The assault on an aid flotilla headed for Gaza broke all kinds of laws, but then again, laws have never stopped Israel
© Uriel Sinai / Getty Images
The long-expected if perfectly criminal has happened again: Israel’s navy has intercepted the Gaza-bound Sumud Flotilla by force, stopping almost 50 boats and, in effect, kidnapping hundreds of their crews and passengers
In terms of law – which, of course, are never really applied in practice to Israel – everything is exceedingly clear: The Sumud Flotilla was a volunteer operation to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza which has been subjected to Israeli genocide for now almost two years. Israel had a clear obligation to let that aid pass. .
But then
what to expect from the world’s most aggressive rogue state that is not “only” committing
genocide, but also waging regional wars of aggression and running terrorist
assassination campaigns in the face of the global public? And Israel has a
well-established track-record of this kind of piracy, of course, having stopped
several attempts to bring aid by sea since 2010, sometimes with casualties among the
humanitarian activists.
Stopping
the Sumud Flotilla wasn’t merely criminal but criminal in every regard lawyers
can imagine, a typical Israeli super-whopper of legal nihilism: Israel attacked
the flotilla ships in international waters where it has no jurisdiction. Even
if the ships had gotten closer to the Gaza coast, they would, by the way, still
not have been inside any Israeli territorial waters because there are no such
waters off Gaza, over which Israel has no sovereignty as clearly confirmed by
the International Court of Justice last year. What you find off the coast of
Gaza, as a matter of fact, are Palestinian territorial waters.
The
blockade of Gaza, which has lasted not “merely” for the
duration of the current high-intensity genocide-ethnic cleansing campaign but
for close to two decades now, is illegal. Because the blockade has been in
place for so long, Israel is simply lying – surprise, surprise – when arguing
it is a short-term measure covered by the San Remo rules, which
summarize “International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea.” And
even if those rules applied, under them as well Israel would have to let
humanitarian aid through.
Finally,
as Israel has attacked ships and citizens belonging to over 40 countries,
Israel has committed aggression under international law against all of them
and, less obvious but a fact, also crimes under each of these countries’
domestic laws, because they apply on those ships.
So far
for the law, but then again, Israel is de facto outside and above the law. That
much we have known for a long time. Indeed, Israel could not exist
without constantly breaking international law and getting away with it. For
Israel, lawlessness and impunity are not luxuries but vital necessities.
The
reason why it has been able to exist in this manner is well-known, too: It is
protected by the West and, in
particular, the US. The latter is Israel’s single worst co-perpetrator,
facilitating its crimes like no other state on Earth. Soon, for instance, the recent war of aggression waged by America and Israel
together against Iran will probably be followed by a second,
even worse assault.
In this
regard, what has happened to the Sumud Flotilla has been a test: Clearly,
recent moves by various Western governments, including the UK, France, and
Australia to “recognize” – in an extremely dishonest manner – a
Palestinian state and add some cautious rhetorical criticism of Israel make no
difference to their absolute deference in practice to both Israel and its
backers in the US.
What
seemed like a glimmer of hope for a moment, the appearance of warships from
various nations to apparently escort the humanitarian flotilla, has turned into
just another humiliation: the escort abandoned their
charges well in time to allow Israel a free hand.
The same
Western leaders responsible for this cowardly retreat cannot stop waffling
about the need not to “reward the aggressor,” when dialing up
the war hysteria against Russia, as they have been doing mightily again
recently, from mystery drones to declaring unconstitutional states of “not-peace” to
chatter of states of emergency.
What
about, for once, not rewarding the genocider for a change? But
that’s hard, isn’t it? Once all Western governments are accomplices of Israel.
The
Sumud Flotilla will not have been the last attempt to break both Israel’s
genocidal blockade and its aura of impunity. There is hope, because even in
NATO-EU Europe and the US ever more people understand what
Israel really is and what it really does: a settler-colonial apartheid state
that won’t stop committing genocide and ethnic cleansing. Israel’s systematic
campaigns of propaganda and information war are escalating in response, as the
case of TikTok has just demonstrated. But even Israel and its American friends
cannot reverse history and an experience that the whole world has made. The
Gaza Genocide is a fact already. It will not be forgotten. The resistance to
Israel will never end.
