It’s not always easy, but we must defend the actions of Israel

The election of Binyamin Netanyahu as Israel’s prime minister has resulted in a distinct shift in the way in which Israel has conducted her domestic and foreign policy. The rhetoric against the Iranian regime has justifiably become more intense and the Israeli Navy is rumoured to have made the unprecedented military move of permanently stationing one of her three ‘Dolphin Class’ nuclear-armed submarines in the Persian Gulf as a deterrent against any possibly Iranian, Syrian or Hizbollah missile attack. On the domestic front, Netanyahu has consistently rebuffed US pressure calling on Israel to halt any further settlement on post-1967 occupied areas of the West Bank. This relatively major diplomatic escalation between the two allies placed Israeli-US relations at an extremely low point. What one can perhaps understand from these two points, is that Israel increasingly appears to be acting against widely perceived international norms; perhaps better described as a ‘law unto itself’. Therefore, is the latest incident involving Israeli commanders storming an aid ship in international waters surprising?

The answer to this question is no. What we have learnt from the previous ten-months is that the Netanyahu administration approaches Israeli challenges in a somewhat one-dimensional and unilateral fashion. Not all Israeli prime ministers have stood up to US administrations, let alone ones as popular as Barack Obama’s cultish government. Nevertheless, it is widely perceived that Netanyahu’s almost arrogant approach to problem-solving is making him rather more enemies on the international stage than it is friends, even amongst those normally ardently ‘pro-Israeli’, to use a grossy overly simplistic term. Yet in spite of these developments and perceptions, I still believe that we must defend the actions of Israel in a region that is hard to understand unless you live there, surrounded on a daily basis by other states that have attempted to, and wish to see Israel wiped off the face of history.

Israeli commanders’ assault on the Turkish aid ship, Mavi Marmara, in the early hours of this morning (Monday 31 May) may not have been pretty, but we really must examine the true facts of what has occurred and the course as events as we understand them at this early stage. A ship carrying aid to Gaza approaches an Israeli maritime blockade of Gaza, designed to prevent the smuggling of terrorists and weapons into an area that is controlled by a terrorist organisation Hamas. The commander of the ship emphatically states that the aim of the convoy is not merely to distribute aid to Gazans but to ‘break’ the Israeli blockade by ‘whatever means necessary’ (one must assume by this he means force). As a result, IDF commandos storm the ship, are confronted by armed militants who open fire on the Israeli military who, in turn, return fire. The result? Ten soldiers wounded and nineteen (tbc) ‘aid workers’ killed. This was, naturally, followed by the inevitable anti-Israeli media s**t-storm and demonstrations by the same old suspects outside Downing Street and on the streets of Gaza. Hamas leaders also called not for a day of mourning for the dead but a day of ‘wrath’ against Israel and her people.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t find the killing of nineteen people particularly palatable. On the contrary, I happen to think the entire mission was a PR disaster for Israel and yet again, just as in Lebanon and Gaza, the military operation had fundamental flaws. However (and this is a big however). PR disaster yes; poorly conducted militarily, yes; ’massacre’ and ‘gross violation of international law’, certainly not. The first point I would make is that this was not a massacre. The rules of engagement on which any military would conduct an operation of this kind, state that live fire would not be allowed unless fired upon and that is the accusation levelled at those on the ship prior to the deaths. The second point I would make revolves around the description of these aid workers as ‘peaceful’.  I draw your attention to the words of Huwaida Arraf, one of the lead organisers of the flotilla, who stated that his intention was to “fully intend to go to Gaza regardless of any intimidation or threats of violence against us…they are going to have to forcefully stop us…”  Additionally, if the aims of those on the ship were peaceful, then what were those on the ship doing in possession of arms, knives and guns stolen from the IDF commandos? Finally, the UN is making its usual clamour regarding where the incident took place. Clearly, it was conducted inside international waters, away from Israeli territory, but when the aim of the convoy was solely to reach the blockade and then continue to Gaza, does the area in which the incident occurred really matter? Surely if the territorial integrity of one nation is threatened from international waters then that nation still retains the right to self-defence?

Self-defence is what Israeli politicians will argue; they always do and yes, it can even wear thin at times for those who seek to defend Israel on a particularly regular basis. Nevertheless, let’s place this latest incident in some degree of Israeli context. Israel is a state founded out of one of the worst human-induced catastrophes that this planet has ever seen: the systematic attempt by Hitler’s Germany to wipe world Jewry from the planet. Now, look where Israel finds itself: surrounded by Iran, Syria, Hizbollah and Hamas- all groups that wish to see the exact same fate for Israel as Hitler envisaged for the Jews in the 1930′s and 40′s. When people accuse Israel of ‘over-reacting’ and being overly defensive in nature, before condemning their actions with outlandish statements that border on ill-disguised anti-Semitism, just consider that Israel may well have something to be defensive about.

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