In a spot

AFTER the dastardly attack on the Freedom Flotilla carrying relief materials for Gaza by its navy commandos on May 31, Israel is once again facing international opprobrium. Although the United States had, as usual, prevented the United Nations Security Council from passing a censure resolution, Israel's image, tattered as it is, took a beating when traditional friends in Europe started openly criticising it.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and newly elected British Prime Minister David Cameron issued strong statements criticising Israel. In the third week of June, Poland arrested a Mossad agent who was on the wanted list for the assassination of a senior Hamas leader in Dubai.

In the U.S. itself, the Barack Obama administration is exerting behind-the-scenes pressure on Tel Aviv to get serious about negotiations with the Palestinians. Obama has said that the blockade on Gaza is unsustainable. His Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, one of Israel's closest allies, has called the siege unacceptable.

The U.S. has now committed $400 million in development aid to Gaza. It, however, did not explicitly condemn the Israeli act of barbarism, nor has it shown any inclination to stop subsidising the Israeli war machine. Obama said he would implement his predecessor's plan to dole out $30 billion in military aid to Israel over the next 10 years.

Russia, China, India, France, Spain and Brazil are among the countries that issued strong statements criticising Israel. South Africa, like Turkey, has recalled its ambassador from Tel Aviv for consultations. There is a growing realisation in the international community that Israel's policies are akin to those practised by South Africa in the apartheid era. Latin American countries were particularly vehement in their protests after the May 31 incident. Ecuador, too, withdrew its ambassador for consultations after the killings. Venezuela had withdrawn its ambassador after the Israeli attack on Gaza early last year.

Israeli action

Following the international outcry over the killing of nine peace activists in the flotilla, the Israeli government announced in the second week of June that it was partially relaxing the blockade on Gaza, which has been in force for the past three years.

Israel has also instituted a three-person inquiry commission to investigate the killings. The commission is headed by a retired Israeli Supreme Court judge, Jacob Turkel. The other members are David Trimble, the Ulster Unionist leader, and Ken Watkin, a former Canadian advocate general, both good friends of the Zionist state. Trimble recently launched a Friends of Israel initiative with the former right-wing Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar. Aznar told the media in the third week of June that the protection of Israel was vital for Western interests in West Asia.

Israel set up the inquiry commission in consultation with the Obama administration. There has been criticism within Israel about the composition of the commission. The reputed newspaper Haaretz called it a farce. It said Israel did not intend to probe the decision-making that preceded the takeover of the ship and the shortcomings that were uncovered.

Arab reaction

The Arab world and the international community are extremely sceptical about Israel's motives after the recent events. The Turkish government said Israel did not have the right to institute a commission to investigate a crime committed in international waters. An inquiry to be conducted by such a commission cannot be impartial, fair, transparent and credible, said a statement from the Turkish Foreign Ministry.

The demand is for a truly impartial U.N.-mandated commission to look into the circumstances that led to the killing of the humanitarian activists. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had called for a full-fledged international inquiry. The U.N. Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) in Geneva is to set up its own inquiry commission to look into the killings and Israel's violation of international maritime laws.

Israeli commandos boarded the ship carrying the activists in international waters. Israel controls the Gaza coastline but it had no right under the laws of the sea to board or stop vessels on the high seas.

Civil society groups are demanding that world-wide arrest warrants be issued against Israeli officials involved in planning the operation. Michael Ratner, president of the New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights, told the news agency Inter Press Service (IPS) that those Israeli officials should be made to understand that though they enjoy impunity in their country, they leave Israel at their peril. Ratner was of the view that at the minimum, the U.N. Security Council should refer the matter to the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told his country's Parliament that even despots, gangsters and pirates have specific sensitiveness, unlike the present Israeli government, which he said, has made lying its state policy and does not blush about the crime it commits. The killing of nine Turkish citizens in the flotilla attack has enraged the entire nation.

Turkey, which has the 13th largest economy in the world, was until recently one of Israel's strongest regional allies. The trade and military ties between the two countries are worth more than $3 billion. Now the relationship is in tatters and there is very little hope that Israel can count on Turkey, a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member, for any military assistance in the future.

The Turkey-Israel rupture also has the potential of adversely impacting Ankara's relations with the West. Under Erdogan, Turkey has already taken momentous steps to improve relations with countries such as Iran, China and Russia.

In a recent interview with the BBC, President Basher al-Assad of Syria said he no longer viewed the Israeli government as a partner for peace in the region. He said the attack on the humanitarian aid flotilla proved to the international community that Israel was being run by a pyromaniac government that made the achievement of peace impossible. He said the attack destroyed any chance for peace in the near future and increased the risk of war in the region.

Partial lifting

Israel's partial lifting of the blockade on Gaza has cut no ice with the international community. No specific list of products, except that with jams, pasta and milk, was mentioned when the Israeli government announced its decision. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu only indicated that he would allow the entry of building materials along with U.N. emergency aid into Gaza. Construction materials are essential for Gaza. Its infrastructure was almost totally destroyed by the three-week-long Israeli attack last year. The Israeli government has said it will continue with the sea blockade. Gaza's only airfield has been rendered inoperable by the Israeli army.

The Egyptian government, under tremendous public pressure, has opened the Rafah crossing into Gaza, allowing people in need of emergency health care to leave the Strip. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said the mortality rates in Gaza are 30 per cent higher than on the West Bank, and chronic malnutrition is now over 10 per cent. Two-thirds of Gazans live in poverty and about 40 per cent are unemployed. The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has stated that 61 per cent of the people in Gaza are food insecure, the majority of them children. After Israel imposed its blockade, 95 per cent of Gaza's factories have shut down. Israel imposed collective punishment on the people of Gaza in its bid to oust the popularly elected Hamas government. And until the flotilla raid, the U.S. and the E.U. supported Israel as it tried to starve Gazans into submission.

Saeb Erakat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, reiterated that the Gaza blockade had not eased despite the recent announcements by Israel. In reality, the siege of the Gaza Strip, illegally imposed on Palestinians, continues unabated, he said.

The Palestinian Authority (P.A.) has called for the unconditional lifting of the blockade. Many Palestinians feel that this is a belated attempt to conceal its tacit abetment of the blockade together with Egypt. In a June 10 speech at the Brookings Institution in Washington, P.A. President Mahmoud Abbas suggested that the Israeli siege continue until Hamas allowed the U.S.-trained P.A. militia to return to Gaza.

The spokesman for the Hamas, which administers Gaza, said the Israeli announcement about the easing of the blockade was media propaganda meant to mislead international public opinion. He pointed out that only 130 out of the 4,000 items of basic supplies were allowed into Gaza.

More peace flotillas carrying food and medical aid are heading towards Gaza to break Israel's illegal sea blockade. Peace activists say their aim is to prove that Israel's sea blockade, like its land blockade, is unsustainable.

In mid-June, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) called for the immediate lifting of the siege. The ICRC reiterated that the blockade was in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. Israel is a signatory to the Convention, which prohibits the collective punishment of civilian populations.

The whole of Gaza's civilian population is being punished for acts for which they bear no responsibility. The closure, therefore, constitutes a collective punishment imposed in clear violation of Israel's obligation under international humanitarian law, the ICRC said in its statement.