UN-Truth

Israeli Foreign Ministry officials told Haaretz that Minister Avigdor Lieberman has contacted the Greek and Moldovan Foreign Ministers, and asked them to stop a Moldovan-flagged cargo ship which intended to sail, imminently, from Greece to Gaza.

Reports indicated, Saturday evening, that the ship had just sailed.

The voyage for this ship from Greece to Gaza is estimated to take about 80 hours.

However, Israel’s YNet website has reported that “the Greek government said it had reached an agreement with the crew according to which the ship would not try to reach the Hamas-ruled territory”. The YNet story added that the Israeli Navy will track the vessel throughout its voyage, and that an IDF officer said Saturday night: “Any deviation from the original course, which will lead the ship to Gaza, will be blocked by the Navy … In case those on board fail to follow our instructions to stop and allow the Navy vessels to escort them, we will not hesitate to employ other methods to stop them.” This is reported here.

The ship was chartered to deliver some 2000 tons of food and medical aid on behalf of the Gadhafi International Charity and Development Association, headed by Libyan leader Muammar Ghaddafi’s son, Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi.

Food and medicine are items which should not, at least theoretically, be on the Israeli lists of what it bans from entering Gaza. But there is a problem with some “dual-use” items which could, theoretically at least, also be used in making weapons.

Israel has just published a list based, it said, on a list agreed by some 40 nations, supplemented with extra items prohibited in specific Israeli “internal legislation” — including an unspecified number of military orders drawn up by the Israeli military’s Central Command.

According to the report in Haaretz, written by Barak Ravid, Israeli Foreign Ministry officials said the ship “would dock at Egyptian port el-Arish rather than the Gaza strip”. This is published here.

The Jerusalem Post is reporting that Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak “met Saturday with Egyptian Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman and discussed the Libyan flotilla that was set to arrive in the Gaza Strip. The two discussed the possibilities of the aid ship being accepted at the Egyptian port of El Arish”. This is posted here.

These are strong and concerted steps by two men who were at each other’s throats a week ago over fallout from the fiasco of the Israeli naval assault on the Freedom Flotilla at sea on 31 May which left nine men dead on board a large Turkish-chartered passenger ship, the Mavi Marmara. [Lieberman accused Barak of leaking news of a meeting that Lieberman had not been informed about between the Turkish Foreign Minister and Israeli Minister Benyamin [Fouad] Ben Eliezar].

Alternatively, an Associated Press report on Israel’s YNet website indicates, somewhat surprisingly, that according to the Libyan charity’s “head volunteer”, Adburaufel Jaziri, the group is prepared to let Israel check the cargo: “Israel ‘can check our cargo and certificates, of course they are free to do this’,” Jaziri said. ‘If we cannot deliver the aid, we will let (Israel) deliver it … Our job is to help anyone who needs it. We don’t care if they are Catholics or Muslims or whatever. Now we are helping the people of Gaza who are suffering”.

YNet added that “The Israeli military would not comment on the Libyan ship. Israel’s policy has been to offer ships of this type the option of docking at an Israeli port, after which Israel will screen the goods aboard and transfer them into Gaza by land”. [According to this AP report, there will only be 27 people on board [15 volunteers, almost all Libyan, and a 12-member crew from several countries] not hundreds, or thousands…] This YNet report is published here.

This was something that neither the Free Gaza movement, nor the coalition of groups on board the Freedom Flotilla, were prepared to allow.

These reported remarks from the Libyan charity “head volunteer” are yet another indication that Israel’s Naval blockade of Gaza is quietly gaining international agreement.

There was no public challenge to Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip when it was first announced during the Gaza war.

Now, to cover all its bases, Israel has written letter to the highest UN official and its two most significant bodies in which it discusses, perhaps for the first time [I stand to be corrected, if wrong -- but I don't think I am], Israel’s formal declared naval blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Haaretz reported today that the Israeli ambassador to the UN, Gabriela Shalev, wrote a letter on Friday to UN Secretary General BAN KI-Moon, which she also copied to the current President of the UN Security Council [Ambassador Joy Ogwu of Nigeria, during the month of July] and to the President of the current [64th] UN General Assembly [who just happens to be Libya's former Foreign Minister, Dr. Ali Abdussalam Treki] saying that “Israel calls upon the international community to exert its influence on the government of Libya to demonstrate responsibility and prevent the ship from departing to the Gaza Strip … Israel reserves the right under international law to prevent this ship from violating the existing naval blockade on the Gaza Strip”. In the letter, Shalev further urged the international community “to discourage their nationals from taking part in such action,” adding that Israel “expects the international community to ensure that this ship does not sail.” This report is published here.

However, Haaretz, which should know better, wrote — incorrectly — that “Israel imposed the blockade on Gaza in 2007 following a bloody Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip. Israel recently eased the terms of the land blockade on the territory, following a deadly raid of a Turkish aid ship, but the naval blockade has so far remained in place”. [This was published here].

This shows how the imprecise use of the term “blockade” has confused the situation.

Many have used the word to mean all of what was happening in Gaza, following an Israeli government decision in September 2007 [less than 3 months after the Hamas rout of Fatah/Palestinian Preventive Security Services in Gaza] to declare Gaza an “enemy entity” or “hostile territory”. The Israeli Ministry of Defense was charged with implementing this government decision, and decided to impose progressively-tightened sanctions at Israel’s land crossings into Gaza.

The Free Gaza movement began in August 2008 to sail ships to “break the siege” on Gaza.

The Israeli government response was divided and chaotic. To deter the Free Gaza expeditions, the Israeli Navy announced, in a Notice to Mariners in mid-2008, that it would stop and search any ships entering Gaza’s maritime space. But, the top “political echelon” in Israel [which includes the Defense Minister] decided to ignore the first couple of Free Gaza expeditions, so as not to give them any “propaganda victory”. The not-quite-identical “political echelon” that is in place now in Israel said, before the Freedom Flotilla set sail for Gaza at the end of May, again said that this expedition was a mere propaganda ploy — but they also made it clear in advance that they were planning to stop the Freedom Flotilla from sailing to Gaza by all available means, including military force.

Even after the start of the IDF’s unprecedented Operation Cast Lead [27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009], the Free Gaza movement launched a sea expedition from Cyprus to Gaza that was rammed at sea on 30 December by Israeli naval vessels, and had to limp into a Lebanese port for repairs.

On 3 January 2009, as the Israeli Army began its feared ground offensive into the Gaza Strip [with its 1.5 million souls, it is one of the most-densely populated parts of the planet], the Israeli government announced a formal naval blockade of the Gaza Strip, essentially covering Gaza’s maritime space as defined in a map, which we have published several times on this blog here, and which is attached to the Oslo Accords.

As if nothing had changed — perhaps because they saw no Israeli effort to publicize or explain its naval blockade — the Free Gaza movement launched a second expedition by sea, well into the course of Operation Cast Lead. Confronted by the Israeli Navy, this ship gave up and returned to Cyprus without damage, in order to “save lives”. A Free Gaza spokesperson told me at the time: “We had no choice”.

Four months or so later, in June 2009, the last Free Gaza expedition left Cyprus and sailed for Gaza. They were intercepted, boarded, and forced to Ashdod Port, where those aboard were detained for over a week before being deported from Israel.

A formal naval blockade is quite different than what was happening at Israel’s land crossings into the Gaza Strip. A naval blockade has a specific status in international law.

For decades, however, there has been a diversity of attitudes in Israeli political echelons towards international law — and many of those attitudes were simply dismissive.

This is perhaps one of the explanations for Israel’s failure — until the Freedom Flotilla appeared on the horizon — to publicize or explain its formal naval blockade.

Questions I sent to the IDF spokespersons’ “new media” department a week ago are also still unanswered…

It interesting to see that the Israeli Ambassador’s letter to the UN officials and bodies states, according to Haaretz, that because “Israel has taken upon itself the responsibility of ensuring the transfer of humanitarian aid into the Palestinian territory”, then “The declared intentions of this [Libyan] mission are even more questionable and provocative given the recent measures taken by Israel to ensure the increase of humanitarian aid flowing into the Gaza Strip”.

In a similar vein, YNet reported that Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Andy David said that “Humanitarian aid is allowed into Gaza through land crossings and the Israeli government had increased the flow of goods into the Palestinian territory last week … ‘All humanitarian aid goes in freely, therefore the Libyan intention is nothing more than a cheap provocation’, he said”.

Showing how on-message the Israeli government appears to be, YNet reported on Saturday night that “Defense Minister Ehud Barak called the Libyan aid vessel’s journey an ‘unnecessary provocation’, and suggested that the ship allow Navy vessels to escort it to Ashdod Port ‘or sail directly to El-Arish Port’.” This YNet story can be read in full here.

Filed under: Boundaries & Borders, Gaza, Human Rights, Humanitarian Aid, International Humanitarian Law, International Law, Israel, Law of the Sea Convention, Palestine & Palestinians, Sanctions, UN General Assembly, UN Secretary-General, UN Security Council, United Nations