Israel Attacks Humanitarian Flotilla, Many Dead & Injured (Updated)

By Steve Hynd

Reuters reports that between 14 and 16 are dead after Israeli commandos used live ammunition against a humanitarian flotilla which was trying to reach Gaza with supplies yesterday evening. Reuters reports at least 30 injured too, while KUNA puts the injured at 60.

One Israeli serviceman was "moderately injured" by a knife wound during the assault, which took place just after dark and after Israel had attacked vessels flagged in America, Europe and Turkey, while they were still in international waters. The passengers included a holocaust survivor, USS Liberty survivors, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, EU MEPs & hundreds of humanitarian workers.

I'll have more in the morning, especially on reactions from around the world, but this is a shocking crime against humanity showing no conscience whatsoever. President Obama has to realise at this point that supporting Israel is akin to Reagan's support for the Botha regime in South Africa in the 80's.

Update: Here's some Sky News footage of the assault, via The Guardian, which is constantly updating it's report here.

Update 2: AFP reports that condemnation from the region and from Europe has been well-nigh universal - as it should be.

The Islamist Hamas which runs the Gaza Strip urged fellow Muslims to "rise up" in protest in front of Israeli embassies the world over, as Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas declared three days of mourning over the "massacre."

Kuwait's parliament speaker condemned the raid on the flotilla, which was carrying 16 Kuwaitis including an MP, as a "heinous Israeli crime," as the cabinet prepared for an emergency meeting.

Arab League chief Amr Mussa slammed the raid as a "crime" against a humanitarian mission, saying the 22-country body was consulting to decide on its next step.

In Europe, condemnation was equally swift.

France said that "nothing can justify" the violence of Israel's Gaza ship raid, while German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said he was "deeply concerned" about the deaths.

The European Union demanded Israel mount a "full inquiry" into the killing of at least 10 people in a raid on a flotilla of aid ships bound for Gaza.

EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton warned that Israel's "continued policy of closure is unacceptable and politically counterproductive," demanding "an immediate, sustained and unconditional opening" of crossings to Gaza.

Greece withdrew from joint military exercises with Israel in protest at the raid, as it summoned Israel's ambassador to demand an "immediate" report on the safety of about 30 Greeks on board the flotilla.

Britain's new coalition government is reportedly asking Israel for a fuller account of their version before it makes comment - but with UK citizen and Belfast-born Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan aboard one of the aid vessels Cameron will have to do some fancy stepping to placate his LibDem colleagues if he wants to give Israel an easy time of it.

Meanwhile, the usual wingnut suspects are backing Israel's assault on a "Jew Hating" aid convoy. None are even attempting to explain why the Israeli commandos weren't at least using baton rounds instead of live ammunition. None are attempting to square the one or two "moderately wounded" Israeli soldiers and the 16 dead and 30 to 60 injured aboard the aid ships with Israel's feeble alibi of being attacked when they boarded foreign flagged vessels on a humanitarian mission. Even Israel's Avital Leibovich, a spokeswoman for the Israeli military, admits the assault was carried out in international waters.

Oh, and Netanyahu is reportedly considering cancelling his visit to the US.

Update 3: I wonder if Turkey, a NATO member, is considering the NATO Charter and deliberating on whether to put the US between a rock and a hard place:

Article 5

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

Article 6 (1)

For the purpose of Article 5, an armed attack on one or more of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack:

...on the forces, vessels, or aircraft of any of the Parties, when in or over...the Mediterranean Sea

The threat of invoking Article Five would certainly pressure the US and UK, the two NATO members most likely to want to quibble and parse Israel's atrocity.

Update 4: My pal Alex Lobov has a damn good roundup over at Zeitgeist Politics of what's been said so far by Israel, the aid ships' passengers and internationally.

Update 5: The death toll among the flotilla's passengers is now 19.

Comments

[Curmudgeon]

The history of America's Israeli policy being what it is, Obama and Clinton are just as likely to take this as an opportunity to double down on Likudism.

If USS Liberty wasn't enough to make the Americans reconsider their Israel policy, this won't make much difference either.

[John Ballard]

A boil is being lanced. And Curmudgeon may be correct.
But the long view of US policies is no longer what it was for decades.
Peter Beinart's essay and the BDS movement reflect a fundamental shift in public opinion. Not enough to effect policy changes but sufficient to trigger an over-reaction.

The iceberg beneath this event is the Muslim Brotherhood. A piece in The Economist looked at the MB in January.

...the Brotherhood’s brand of conservative pan-Islamism, which nowadays generally eschews violence and agrees to play by the rules of the secular state even if it thinks them unfair, may be losing ground. A growing number of young people, frustrated by paternalism and impatient for change, seem attracted to more radical trends, such as arch-fundamentalist, Saudi-influenced Salafism that harks back to a pure form of Islam said to have prevailed in the religion’s earliest days, not to mention violent jihadism....

Policies regarding all matters Palestinian stand firmly on the divide and conquer principle. As long as Palestinians remain fragmented Israel can maintain the upper hand, supported by a coalition of Orthodox Jews, Christian Zionists, traditional antisemitism and a defense industry profiting from all sides of any conflict. (Antisemitism is in this column as one of the founding principles of Israel. Displaced Jews were not welcome anywhere in Europe and Palestinians were the weakest link in the Arab chain. Ergo, a Jewish analogue to Liberia.)

[Ron Beasley]

The more I read about this the more I see it as a set up by Hammas to create a PR nightmare for the Israelis - and it worked. The Israelis are just like their chest pounding neocon allies in the US who have done everything al-Qaeda wanted them to do since 911.

[John Ballard]

You're right. And what other options are possible for them under the circumstances?

I'm puzzled by the senseless Israeli restrictions on Gaza imports via sea or Israeli-controlled access points when there are some fifteen hundred tunnels connecting Egypt and Gaza at the Rafah end. Coriander and jam can't get past the Israelis but prescription medicines, appliances and even livestock flow in through the tunnels. The tunnels are taxed by Hamas which is how they support whatever passes for infrastructure and security in Gaza.

I'm reminded of a bizarre report I heard five years ago explaining how stolen cars in Gaza were issued separate tags to identify them from legitimate cars. Really crazy.

As Israel withdraws from Gaza she leaves behind a curious trace of the past, special car tags that indicate "stolen cars"!

Apparently car thieves in Israel were able to fence their stolen cars in Gaza during the 1990's when the Palastinian Authority took control. The owners had been reimbursed by insurance, so the cars were in service, but identified by special plates.
Now with matters being shifted, the companies are bringing lawsuits to recover their money. The decision has been made by the authorities to charge higher fees for the stolen cars in order to recover the loss.

[John Grahm]

There’ll be a few salient facts left out of many accounts of the Aid Hamas flotilla incident, especially if your source is the BBC or the Guardian. After all, an evil state, and an evil people, the Jews… the Israelis, can’t do anything but evil.

We can guarantee that this will be a major news item today and even over the next week. The Western media usually chronicles every broken finger and upset stomach which the Israelis cause the long-suffering and deeply pacifist Palestinians. Every inch of the situation well be cried over by naive left-liberals and utilized by far leftists in their obsessive anti-Israel campaign.

So as soon as the media hungrily get hold of a single Muslim on the ship being lightly spanked by an Israeli soldier, many will instantly conclude that this is yet another Evil Zionist mission to exterminate every Muslim on the planet. I bet leftists are going crazy with their FaceBooks at this very moment. Bless them.

It is almost as if the Turki Foundation wanted this to happen so they could milk it dry in the Western media and elsewhere. Indeed this ‘Israeli crime’ was probably forecasted weeks ago. So it is no surprise that many Muslims have already showed their predictable anger and starting demonstrating. In fact, they started to do so about five minutes after the event occurred. It was almost as if they already knew what was going to happen. Um.

And surprise, surprise! The Turkish government called for an emergency meeting at least two minutes after the Israelis boarded the ships. The increasingly Islamist Government is slowly falling in the Muslim line of compulsory anti-Zionism. Chomsky will have finished his book about this ‘outrage’ and ‘gross act of pure evil’ by Friday. Symposiums in American universities will begin early next week.

Who was behind the reprimanded flotilla? Some nice Muslims? Our very own George ‘look no panties’ Galloway and his Viva Palestina? No. It was the Turki Foundation (IHH). Want to know something about it? (The BBC won’t tell you.) It is a radical Islamic organisation which is a major component in Hamas’s worldwide funding machine. And like all other radical Islamic organisations, it hates infidels and sometimes even hates the wrong kind of fellow Muslim. More precisely, it likes those who kill Jews (Hamas, Hezbollah, etc.) and it also likes to spread the anti-Semitic psychosis around the Muslim and leftist world.

Of course the shipment was only full of flower petals, Superman magazines and white doves. Oh yes. It was also highly likely to have contained explosives, Kal Iranian-made, long-rage Fajr-5 missiles. But only to be used self-defensively by destroying Israeli kindergartens and pizza houses. How do we know this? Because a hell of a lot of similar shipments have contained weapons and explosives heading for Hamas and other nice and peaceful Islamist groups.

It’s certain that the Turki Foundation, and the other Islamists aboard, were planning on violence. Indeed they wanted violence. They had already said that they ‘fully intend to go to Gaza regardless of any intimidation of threats of violence against us’. They are only doing their Islamic duty against the Jews! Also, the Israelis, when aboard, were immediately attacked with knives, daggers and cudgels. Instead of killing the Islamists outright, the Israelis chose to use tear gas against the enemy. Al Jazeera also reported that gun shots were heard on the boats.

We can be deeply cynical, but nevertheless accurate, and say that these ‘aid convoys’, whether run by Islamist militants like the Turki Foundation or, well, by IslamoTrot militants like Viva Palestina, are not really about supplying the death camps of starving Palestinians with food and other much-needed supplies (such as long-range rockets which can go deep into Israel). They are primarily, or even exclusively, about propaganda and publicity. And my God! How they are successful at this!

The reason for my Zionist cynicism and evil is this. It is possible that the Gaza Strip is not actually suffering a real ‘humanitarian crisis’ at all since the Palestinians are already being supplied by the Evil Zionist Empire that is Israel. Indeed any journalists who care to see will realise that hundreds of Israeli trucks daily supply the Gazans with food and other needies - but not, sadly, offensive weapons. That’s where the Turki Foundation may well come in.

I don’t suppose it matters to leftists and anti-Zionists that international law allows states like Israel to ask suspicious boats to identify themselves. They are only interested in the times when Israel supposedly goes against international law, which seems to be every day, according to these Israel Watchers.

[patriot9878]

There will be no war. This is an act of war, but the US will give Turkey 10 billion of our money or the US will tell the Turks behind closed doors of course if they attack Israel we will attack them. The Jews will call Obama and tell him what to do. Even if Turkey wouldn't listen they would call a country to persuade Turkey. This is mruder, so why not have the people tried for this? But if the Turks go in with warships and Israel fires on the boats and they don't act in kind I will be pissed.

[patriot9878]

Turkey should call Egypt and say remember when they executed your airmen and shot the planes on the runway. The Jews could handle the Arabs, but not the Truks and the Arabs. Maybe Russia will say fuck it and send nukes. So much wishful thinking. I would say every country in the world is cursing this bastard country. EVen many of our politicians are probably hoping someone nukes them.

[James Joyner]

While I agree it might increase pressure on the US to "do something," it rather clearly wouldn't be an Article 5 situation. Aside from the murkiness of naval blockades and international law, I'm pretty sure that the waters near Gaza aren't "in Europe or North America."

[James Joyner]

Ah: I see you have a snippet from Article 6 in there. But the full text of that seems to clearly indicate that it's talking about operation in and around colonial territories held by the power in question. That wouldn't seem operative here.

[Steve Hynd]

Full Article 6:

"For the purpose of Article 5, an armed attack on one or more of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack:

A) 1), on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America, on the Algerian Departments of France (2), on the territory of or on the Islands under the jurisdiction of any of the Parties in the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer;

B) on the forces, vessels, or aircraft of any of the Parties, when in or over these territories or any other area in Europe in which occupation forces of any of the Parties were stationed on the date when the Treaty entered into force or the Mediterranean Sea or the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer."

"or" not "and", James.

Regards, Steve

[Abaddon]

If they push Israel into a corner, they will unleash everything they have at the Arab world, as one of their Ministers said recently, "If we go down we will take the world with us," and they will. They also said that they could hit European cities with their nukes. Are you aware of "Cobalt 60" and its potential? Plus other options that the Israeli's have that we are unaware of. The sum total of it all is if Israel goes down that road, we are all going down with them. Is it worth it for Gaza? Then again man has went to war for far less.

[James Joyner]

Steve,

I'm still reading Article 6 is simply extending Article 5 to colonial territories of the signatories and the coastal waters thereof. I agree that it's politically problematic regardless if Turkey invokes.

[mystic]

Dear Mr Putin:
Please nuke the bastards. Pullease!!! Every single Israeli should be strung up by his or her fingernails and hung and the survivors nuked to a grey dust that resembles the dust of the buildings and people they pulverized in America.

Thanks.