International pressure mounts to end Gaza blockade
Thursday, 10 June 2010
The pirate-like operation of the Israeli armed forces in international waters off the coast of Gaza on May 31 continues to draw universal condemnation and outrage. Israel did succeed in preventing the six-vessel Freedom Flotilla, carrying more than six hundred peace activists from across the world, from breaking the three-year-long blockade of Gaza and reaching aid to the beleaguered 15 million Palestinians living there. But this "state terrorism" by Israel dramatically brought into re-focus the legitimate cause of Palestinian statehood, especially the plight of the Gazans, and exposed once again the pariah nature of the state of Israel. The United Nations Security Council has adopted a unanimous resolution calling for a prompt, credible and impartial investigation into the raid in which nine peace activists were killed by the Israeli commandos. The Security Council resolution would have been tougher but for the intervention of America. Significant to note, however, is that the Obama administration, which considers the continuation of the Palestine-Israeli conflict a national security threat to America itself, has refrained from playing America's traditional role of an apologist of all Israeli misdeeds and crimes.
Israel does not apparently respect the exhortation of Thomas Jefferson to act with a "decent respect to the opinions of mankind" and flouts international laws with impunity and acts with total disregard to world opinion. In the midst of world outcry against its criminal excesses in dealing with the international peace activists, Israel still remains intransigent. It has rejected outright the proposal of Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary General, to conduct an international investigation into the raid of the Freedom Flotilla. May be, Israel is hoping against hope that America will somehow rescue it from its present predicament as it did on so many occasions in the past.
The Freedom Flotilla, the preparations of which went for more than a year, as a means of breaking the Gaza blockade was a brilliant idea. It forced Israel to react in a barbaric manner which caused its international isolation and tested its capacity to use force in enforcing the blockade. Within a week of the flotilla massacre, another aid vessel made an attempt to reach Gaza on June 5. Israel did intercept the vessel, again in international waters, and detained and deported the activists but behaved this time with marked civility. Two Lebanese organizations have a plan to send boats to Gaza within a few days. Reporters Without Borders has taken a move to assemble 25 European activists and 50 journalists to sail for Gaza from Beirut. British politician George Galloway, the founder of Viva Palestina, has announced in London that two convoys -- one by land via Egypt and the other by sea -- would simultaneously set out in September to break the Gaza blockade. Iran has volunteered to send Revolutionary Guard naval units to escort any humanitarian aid convoy to Gaza. Meanwhile, Egypt, which has also been enforcing a blockade of Gaza since the coming of Hamas into power in 2008, has found it wise to open the Rafah crossing, Gaza's only overland crossing not controlled by Israel, for limited purposes. It seems the mounting international pressure to end the blockade of Gaza has started to bear fruits.
Whatever support Israel may receive from the US, one thing is almost certain. The status quo in Gaza has become unsustainable. None other than the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu has already conceded that they could not be totally blind to the humanitarian aspects of the Gaza crisis and the US Vice-President Joe Biden said the US was looking for new ways "to address the humanitarian, economic, security and political aspects of the situation". The blockade has to be withdrawn. Otherwise, the sustained initiatives of the peace activists, coming from all corners of the world, will eventually break the blockade
Israel does not apparently respect the exhortation of Thomas Jefferson to act with a "decent respect to the opinions of mankind" and flouts international laws with impunity and acts with total disregard to world opinion. In the midst of world outcry against its criminal excesses in dealing with the international peace activists, Israel still remains intransigent. It has rejected outright the proposal of Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary General, to conduct an international investigation into the raid of the Freedom Flotilla. May be, Israel is hoping against hope that America will somehow rescue it from its present predicament as it did on so many occasions in the past.
The Freedom Flotilla, the preparations of which went for more than a year, as a means of breaking the Gaza blockade was a brilliant idea. It forced Israel to react in a barbaric manner which caused its international isolation and tested its capacity to use force in enforcing the blockade. Within a week of the flotilla massacre, another aid vessel made an attempt to reach Gaza on June 5. Israel did intercept the vessel, again in international waters, and detained and deported the activists but behaved this time with marked civility. Two Lebanese organizations have a plan to send boats to Gaza within a few days. Reporters Without Borders has taken a move to assemble 25 European activists and 50 journalists to sail for Gaza from Beirut. British politician George Galloway, the founder of Viva Palestina, has announced in London that two convoys -- one by land via Egypt and the other by sea -- would simultaneously set out in September to break the Gaza blockade. Iran has volunteered to send Revolutionary Guard naval units to escort any humanitarian aid convoy to Gaza. Meanwhile, Egypt, which has also been enforcing a blockade of Gaza since the coming of Hamas into power in 2008, has found it wise to open the Rafah crossing, Gaza's only overland crossing not controlled by Israel, for limited purposes. It seems the mounting international pressure to end the blockade of Gaza has started to bear fruits.
Whatever support Israel may receive from the US, one thing is almost certain. The status quo in Gaza has become unsustainable. None other than the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu has already conceded that they could not be totally blind to the humanitarian aspects of the Gaza crisis and the US Vice-President Joe Biden said the US was looking for new ways "to address the humanitarian, economic, security and political aspects of the situation". The blockade has to be withdrawn. Otherwise, the sustained initiatives of the peace activists, coming from all corners of the world, will eventually break the blockade