June 11 , 2010
The Meaning of Israeli Piracy
Over Memorial Day weekend Israel attacked a flotilla of ships carrying desperately needed supplies to the people of Gaza. The attack occurred in international waters, 70 miles from land, and was therefore an act of piracy, compounded by the deaths of 10 civilian aid workers who were murdered by an elite Israeli commando unit, which then preposterously claimed they were the injured party acting in self-defense. When heavily armed men rappel down onto ships on the high seas in the dead of night, they can’t credibly claim self-defense if those on board don’t take kindly to pirates.
The real issue was the burning desire of Israel to enforce and maintain the illegal blockade and collective punishment of the 1.5 million civilians trapped in the giant Israeli prison known as Gaza. Israel even offered to offload the supplies on the ships and send them to Gaza rather than let the ships pass, what it did not want was to lose control over Gaza and the siege it has maintained for three years.
The Israelis are punishing Gaza because it is ruled by Hamas, but what made Hamas rule possible was the Israeli decision to withdraw from Gaza unilaterally, rather than through a negotiated handover to the Palestinian Authority. The latter course would have strengthened the forces of peace, but the former validated Hamas, and allowed it to credibly claim it was Hamas that chased Israel out of Gaza.
This naval action also dissolves the Israeli claim that they no longer occupy Gaza. Israeli in fact insists it is the sovereign power over Gaza, with the right to bomb and kill its inhabitants, to invade and obliterate one thousand Palestinians on the pretext that some homemade Palestinian fireworks (the Qassem “rockets”) killed 2 Israelis, and to deny 1.5 million people the most minimal of human rights in direct violation of the Geneva Convention. If Israel allowed the ships through, then the blockade would be ended, hence the need to stop the flotilla at all costs.
Israel insists that the people of Gaza are getting all they need already, and that there is no humanitarian crisis. But no credible international body has agreed with this. Both the UN and Amnesty International have issued major reports on the conditions in Gaza, and the picture is one of malnutrition, hunger, poverty, unemployment, despair, and vast unmet medical and public health needs. If Israel genuinely believes the people of Gaza are so well cared for, then why did they offer to deliver the aid goods themselves through an Israeli-controlled port?
This episode begs the question: what are the Israelis trying to accomplish? Why do they fear Gaza so much that it must be kept firmly under their boot at all costs? The Israelis are in a state of panic. They have no way out of the situation they have created, the end result of 43 years of occupation of the Palestinians, and they cannot even visualize a solution. In public they make much of Hamas, that it is genocidal in its rejection of Israel, and that if allowed to thrive it will bring about another Holocaust. But Hamas is not an organization, it is the product of the collective despair of the Palestinian people, which is why the occupation, no matter how harsh, will never destroy it. And it is the Palestinians themselves, and their just claims for equity, that keep Israel’s leaders awake at night.
There are three possible solutions to the conflict. The first is that offered by Israel’s government, and most right-wing elements in Israel. Israel keeps control of the West Bank and Gaza forever, the Palestinians live in some sort of protectorate/Bantustan set of enclaves, the settlements remain and grow, and the rest of the world accepts this apartheid arrangement for another hundred years.
The second solution is offered by Hamas. Israel is forced to accept a single state, with Palestinians becoming equal citizens, and over the next several decades they increasingly become the majority. “ Israel” becomes a majority Arabic speaking Muslim country, most secular Jews leave to the West, and Hamas achieves its goals without war or genocide . The remaining Jews live as the Muslims citizens of Israel live today, with pro-forma legal citizenship, but de facto third class status. The final option is to do what liberal Israelis and the majority of Palestinians have been trying to do for the last twenty years: create two states by having Israel withdraw from the West Bank and remove its settlements. This last solution is in Israel’s long-term best interest, but it lacks a champion, either in Israel or in the US. Without that, it is hopeless. The attack on the boats is just a symptom of the deeper disease within Israel, the one that prefers apartheid to peace.
