Israel and Aid Ships to Gaza
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-06-02/israel-and-aid-ships-gaza
International condemnation and protests follow a deadly confrontation between Israel and Gaza-bound aid ships. Guest host Frank Sesno and our panelists explore what the crisis could mean for U.S. relations with Israel and other allies.
Guests
Hisham Melhem
Washington bureau chief for Al-Arabiya TV, and Washington correspondent for "An-Nahar"
Aaron David Miller
public policy fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; former adviser to six U.S. Secretaries of State on Arab-Israeli negotiations; author, most recently of "The Much Too Promised Land: America's Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace."
Adam Shapiro
co-founder, Free Gaza Movement
Michael Oren
Israeli ambassador to the U.S.
former senior fellow at the Shalem Center;
author of "Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East"
Comments
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As once quoted some years ago, "Can't we all just get along?" I find reasons for both Israel and Palestine to be indignant toward each other and perhaps after thousands of years; peace will never come to that part of the world. In the mean time however, why will Israel not permit the United Nations to bring in the needed supplies that every society needs for survival? It seems to me that punishing an entire group of people because a minority of them are terrorist (or freedom fighters) is just plainly unreasonable and I believe provides further, whether justified or not, anguish, fear and death among all involved.
Right of return? Jerusalem? Borders? The solution for the Israel and Palestine conflict will be one state: either one Jewish state with perpetual conflict and instability or one secular democaratic state that guarantees human rights and a vote for all.
The Israeli human rights group Gisha has written to Prime Minister Netanyahu asking him to make good on his statement that "any goods, any humanitarian aid to Gaza, can enter" http://www.gisha.org/index.php?intLanguage=2&intItemId=1788&intSiteSN=113
Why not to call the things by their proper name. This was a premeditated provocation stages by pro-Hamas “Free Gaza Movement”. The aim of this PR action is not a “humanitarian aid” delivery (it is less than a weekly amount of goods delivered via Israel), but undermining the blockade. Hamas should defiantly celebrate the event. Hamas and Hezbollah would know how to use the uncontrolled borders of Gaza.
I feel horrible about it but, I couldn't really care less about the Israel/Palestine issue anymore.
For my entire life there have been troubles of one sort or another over this patch of ground and no one on either side can be trusted to tell the truth, much less deal in truth.
It's a sad, sad, sad, situation which will never be solved.
Israel has a long history of aggression against unarmed ships. Remember their attack on the USS Liberty on June 8, 1967 when they killed 34 and injured 173. The liberty was an unarmed ship international waters. It was flying the US Flag, was straiffed by aircraft, then attacked by boats with automatic weapons. The ship was so badly damaged that it was scrapped. This from our 'friend.' They are the buly of the Middle East.
The Israeli ambassador misspeaks. Hamas was democratically elected. The fact is that democracy means nothing to Israel if it means letting Arabs votes.
Please ask Mr. Shapiro why they didn't head for an Israeli or Egyptian port.
Clark Echols
Why did Israel send commandos down ropes from helicopters carrying paintball guns? Paintball guns are very realistic looking. Secondly, why not just board the vessels in a conventional manner with civillian police carrying only side arms and search them? Israel is lost in its own arrogance and the government at least has lost its collective mind.
i am listening to the Ambassador and must say that Israel simply has lost any moral credibility. His account differs from all other accounts I have heard, including that of retired Ambassador Peci. I have been to Israel and to Palestine--to the West Bank--and it is clear that Israel is determined to squeeze the Palestinian people out of their land and Palestine out of existence. As an American, I want our government to reevaluate its policy. We simply cannot aid and abet Israel in its determination to drive these people off the land on which they have lived for five thousand years.
Strange to hear your Al Arabia guest decry "violence against civilians" in defense of Hamas. Look at 2005, the violence against Palestinian civilians was brutal, arbitrary and led by Hamas leaders now "governing" Gaza.
The notion of collective punishment is a twisted version of reality since Hamas has always spent more of its funds and energy on military action than on its humanitarian efforts, which it uses to garner this exact type of world sympathy.
Cement=purely civilian aide??? Hmm, take a look at what Hezbollah does with cement in Southern Lebanon, where huge bunkers house 50,000 rockets w/ no defensive purpose, a purely Iranian backed offensive threat to Israel.
Why a blockade? Because Hamas' official goal is to attack Israel. It is it's primary goal and the health and welfare of Gazans is secondary. There is much evidence by Hamas actions to support their military goal. Was Gaza a launching pad before 2005 when Israel left hundreds of viable farms and greenhouses for Gazans that Hamas appropriated as rocket launch pads. Hamas blew up crossing points where aide and trade crossed. Hamas sends in attackers. Hamas holds Gilad Shalit and doesn't allow Red Cross visits, none in 4 years. By the way, they crossed the southern border to abduct him. Explain.
If, as Free Gaza guest suggests, the "Gazans had found a way to break the blockade with tunnels" to Egypt, they why was Free Gaza's boat necessary? As a purely political act designed to invite this kind of response so that they could ramp up support of people who think Hamas is a benign, loving group of guys, who just happen to want to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. Can't have it both ways Free Gaza.
In all the discussions of Israel and the Palestinians, I have yet to hear anyone mention the fact that Israel is occupying stolen land and expecting the rest of the world to believe that the Palestinians have no right to protest the theft of their territory and the atrocities that Israel has committed against them. This is like a band of armed robbers coming into a house and becoming outraged when the terrified homeowners try to defend themselves. When the Israelis (armed and funded with U.S. taxpayers' money) blockade Gaza, violate the inhabitants' human rights, and conduct "shooting fish in a barrel"-style raids, they have no right to claim the moral high ground. Their arrogance and intractability are the real reasons for the ongoing crisis between themselves and the Palestinians.
Israel has squandered a great opportunity. This was a deliberate provocation just like civil rights marchers in America braving attack dogs and racist police. Israel took the bait.
What they should have done was send a high ranking official to welcome the ships and boarded the ships, searched them and sent them on their way. That would have taken all of the steam out of this movement.
Now maybe even racist, anti-arab Americans will have had enough of Israel's arrogance, brutality and complete indifference to injury and death of non Israelis.
Now the only thing left is for palestinians to realize that if they lay down their arms and begin a non-violent movement to break down walls, checkpoints and blockades the world will support them.
I wish that today's presenter would step back from his rather aggressive questioning of the Israeli ambassador and accept that the facts of what happened are rather different to those sensationalized over the last few days. Surely, if one were searching for balance in this broadcast, one should be asking someone from the boat in question (or its sponsors) why the vessel did not take the initial option of landing in either Israel or Egypt and trans-shipping its cargo by land, or take the option, as the other boats did, of entering an Israeli port under escort?
Also, I do find it somewhat offensive that we should so aggressively question the actions of the one democratic, open society in the middle east, while giving those whose societies are far less democratic such a soft ride. After all, if a neighbor to the United States were committed to the destruction of the nation and the elimination of its population, the historical record suggests that the United States would act rather more aggressively than Israel has done.
The fact that an accident of geography has rendered the United States isolated from immediate and compelling threats from its neighbors to its geographical integrity and the safety of its population should not render us insensitive to, or disdainful of, the tangible, potentially fatal, threats that other democracies face.
Why are we (The United States) so afraid of Israel. How is it they are allowed to walk into someone else land and claim it as their own? I don't understand why we have turned blindly to everything they do. It seems that many of the problems that are occurring between Israel and Palestine Israel has created. Also was anyone listening to the Israel Ambassador, how can someone be so arrogant as to state he will not apologies for what just occurred. I think he should allow a non bias investigation into the what recently occurred and from there make a statement as to having to apologies or not.
I would like the journalist to please stop using names like "regime" or "government" but qualifying with real facts. Israel is an occupying power and they really should expect a reaction from the occupied country. Why are the Israelis putting this as a defense issue when they are the offenders? I am Jewish myself and I am ashamed by Israelis actions.
I admire Frank Sesno's interviews on the Diane Rehm show. His questioning of the Israeli ambassador displayed a great deal of background knowledge, and I learned a lot about the Israeli point of view.
HAMAS occupies the Gaza Strip. Israel blockades the Strip because Hamas is at war with and committed to the destruction of the State of Israel.
The Israeli ambassador, who spoke without the other commentators present, said that the commandos landed on the ship with paintball guns. Why couldn't the interviewer have countered this absurd comment? There are 9 people dead!
Israel is clearly not South Africa. Contrasting is more appropriate than comparing.
About a month before Israel's devastating 2009 assault on Gaza, whose entire population had been imprisoned by Israel, I interviewed Mairead Maguire, a Nobel Peace Laureate from Ireland. Maguire had been on the first boat to Gaza to deliver medicine and other supplies.
“As we started to leave Gaza,” Maquire said, “a woman ran up to me and offered me money to bring milk for her baby the next time.”
When Israeli officials hatched the plan to punish the entire population of Gaza for voting for Hamas, an aide to Sharon said, "The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet but not to make them die of hunger." At the time, some thirty per cent of Palestinian children already suffered from malnutrition. Now, seventy-five percent of Palestinian families suffer from hunger.
It is quite disgusting that the Diane Rehm show gave a forum for an Israeli propagandist to spout one lie after another, without anyone present to contest him. Hamas was abiding by the cease fire in 2008, restraining from firing their pathetic homemade rockets over the wall of their prison, even though Israel continued to prevent goods from entering Gaza. The rocket fire resumed after Israel broke the cease fire by assassinating seven Hamas members. It is one of Israel's big lies that the blockade is to prevent rocket fire.
It is about time for the world to treat Israel as the pariah state that it is.
somegy wrote:
"I feel horrible about it but, I couldn't really care less about the Israel/Palestine issue anymore."
That is exactly what Israel's leaders count on -- that people will tire of the issue and look the other way while Israel steals Palestinian land and kills anyone who resists.
Yes, you must look at the beginning of this conflict to understand the reasons that it continues today. Israel keeps building settlements and the Palestinians are cut off from each other and their historical sites. This oppression fuels the violence. This conflict must be solved with a nonviolent approach, using humanitarian groups and a united civilian voice. We, the regular working people of the world, are sick of the powerful and privileged being so out of touch with values and needs. United we must stand against this oppression and violence.
There is a wrongful death trial presently in an Israeli court of another Peace activist.A young American woman,Rachel Corrie who was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza in 2003.Israel had it’s own “Investigation”and you would not believe it,but no Israelis were found guilty!!.
Israel was practicing “self Defence” as it was bulldozing yet more Palestinian homes. Western eyewitnesses on the scene watching Corrie crushed to death by an armoured Israeli army bulldozer recounted how the Israeli driver put the vehicle in reverse with blade down running Rachel’s body a second time.
Those same eye witnesses were intially barred by Israel from entering the country to testify.Only under pressure of the US government did Israel relent and allow them entry.
The coroner in Gaza was not allowed to testify.
OTHER WESTERN Civillians KILLED BY ISRAEL:
Tom Hurndall/UK shot in back by IDF
James Miller/UK shot in neck by IDF
Alistair Sinclair/Scotland died in Israeli custody,Ben Gurion airport.
Tristan Anderson/US shot in head at close range by IDF.PARALYSED.
I think this situation was a terrible tragedy. I think that Israel will learn from it, and learn to interdict contraband headed for Gaza in other ways in the future.
However, this event was mostly deadly "theatre". Members of the media condemning Israel while not examining carefully the reason for the blockade in the first place are just playing into the hands of assorted extremists. Some of these same extremists advocate terrorism and war against the United States and other Western groups, as well as assorted assaults on human rights and democracy.
I found the episodic stuttering of Hisham Melhem quite interesting, particularly when he was confronted with his own misrepresentations of this situation (for example, at about 13 minutes into the program). Mr. Melhem is apparently frantic to depict this mission as completely peaceful and the Israelis as completely in the wrong.
Unfortunately for Mr. Melhem, and as the Israeli Ambassador pointed out, in polls of the American public, US citizen support for Israel is currently at an all-time high, while support of the US citizenry for Palestinians has never been lower. I think an inquiry and careful examination of the situation might very well turn over facts that Palestinian extremists would not like revealed.
I also notice that Adam Shapiro tried to use the charge of "racism" at one point in the conversation to silence anyone who disagreed with him. Shame on you Mr. Shapiro. This sort of tactic is uncalled for Mr. Shapiro, and makes you sound ridiculous.
Of course Eboona has an interesting take on reality. If you go back, the land was not the possession of an itinerant band of people who lived there 1,000 years ago, 500 years ago, 100 years ago. The land around Palestine, Israel whatever YOU want to call it has been home to many peoples over the course of history. How would you explain the fact that a Jewish temple got itself built UNDER the Dome of the Rock? Seems that Jews were there prior to Muslims. Arabs/Palestinians have all of Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, much of Iraq, and all the surrounding countries. If they loved the Palestinians, they might have given them citizenship, they might have not forced them to live as refugees, they might have encouraged them to create institutions that are not equated throughout the world with futility, inability to get along, even with factions of themselves, suicide bombing, imposition of marshal law, beheading of perceived enemies, launching of rockets at civilians. You get the picture. Your image of how the amalgam of what you refer to as "the Palestinians" can be in any way equated w/ a moral highground is absurd. As all the Fatah activists killed by Hamas. Ask all the people Arafat's team killed. Ask all the Europeans who have seen literally billions of $ disappear down a sinkhole of corruption. Then ask yourself whether negotiation borders and recognition of two countries that would allow people on both sides to actually live in peace and show what a national movement can create (well one now does, one is a disaster), then you'd have something to back your claims that Palestine is a society, a country, a system that improves the lives of its people.
Israel is THE greatest destabilizing force in the world today and they act with impunity by employing "excessive force" time and again. All under the guise of protecting the state from terrorists or hamas or whoever. They are the "spoiled brat" that the US is afraid to hold accountable. It's time that Israel be held accountable LIKE EVERY OTHER NATION ON THE PLANET!
First - expell the Israeli ambassador from the US NOW until this investigation is completed.
Second - stop providing US aid to Israel (the most of any country). Those were US provided helicopters etc used against defenseless protesters.
Third - require them to adhere to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty and declare how many nuclear weapons they have AND begin to dismantle them.
I used to believe that Israel had some legitimate concerns back in the early 1970's but have watched them assassinate their own leader who was working towards a peaceful solution; continue to build settlements and kill innocent protesters/citizens by the bushel. Come on - those so-called Hamas missiles barely qualify as a firework in most places and, when combined with rock throwing, hardly present a threat that requires tanks, artillery and aircraft (not to mention use of chemical weapons - white phosporous). That's why I have changed my perspective and believe that perhaps Hamas is right - we'd be better off without an Israel.
Now, because I disagree with Israeli policy, I too can be labelled an anti-Semite.
Is the Diane Rehm show now the voice of Israel, this is maddening, 20 minutes of Israeli view, what about "other sides".
Again, where is fair two sides of this confrontation.
But Israel has much in common with South Africa.
Humanitarian aid is provided to and allowed into Gaza from Israel and Egypt so why are “peace activists” trying to break a blockade designed to prevent weapons and materials that can be used to support terrorism from entering Gaza?
Do these “peace activists” believe that the Hamas government should be allowed to build a military force that can continue to attack Israeli citizens in their homes and schools?
Do these “peace activists” support the Hamas government’s commitment to the destruction of the only democracy in the Middle East?
Do these “peace activists” support the Hamas government’s attack on Israel that captured soldiers for the purpose of swapping them for prisoners who are proud of murdering women and children?
Do these “peace activists” support the Hamas government’s alliegance to Iran, a nation that uses religion to oppress its own people?
Do these “peace activists” believe that causing the nine deaths by attacking the Israeli soldiers who came on board to take the ship to an Israeli port is justified?