FLOTILLA:Israeli Piracy Has Run Amok

Intifada Voice of Palestine

09. Jun, 2010

By Ahmad Barqawi

On May 31st 2010, over 60 years’ worth of turning a blind eye to countless of massacres, unchallenged breaches of international laws and violations of human rights have finally borne fruit, and it is all rotten.

Only Israel has the barbaric temerity and the psychopathic traits required to carry out what can only be described as state sanctioned terrorism and cold-blooded murder in the high seas of the Mediterranean, the entire world got to witness first hand the sheer lunacy behind Zionism’s ideology, an ideology that fosters violence and exudes contempt for humanity’s most basic values and ethical principles, yet somehow enjoys the unyielding support of nations and governments that -oddly enough- claim to be the patrons of human rights and the international rule of law, the perverse irony just screams at you.

The deadly commando raid on the Free Gaza Aid Ships last Monday was the physical manifestation of years of abusing veto power in favor of a rogue state and carefully nurturing its deranged sense of impunity, from land theft, systematic ethnic cleansing, apartheid, child abuse and incarceration to torture, organs’ theft and finally forging of foreign passports, Israel now gets to add piracy to an impressive diabolical list of crimes that we have yet to see the end of.

Right from the get-go; it was apparent that the Israeli government was hell bent on preventing the humanitarian mission from reaching its final destination, the organizers of the Free Gaza Flotilla had expected that they would face various provocations from the Israeli navy based on what they have experienced in their previous attempts at breaking the siege on Gaza by sea; but evidently the peace activists were not cynical enough, for this time it was different; the Israeli government was beating the war drums, setting up massive tents on the shores of Ashdod that would serve as detention centers for members of the fleet, jamming the transmissions of the ships, deploying helicopters and commando units fully outfitted with their military uniform, artillery and most importantly an intent to kill, the Israeli “peaceful intervention” had all the hallmarks of a textbook case of an all out military invasion!

Camouflaged and cloaked in the darkness of pre-dawn (a perfect timing for launching a surprise attack), Israeli commandos clumsily roped down and raided the Mavi Marmara ship brazen in their attempt to take as many human lives as they possibly can; and needless to say the rest was the IOF’s standard operating procedure; mass murdering civilians, kidnapping and imprisonment, assaulting women, children and the elderly and confiscation of propriety.

The Israeli foreign ministry was quick to lay whatever badly scripted diatribe on the public and add their own “spin” on this matter in a desperate attempt at justifying this whole debacle by villainizing the civilian international aid workers and the whole humanitarian mission, according to the Israeli narrative; the peace activists obviously were the evil provocateurs, they endlessly taunted the Israeli military with automatic machine guns, assault weapons and anti-Semitic remarks, to a point were the IOF had no choice but to lose restraint and forcibly  take hold of the ship in “self-defense”, this of course is an absolutely fraudulent claim, the Israelis have a real knack for manipulating the public opinion and playing the “victim” card when necessary, but that sounds just plain silly when they are clearly the aggressors, everyone knows that targeting unarmed civilians is the IOF’s forte, and had the Israelis thought for even one second that the activists on these boats were actually armed; they wouldn’t have even considered the military attack.
Israeli propagandists as well were regular as clockwork by bringing into play the catchphrase of the day: the flotilla represented an imminent “terrorist threat”.

What better way to rationalize a massacre than using “terrorism” as a pretext, right? Of course, it has become the standard refrain to justify the unjustifiable; and it actually worked for the Americans in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, so why wouldn’t it work for the Israelis this time?

This attack; gave a new face to state terrorism (and an uglier one too), and what’s even more menacing; is that the international community continues to give Israel more leeway when it comes to dealing with its continuous violations of international laws, which to the Israelis’ understanding means an open invitation to feed its seemingly insatiable appetite for death and destruction.

Indeed there’s a pathology in play here, the Jewish State’s track record is practically littered with similar atrocious crimes but they might have bitten off more than they can chew this time around, for as far as Turkey is concerned; this whole bloody episode has broken the camel’s back, attacking an officially sponsored aid ship bearing the Turkish flag and murdering no less than nine Turkish citizens proved to be a very hard pill for them to swallow, Ankara withdrew its ambassador from Tel Aviv while previously planned shared military exercises with the Jewish State were cancelled and we have yet to see the full extent of the Turkish reaction which I’m sure will surpass that of the Arab League’s.

As far as the “peace process” is concerned, I think it is obvious we’re fishing in a very small pond full of rancid waters at this point, the Zionist State’s notion of peace is nowhere near ours (or anybody else’s really!), what happened should give a long reflective pause to anyone who’s even remotely considering the pursuit of the path of negotiations, what happened onboard the Mavi Marmara ship just added a new chapter to a history full of Israeli crimes and massacres that stretch as far as the eye can see, and if that was not a good enough reason for us to at least rethink our current course of approaching the Arab-Israeli conflict, I don’t know what is.

*Ahmad Barqawi, a Jordanian Economist, freelance columnist & writer based in Amman, Jordan

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