension of the occupation. But the universally accepted fact, established by scores of reports and resolutions, is that the occupation of Palestine including the siege of Gaza is illegal, inhuman and immoral.
Turkey has dismissed the Palmer-Uribe Report because its conclusion about the siege contradicts previous statements and reports by the United Nations, including the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council and statements by the U.N. secretary-general. Furthermore, the Palmer Report, contrary to some claims, is not a legally binding document to be voted on at the U.N. nor is the panel a court that can issue a juridical view on Gaza. But by giving a carte blanche to Israel’s piracy in international waters, it has disregarded international law and undermined the fundamental principles of justice and freedom for all including the Palestinians.
The Netenyahu government’s refusal to issue a formal apology to Turkey has led to a swift reaction from Turkey. Prime Minister Erdoğan ordered the implementation of five measures against Israel including the lowering of diplomatic relations and freezing of military agreements. “No country is above the law,” said Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, referring to the big elephant in the room, which is the Israeli exceptionalism in regional and global politics. PM Erdoğan described Israel as acting “like a spoiled child in the face of all U.N. decisions.” The prime minister also said Turkey has no quarrel with the people of Israel and Jews around the world. And he is proven to be right: Despite the tensions between the two countries, there has been no disturbance among the Turkish Jewish community.
Refusing to apologize and then claiming to want to repair relations with Turkey, as Mr. Netenyahu said recently, is not only an oxymoron but also self-delusional. As PM Erdoğan has declared on various occasions, Turkish-Israeli relations will not be normalized until and unless Turkey’s three conditions are met. Turkey keeps the door of diplomacy open, but it is up to Israel to pass through it or close it.
The Netenyahu government’s defiant yet eventually self-destructive approach is indicative of the eclipse of Israeli strategic thinking. Israeli politicians fail to understand that the fundamental values of the new Middle East spearheaded by the Arab Spring are no longer occupation, dictatorship and alienation but justice, freedom and rule of law. No policy that does not take these values seriously can have legitimacy. Policies of occupation, dispossession and humiliation will no longer be covered up and justified by petty dictators in the Middle East. This should be a wakeup call for Israel to end the occupation and have a serious reassessment of its strategic priorities.
By risking losing Turkey, Israel misreads history and ends up cornering itself not only in the Middle East but also in the U.S. According to former U.S. Defense Secretary Gates, “Netanyahu is not only ungrateful [for the billions of dollars of aid from the U.S.] but also endangering his country by refusing to grapple with Israel’s growing isolation.”
I wonder what it will take to wake up the Israeli leaders from their slumber.
*İbrahim Kalın is senior adviser to the prime minister of Turkey
Mostrando postagens com marcador Turkey. Mostrar todas as postagens
Mostrando postagens com marcador Turkey. Mostrar todas as postagens
domingo, 11 de setembro de 2011
CRISES WITH TURKEY AND EGYPT REPRESENT A POLITICAL TSUNAMI FOR ISRAEL
10 September 2011, Haaretz הארץ (Israel)
The political crisis has become a reality well before the Palestinians declare their independent state, writes Haaretz editor-in-chief Aluf Benn, leaving Israel isolated in facing Iran, Turkey and Egypt.
By Aluf Benn
The anxiety caused by the Arab Spring among the Israeli public became a reality this weekend, when protesters broke into the Israeli Embassy in Cairo, and expelled the Israeli diplomats from their country.
The embassy staff’s urgent evacuation in a special IAF plane in the wake of President Obama’s intervention is a stark reminder of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. Seven months after the downfall of Hosni Mubarak’s regime, Egyptian protesters tore to shreds the Israeli flag, a symbol of peace between Egypt and its eastern neighbor, after 31 years. It seems that the flag will not return to the flagstaff anytime soon.
The historians who will write about the collapse of the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty will start their stories during the twilight years of the Mubarak regime, when the government gradually lost control over the Sinai Peninsula, turning the desert into an abandoned frontier of weapons smuggling, human trafficking, and African refugees.
The demilitarization agreements, which removed the Egyptian army from Sinai and were slowly eroded following Israel’s disengagement from the Gaza Strip, have accelerated sharply in the last several months. Time after time, Egypt requested and received permission to “temporarily” deploy more troops and weaponry along the border, in order to restore order and security in the region.
For the Egyptians, this was an opportunity to shake off the limitations imposed on them by the peace agreement, and regain their full sovereignty over the buffer zone that lies between the Suez Canal and the Negev.
In the 70s, when the peace accords were signed, the Egyptian military’s presence in Sinai posed a great security threat. Now, Egyptian soldiers seem like the lesser evil and an antidote to the much larger threat of a political and security vacuum across the border.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is concerned that the Sinai Peninsula will turn into a larger version of the Gaza Strip, full of weapons and launching pads aimed at Israeli territory. The fence that Israel is building along the Egyptian border is intended to ensure routine security measures aimed at preventing terrorists and refugees from spilling over the border. Israel will not be able to handle the strategic dangers that are bound to unfold on the other side.
The “embassy crisis” exploded in the wake of the killing of five Egyptian soldiers on August 18 during a border skirmish that came on the heels of a terrorist attack against Israeli civilians on their way to Eilat.
The Tahrir protesters and Egyptian politicians, frustrated with the slow pace of regime change, have directed their anger toward the most hated target in Cairo – the Israeli Embassy. Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s public expression of regret, and the Israeli promises to cooperate with Egypt in investigating the incident did not interest the Egyptian public.
The protests continued, and a week after the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador from Ankara on similar grounds - anger stemming from the killing of Turkish citizens aboard last year’s Gaza flotilla – the Israeli ambassador was expelled from Cairo. The only difference is that in Turkey, the government initiated the downgrading of ties, while in Egypt the people did so against the will of their rulers.
Netanyahu and his government have prided themselves on their steadfast commitment to national ideals, and the prime minster is convinced that he was right in refusing to apologize to the Turks for killing their citizens. According to his perspective, the Arab world scrutinizes Israel’s actions, and an apology to Turkey would be interpreted as a sign of unforgivable weakness.
But Netanyahu was not content with merely refusing to apologize. Instead of attempting to calm the conflict with Turkey, Israel was dragged into a dangerous battle with Ankara.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to send a Turkish naval fleet to accompany the next flotillas to Gaza, and Netanyahu responded with a widely-covered visit to an Israeli naval base. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who consistently outflanks Netanyahu from the right, suggests, publicly, that Israel aid the PKK Kurdish insurgency, in order to balance out Turkey’s support for Hamas.
Netanyahu and Lieberman are heroes of the media, but when the chips are down, it turns out that Israel has direct influence on Egypt. Thus, Netanyahu must resort to asking for help from Obama, his great opponent, in order to evacuate the embassy employees. Once again, it becomes clear that Israel cannot manage without help from the United States.
Netanyahu now hopes that Israel might be able to get close with Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States, who also seek to block the possibility of an Arab Spring in the region. In the West, Netanyahu is hoping to circumvent Turkey by strengthening ties with Greece, Bulgaria and Romania. During his visit to the Balkans, he was shown photos and statues of national heros, sent to their deaths by the Ottoman Empire. A real basis for friendship.
These are but minor comforts. The political tsunami that Ehud Barak foresaw has come true prior to the unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state in the UN. Israel is left isolated facing Iran, Turkey and Egypt, which in the past were considered close allies. Netanyahu is convinced that the Arab Spring uprisings are a decree of fate, leaving Israel with little to do but to stand firmly in its place.
Israel cannot prevent the rise of Erdogan or the fall of Mubarak, the same way that it cannot halt Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The fall of the American superpower is not Netanyahu’s fault. But he has not done a thing to mitigate the fallout from the aforementioned developments. Israel’s political and strategic positions are far worse under his leadership.
More on this topic
• Obama expresses 'great concern' to Netanyahu over Israeli Embassy attack
• Israeli diplomatic staff and families evacuated after Egyptians storm embassy in Cairo
• Arab Spring succeeded, it's Egypt that failed
The political crisis has become a reality well before the Palestinians declare their independent state, writes Haaretz editor-in-chief Aluf Benn, leaving Israel isolated in facing Iran, Turkey and Egypt.
By Aluf Benn
The anxiety caused by the Arab Spring among the Israeli public became a reality this weekend, when protesters broke into the Israeli Embassy in Cairo, and expelled the Israeli diplomats from their country.
The embassy staff’s urgent evacuation in a special IAF plane in the wake of President Obama’s intervention is a stark reminder of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. Seven months after the downfall of Hosni Mubarak’s regime, Egyptian protesters tore to shreds the Israeli flag, a symbol of peace between Egypt and its eastern neighbor, after 31 years. It seems that the flag will not return to the flagstaff anytime soon.
The historians who will write about the collapse of the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty will start their stories during the twilight years of the Mubarak regime, when the government gradually lost control over the Sinai Peninsula, turning the desert into an abandoned frontier of weapons smuggling, human trafficking, and African refugees.
The demilitarization agreements, which removed the Egyptian army from Sinai and were slowly eroded following Israel’s disengagement from the Gaza Strip, have accelerated sharply in the last several months. Time after time, Egypt requested and received permission to “temporarily” deploy more troops and weaponry along the border, in order to restore order and security in the region.
For the Egyptians, this was an opportunity to shake off the limitations imposed on them by the peace agreement, and regain their full sovereignty over the buffer zone that lies between the Suez Canal and the Negev.
In the 70s, when the peace accords were signed, the Egyptian military’s presence in Sinai posed a great security threat. Now, Egyptian soldiers seem like the lesser evil and an antidote to the much larger threat of a political and security vacuum across the border.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is concerned that the Sinai Peninsula will turn into a larger version of the Gaza Strip, full of weapons and launching pads aimed at Israeli territory. The fence that Israel is building along the Egyptian border is intended to ensure routine security measures aimed at preventing terrorists and refugees from spilling over the border. Israel will not be able to handle the strategic dangers that are bound to unfold on the other side.
The “embassy crisis” exploded in the wake of the killing of five Egyptian soldiers on August 18 during a border skirmish that came on the heels of a terrorist attack against Israeli civilians on their way to Eilat.
The Tahrir protesters and Egyptian politicians, frustrated with the slow pace of regime change, have directed their anger toward the most hated target in Cairo – the Israeli Embassy. Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s public expression of regret, and the Israeli promises to cooperate with Egypt in investigating the incident did not interest the Egyptian public.
The protests continued, and a week after the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador from Ankara on similar grounds - anger stemming from the killing of Turkish citizens aboard last year’s Gaza flotilla – the Israeli ambassador was expelled from Cairo. The only difference is that in Turkey, the government initiated the downgrading of ties, while in Egypt the people did so against the will of their rulers.
Netanyahu and his government have prided themselves on their steadfast commitment to national ideals, and the prime minster is convinced that he was right in refusing to apologize to the Turks for killing their citizens. According to his perspective, the Arab world scrutinizes Israel’s actions, and an apology to Turkey would be interpreted as a sign of unforgivable weakness.
But Netanyahu was not content with merely refusing to apologize. Instead of attempting to calm the conflict with Turkey, Israel was dragged into a dangerous battle with Ankara.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to send a Turkish naval fleet to accompany the next flotillas to Gaza, and Netanyahu responded with a widely-covered visit to an Israeli naval base. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who consistently outflanks Netanyahu from the right, suggests, publicly, that Israel aid the PKK Kurdish insurgency, in order to balance out Turkey’s support for Hamas.
Netanyahu and Lieberman are heroes of the media, but when the chips are down, it turns out that Israel has direct influence on Egypt. Thus, Netanyahu must resort to asking for help from Obama, his great opponent, in order to evacuate the embassy employees. Once again, it becomes clear that Israel cannot manage without help from the United States.
Netanyahu now hopes that Israel might be able to get close with Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States, who also seek to block the possibility of an Arab Spring in the region. In the West, Netanyahu is hoping to circumvent Turkey by strengthening ties with Greece, Bulgaria and Romania. During his visit to the Balkans, he was shown photos and statues of national heros, sent to their deaths by the Ottoman Empire. A real basis for friendship.
These are but minor comforts. The political tsunami that Ehud Barak foresaw has come true prior to the unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state in the UN. Israel is left isolated facing Iran, Turkey and Egypt, which in the past were considered close allies. Netanyahu is convinced that the Arab Spring uprisings are a decree of fate, leaving Israel with little to do but to stand firmly in its place.
Israel cannot prevent the rise of Erdogan or the fall of Mubarak, the same way that it cannot halt Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The fall of the American superpower is not Netanyahu’s fault. But he has not done a thing to mitigate the fallout from the aforementioned developments. Israel’s political and strategic positions are far worse under his leadership.
• Obama expresses 'great concern' to Netanyahu over Israeli Embassy attack
• Israeli diplomatic staff and families evacuated after Egyptians storm embassy in Cairo
• Arab Spring succeeded, it's Egypt that failed
EGYPT UNREST, TURKEY ROW DEEPEN ISRAELI ISOLATION
10 September 2011, AFP
Al Ahram Online http://english.ahram.org.eg (Egypt)
Fractured diplomatic relations with Egypt and Turkey leave Israel increasingly isolated ahead of Palestinian moves to seek UN recognition
Already embroiled in a fierce diplomatic row with former ally Turkey, Israel found itself in fresh crisis Saturday with southern neighbour Egypt after crowds entered and trashed its Cairo embassy.
Israel has few friends in the Muslim world, and the chill on two fronts further deepens its isolation ahead of Palestinian plans to seek full membership in the United Nations.
The overnight attack on the Cairo diplomatic mission, in which crowds smashed through an external security wall, tossed embassy papers from balconies and tore down the Israeli flag, was the worst since Israel set up its mission in Egypt, the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Tel Aviv, in 1979.Along with Jordan it is still one of only two Arab states to host an Israeli ambassador.
Since former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak's ouster in February following a popular revolt, activists have called for a revision of the peace treaty with Israel.
"The mob attack on the Israeli embassy is a serious incident," Israeli news website Ynet on Saturday quoted Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as saying.
"It was a painful blow to the peace between us and a grave violation of diplomatic norms," an Israeli official told AFP on condition of anonymity, adding that a senior diplomat stayed behind in Egypt after the ambassador and his staff were evacuated, to maintain delicate ties with Egypt.
"We left the deputy ambassador to keep up contact with the Egyptian government," the official said.Israeli army radio said the remaining diplomat was "in a safe place."
"Peace between Israel and Egypt is a strategic interest of both countries and must be maintained despite the angry mob on the streets," Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni told Ynet.
Egypt declared a state of alert after police clashed with protesters who raided the building housing Israel's embassy.It was the latest episode in worsening relations between Egypt and Israel since the killing of five Egyptian policemen last month on their common border as Israel hunted alleged militants after a deadly attack.
Zvi Mazel, a former Israeli ambassador to Egypt, said that military ruler and current de facto head of state Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi was out of touch with grassroots demonstrators."It's a situation of total anarchy where there is nobody on the military committee, General Tantawi or his friends, who can go to the Egyptian people and say 'Enough, finish, we have a problem. We have to revive the economy, move forward'," Mazel told public radio.
"The Egyptian interim military government is weak, unable to have a dialogue with the Egyptian people," he added.
Israel's latest Egyptian woes came hard on the heels of the worst exchange yet with Turkey, after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday threatened to send warships to escort any Turkish vessels trying to breach Israel's naval blockade of the Gaza Strip.
On Friday, Netanyahu's office said that the cabinet had considered various responses to a further worsening of already stormy relations with Turkey, but had not taken action."Israel acts and will act responsibly and hopes that Turkey will also act in the same way," it said in a statement.
Israel and Turkey have been locked in a bitter dispute since May 2010 when Israeli naval commandos stormed a convoy of six ships trying to reach Gaza in defiance of the blockade, killing nine Turks.The crisis deepened over the past week with Turkey expelling the Israeli ambassador and axing military ties and defence trade.
The United States on Friday sought to calm the situation between two of its allies."We're urging both sides to refrain from provocative action," said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland.
The worst may be yet to come for Israel on the diplomatic front, as the Palestinians plan to make their bid for membership in the United Nations later this month.They are to announce soon if they will apply to the Security Council to become a full member of the UN or seek recognition by the General Assembly.
Israel opposes both options but acknowledges that the Palestinians are likely to win majority support in the General Assembly.
Al Ahram Online http://english.ahram.org.eg (Egypt)
Fractured diplomatic relations with Egypt and Turkey leave Israel increasingly isolated ahead of Palestinian moves to seek UN recognition
Already embroiled in a fierce diplomatic row with former ally Turkey, Israel found itself in fresh crisis Saturday with southern neighbour Egypt after crowds entered and trashed its Cairo embassy.
Israel has few friends in the Muslim world, and the chill on two fronts further deepens its isolation ahead of Palestinian plans to seek full membership in the United Nations.
The overnight attack on the Cairo diplomatic mission, in which crowds smashed through an external security wall, tossed embassy papers from balconies and tore down the Israeli flag, was the worst since Israel set up its mission in Egypt, the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Tel Aviv, in 1979.Along with Jordan it is still one of only two Arab states to host an Israeli ambassador.
Since former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak's ouster in February following a popular revolt, activists have called for a revision of the peace treaty with Israel.
"The mob attack on the Israeli embassy is a serious incident," Israeli news website Ynet on Saturday quoted Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as saying.
"It was a painful blow to the peace between us and a grave violation of diplomatic norms," an Israeli official told AFP on condition of anonymity, adding that a senior diplomat stayed behind in Egypt after the ambassador and his staff were evacuated, to maintain delicate ties with Egypt.
"We left the deputy ambassador to keep up contact with the Egyptian government," the official said.Israeli army radio said the remaining diplomat was "in a safe place."
"Peace between Israel and Egypt is a strategic interest of both countries and must be maintained despite the angry mob on the streets," Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni told Ynet.
Egypt declared a state of alert after police clashed with protesters who raided the building housing Israel's embassy.It was the latest episode in worsening relations between Egypt and Israel since the killing of five Egyptian policemen last month on their common border as Israel hunted alleged militants after a deadly attack.
Zvi Mazel, a former Israeli ambassador to Egypt, said that military ruler and current de facto head of state Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi was out of touch with grassroots demonstrators."It's a situation of total anarchy where there is nobody on the military committee, General Tantawi or his friends, who can go to the Egyptian people and say 'Enough, finish, we have a problem. We have to revive the economy, move forward'," Mazel told public radio.
"The Egyptian interim military government is weak, unable to have a dialogue with the Egyptian people," he added.
Israel's latest Egyptian woes came hard on the heels of the worst exchange yet with Turkey, after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday threatened to send warships to escort any Turkish vessels trying to breach Israel's naval blockade of the Gaza Strip.
On Friday, Netanyahu's office said that the cabinet had considered various responses to a further worsening of already stormy relations with Turkey, but had not taken action."Israel acts and will act responsibly and hopes that Turkey will also act in the same way," it said in a statement.
Israel and Turkey have been locked in a bitter dispute since May 2010 when Israeli naval commandos stormed a convoy of six ships trying to reach Gaza in defiance of the blockade, killing nine Turks.The crisis deepened over the past week with Turkey expelling the Israeli ambassador and axing military ties and defence trade.
The United States on Friday sought to calm the situation between two of its allies."We're urging both sides to refrain from provocative action," said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland.
The worst may be yet to come for Israel on the diplomatic front, as the Palestinians plan to make their bid for membership in the United Nations later this month.They are to announce soon if they will apply to the Security Council to become a full member of the UN or seek recognition by the General Assembly.
Israel opposes both options but acknowledges that the Palestinians are likely to win majority support in the General Assembly.
sexta-feira, 3 de junho de 2011
A UN SECRETARY GENERAL VS FREEDOM FLOTILLA 2
2 june 2011, Al Jazira
Humanitarian ships to sail to Gaza again, despite current UN disapproval and a previous attempt that turned deadly.
Richard Falk*
It is expected that at the end of June, Freedom Flotilla 2 will set sail for Gaza, carrying various forms of humanitarian aid, including medical, school, and construction materials. This second flotilla will consist of 15 ships - including the Mavi Marmara from the first flotilla - sailing from Istanbul, but also vessels departing from several European countries, and carrying as many as 1,500 humanitarian activists as passengers. If these plans are carried out, as seems likely, it means that the second flotilla is about double the size of the first that was so violently intercepted by Israeli commandos in international waters on May 31, 2010, resulting in nine deaths on the Turkish lead ship.
Since that shocking incident of a year ago, the Arab Spring has changed the regional atmosphere, but it has not ended the unlawful blockade of Gaza, or the suffering inflicted on the Gazan population over the four-year period of coerced confinement. Such imprisonment of an occupied people has been punctuated by periodic violence, including the sustained all-out Israeli attack for three weeks at the end of 2008, during which even women, children, and the disabled were not allowed to leave the deadly killing fields of Gaza.
It is an extraordinary narrative of Israeli cruelty and deafening international silence. The silence was broken only by the brave civil society initiatives in recent years that brought both the symbolic relief of empathy and human solidarity, as well as the token amounts of substantive assistance in the form of much needed food and medicine. It is true that the new Egypt has opened the Rafah crossing a few days ago, allowing several hundred Gazans to leave or return to Gaza on a daily basis, but Rafah is not currently equipped to handle goods, and is available only to people, and so the blockade of imports and exports continues in force, and may even be intensified as Israel vents its anger over the Fatah/Hamas unity agreement.
Secretary General: No Flotilla
As the Greek coordinator of Freedom Flotilla 2, Vangelis Pisias has expressed the motivation of this new effort to break the blockade: "We will not allow Israel to set up open prisons and concentration camps." Connecting this Gazan ordeal to the wider regional struggles, Pisias added, "Palestine is in our heart and could be the symbol of a new era in the region."
A highly credible assessment of the Israeli 2010 attack on Freedom Flotilla 1 by a fact finding mission appointed by the UN Human Rights Council concluded that the Israelis had violated international law in several respects: by using excessive force, by wrongfully attacking humanitarian vessels in international waters, and by an unacceptable claim to be enforcing a blockade that was itself unlawful. Such views have been widely endorsed by a variety of respected sources throughout the international community, although the panel appointed by the UN Secretary General to evaluate the same incident has not yet made public its report, and apparently its conclusions will be unacceptably muted by the need to accommodate its Israeli member.
In light of these surrounding circumstances, including the failure of Israel to live up to its announced promise after the attack in 2010 to lift the blockade, it shocks our moral and legal sensibilities that the UN Secretary General should be using the authority of his office to persuade member governments to do their best to prevent ships from joining Freedom Flotilla 2. Ban Ki-moon shamelessly does not even balance such a call, purportedly to prevent the recurrence of violence, by at least sending an equivalent message to Israel insisting that the blockade end and that no force be used in relation to humanitarian initiatives of the sort being planned.
Instead of protecting those who would act on behalf of unlawful Palestinian victimisation, the UN Secretary General disgraces the office by taking a one-sided stand in support of one of the most flagrant and long lasting instances of injustice that has been allowed to persist in the world. True, his spokesperson tries to soften the impact of such a message by vacuously stating that "the situation in the Gaza Strip must be changed, and Israel must conduct real measures to end the siege." We must ask why were these thoughts not express by the Secretary General himself and directly to Israel? Public relations is part of his job, but it is not a cover for crassly taking the wrong side in the controversy over whether or not Freedom Flotilla 2 is a legitimate humanitarian initiative freely undertaken by civil society without the slightest credible threat to Israeli security.
Appropriately, and not unexpectedly, the Turkish Government refuses to bow to such abusive pressures even when backed by the UN at its highest level. Ahmet Davutoglu, the widely respected Turkish foreign minister, has said repeatedly in recent weeks when asked about Freedom Flotilla 2, that no democratic government should claim the authority to exercise control over the initiatives of civil society, as represented by NGOs. Davutoglu has been quoted as saying, "[N]obody should expect from Turkey... to forget that nine civilians were killed last year [...] Therefore we are sending a clear message to all those concerned. The same tragedy should not be repeated again." Underscoring the unresolved essential issue he asked rhetorically, "[D]o we think that one member state is beyond international law?" Noting that Israel has still not offered an apology to Turkey or compensation to the families of those killed, Davutoglu makes clear that until such reasonable preconditions are met, Israel cannot be accepted "to be a partner in the region".
Liberating Palestine: Arab Spring's second stage
We should not overlook that further in the background of this sordid effort to interfere with Freedom Flotilla 2 is the geopolitical muscle of the United States that blindly (and dumbly) backs Israel no matter how outrageous or criminal its behaviour. And undoubtedly, this geopolitical pressure helps explain this attempted interference with a courageous and needed humanitarian initiative that should have been affirmed by the UN rather than condemned. It needs to be kept in mind that despite the near universal verbal objections of world leaders, including even Ban Ki-moon, to the Israeli blockade, no meaningful action has been yet taken by either governments or the UN in the face of Israel's undisguised refusal to respect the requirements of belligerent occupation of Gaza as set forth in the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, and the First Additional Protocol appended thereto in 1977.
Liberating Palestine from occupation and refugee regimes should be a core, unifying priority of this second stage of the Arab Spring. Nothing could do more to manifest the external as well as the internal turn to democracy, constitutional governance, and human rights than displays of solidarity by new and newly reformist leaders in Arab countries with this unendurably long Palestinian struggle for justice and sustainable peace. It would also offer the world a contrast with the subservience to Israel recently on display in Washington, highlighted by inviting Binyamin Netanyahu to address an adoring US Congress, a rarity in the country's treatment of foreign leaders paralleling the pandering speech given by president Obama to AIPAC, the Israeli lobbying organisation. It is unprecedented in the history of diplomacy that a leading sovereign state would so jeopardise its interests and abandon its values so as to avoid offending a small allied partner. It is in the American interest, as well as in the interest of the peoples of the Arab world, particularly the Palestinians, to unravel this mystery, and if not, to move the resolution of the conflict from Washington to the more geopolitically trustworthy auspices of Brazil, Turkey, Nordic countries, and even possibly Russia or China.
*Richard Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Visiting Distinguished Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has authored and edited numerous publications spanning a period of five decades, most recently editing the volume International Law and the Third World: Reshaping Justice (Routledge, 2008).
He is currently serving his third year of a six year term as a United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights.
Humanitarian ships to sail to Gaza again, despite current UN disapproval and a previous attempt that turned deadly.
Richard Falk*
It is expected that at the end of June, Freedom Flotilla 2 will set sail for Gaza, carrying various forms of humanitarian aid, including medical, school, and construction materials. This second flotilla will consist of 15 ships - including the Mavi Marmara from the first flotilla - sailing from Istanbul, but also vessels departing from several European countries, and carrying as many as 1,500 humanitarian activists as passengers. If these plans are carried out, as seems likely, it means that the second flotilla is about double the size of the first that was so violently intercepted by Israeli commandos in international waters on May 31, 2010, resulting in nine deaths on the Turkish lead ship.
Since that shocking incident of a year ago, the Arab Spring has changed the regional atmosphere, but it has not ended the unlawful blockade of Gaza, or the suffering inflicted on the Gazan population over the four-year period of coerced confinement. Such imprisonment of an occupied people has been punctuated by periodic violence, including the sustained all-out Israeli attack for three weeks at the end of 2008, during which even women, children, and the disabled were not allowed to leave the deadly killing fields of Gaza.
It is an extraordinary narrative of Israeli cruelty and deafening international silence. The silence was broken only by the brave civil society initiatives in recent years that brought both the symbolic relief of empathy and human solidarity, as well as the token amounts of substantive assistance in the form of much needed food and medicine. It is true that the new Egypt has opened the Rafah crossing a few days ago, allowing several hundred Gazans to leave or return to Gaza on a daily basis, but Rafah is not currently equipped to handle goods, and is available only to people, and so the blockade of imports and exports continues in force, and may even be intensified as Israel vents its anger over the Fatah/Hamas unity agreement.
Secretary General: No Flotilla
As the Greek coordinator of Freedom Flotilla 2, Vangelis Pisias has expressed the motivation of this new effort to break the blockade: "We will not allow Israel to set up open prisons and concentration camps." Connecting this Gazan ordeal to the wider regional struggles, Pisias added, "Palestine is in our heart and could be the symbol of a new era in the region."
A highly credible assessment of the Israeli 2010 attack on Freedom Flotilla 1 by a fact finding mission appointed by the UN Human Rights Council concluded that the Israelis had violated international law in several respects: by using excessive force, by wrongfully attacking humanitarian vessels in international waters, and by an unacceptable claim to be enforcing a blockade that was itself unlawful. Such views have been widely endorsed by a variety of respected sources throughout the international community, although the panel appointed by the UN Secretary General to evaluate the same incident has not yet made public its report, and apparently its conclusions will be unacceptably muted by the need to accommodate its Israeli member.
In light of these surrounding circumstances, including the failure of Israel to live up to its announced promise after the attack in 2010 to lift the blockade, it shocks our moral and legal sensibilities that the UN Secretary General should be using the authority of his office to persuade member governments to do their best to prevent ships from joining Freedom Flotilla 2. Ban Ki-moon shamelessly does not even balance such a call, purportedly to prevent the recurrence of violence, by at least sending an equivalent message to Israel insisting that the blockade end and that no force be used in relation to humanitarian initiatives of the sort being planned.
Instead of protecting those who would act on behalf of unlawful Palestinian victimisation, the UN Secretary General disgraces the office by taking a one-sided stand in support of one of the most flagrant and long lasting instances of injustice that has been allowed to persist in the world. True, his spokesperson tries to soften the impact of such a message by vacuously stating that "the situation in the Gaza Strip must be changed, and Israel must conduct real measures to end the siege." We must ask why were these thoughts not express by the Secretary General himself and directly to Israel? Public relations is part of his job, but it is not a cover for crassly taking the wrong side in the controversy over whether or not Freedom Flotilla 2 is a legitimate humanitarian initiative freely undertaken by civil society without the slightest credible threat to Israeli security.
Appropriately, and not unexpectedly, the Turkish Government refuses to bow to such abusive pressures even when backed by the UN at its highest level. Ahmet Davutoglu, the widely respected Turkish foreign minister, has said repeatedly in recent weeks when asked about Freedom Flotilla 2, that no democratic government should claim the authority to exercise control over the initiatives of civil society, as represented by NGOs. Davutoglu has been quoted as saying, "[N]obody should expect from Turkey... to forget that nine civilians were killed last year [...] Therefore we are sending a clear message to all those concerned. The same tragedy should not be repeated again." Underscoring the unresolved essential issue he asked rhetorically, "[D]o we think that one member state is beyond international law?" Noting that Israel has still not offered an apology to Turkey or compensation to the families of those killed, Davutoglu makes clear that until such reasonable preconditions are met, Israel cannot be accepted "to be a partner in the region".
Liberating Palestine: Arab Spring's second stage
We should not overlook that further in the background of this sordid effort to interfere with Freedom Flotilla 2 is the geopolitical muscle of the United States that blindly (and dumbly) backs Israel no matter how outrageous or criminal its behaviour. And undoubtedly, this geopolitical pressure helps explain this attempted interference with a courageous and needed humanitarian initiative that should have been affirmed by the UN rather than condemned. It needs to be kept in mind that despite the near universal verbal objections of world leaders, including even Ban Ki-moon, to the Israeli blockade, no meaningful action has been yet taken by either governments or the UN in the face of Israel's undisguised refusal to respect the requirements of belligerent occupation of Gaza as set forth in the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, and the First Additional Protocol appended thereto in 1977.
Liberating Palestine from occupation and refugee regimes should be a core, unifying priority of this second stage of the Arab Spring. Nothing could do more to manifest the external as well as the internal turn to democracy, constitutional governance, and human rights than displays of solidarity by new and newly reformist leaders in Arab countries with this unendurably long Palestinian struggle for justice and sustainable peace. It would also offer the world a contrast with the subservience to Israel recently on display in Washington, highlighted by inviting Binyamin Netanyahu to address an adoring US Congress, a rarity in the country's treatment of foreign leaders paralleling the pandering speech given by president Obama to AIPAC, the Israeli lobbying organisation. It is unprecedented in the history of diplomacy that a leading sovereign state would so jeopardise its interests and abandon its values so as to avoid offending a small allied partner. It is in the American interest, as well as in the interest of the peoples of the Arab world, particularly the Palestinians, to unravel this mystery, and if not, to move the resolution of the conflict from Washington to the more geopolitically trustworthy auspices of Brazil, Turkey, Nordic countries, and even possibly Russia or China.
*Richard Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Visiting Distinguished Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has authored and edited numerous publications spanning a period of five decades, most recently editing the volume International Law and the Third World: Reshaping Justice (Routledge, 2008).
He is currently serving his third year of a six year term as a United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights.
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