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Monday, May 31, 2010
The Tragic Event in Eastern Mediterranean
Any comments would be welcomed. This is from blog in the New York Times which makes a parallel with an event of 1947, that if not ironic tragic.
I think that a quote from Einat Wilf sums this up fairly well for me. Wilf is an Israeli Labor Party member of Parliament who sits on the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. "This had nothing to do with security," she said in an interview. "The armaments for Hamas were not coming from this flotilla." The Mavi Marmara was carrying about 600 activists of Insani Yardim Vakfi, a humanitarian relief organization. It's very interesting to see the similarities between the two events. Both are documented cases of a cultural friction that is crippling both Israel and Palestine. In this case, it seems that Israeli security force was abusive.
While I think that Israel is certainly justified in taking action to defend its shores from invaders, the recent operation against pro-Palestinian activists does not fall under the category of homeland defense. Interestingly, this event coincides with the International Criminal Court’s review and revamping of the term aggression, which is currently defined as, “the planning, preparation, initiation or execution, by a person in a position effectively to exercise control over or to direct the political or military action of a State, of an act of aggression which, by its character, gravity and scale, constitutes a manifest violation of the Charter of the United Nations.” Because said charter prohibits the killing of non-combatants, the special-ops activities of Israel in the past week seem a clear violation. (see http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=16219717). Furthermore, if Israel expects the international community to respect its sovereignty and its rights to defend it, it should eliminate the glaring contradiction that is Israel’s refusal to acknowledge or cooperate with Palestinian sovereignty, to say nothing of the continued occupation and development of Palestinian territory seized in past conflicts.
I think that a quote from Einat Wilf sums this up fairly well for me. Wilf is an Israeli Labor Party member of Parliament who sits on the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. "This had nothing to do with security," she said in an interview. "The armaments for Hamas were not coming from this flotilla." The Mavi Marmara was carrying about 600 activists of Insani Yardim Vakfi, a humanitarian relief organization.
ReplyDeleteIt's very interesting to see the similarities between the two events. Both are documented cases of a cultural friction that is crippling both Israel and Palestine. In this case, it seems that Israeli security force was abusive.
While I think that Israel is certainly justified in taking action to defend its shores from invaders, the recent operation against pro-Palestinian activists does not fall under the category of homeland defense. Interestingly, this event coincides with the International Criminal Court’s review and revamping of the term aggression, which is currently defined as, “the planning, preparation, initiation or execution, by a person in a position effectively to exercise control over or to direct the political or military action of a State, of an act of aggression which, by its character, gravity and scale, constitutes a manifest violation of the Charter of the United Nations.” Because said charter prohibits the killing of non-combatants, the special-ops activities of Israel in the past week seem a clear violation. (see http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=16219717). Furthermore, if Israel expects the international community to respect its sovereignty and its rights to defend it, it should eliminate the glaring contradiction that is Israel’s refusal to acknowledge or cooperate with Palestinian sovereignty, to say nothing of the continued occupation and development of Palestinian territory seized in past conflicts.
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