Israel Hijacks Aid cargo, executes hostages - Pak journo, Talat Hussain taken hostage

[fatman17]

the state of Israel will continue to 'perpetuate' its policy of denying the palestenians their right to live in the holy lands as long as the US keeps looking the other way. what was the reaction of the Obama admn on the 'peace flotilla' - "we are disturbed by what has happened"!!! - this is like a 'spoilt brat' getting a ruler on his knuckles and the episode is over.

in the recent past history of the US admns (~20-30 years) only President R/Reagan had the 'guts' to actually 'suspend' delivery of military goods to Israel but had to lift the suspension after only 1-yr due to un-surmountable pressure from the jewish/zionist lobbies which practically 'control' the congress.

when Israel launched its operations against the palestinians in ~00/01, George Bush in a white-house press confrence 'ordered' Israel to 'stand-down' but Israel 'ignored' this order from its 'benefactor' and did what it wanted to do and continues to do so........until Israel is not 'isolated' 100%, countries like the US, UK, Germany, India will continue to look the other way and it will be business as usual with this jewish state!!!

 

[Solomon2]

How do we know they meant harm and started the violence?...

You're backtracking. This is no longer in dispute.

At the end of the day the people on board were killed by real Israeli bullets -

At the end of the day the militants attacked a peaceful and lawful boarding party and drew first blood.

Many would agree that it would be perfectly in line with what IDF has been doing in the past.

Have you never considered that one set up lies is built up upon another?

As per international law, the guarantee of a neutral nation with accompanying warships, renders the right of inspection by the blockading country as null and void.

Not at all.

Does the UN support the blockade?
Does the world support Israel on the blockade except USA which does it mostly out of its strategic interests?

Is this a popularity contest?

We are discussing that Israel is running a blockade as if it is a legal and humane action, it is a most brutal act in every sense of the word and has to be condemned...the people of Gaza are suffering tremendously under an inhuman act of denying them basic commodities of life in adequate numbers!

With 15,000 tons a week of supplies passing through Israel to Gaza, if it is a "brutal act" it is certainly a mild and measured one.

Nor do I believe you care about Gaza, or you would have also protested Hamas' refusal to let donated supplies into the country.

No mention of protocol would legitimize the blockade

A red herring. There is no question of "protocol" There is only the stark fact that EVERYTHING ISRAEL DID WAS LEGITIMATE!

The UN office for coordination of humanitarian affairs has state in May 2010 that formal economy has collapsed in Gaza.
What will this lead to?
Peace or violence?...Regardless of any justification, the blockade of Gaza is only making matters worse!

If arms or the capacity to manufacture them are allowed in to Gaza, then violence will certainly follow. Would you like that better?

Will this push the common man towards vengeance or silent acceptance of his fate?

"Vengeance or silent acceptance of his fate?" That's gross! Men shouldn't be worms to be squashed into the mud by force of arms. That is what Hamas does to the Palestinians. And you endorse this, holding that the only way out of this is for the victims to join the thugs!

When the lives of so many people are damaged and shaken up to the core the resulting hatred will breed violence in all segments of Palestinian society since the discrimination is universally applicable on them all.

The flotilla had nothing at all to do with alleviating this. If you really cared, you would have recommended remedial therapy, yes?

At the end of the day words are wind

So the truth that Israelis and Jews are victimized by many Arabs doesn't matter to you, does it?

the fact of the matter is that the same people who will condemn violence from the Palestinian side will be quite mute in comparison when Israel is pushing Gazans into a corner

There you go again, braying that all violence is created equal!

Let us examine what the UN fact finding mission has to say -

You're changing the subject.

the state of Israel will continue to 'perpetuate' its policy of denying the palestenians their right to live in the holy lands -

Is it not your "policy" that your neighbor lives in his house, not your own?

That raises the larger question of by what right do people live where they live? I suggest you study WWI and Middle East history starting when the Ottomans rationalized the system of land ownership in Palestine and continuing up to 1947.

But I think you have given me an answer: despite the fact that everything Israel did in the flotilla incident was perfectly legal, whereas what the militants did was illegal, Pakistanis won't openly condemn the militants because their public sympathy is with Muslim power, not the law, not the Jews, nor even the well-being of Muslims themselves.

And you wonder why Israel exists and why Pakistan is in so much trouble today? Can you now grasp that it is all connected, but not in the way you have been previously taught?

 

[Admiral]

i think no need to talk more on this thread gentelmen. there is one thing certain. israel lost Turkey, and Turkey is a side of palastine problem now. Everything will be harder for israel after this point.
the rest is not necessary for me

 

[Solomon2]

israel lost Turkey, and Turkey is a side of palastine problem now.

Do you really want Turkey to travel the road to becoming another Pakistan, rent from within and striking mercilessly without?

 

[Pasban]

rent from within and striking mercilessly without?

Could you further explain or clarify this part of your statement. Mainly, what do you mean by rent from within?

 

[Solomon2]

what do you mean by rent from within?

When you follow the road of rule-by-law rather than rule-of-law then who ever is at the helm holds too much power over the people. Citizens become subjects. Injustices multiply and cannot be heard in court. The injustices result in the search for alternatives and, eventually, separation with violence.

 

[Admiral]

When you follow the road of rule-by-law rather than rule-of-law then who ever is at the helm holds too much power over the people. Citizens become subjects. Injustices multiply and cannot be heard in court. The injustices result in the search for alternatives and, eventually, separation with violence.

A zionist is the last person who can teach us how to act. As i told before, dog barks but caravan goes on Dont try to give me moral lessons Solomon. dont you have even a piece of honor? so much hypocrisy is enough i guess...

 

[Solomon2]

A zionist is the last person who can teach us how to act.

"Us?"

Dont try to give me moral lessons Solomon. dont you have even a piece of honor?

Do I not expose the guilty, defend the innocent, and offer charity through enlightenment to the stranger?

 

[Admiral]

"Us?"

Do I not expose the guilty, defend the innocent, and offer charity through enlightenment to the stranger?

Keep cycling mumbo jumbo... play on words and meanings just like kids. Go on Solomon, go on... you are very wise and i m your admirer. you are my role model please share your wisdom with me and earn this infidel during your journey to the eternal light...

 

[Solomon2]

No One Cares About Gaza

Michael J. Totten - 06.10.2010 - 1:47 PM

You might think that with all the wailing and gnashing of teeth over Gaza lately, the Palestinian suffering would move people like no other cause in the world, but if so, you would be wrong. Few activists, journalists, or diplomats genuinely seem to care what those people are going through.

Consider this: Hamas, not Israel, refuses to allow donated food and medicine in. If it’s “collective punishment” when Israel restricts certain items, what should we call it when Hamas refuses all of the items? Few seem to have given it any thought. So far I haven’t found a single person indignant about the Israeli blockade who has said or written a word about Hamas refusing to allow donated goods into the territory. Even those who actually donated and delivered the items are quiet about it.

And consider what Palestinian journalist Khaled Abu Toameh wrote at the Hudson New York website on Tuesday. He describes how the Hamas raid on several non-governmental and human-rights organization offices recently was largely ignored by the media, how Hamas banned municipal elections, how hundreds have been arrested for protesting its draconian rule, and how dozens of opposition leaders have been jailed or killed since the terrorist army seized power. “Under Hamas,” he writes, “the Gaza Strip is being transformed into a fundamentalist Islamic entity resembling the regimes of the Ayatollahs in Iran and the Taliban in Afghanistan.”

And yet, for the most part, the only people who vigorously protest Hamas are Palestinians, Israelis, and Israel’s supporters in Western countries. Most “pro-Palestinian” activists in the Middle East and the West hardly say anything about the Taliban of the Eastern Mediterranean except when cheering them on at creepy rallies.

An extraordinary amount of time and energy has been spent in the last ten days denouncing Israel for its supposedly inhumane treatment of Gaza, but Hamas — under which Palestinians fare orders of magnitude worse — gets a pass from most of the people yelling at Israel. It’s not hard to figure out who and what all the fuss is really about. If Gaza weren’t at war with a half-Western Jewish country, Palestinians who suffer as a result would get no more attention than victims of the civil conflict in Yemen.

---------- Post added at 02:27 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:26 PM ----------

What About Hamas's Siege of Gaza?

by Khaled Abu Toameh
June 8, 2010 at 5:00 am

As Israeli naval commandos raided the flotilla ship convoy that was on its way to the Gaza Strip, Hamas security officers stormed the offices of five non-governmental organizations, confiscated equipment and documents, and ordered them closed indefinitely.

Ever since it seized control over the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007, Hamas has imposed a reign of terror on the local population in general and its critics in particular. Hamas has brought nothing to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip other than death and disaster.

The raid on the NGOs in the Gaza Strip, which received little coverage in the media, is seen by many Palestinians as part of Hamas's ongoing crackdown on political opponents and human rights organizations.

Further, Hamas's recent decision to ban municipal elections in the Gaza Strip is yet another violation of one of the basic rights of its constituents.

Hundreds of Palestinians have been arrested by Hamas's security forces for daring to speak out against the state of tyranny and intimidation in the Gaza Strip. Over the past three years, dozens of Fatah officials and members have either been thrown into prison or killed.

Under Hamas, the Gaza Strip is being transformed into a fundamentalist Islamic entity resembling the regimes of the Ayatollahs in Iran and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

While there is no ignoring the fact that Hamas originally came to power in a free and democratic election in January 2006, this does not give the movement the right to impose a social, intellectual, political and economic blockade on the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Instead of searching for ways to improve the living conditions of the 1.5 million Palestinians of the Gaza Strip, Hamas is busy enforcing strict Islamic rules on the population, such as Hamas policemen, for example, often stopping men and women who are seen together in public to inquire about the nature of their relationship.

Since the kidnapping of IDF soldier Gilad Schalit in 2006, more than 3,500 Palestinians have been killed, many of them during Operation Cast Lead which followed the firing of rockets at Israel.

The kidnapping of Schalit and the rocket attacks have made the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip pay a very heavy price.

If Hamas were really serious about ending the blockade on the Gaza Strip and helping the poor people living there, it would have accepted at least shown some pragmatism in dealing with the outside world.

Hamas could have, for instance, accepted the international community's demand to renounce terrorism and honor all previous agreements signed between the Palestinians and Israel. Moreover, it could have allowed representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit Schalit.

Hamas, however, is more interested in clinging to power than in serving its people; and in light of increased calls for lifting the blockade following the flotilla incident at sea, the movement's leaders in Syria and the Gaza Strip are now convinced that they are marching in the right direction.

The flotilla incident came at a time when Hamas appeared to be losing its popularity among Palestinians, largely due to the deteriorating economic situation in the Gaza Strip. It also came at a time when even some of Hamas's supporters were beginning to criticize the movement, especially over its decision to demolish scores of "illegal" houses in the southern Gaza Strip and the execution of criminals and "collaborators" with Israel.

It is one thing to help the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, but it is another thing to help Hamas. Those who wish to deliver aid to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip can always find better and safer ways to do so - either through Israel or Egypt. But those who only seek confrontation with Israel in the sea are only emboldening Hamas and helping it tighten its grip on the people of Gaza Strip.

 

[Solomon2]

Kuwaiti Journalist: The Flotilla Was Violent; Israel Has a Right to Defend Itself

In a June 3, 2010 article in the daily Al-Watan, Kuwaiti journalist 'Abdallah Al-Hadlaq supported Israel's decision to stop the Gaza flotilla, saying that the outcome of the Israeli navy's operation was "in direct proportion to the violence" of the flotilla activists, and that the flotilla organizers are known to have ties with global and regional terror organizations.

The following are excerpts:[1]

"The Weapons had Clearly been Prepared in Advance... and the Soldiers had No Nhoice but to Respond"

"The Israeli navy gave repeated warnings to the ships [of the flotilla], which tried to break the blockade on the terroristic Hamas movement in Gaza, and also invited them to enter the Ashdod port and unload their cargo of 'aid' supplies, so it could be thoroughly examined by the security [forces] before being delivered by land to the Gaza Strip. When the flotilla failed to heed these warnings and requests, the Israeli navy had no choice but to take over the ships. [In doing so], the IDF troops encountered violent [opposition] that had been planned in advance: the flotilla participants assaulted them with firearms, metal pipes, knives and clubs, and grabbed the rifle of one of the soldiers. The weapons had clearly been prepared in advance... and the soldiers had no choice but to respond, including with live fire.

"The Israeli navy operation was conducted according to orders and instructions of the highest political echelons, [and aimed at] stopping the ships and keeping them from breaching the naval blockade and reaching Gaza. The warning message sent by the Israeli navy [to the Mavi Marmara] was as follows: 'To the captain of the [Mavi] Marmara: You are approaching an area of hostilities, which is under a naval blockade. The Gaza coastal area and Gaza Harbor are closed to maritime traffic. We invite you to enter the Ashdod port, from whence the aid supplies will be delivered through the formal land crossing [to Gaza], after which you can return to your home ports."[2] It should be noted that, according to the 1993 Oslo Accords, Israel retains control of a 40-kilometer strip of water off the Gaza coast."

"The [Flotilla] Organizers are Supporters of Movements and Organizations such as [Global] Jihad, Hamas, Hizbullah and Al-Qaeda"

"The flotilla, which was supported by the terroristic Hamas movement and tried to breach the blockade on this movement in Gaza, was a preplanned provocation against Israel. The grave outcome [of the takeover] was in direct proportion to the violence [employed by the flotilla activists] as they tried [to breach the blockade]. The [flotilla] organizers are supporters of movements and organizations such as [global] Jihad, Hamas, Hizbullah and Al-Qaeda, and have a black record in terms of smuggling arms and [perpetrating] terror operations. And indeed, the Israeli forces discovered on the ships weapons and ammunition that had been prepared in advance.

"The naval blockade on the Hamas movement in Gaza is legal in light of this movement's actions in the Strip. Had Israel allowed the flotilla – which was not legal – to reach the Hamas movement, it would have opened a route for smuggling weapons and terrorists into the Gaza Strip. No sovereign country would allow its citizens or its sovereignty to be harmed. Moreover, the attempt to force a path to Gaza by sea does not [really] benefit the people of Gaza, since the land crossings are sufficient for [the purpose of] supplying their needs. International aid organizations provide Gaza with all the necessary food, clothing and medical [supplies]. Over 15,000 tons of basic aid supplies enter the Strip every week. Construction materials enter it under the supervision of international organizations, in order to prevent the terroristic Hamas movement from commandeering them and using them for building military fortifications. The land crossings are the most efficient way to deliver supplies to Gaza, and the flotilla organizers know this perfectly well. They also know that since December 2008, their ships are not allowed to approach [the Gaza coast].

"The protests and demonstrations that broke out in various capitals are without meaning or value, as are the emergency summits [convened by] the Arab League, the E.U. and the U.N. The wave of protests will not change a thing, but a full and immediate investigation of the events will reveal all the details of what really happened... and [then] everyone will know the truth about the Hamas movement..."
Endnotes:

[1] Al-Watan (Kuwait), June 3, 2010. It should be noted that, at a June 4, 2010 rally, Hizbullah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah said that some papers in the Gulf had published papers supporting the IDF raid on the flotilla, but their authors were a minority that would be taken care of by people of honor. Al-Safir (Lebanon), June 5, 2010.

[2] The full message of the Israeli navy was as follows: "You are approaching an area of hostilities, which is under a naval blockade. Gaza coastal area and Gaza Harbor are closed to maritime traffic. The Israeli government supports delivery of humanitarian supplies to the civilian population in Gaza Strip and invites you to enter Ashdod port. Delivery of supplies will be in accordance with the authorities' regulations and through the formal land crossing to Gaza and under your observation, after which you can return to your home ports." The reply was: "Negative, negative. Our destination is Gaza."

 

[Wounded Healer]

Do you really want Turkey to travel the road to becoming another Pakistan, rent from within and striking mercilessly without?

What is wrong with you Solomon?

This thread is not about Pakistan, but still you keep on giving our example just trying to prove your worthless point.

Why are you so Pakistan-centric? Do other Jews think like you as well? Are you that much threatened by us that you have launched an online campaign just to malign Pakistan? Why, when this thread is about Israel's attack on an aid Flotilla, do you keep bringing Pakistan into it?

You are beginning to show your true colors Mr.Solomon2. I thought you were smarter than that.

 

[Solomon2]

What is wrong with you Solomon? This thread is not about Pakistan...Why, when this thread is about Israel's attack on an aid Flotilla, do you keep bringing Pakistan into it?

It isn't? The Israelis acted according to the law and with both justice and mercy when they were illegally attacked by Islamic militants. Pakistanis, among others, have twisted that backwards. That's a kind of illness, isn't it? So that makes this thread about Pakistan, too.

but still you keep on giving our example just trying to prove your worthless point.

If it was worthless why don't you follow Admiral's advice and ignore me rather than attempt to argue my points?

Are you that much threatened by us that you have launched an online campaign just to malign Pakistan?

"Malign" or enlighten?

You are beginning to show your true colors Mr.Solomon2.

What "colors" did I ever hide? I have ALWAYS described myself as a Zionist!

 

[Thomas]

Anyone heard if Iran is still planning to send ships since this article was published on the 8th?


Iran prepares to confront Israel with aid flotilla
By Catrina Stewart in Jerusalem
Tuesday, 8 June 2010
Iran prepares to confront Israel with aid flotilla - Middle East, World - The Independent


The iranian red crescent is planning to send humanitarian aid by sea to Gaza in a brazen challenge to Israel's sea blockade of the coastal enclave. The attempt to confront Israel's naval defences could escalate tensions between Israel and Iran, its greatest foe, and trigger a rerun of the bungled raid on a Turkish vessel bound for Gaza last week that left nine activists dead.

The move came as Israel bowed to international pressure to conduct an investigation into the botched flotilla operation. The Israeli Defence Minister, Ehud Barak, said yesterday that Israel would conduct an internal inquiry and examine ways of easing the blockade in Gaza, a step short of the United Nations' demand for an international probe.

"We intend to achieve an investigation of the events," Mr Barak said, adding that the inquiry would also examine the legality of the Gaza blockade. "We will draw lessons at the political level, [and] in the security establishment."

Earlier, US Vice President Joe Biden held talks with the Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, on new ways to approach the humanitarian and economic situation in Gaza amid signs that Washington's support for the blockade may be wearing thin. An unnamed Egyptian security official said that the blockade had been a failure and that Egypt would keep open "indefinitely" its border crossing with Gaza. The Egyptian crossing is open only to students, medical patients and foreign passport holders.

The Iranian Red Crescent, which is backed by the Islamic regime, said on its website that it had been inundated with requests from volunteers to join its three-ship convoy to Gaza, and so has decided to extend the deadline by another two weeks. It could set sail later this month.

Israel, which has agitated for a pre-emptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, denounced the plans as "hardcore provocation" and "a threat made before deep thinking".

"If they actually send ships, it would mean they're looking for a confrontation," said Yigal Palmor, a foreign ministry spokesman. He did not indicate how Israel would respond, but officials have insisted that they will not allow any ships to break the blockade.

Israel has justified its land and sea blockade on the grounds that it stops the flow of weapons to the Islamist group Hamas, which governs Gaza. Critics say that the blockade has strengthened Hamas and caused a humanitarian crisis.

It remains unclear how Iran would move aid ships into the Mediterranean without the help of neighbouring countries. The most direct route is through the Suez Canal, which is governed by an international treaty, but Egypt, which has supported Israel's blockade of Gaza, would be likely to stop it.

At the weekend, Iran reportedly suggested that it might send the Iranian Republican Guard to protect future convoys, a move that would be viewed by Israel as a direct challenge to its authority.

The International Federation of the Red Cross, which represents the Iranian Red Crescent abroad, said that it did not have any information on the shipments and could not comment.

Israel drew global condemnation when it launched a bloody assault last Monday on a Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmara, which was part of a six-ship humanitarian convoy attempting to break the Gaza blockade. Israel claimed that its soldiers came under premeditated attack from hardcore activists aboard the ship. Several passengers have alleged that the shooting began before Israeli soldiers landed on deck.

Although the mission, organised by the Free Gaza Movement, was unsuccessful, it drew international attention to the humanitarian conditions of Palestinians in Gaza, who have lived under siege since Hamas seized power in 2007.

Meir Javedanfar, an expert on Iran, said that Tehran was seeking to steal back the limelight from Turkey. "If anything, the Iranians are going to damage the credibility of the Free Gaza Movement," he said. The risk is that Israel would attempt to stop this new convoy with force as it did on the Marmara, provoking a wider conflict.

Israeli naval commandos shot dead four Palestinian divers yesterday some 100 metres off the Gaza shoreline. Israel said the men, members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, a militant group loosely aligned with Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction, were planning an attack. One of the survivors said that the men were unarmed and had been taking part in swimming training.

'Witch-hunt' of flotilla MP

An Arab Israeli member of parliament accused colleagues of conducting a "witch-hunt" before a panel voted to strip her of parliamentary privileges for taking part in the flotilla aimed at breaching Israel's sea blockade of Gaza.

The Knesset's House Committee voted seven to one in favour of stripping Haneen Zuabi, a member of the opposition Balad party, of parliamentary privileges including the right to a diplomatic passport and legal financial support.

The move, which must be approved by the Knesset, is likely to erode further already fragile relations with Israel's Arab community who took Israeli citizenship
in 1948. Right-wing politicians have used the flotilla incident to renew their attack on Arab politicians perceived as disloyal to the Jewish State.

Ms Zuabi, 41, joined hundreds of protesters aboard the Mavi Marmara, one of six vessels loaded with humanitarian aid that tried to breach the Israeli-led blockade of Gaza last week. In a botched assault of the ship, Israeli commandos killed nine of the activists and drew global condemnation.

Ms Zuabi's participation in the protest drew intense anger in Israel. She was pushed, poked and jostled by colleagues in the Knesset last week and a Facebook page calling for her execution soon attracted thousands of followers. Interior Minister Eli Yishai has called on the Attorney General to strip Ms Zuabi of her Israeli citizenship.

She said members of her left-wing party, who stand up for Arab-Israeli rights, had been victims of a witch-hunt. She boycotted yesterday's parliamentary discussion.

"The decision is racist and anti-democratic," the Balad party said in a statement. The MPs "who incite against Zuabi spill her blood – they are calling on the public to harm her and following their decision, her life will be threatened."

Before the vote, Yariv Levin, a member of the right-wing Likud Party and chairman of the House Committee, said that Ms Zuabi had betrayed Israel.

"What Zuabi did crossed the line and even in a democracy there must be red lines. Whoever sails to [Islamist movement] Hamas is a supporter of terror," said Levin, Ha'aretz reported.

Catrina Stewart

 

[fatman17]

Military victory, political loss

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Praful Bidwai

There is a stunning precedent to Israel's attack on the Freedom Flotilla which carried humanitarian aid for Gaza, which is under a three year-long blockade.

In 1947, the ship Exodus 1947, carrying 4,500 Holocaust survivors, left France for Palestine, then under Britain's "mandate" and also under a blockade. Britain stormed the ship on the high seas, killing three persons and injured scores. The passengers were removed, humiliated and deported to Germany.

International outrage over the incident forced Britain to give up its "mandate". The incident also spurred the creation of Israel. The Exodus was called "The Ship That Launched a Nation".

In attacking the Mavi Marmara in the Freedom flotilla, Israel committed a condemnable act of illegal brigandage and suffered a loss of global legitimacy. The incident, in which nine people were killed, could prove a tipping point in Israel's occupation of Palestine -- if international opinion is powerfully mobilised.

The Israeli military wove a web of lies about the flotilla, alleging the presence of Al Qaeda in the ship. These stories didn't sell. But Israel continues to assert that it exercised the "right of self-defence". There can be no such right for heavily armed commandos attacking unarmed civilians in international waters.

The episode highlights the Israeli government's criminal character and turns the limelight on the blockade of Gaza. Going by the strong reactions by many Western powers, the episode will further isolate Israel.

Israel's behaviour, though shocking, was in line with its past conduct, including its increasingly inhuman occupation of Palestine and its propensity to deal with threats, real or imaginary, with military force -- witness the 1981 attack on an Iraqi nuclear reactor under construction, and the 1982 and 2006 invasions of Lebanon.

No other country has defied as many Security Council resolutions as Israel. It maligns even its mildest critics as anti-Semitic. Paranoid Israel lives with a make-believe self-perception of victimhood, and is obsessed with security defined in anti-Palestinian terms.

Israel's government today includes the far right and fascists such as foreign minister Avigdor Liebermann, who wants all Palestinians driven out of the West bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

Israel has turned Gaza into the world's largest open-air prison and systematically impoverished it. The blockade covers 2,000 items, including glass, paper, cancer medicine, toys and chocolate. The flotilla aimed to break the siege with 10,000 tonnes of relief material like wheelchairs, and pencils for schoolchildren, which are banned.

Over four-fifths of Gaza's 1.5 million people are dependent on international food aid. Sixty-five per cent of them are children, of whom ten per cent are permanently stunted from undernourishment. In Gaza, unemployment runs at a crushing 50 per cent.

Gaza was left devastated by Israel's invasion of December 2008, which killed 1,400 civilians, and damaged or destroyed 11,000 houses, 105 factories, 20 hospitals and clinics and 159 educational institutions. Of the 51,800 people displaced, 20,000 still remain homeless.

Karen Koning Abu Zayd, former head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, says: "Gaza is on the threshold of [being] intentionally reduced to … abject destitution, with the knowledge, acquiescence and…encouragement of the international community."

The blockade amounts to collective punishment of civilians under foreign military occupation, prohibited under international law. As UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories Richard Falk, also an eminent US jurist, put it: such massive collective punishment "is a crime against humanity, as well as a gross violation of…Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention".

The UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict led by South African jurist Richard Goldstone, also a Jew, concluded that Gaza's blockade may amount to persecution, a crime against humanity. Israel attempted to discredit Goldstone.

Israel evidently prefers being seen as savage, rather than weak. But this makes little difference to Israel's sworn enemies like Hamas and Hezbollah. And it deeply embarrasses Israel's allies. The cost of defending Israel is steep and rising.

The Gaza siege has become a huge political liability and must be called off. But Israel is taking wantonly contrarian positions because it fears that if the siege ends, critical global attention on its occupation of Palestine will trigger its unravelling.

Contrarian behaviour comes naturally to Israel. For instance, it built close relations with apartheid South Africa. The Unspoken Alliance: Israel's Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa, a just-published book by US-based scholar Sasha Pulakow-Suransky, documents how Israel sold arms to South Africa, then under international sanctions, and more crucially, clandestinely gave it nuclear weapons.

The nuclear deal was struck between South Africa's defence minister PW Botha and Shimon Peres, then Israel's defence minister, now its president. With Israel's help, South Africa is believed to have made at least six nuclear weapons, which it destroyed when apartheid's end became imminent.

Israel gets away with its consistently roguish behaviour primarily because of the United States' support. This, in some respects, is a hangover from the Cold War when Israel was an important strategic ally. It no longer is. And the influence of the US's legendarily powerful Zionist lobby is in decline.

Even American Jewish opinion is turning critical of Israel. About half the participants in recent anti-occupation demonstrations in the US were Jews.

The US would have earned much global goodwill, neutralised some jihadi opposition, and strengthened its own security had it criticised the flotilla attack.

Washington could yet shift its stance -- if it finds the cost of cleaning up after Israel exorbitant. The recall of their ambassadors to Israel by many countries is a pointer in that same direction.

Israel has lost its only friend in the Islamic world, Turkey. Until recently, the two had close military relations both within and outside NATO. Turkey voted for Israel's unfortunate entry into the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Turkey is an emerging regional power, which seeks a high profile. It recently agreed with Brazil to exchange slightly enriched uranium from Iran with medium-enriched material for its "research" reactor.

If Israel continues to ignore sane advice, it will be eventually reined the way apartheid South Africa was -- by a combination of global sanctions and external pressure, with opposition from the Palestinians and sections of domestic and global Jewish opinion.

Falk urges: "It is time to insist on the end of the blockade of Gaza. The worldwide campaign of boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel is now a moral and political imperative..." He warns: "Unless prompt and decisive action is taken to challenge the Israeli approach to Gaza, all of us will be complicit in criminal policies that are challenging the survival of an entire beleaguered community."

The BDS campaign is gaining momentum in many countries, but not in South Asia. India is building close relations with Israel, led by huge arms-purchase deals and counter-terrorism intelligence sharing. This is a historic blunder. India must fundamentally revise its approach to Israel. Pakistan too must cease and desist from holding clandestine talks with Israeli leaders.

This won't happen unless South Asian political parties, civil society organisations and the intelligentsia launch a powerful BDS campaign, which demands a complete cessation of military purchases and joint ventures, a boycott of Israeli products, beginning with those made in the occupied territories, and sanctions. This campaign has become urgently imperative.



The writer, a former newspaper editor, is a researcher and peace and human-rights activist based in Delhi. Email: prafulbidwai1 @yahoo.co.in


read and weep solomon2 - this is what you r defending - a pariah nation!!!