Days of Wrath

The freedom flotilla to the Gaza strip's 9 dead and 60 injured (?) made headlines for the past week. I'm not privy to middle eastern politics and as an outsider i have no right to meddle in the affairs of others especially when the situation is as serious as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So i can only comment as an interested by-stander as in what happens there does have an effect on me, geographically separated by oceans and thousands of miles notwithstanding. Indeed, it affects the rest of the world.

As far back as i can remember there have been war after war after wars fought since the creation of Israel. Israel has so far only signed peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan by virtue of, respectively, the Camp David peace accords brokered by then US President Jimmy Carter in 1978 and the Jordanian-Israeli Peace Treaty of 1994. Other than these 2 Arab countries, none of Israel's other immediate and adjacent neighbours made peace or officially recognised the Jewish state's right to exist. In essence, Israel has been in an official state of perpetual war because of this lack of an overall consensus among Arab states as to official recognition of the jewish state's right to exist. Sans 1948 or 1967 borders. It is interesting to note that neither the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) nor Hamas recognise Israel's right to exist, their maps show only Palestine. Not a square inche of land is marked as Israel. (Blogger's post-blog note: Incorrect. the PLO DID recognise Israel's right to exist in 1993 and formalised later in the historic Oslo peace accords brokered by then US President Bill Clinton and signed with then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Rabin himself was later assassinated by a Right-wing Jewish extremist for his part in reaching the Oslo Peace Accords with the PLO in which Israel in return recognised the PLO as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. Only Hamas has remained steadfast - till today - in its refusal to recognise the right of Israel to exist - my apologies for the oversight on my part. But official recognition notwithstanding, the late PLO chairman Yasser Arafat's statements to the press from time to time in which he cited instances from the Prophet Mohamed's life to justify cutting a deal with the enemy as a means to ultimately destroy the enemy was unhelpful to say the least).

In this context, you would understand why Israel is always on the edge and its security checks on all border crossings into Palestinian territories are detailed and exhaustive. The freedom flotilla may be nobly motivated. But who is to stop unscrupulous quarters from smuggling in weapons, for example, a dirty bomb that could be delivered right smack into the heart of Israel propelled by a katyusha rocket? Therefore Israel's absolute insistence that the ships be first checked at its port before anything else. This isn't state terrorism, it's state security. And it's a very real and present danger which cannot be dismissed or brushed aside in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Israeli operation to board the freedom flotilla was done rather badly. Yes, it was a botched operation. Yes, it was stupid. Made worst by the loss of lives on that fateful night when the organisers of the freedom flotilla decided it was time to set a course for the Gaza strip. Perhaps the results could have been different had they been intercepted during the daytime. We shall never know. What is done cannot be undone. But the actions taken by the Israelis while stupid, badly executed and unfortunate, was necessitated by the realities on the ground. They should not be made to shoulder the blame for this tragedy entirely. The organisers of the freedom flotilla should have known better than to undertake such a foolhardy and reckless adventure. One would think they knew what they were doing when they assumed the risks. Well, now we know the outcome. The organisers of the freedom flotilla are ultimately as responsible for the deaths of the 9 people on board the freedom flotilla as the security apparatus of Israel. And that's the naked truth as far as i can tell.