How do you know when someone is serious about pursuing a strategy of nonviolent resistance until victory for justice is achieved?
When they refuse to turn back in the face of state violence. Damn the commandos. Full speed ahead.
The Irish Times reports:
The MV Rachel Corrie is ploughing ahead with its attempt to deliver aid to Gaza despite yesterday's attack by the Israeli navy on Gaza-bound ship the Mavi Marmara.
The cargo ship, which has four Irish nationals and five Malaysians aboard, is due to arrive in Gazan waters tomorrow, a spokeswoman for the Irish Palestine Solidarity Campaign said.The vessel became separated from the main aid flotilla after being delayed for 48 hours in Cyprus due to logistical reasons.
Nobel laureate Maireád Corrigan-Maguire, former UN assistant secretary general Denis Halliday, and husband and wife Derek and Jenny Graham are the Irish nationals on board.
Speaking from the ship today, Mr Graham said the vessel was carrying educational materials, construction materials and some toys. "Everything aboard has been inspected in Ireland," he said. "We would hope to have safe passage through."
Might the Israeli military attack the Rachel Corrie, as the Israeli military attacked the Mavi Marmara? Would the Obama Administration permit such an Israeli attack on the Rachel Corrie, as the Obama Administration permitted the Israeli attack on the Mavi Marmara?
Note that in particular, under international law, an Israeli military attack on the Rachel Corrie in international waters would be an attack on the government and people of Ireland, because the Rachel Corrie is an Irish-flagged vessel. As former British Ambassador Craig Murray recently wrote:
To attack a foreign flagged vessel in international waters is illegal. It is not piracy, as the Israeli vessels carried a military commission. It is rather an act of illegal warfare.Because the incident took place on the high seas does not mean however that international law is the only applicable law. The Law of the Sea is quite plain that, when an incident takes place on a ship on the high seas (outside anybody's territorial waters) the applicable law is that of the flag state of the ship on which the incident occurred. In legal terms, the Turkish ship was Turkish territory.
There are therefore two clear legal possibilities.
Possibility one is that the Israeli commandos were acting on behalf of the government of Israel in killing the activists on the ships. In that case Israel is in a position of war with Turkey, and the act falls under international jurisdiction as a war crime.
Possibility two is that, if the killings were not authorised Israeli military action, they were acts of murder under Turkish jurisdiction. If Israel does not consider itself in a position of war with Turkey, then it must hand over the commandos involved for trial in Turkey under Turkish law.
One presumes that Michael Higgins, the foreign affairs spokesman of the Irish Labour Party, is well aware of these considerations, and that his statement about Irish government policy noted in the Irish Times article should be read in this light:
Labour foreign affairs spokesman Michael D Higgins today called on the Government to demand safe passage for the MV Rachel Corrie.
In a statement, he said some of those on the vessel had contacted him earlier today and had stressed they wanted to avoid conflict and to be allowed unload their cargo to help the residents of the Gaza Strip."The Minister for Foreign Affairs . . . must make it clear that any assault on the Rachel Corrie would be regarded as a hostile act against Ireland and a clear breach of international law that could not be ignored by this country," Mr Higgins said.
In cities around the United States today, Americans will be protesting against the Israeli government attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. While protesting the attack on the Mavi Marmara, Americans should demand that the Obama Administration act to guarantee safe passage for the Rachel Corrie to reach Gaza.
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It's time,
Joe Mustich, Justice of the Peace,
Washington, Connecticut, USA
Rachel Corrie death at the hands of the IDF was never really seriously addressed by the US or Israel.
It's time.
Tell Obama: Speak Up for the Free Passage of the Rachel Corrie to Gaza
In his speech in Cairo, President Obama urged the Palestinian people to press their claims for justice through nonviolence. Now that the Israeli military has attacked the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, President Obama should follow through on his Cairo speech, and demand free passage to Gaza for the Irish-flagged Rachel Corrie.
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/mvrachelcorrie
Twitter:
http://twitter.com/home/?status=Urge+Pres+Obama+to+protect+MV+Rachel+Corrie+passage+into+%23Gaza+http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2FdokPGg+%23flotilla+RT+@justfp
Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http://bit.ly/dokPGg&src=sp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzynO5YUrFE
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/0601/breaking33.html
you see that the article has been updated; in particular, Irish Taoiseach [Prime Minister] Brian Cowen called on Israel to allow the Rachel Corrie, pass through its military blockade of Gaza and warned there would be “most serious consequences” should any harm come to Irish citizens involved with the aid flotilla.
See this pdf summary of naval law, especially sections 7.7 through 7.10:
http://www.usnwc.edu/getattachment/a9b8e92d-2c8d-4779-9925-0defea93325c/1-14M_(Jul_2007)_(NWP)
This means that the attack on the soldiers with sticks and knives was not legal. The return fire from the Israelis is then legal if it was in legitimate self-defense. One of the Israeli soldiers was stabbed in the back before they opened fire.
The cargo from the first six ships has already reached Gaza, so the crew of the Rachel Corrie can ship their cargo through the Israeli port of Ashdod and be confident that it will get through to Gaza in a couple of days, at most.
Attempting to run the blockade is an act of war against Israel, and Israel will have the legal right to use force to stop the ship.
Anyway, no laws are really applicable here. What Israel has done and continues to do is so outrageously immoral it can never be defended or justified.
Basically, I believe he was perplexed but not surprised; Israel has been feeding on militaristic aggression for so long that, at a time it could have played the benign dictator, allowing the much-needed supplies in and diffusing some of the tension her present actions have created in the past few years, it chose instead to go for the jugular believing to be a deterrent. It isn't.
She pushes itself further and further into a corner - Turkey, her only Muslim ally will pull the plug; Egypt leadership, forced by public outrage, has opened its borders; criticism is coming from all corners of the world - Sweden, Spain, Brazil - you name it.
Israel has long been reading the signs completely wrong and doesn't even care that it puts its main benefactor who just recently dissed the Turks on the Iranian issue, in a difficult stop, straining an already fragile cooperation. However, dutiful as ever, the US government is wagged by its tail, further weakening its own stance on the world stage. Some European leaderships, unable to think outside the box, will play Simon says.
The World Cup hasn't even started and its own goals all around.
However, Israel has the legal right to intercept the Rachel Corrie and the other ships even in international waters.
Under the laws of war, if the Rachel Corrie tries to run the blockade, Israel has the right to sink it. But that is not likely.
This is one more aspect then of continuing war crimes by Israel. Indefensible. But you can try. Show the Declaration of war against the democratically elected government of Gaza. Please, continue to make a fool of yourself and your cronies arguments.