The pro-Israeli group StandWithUS has created a website aimed at rebutting the charges against Israel vis a vis the siege of Gaza and the naval blockade. Fortunately for the pro-Palestine movement and those who support the latest anti-blockade flotilla, its nine 'basic facts' are mostly opinion and half truths. In fact that is too generous: the 'facts' are entirely made up of biased assertions and downright distortions. Unfortunately, some Western governments are either parroting uncritically the same assertions and/or allowing the underlying pro-Israel bias of these supposed 'facts' t guide their current policy towards the flotilla which has many of its boats currently ensnared by the Greek government. Let's have a look at these 'facts' below [numbered and in italics].
The 2011 Flotilla II: 9 Basic Facts
1) The flotilla organizers blatantly violate international law by trying to breach a legal maritime blockade. According to international and customary law, Israel has the legal right to impose a land and naval blockade on Hamas-controlled Gaza. Hamas is openly dedicated to Israel’s destruction, has been in an ongoing state of armed conflict against Israel, and has fired over 10,000 rockets into Israeli civilian centers. Israel has the legal right and responsibility to protect its citizens by inspecting goods entering Gaza to prevent weapons from reaching Hamas.
2) The flotilla organizers intend to aid and support Hamas, which is designated a terrorist organization by members of the international community, including the U.S., Canada, Israel, the EU, Japan, and Jordan. Hamas’ founding document calls for the murder of Jews, the “obliteration” of Israel, and Israel’s replacement with an Islamist theocracy.‘The legal position is plain. A vessel outwith the territorial waters (12 mile limit) of a coastal state is on the high seas under the sole jurisdiction of the flag state of the vessel. The ship has a positive right of passage on the high seas. The coastal state can regulate economic activity exploiting the resources of the seas and continental shelf up to 200 miles, the extent of the continental shelf, or the agreed boundary, but there is no indication of fishing, oil drilling or analagous economic activity in this case. The vessel is entitled to free passage.
‘This right of free passage is guaranteed by the UN Convention on the Law of the Seas, to which the United States is a full party. Any incident which takes place upon a US flagged ship on the High Seas is subject to United States legal jurisdiction. A ship is entitled to look to its flag state for protection from attack on the High Seas.
‘Israel has declared a blockade on Gaza and justified previous fatal attacks on neutral civilian vessels on the High Seas in terms of enforcing that embargo, under the legal cover given by theSan Remo Manual of International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea.
‘There are however fundamental flaws in this line of argument. It falls completely on one fact alone. San Remo only applies to blockade in times of armed conflict. Israel is not currently engaged in an armed conflict, and presumably does not wish to be. San Remo does not confer any right to impose a permanent blockade outwith times of armed conflict, and in fact specifically excludes as illegal a general blockade on an entire population.
‘It should not be denied that Israel suffers from sporadic terrorist attacks emanating from Gaza. However this does not come close to reaching the bar of armed conflict that would trigger the right to impose a limited naval blockade in terms of San Remo. To make a comparison, in the 1970′s and 1980′s the United Kingdom suffered continued terrorist attack from the Irish Republican Army, with much more murderous impact causing many more deaths than anything Israel has suffered in recent years from Gaza. However nobody would seek to argue that the UK would have had the right to mount a general naval blockade of the Republic of Ireland in the 1970′s and 1980′s, even though the Republic was undoubtedly the base for much IRA supply and operations. Justifications of Israeli naval action against neutral civilian ships by San Remo is based on special pleading and an impossibly strained definition of the term “armed conflict’. “
The majority of the countries of the world DO NOT designate Hamas as a terrorist organisation.
As for the Charter red herring, this from Wikipedia:
3) The flotilla organizers are trying to provoke a violent confrontation. If they were sincerely concerned about humanitarian aid for Gazans, they would deliver it through official Israeli entry points. Israel has repeatedly offered to deliver goods after officially inspecting them for weapons. The organizers have refused to comply. Instead, they hope their provocative, hostile breach of the blockade will compel Israel to use force and make Israel look like an aggressor.Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal indicated to Robert Pastor, senior adviser to the Carter Center, that the Charter is "a piece of history and no longer relevant, but cannot be changed for internal reasons."[73] Hamas do not use the Charter on their website and prefer to use their election manifesto to put forth their agenda.[74][75] Pastor states that those who quote the charter rather than more recent Hamas statements may be using the Charter as an excuse to ignore Hamas.[73]
British diplomat and former British ambassador to the UN Sir Jeremy Greenstock stated in early 2009 that the Hamas charter was "drawn up by a Hamas-linked imam some [twenty] years ago and has never been adopted since Hamas was elected as the Palestinian government in 2006".[76] Mohammed Nimer of American University comments on the Charter, “It’s a tract meant to mobilize support and it should be amended... It projects anger, not vision.”[77] Dr. Ahmed Yousef an adviser to Ismail Haniyeh has questioned the use of the charter by Israel and its supporters to brand Hamas as a fundamentalist, terrorist, racist, anti-Semitic organization and claims that they have taken parts of the charter out of context for propaganda purposes. He claims that they dwell on the charter and ignore that Hamas has changed its views with time.[78]
In March 2006, Hamas released its official legislative program. The document clearly signaled that Hamas could refer the issue of recognizing Israel to a national referendum. Under the heading “Recognition of Israel,” it stated simply (AFP, 3/11/06): “The question of recognizing Israel is not the jurisdiction of one faction, nor the government, but a decision for the Palestinian people.This was a major shift away from their 1988 charter”[79]
StandWithUS produce no evidence to back their claim that Flotilla 2 plans to deliver anything other than humanitarian aid or to show that those involved are intent on violence. On the contrary, passengers have been engaged in nonviolence training and have all pledged not to use violence. Israel has only allowed one crossing to be opened, sporadically, into Gaza at Kerem Shalom in the south. All the major commercial crossings remain closed. Attempts to transfer goods through Israel in the past have either been obstructed or arrived late in soiled and unusable condition or been confiscated. Although the Rafah crossing into Egypt is now open it is not a commercial crossing and does not have the facilities and infrastructure to handle such movements. Egypt continues to place restrictions on the movement of people through the crossing.
According to the UN more than half of the population are dependent on aid and unemployment is among the highest in the world. Most water in Gaza is not fit for human consumption. There is currently a severe shortage of medical supplies.
An Israeli government document released as a result of a lawsuit in 2010, entitledFood Consumption in the Gaza Strip – Red Lines, “meticulously details the minimum caloric intake required, based on age and sex, to keep Gazans hovering just above malnutrition levels, and specifies the corresponding grams and calories of each type of food allowed into Gaza.” In 2007, Gaza’s UNRWA Operations Director John Ging stated that “the entire civilian population in Gaza” was subject to “human suffering and misery” and said his agency was “unable to provide more than 61 per cent of the necessary calories to refugees.” Accordingto the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, “between 2007 and 2009 the caloric intake per capita in Gaza and the West Bank decreased by 18 percent.” http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2011/07/02/the-no-humanitarian-crisis-in-gaza-canard/5) Hamas, not Israel, has caused the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza. Hamas has chosen war against Israel instead of peaceful coexistence. It has imposed a repressive, dictatorial, fundamentalist regime on Gaza residents and has murdered its political rivals.
Clearly these are statements of opinion and not facts but it is worth reminding the authors of these 'facts' that it is was Hamas that won the election in Gaza and an armed coup was launched against them at the behest of the US and Israel, using Fatah as their proxy. It was Israel not Hamas that killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians, in Operation Cast Lead in 2008/9. Only 13 Israelis were killed, mostly soldiers.6) Flotilla organizers claim to be “nonviolent peace activists” and “human rights activists.” They are not. They are members of extremist organizations that support terrorist groups and are dedicated to the destruction of Israel. The Free Gaza Movement is an affiliate of the International Solidarity Movement, which opposes the existence of the Jewish state. The IHH (Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation) is a Turkish Islamist organization with links to jihadist organizations in Bosnia, Syria, Iraq, Libya, and elsewhere.
In no documents or pronouncements has the Free Gaza Movement, the International Solidarity Movement or the IHH called for the destruction of the state of Israel and no attribution is provided by StandWithUS to support this claim. The suggestion that they are 'extremist' organisations is not supported by the evidence, unless calling for an end to the occupation of the Palestinian territories is 'extremist' - if it is, then it requires the addition of the overwhelming majority of the governments of the world and the United Nations to StandWithUs's list of 'extremist' organisations. No members of the organisations mentioned have killed any Israelis. However, members of both ISM and IHH have had members killed at the hands of Israeli armed forces.7) If flotilla organizers really were peace and human rights activists, they would not go to Gaza but to Libya or Syria, where the brutal Assad regime has arrested, tortured, and murdered thousands of nonviolent, freedom-seeking demonstrators and has caused thousands of others to become refugees.
Again, there are no facts presented here, merely assertions and opinions. The Arab revolutionaries are taking on their brutal and dictatorial rulers, in the case of Tunisa and Egypt quite successfully so far. Incidentally, the dictatorial rulers Stand With US refer to have been kept in power with the support of the West and Israel.8) The flotilla organizers are violating, not upholding, one of the most fundamental human rights—a nation’s right and responsibility to protect itself from enemies bent on murdering its citizens and destroying its state. “As a country, we will never tolerate our security being threatened, nor stand idly by when our people have been killed. We will be relentless in defense of our citizens.” —U.S. President Barack Obama, May 1, 2011
9) International leaders oppose the flotilla:
US: “[G]roups and individuals who seek to break Israel’s maritime blockade of Gaza are taking irresponsible and provocative actions. … We want to just reiterate that there are established and efficient mechanisms for getting humanitarian assistance through to Gaza.” —U.S. State Department Spokesman Mark Toner, June 1, 2011
UN: “The secretary-general called on all governments concerned to use their influence to discourage such flotillas, which carry the potential to escalate into violent conflict.” —Spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, May 27, 2011
Canada: “Unauthorized efforts to deliver aid are provocative and, ultimately, unhelpful to the people of Gaza. Canada recognizes Israel’s legitimate security concerns and its right to protect itself and its residents from attacks by Hamas and other terrorist groups, including by preventing the smuggling of weapons.” — Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird, May 28, 2011
France: “[T]he boarding of any naval vessels which are known to have the intention of breaking the naval blockade imposed on Gaza is strongly discouraged, given the security risks associated with such an undertaking.” —Official Statement
EU: “I don’t consider a flotilla to be the right response.” —Catherine Ashton, EU High Commissioner for Foreign Policy
Turkey: “We are reconsidering our plans [about participating in the flotilla]. … From our point of view, the developments in neighboring Syria are critically important.” —IHH Board Member Hüseyin Oruç, June 14
Most governments and people would agree that there is not a state of war existing between Hamas and Israel at the moment. In the past two months at least 60 Palestinians have been killed by Israel while not a single Israeli citizen has died. It is the Palestinians that are in need of defence, not the Israelis. The international community is not composed merely of western nations but of all the countries of the world. From that standpoint it is clear that the overwhelming majority do not oppose the flotilla. On the one hand StandWithUS declare the Turkish charitable organisation IHH to be supporters of 'Jihadists' while on the other quoting them approvingly, as above. They really can't have it both ways. And, besides, the quote is entirely out of context as members of IHH have joined the other vessels in the flotilla and IHH has put down the non-appearance of the Mavi Marmara to 'technical difficulties'.
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