Religion & Beliefs
7 Reasons I’m Conflicted About the Freedom Flotilla
By Daniel Sieradski / June 2, 2010
1. The blockade of Gaza is wrong and must end. After several years, I think we can all agree that Israel’s not going to succeed in starving the Palestinian people into rejecting Hamas. It didn’t work in Cuba, it’s not going to work in Gaza. 2. Individuals have a right to protest injustice and an obligation to attempt to circumvent unjust laws. The flotilla participants are therefore justified in their attempt to break the blockade. 3. Whether legally justifiable or not, the IDF had no business sending commandos to board a foreign vessel in international waters under the cover of night, least of all with weapons turned against civilians. The raid on the flotilla demonstrates an inexcusable lack of proper judgment, and our hearts should rend for all victims of this assault.
That said:
4. By engaging in violence against the IDF, the activists aboard the vessel gave Israel plausible deniability that their soldiers were acting in self-defense, thereby turning what would have been a propaganda slam dunk into a rimshot. Worse yet, they have demonstrated succinctly to Israel’s supporters and allies that they, and by extension all Palestinian solidarity activists, are neither non-violent nor pro-peace. This hampers their cause and the greater cause of Palestinian liberation. 5. By partnering with ?nsani Yard?m Vakf?, an Islamic relief organization that has been tied by the CIA and Mossad to al Qaeda and other terror groups, the Free Gaza movement has cast doubts on the credibility of their activities. Worse yet, that a scimitar wielding Islamist aboard the ship was allowed to prance before television cameras while others likened the flotilla to the Battle of Khyber indicates, at best, that the Free Gaza movement’s communications team has a big messaging problem, and at worst, that the floatilla is nothing more than a tool of radical Islamists bent on Israel’s destruction. 6. Because the amount and nature of aid being transferred by the floatilla to Gaza is insignificant considering Gaza’s true needs, the conclusion is inescapable that this activity was merely symbolic and deliberately intended to provoke an IDF response that would evince Israel’s barbarism. Mission accomplished, apparently. But to keep representing this as an honest-to-goodness humanitarian mission focused on the transfer of relief supplies is deceptive and disingenuous. 7. Israel’s reaction to this provocation suggests that the Netanyahu administration is either a) insane, b) incompetent, c) all of the above, or d) working towards a major concession—such as endorsing the creation of a Palestinian state—which requires the political cover of international pressure in order to succeed. However, the end result of this particular interdiction will only be the further isolation of Israel from the international community and a mounting conviction that Israel is operating as a rogue state. This is untenable for Israel’s survival.
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They are ruled by a terrorist Govt. America and Europe would and has gone on rampages because of attacks so in my opinion Israel should cripple Gaza and forbid it to have any war reasourses.
Luis, you should look up this new trend that is popping up called "freedom of speech."  It’s really going to blow your mind Â
Why is anti-Zionist scum allowed to come on a Jewish website and preach about human rights?!
There is no place for anti-Jewish parasites masquerading as civil rights defenders here.
Dear Spawn of an Egyptian Slave (Ishmael), do your own rusty people a favor, and advocate human rights on Islamic forums!
Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the past 100 years, which unlike most of your brethren, it doesn’t look like you were, then you surely must realize the urgent need Muslim nations have for zealous defenders of human rights like you.
It would be preferrable if you go directly to the heart of the Religion of Peace — Saudi Arabia — and preach to the sheikhs how evil they are to flog and jail people for crossing gender segregation lines, how inhumane it is to behead people for adultery, and enlighten them on a plethora of other human rights violations.
Meanwhile, JEWcy will try hard to entertain some hope of hearing again from you in the future, and not because you’d have changed your mind, but because a changed mind is useless when it loses its connection to the torso.
Unless you have camelshit for brains though, you will realize the danger of such an endeavor, and go back to a much safer stance, like attacking blameless Israel, where human rights are encouraged even to its own detriment.
Id like to see an aid mission to Kurdistan, a distinct nation that is oppressed by both Turkey and Iran. Once Turkey breaks diplomatic relations with Israel, which is inevitable given the momentum for this in Turkey, Israel should arm the Kurds and let them throw off Turkish and Iranian rule
melpol – did you fall head-first off of a tree?
There will come a time when Arabs and Jews will live together peacefully
in a new Arabia. But superstitious beliefs cannot be quickly erased and
the best minds will remain on Jewish shoulders. Arabs one day will
match Jewish excellence, but the grandchildren of Albert Einstein will
always be the best accountants.
Just for reference: the Mavi Marmara alone can carry about 4,000 tons or cargo.
Wait, what’s 4,000 by 6? I recon the flotilla could’ve carried more than twice the tonnage it was carrying.
@ Daniel:
Israel is at WAR with Hamas, and international law permits the attack on neutral vessels flying neutral flags in INTERNATIONAL waters if those ships are aiding the enemy. http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/FULL/560?OpenDocument
To say that the blockade runners are justified, but the IDF’s raid was not is the height of moral subjectivity.
BTW:The organizers of this flotilla don’t give a damn about Gaza, or the blockade, or the Palestinians. If the point of this action was aid then they would’ve docked at Ashdod and delivered their aspirin peaceably. I don’t think there is anything wrong with the flotilla’s political agenda, just like I think there is nothing wrong with the IDF’s political response.
Those who don’t see the cynicism of using an aid flotilla to make a political statement are betraying their apathy to Gazans’ plight. Unless of course the entire "blockade" is really nothing more than a tiny boycott which leaves no-one starving. Consider the fact that six ships were used to carry only 10,000 tons of cargo. Some utilization of resources for the benefit of all those starving Palestinians! Consider the fact that the Mavi Marmara is a cruise liner which may have been carring food instead of 100 trained mujihadeen and 600 useful morons.
And where oh where have the EGYPTIAN blocakde runners been?
I can’t really disagree with any of your points.Â
One thing I’d like to add: Israel has resumed peaceful enforcement of the blockade, diverting ships to Ashdod to inspect for weapons before releasing the relief items to the Gazans. One wonders why they didn’t do the same before.
That’s why I’d like to add:
8. Israel’s response was an opportunity to "teach a lesson" (something the Israeli right loves to do), the other side of the coin to #6. It gives the Likud-headed coalition some red meat to feed its supporters (people like these here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBs2b5OvyIo), reason for them to lavish themselves in the comfort of victimhood, and to rationalize the blockade, which is not so much to keep weapons out (which would be 100% understandable if it were limited to that) but to collectively punish the Gazans for voting in Hamas.Â
I would also like to add that this whole situation, orchestrated by Turkey and continuously fomented by it (no friend to human rights by any stretch of the imagination) underscores the fragility of the "alliance" between Israel and Turkey, despite AIPAC’s and ADL’s protestations to the contrary.Â
Thats where you apply for Hasbara Fellowships.
Then we can have new improved news media [after cutting off all live camera and satellite feed from the journalists on board - detaining them incommunicado and taking all their equipment and phones] by utilising Technology
For example:
Israel MFA finds weapons aboard Mavi Marmara
http://www.flickr.com/photos/israel-mfa/4662965686/
Oops looks like someone had taken that picture years ago!
http://emberapp.com/bangpound/images/weapons-found-aboard-the-mavi-marmara-on-flic-2/
Technology kicks ass. Too bad taking out a gag order on all independent journalists and confiscating their equipment proves you have something to hide … or misrepresent
The trouble with cats is that they’ve got no tact. - P. G. Wodehouse
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKOmLP4yHb4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dE2StbDL_Q
Thank you Daniel, for your somewhat rational take on the situation.
I think we can agree on 1-3
4. Re: engaging in violence against the IDF. After Cast Lead, the IDF has achieved international recognition as the military that shoots women and children carrying white flags and watching as starving children clutch their parents corpses for 4 days while preventing medical assistance from reaching them. A military which does not respect basic human rights can only be seen as violent and irrational. The fact that so many of the dead have multiple head wounds, including head wounds from above, ie shot from the helicopter even before the soldier rappelled on board, makes it clear that the aid activists had no choice but to grab whatever was at hand, chairs, poles, mike extensions, kitchen knives, marbles and slingshots anything to avoid becoming the victims of the next Cast Lead. Since it has been seen through sniper shots in the chests of babies in Gaza that the IDF is equally afraid of what unarmed children will do, it was upto the passengers to protect the children, women and elderly abroad.
5. The CIA and the Mossad are the most unreliable sources of what constitutes terrorist activity in others, being knee deep in torture camps and secret prisons themselves.Germany has carried out a thorough investigation of the political associations of all Islamic charity works and the IHH continues to be actively involved there.Great effort in careful research by Turkey has also failed to find any such "terror associations" as implied by the Israelis and other hasbara units in the media. The "scimitar weilding Islamist" is a Yemeni, carrying a traditional jambiya, which like the Sikh kirpan is a wardrobe accessory and found on the persons of most Yemenis, as the kippah is found on Jews.
6. Insignificant amount of aid – it was significant enough that 9 people were killed for it.Â
7. The general reaction of the pro-Israel camp has revealed the existence of what Andrew Sullivan has aptly labeled the Israel Derangement Syndrome, affecting both religious fundamentalists and "secular liberals" alike.Â
Any moral person can see that when 1.5 million people are blockaded for almost 4 years and the international community shows collective action in opposing such a policy, then its not the highly trained fully armed commandos who attack the citizens of the world in international waters that are the victims, but the brave civilians who defend the "insignificant" cargo at the cost of their lives
The trouble with cats is that they’ve got no tact. - P. G. Wodehouse
I’m so glad we’ve got Ismail here to instruct us in civil rights and the long pedigree of the tactics employed when protesting on behalf of them. Because when he brings up Woolworth’s lunch counter, I’m reminded of the fire hoses that were used to batter down the uppity Negroes back in the day. And I’m proud that the crew of the Mavi Marmara learned so well from them.
Well, it would be nice if they learned the tactics of the side that Ismail thinks they are emulating, but all the same…
Nobody in my memory has received such overflowing attention as the citizens of Gaza. They must have a magnetic charm to have drawn such large responses from those that are often callous and not interested in the problems of others. Unfortunately those in Darfur,Congo,Uganda,and Sudan don’t have that magnetic charm as 500 thousand natives are hacked to death while millions more flee for their lives. Attempts at enforcing Sharia law in Darfur alone has caused the deaths of 200 thousand women and children. Most of their problems would be solved if they could blame it on the Jews, but there are too few Jews in that part of Africa, unless they are imported the slaughter of countless civilians will be ignored by humanitarian activists on flotillas.
"Far more important, though, is the implicit notion that there is something sinister about the aid convoy also having a political agenda, that is, they couldn’t really be about the aid if they also had an educational purpose."
How did I know that I could rely on Ismail to consider a refusal to allow for inspections so as to provoke soldiers with knives, pipes and a sword, an "educational" exercise?
I guess I haven’t kept up with the standards for what passes for "education" among some lately.Â
Lovely sentiment, morgan. Precisely the sort of coarse and brutal business that has become regrettably common among apologists for Israeli malfeasance.
Are you able to express your disagreements with me without wishing for my death? Â
No, helping Islamic fundamentalist terrorists and their useful idiot proxies is not "commendable." It’s criminal. I hope Israel has the cojones to sink the next ship– and I’d be pleased if you could arrange to be on it.
1) The blockade of Gaza can end the minute Hamas decides it wishes to live in peace with Israel. As long as Hamas wants a war, it must content itself with enduring a blockade as part of that war. You can’t tell a sovereign state that it needs to respect the rights of hostile combatants dedicated to its destruction to receive an unlimited supply of goodies from useful idiots across the sea.
2) Israel is in no way bound to accept anyone’s "right" to run a blockade that it has imposed as part of ongoing hostilities with Hamas.
3) Israel has a right to enforce its blockade. Thus, it has a right to board, or, as necessary, sink a ship operating with the stated intent of running that blockade. Israel’s mistake was showing up with insufficient firepower to overwhelm the "peace activists" who staged the confrontation.
4) It’s called reverting to type, Daniel. Hamas and its friends are a violent movement (Hamas, after all, is a designated terrorist organization). If taking their side makes you a bit uncomfortable, well, congrats– you may still have a vestigial conscience.
5) In fact, "the floatilla [sic]Â is nothing more than a tool of radical Islamists bent on Israel’s destruction."
6) You got this one right!Â
7) Whoops, back to wrong again. Enforcing a blockade (or disagreeing with Daniel Sieradski) does not make one insane, incompetent or on the verge of a change in one’s position.
Israel  is not and has not been starving the residents of Gaza. Food and medical supplies have crossed the boarder in amounts that exceed the need. when Hamas gets thier hands on the supplies they are used for nefarious not humanitarian purposes. iI the Gazans want peace there will be peace.Â
Israel evacuated their citizens forcibly from Gaza and ceded the land to the Palestinians in a gesture of peace and reconciliation. Instead Israel got Hamas and rocket attacks. wake up left leaning liberal Jews. in every generation they seek our destruction. We are no longer lambs for the slaughter.Â
Thoughtful post, Daniel, some of which I endorse, some maybe not so much. But let me stick with one point only. You say:
"6. Because the amount and nature of aid being transferred by the floatilla to Gaza is insignificant considering Gaza’s true needs, the conclusion is inescapable that this activity was merely symbolic and deliberately intended to provoke an IDF response that would evince Israel’s barbarism. Mission accomplished, apparently. But to keep representing this as an honest-to-goodness humanitarian mission focused on the transfer of relief supplies is deceptive and disingenuous."
First, of all, did you expect that they should have launched more than six ships? Do you think that the only way for the flotilla to be considered clearly devoted to relief would be if it addressed all of Gaza’s needs adequately? This would be an impossibility. The flotilla didn’t address all of Gaza’s needs adequately, so it’s inescapably true that its purpose was merely symbolic? That doesn’t follow.
Far more important, though, is the implicit notion that there is something sinister about the aid convoy also having a political agenda, that is, they couldn’t really be about the aid if they also had an educational purpose. Why do you believe this? Do you imagine that the Woolworth lunch counter protesters were there only to grab a tuna melt? Of course they knew their presence would provoke the authorities, garner attention, possibly put them in harm’s way. Breaking unjust laws, calling attention to injustice by stepping into the lion’s den is a political tactic with a long and noble pedigree.
Unless you think that they loaded up six ships with tons and tons of aid as an afterthought, of course they were on an aid mission. That it also had a political purpose is no cause for condemnation; it’s commendable. Â
I think you are on target about the true nature of what was a clearly provocative move by some seriously devoid of judgement overly ambitious "peace-protesters." However, given you’re seemingly decent sense of discerning the evidence, I question (and would be happy to hear more) about some of your conclusions, namely:
1. That Israel’s blockade is unjust and starving the Gazans. Please tell me if I missed something but the BBC link you provided focuses more on the lack of clarity (why no to cinnamon, but yes to coriander!) then the more vital issue of (tachlis) is there enough to eat for the people in Gaza.
2. From where did you derive the fact that the IDF Commandos had "automatic weapons." All news sources I’ve come across (and these are pretty much any you could easily search) stated that the Commandos had a number of pistols (that number is 2 if I remember correctly), which were stolen off of the Commandos and then used against them. My guess is that the Commandos were able to retrieve them and then use them to defend themselves (accounting for at least part of the 9 deaths in my estimation).
I’m very curious to know more about the details of the 9 deaths to the "peace activits" along with the many injured on both sides. That must have been some brutal fighting. It’s even not hard to imagine that in a mob-violence scenario such as this one that some of the casualties may have been killed krav-maga style in hand-to-hand combat.
3. You seem to me overly ambitious in tagging this operation, well, I’ll use your words: a) insane, b) incompetent, c) all of the above. Yet, it’s important to keep in mind that 5 out of the 6 ships heeded the warning from the IDF that the ships would be stopped and searched and were consequently done so without violence. Maybe that’s where all the peace-protesters (without quotation marks) were hanging out. If anything, the operation should have been carried out with as you mentioned, automatic assault rifles, such as the standard M4 or Tabor rifle typically used by Commandos. If all Commandos were armed with one of these, which are under normal circumstances are typical weapons of their operational gear, then I wouldn’t have been surprised if there was no loss of life. A couple shots in the air from a few commandos or at worst a few rounds fired below the knees would have done enough to tame the mob. Once a mob has the upper hand, it’s like trying to stop a crazy, well, mob…
thanks Daniel for summing up my own discomfort so succintly! the last few days of media hype have been heavy on emotion and quick judgement, light on actual issues and ramifications.
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