The drama is over.
Just as the plan indicated, the Amalthea, a Libyan-chartered Greek cargo ship carrying food and medicine destined for Gaza went to the Egyptian port of El-Arish, on the northern coast of the Sinai peninsula, east of the Suez Canal, and not very far from the Rafah crossing into the Gaza Strip.
The Amalthea is one of seven ships now moored off El-Arish, and it is expected to dock imminently.
However, until the last minute, officials of the Gadhafi charity which chartered the ship insisted that their destination was Gaza.
Haaretz has reported that for the final day of its trip, “Israeli naval vessels were shadowing and monitoring the Amalthea, which had been immobile for much of the night due to engine trouble. ‘We are not surrounding; we are following’, a military spokeswoman in Tel Aviv said … An Al-Jazeera correspondent aboard the ship said two of the Israeli ships were on the port side of the vessel, to prevent it from changing direction and sailing to Gaza”.
Haaretz also reported in the same article that Israel’s Prime Minister Dan Meridor told Israel Radio, “Anyone who wants to bring materials there which are not dangerous materials – munitions, etcetera – can bring them through El Arish, [or]can bring them through the [Israeli] port of Ashdod … What we want is to set the arrangement for inspections, so we can always check and not allow them to bust their way in,” Meridor said. This can be read in full here.
However, Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh, who was Prime Minister of a couple of successive Hamas-dominated Palestinian Authority governments, following elections that Hamas won at the beginning of 2006 until mid-June 2007 [when Hamas military forces trounced Fatah/Palestinian Preventive Security forces in Gaza, after which Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas dissolved a short-lived National Unity coalition government], continued to call for the Libyan-chartered Amalthea — and other “Flotillas” — not to divert, and to continue to head to Gaza, as did Jamal Khodairy, head of the Popular Committee to Break the Siege.
Earlier today, members of a Greek labor union affiliated with the Communist Party demonstrated at the El Al airlines counters at Athens airport in protest of the Amalthea’s — and Gaza’s — difficulties. Flights were reportedly delayed for about two hours until the demonstration dispersed.
Meanwhile, Palestinian Authority former minister for prisoner affairs, Ashraf Ajrami, wrote an op-ed published on Israel’s YNet website today saying that the recent post-Flotilla loosening of the Israeli sanctions against the Gaza Strip to allow more consumer goods to pass, was not enough, and further steps were needed — “Otherwise, global public opinion won’t change and the world will continue to say that Gazans face collective punishment and that the Strip faces a difficult, inhumane siege”. Ajrami wrote that “The Palestinian leadership cannot accept disconnection of Gaza from the West Bank and would not allow Israel to do it under any circumstances. In addition, and as opposed to what Israel wants, Hamas grows stronger because of the blockade. It grows rich via the smuggling of goods while also enjoying international interest in the Strip … Hamas is also becoming stronger thanks to the organizers of Gaza-bound flotillas. Indeed, not every person who arrives on those ships wishes to see peace in the region and an independent, prosperous Palestinian state. Some of them wish to express their support for Hamas, rather than for the Palestinian people. Meanwhile, an important part of flotilla organizers belong to Islamic Movements such as the Muslim Brothers. However, no Palestinian (and this is certainly true for the Palestinian leadership) can speak out against a movement that aims to show solidarity with the people. At the same time, it’s important for the Israeli people to know that while the Palestinian majority wishes the solidarity movement with Gazans to prompt the lifting of the siege, it is also interested in advancing a diplomatic process and in reaching a compromise with Israel. This is a Palestinian interest that is also an Israeli interest. The immediate move required of Isra]el is to open all the crossings that link the Gaza Strip to the West Bank, including the safe passage, to civilian movement. This would boost the Palestinian Authority, make the lives of Palestinians easier, weaken Hamas, and may stimulate a substantive diplomatic process”. This is posted here.
And, an Israeli delegation argued to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Tuesday and Wednesday that its naval blockade of Gaza’s maritime space is legitimate: “Under international law… a blockade can be imposed on the sea”, Israeli envoy Sari Rubenstein told the HRC. This is reported here.
************************
Nigel Parry wrote a wry commentary criticizing the proposed [then cancelled] Iranian flotillas [and the postponed Lebanese flotillas], in which he said: “As if drawn from that bit about the Apocalypse found at the end of the Bible of Really Bad Ideas, Israel’s Most Wanted were not only going to send ships in the wake of the bloody IDF commando assault on the last aid vessels attempting to ease the siege on Gaza, but send ships with Iranian commandos no less … The move predictably sent Israel over the edge. IDF Chief of ‘Gabi Ashkenazi asserted that, ‘We cannot allow Gaza to become an Iranian port’ and the Associated Press wrote that, “Security officials said the prospect of an Iranian boat headed for Gaza had Israel deeply worried, and that naval commandos were training for the possibility of taking on a vessel with a suicide bomber on board’. Iran wasn’t the only one. Suddenly it seemed as if all of Israel’s enemies were planning to rent cruise ships, fill them up with flour and concrete, and ruin all our summers … Fortunately, for those of us who had summer plans other than being hunched over a computer fretting over yet another Israeli war during yet another American holiday season, Iran and Lebanon canceled. Even I—beach blanket and sunscreen at the ready—was ready to call those particular flotillas ‘a provocation’. Hossein Sheikholeslam, secretary general of the International Conference for the Support of the Palestinian Intifada—an Iranian body set up by parliament—announced that the aid flotilla would be canceled after Israel had ‘sent a letter to the United Nations saying that the presence of Iranian and Lebanese ships in the Gaza area will be considered a declaration of war on that regime and it will confront it’. You think Hossein? It would have played straight into Israel’s current ‘Iran defense’, which consists of mentioning the words ‘Iran’ and ‘nuclear weapons’ as often and repeatedly as possible, every time a journalist or American politician strays within 10 feet … Which brings us to Libya, who also announced its own flotilla in the wake of Iran and Lebanon’s. The Libyan boat, whose arrival in Gaza is scheduled to be within the next 12 hours, is being sent by the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation, headed by Seif Al Islam Gaddafi, the son of Libya’s leader. Again, perhaps not the best idea, given regional tensions and history, and current Israeli spin … Everything about this whole affair—the Israelis, the Iranians, the Libyans, and the rest of us—is starting to seem like bad theater. Bad theater in which only the Gazans continue to be excluded access to the auditorium in which the drama of their lives is acted out in front of the entire world”. This was posted on mondoweiss, here, as well as on his own new website, here.