The genius of the Israel Defense Forces has always been to wage war in the enemy’s territory, as far away as possible from the small parcel of land it is charged with protecting from destruction. The Yom Kippur War of 1973 was a disastrous exception, and the surprise attack fought on its own soil resulted in terrible casualties for Israel.
Israel’s navy therefore stopped the self-styled humanitarian flotilla in international waters. The flotilla’s leaders had stated repeatedly, even after Israel’s stern warning, their intention to sail through Israel’s blockade of terrorist group Hamas-run Gaza. Israel had offered to deliver the humanitarian goods (there already exists a proper and successful channel for doing so), but the activists were not interested. Israel has since attempted to deliver them. Hamas refused to take delivery.
The blockade of Gaza represents an inconvenience to the Gazans and to Israel, but not a humanitarian crisis. As cold as this might sound, it is necessary to state this to those critics, often otherwise sober minded, willing to make absurd charges and slanderous comparisons of Gaza to the Jews’ own historical ghettos.
In 2005 I was escorted to the Karni Crossing between Israel and Gaza. There was already growing concern that this new border was a looming challenge for the Israeli military. As a rabbi and someone concerned with the lives and welfare of all innocent people, even those whose leadership swears proudly and on paper to eliminate my own, I had wanted to confirm the situation first hand.
Looking at the crossing surrounded by military officers, I thought of a childhood visit to Hunts Point Cooperative Market in the Bronx, with its open, bustling exchange the best of capitalism and democracy. At the crossing, tens of millions of Shekels were once exchanged in a massive two-way flow of produce, construction materials, household goods, and electronics that sustained and improved the lives of both peoples. The crossing had been temporarily closed due to Hamas’ cross-border terrorist activity, and I stood there wondering if the disengagement really served the interest of the Gaza population. What was once a major point of commerce was now a desolate structure.
In 2007 I returned to Israel with student members of Yale’s Eliezer Society. We visited Sderot in the south of Israel where I was stunned to see how the thousands of missiles launched from Gaza into Israeli neighborhoods had changed the once bustling city. I looked through the window of the office of Sderot’s then-Mayor Eli Moyal and saw the damage done by Hamas missiles to buildings just next door. Mayor Moyal told us of the ongoing construction of bomb shelters in preschools and hospitals and the effects of psychological terror on the innocent children.
While serving coffee he showed us Kassam rockets that had been gathered from the playgrounds and gardens of Sderot. Hundreds of psychiatrists had been brought in from all over Israel to counsel the children living daily and nightly under assault from the missiles, jolted awake by the explosions and sirens. These children, he told us, do not sleep at night, cannot concentrate in school, and are suffering from the worst form of trauma. An entire generation of children will be permanently scarred by the terror.
In 2008 I saw the tragedy in its completion. With the Gaza war fully raging, our trip was confined to Northern Israel. We were not allowed near the conflict, which we watched on our hotel televisions, horrified that Hamas’ actions left Israel no choice but to return fire. Though condemned by the international community and the one sided, calumnious “Goldstone Report” (the Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict), Israel stopped, albeit temporarily, the Hamas rockets, while desperately avoiding a retaliation that would subject innocent Gazans to the same fear of imminent death as the children of Sderot.
These three visits summed up for me how and why Israel is blockading Gaza. The blockade was brought on solely and consciously by the terrorist leadership of Gaza’s population. The actions Israel has taken aimed solely to prevent attacks on its civilian population, and it has done everything possible to minimize the suffering of the people of Gaza.
Last week’s attempt by anti-Israel agitators to cross illegally into Israel’s waters represents a violation of Israel’s sovereignty. The countries involved, foremost Turkey, should be called to task by the international community and prosecuted. The financial backers of this project, as well as the NGOs and non-profits that support criminal trespass into Israeli territory, should be investigated and prosecuted by the International Court and the United Nations.
Every country claims the right to inspect goods coming into its ports. If its soldiers are attacked while defending their borders, as were the Israeli soldiers who were beaten while landing on the Flotilla, any government would authorize the use of deadly force.
Israel cannot and should not wait for the world’s approval to undertake a defensive action well within the rights and obligations of any nation, and it must remain alert for more such tests of its sovereignty on land and sea. In the meantime the world must begin investigating and prosecuting all those responsible for the devious flotilla escapade.
Shmully Hecht is Rabbinical Advisor Of Eliezer, the Jewish Society at Yale University, and a panelist for the Washington Post’s “On Faith” blog. Hecht’s description of his encounter with Richard Goldstone, author of the “Goldstone Report,” can be found here.
Comments:
Some supporters of Israel including Max Boot have argued that the matter could have been handled better, though that's another issue. It's always easy to bayonet the wounded on the front lines.
In the long run this is a minor incident compared to the prospect of Iran gaining nuclear weapons.
The problem is that Israel is faced with an existential threat from Arab and Persian intransigence; it is rather shameful that The U.N., much of world media, and the left are involved in a propaganda campaign against Israel. I should suggest that if you wish to understand tis issue, you read Elliot Abrams piece, "Joining the Jackals" at:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/joining-jackals
So is this inaccurate? (McArdle's certainly not on the left.) Abrams doesn't address my question about why nonthreatening luxuries are prohibited.
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/06/what-is-israels-blockade-for/57574/
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-06-01/israel-flotilla-disaster-gaza-embargo-us-supporters-to-blame/
I have no problem with a blockade that prevents potentially dangerous materials from entering, I'm just wondering why luxuries are prohibited (if they are; you make it sound like McArdle, the Economist, and Beinart are inaccurate here).
Thanks,
JAB
This idea that the Turkish Islamic militants were innocently trying to send humanitarian aid to Gaza is a crock.
However.
Shmully Hecht certainly doesn't try very hard to prove that the Gaza boycott (echoing anon's comment, I assume this should read blockade?) "saves lives." He just passes along a few anecdotes from his visits to Israel, and then asserts that Israel had no choice but to invade Lebanon in response to the rocket attacks. Hecht provides no data whatsoever comparing casualties prior to the blockade and subsequent to the blockade, nor does he provide a comparison of Israeli and Palestinian civilian casualties. In short, Hecht doesn't even attempt to demonstrate the claim in the headline of his essay.
Further, Hecht claims that Israel "has done everything possible to minimize the suffering of the people of Gaza." Perhaps Hecht is unaware of the chart that has been circulating lately listing the many non-military goods that are banned from Gaza, such as ginger, nutmeg, canned fruit, dried fruit, fresh meat, nuts and seeds [this is the chart referenced in JAB's comment above]. The ban on these items is unrelated to weapons, and the only plausible motive is a punitive one directed at the entire population of Gaza. It is just lazy for Hecht to claim that Israel is doing "everything possible" to minimize the suffering in Gaza while failing to address the legitimate concerns that have been raised concerning the blockade.
Finally, I note that in another context, Hecht has recently been making arguments that are as weak as those in this essay. In an op-ed in the New Haven Register, Hecht wrote in defense of Connecticut attorney general and Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate Richard Blumenthal, who was criticized for falsely claiming to have served in Vietnam. Witness the portion of Hecht's defense that specifically addressed the falsity of Blumenthal's claim:
"In a March 2008 speech in Norwalk, Blumenthal says he 'served in Vietnam.' In either an exaggeration or an omission like Neil Armstrong’s dropped 'a' in 'one small step for (a) man,' Blumenthal does miss two important words in that he 'served in (the) Vietnam (era).'”
Riiiiiight. Hecht concludes the op-ed this way: "Blumenthal can and will take responsibility for his speeches, but mistaking honorable service for draft dodging is exactly as wrong as conflating Parris Island and Khe Sahn." Nobody was accusing Blumenthal of draft-dodging - they were accusing him of falsely claiming to have served in Vietnam. Hecht's straw-man argument is laughable.
I bring up the Blumenthal op-ed because I believe that considered in conjuction with today's essay, Hecht demonstrates a penchant for shoddy argumentation that is beneath First Thing's standards, and I don't think First Things should publish his writing again unless it improves.
He writes:
"The whole point of this relentless international campaign is to deprive Israel of any legitimate form of self-defense.
"The world is tired of these troublesome Jews, six million — that number again — hard by the Mediterranean, refusing every invitation to national suicide. For which they are relentlessly demonized, ghettoized, and constrained from defending themselves, even as the more committed anti-Zionists — Iranian in particular — openly prepare a more final solution."
The article is at:
http://article.nationalreview.com/435513/israel-disarmed/charles-krauthammer?page=2
We did the same with Germany and Japan during world wars. If America were faced with a bordering enemy that fired thousands of rockets, we would not only use an embargo but find a way to annihilate its armed forces and anyone else who supported them.
Unfortunately, all too many in the West lack the imagination and charity to understand Israel's parlous existential situation, facing Arab enemies who are determined to annihilate the country.
Every country claims the right to inspect goods coming into its ports. If its soldiers are attacked while defending their borders, as were the Israeli soldiers who were beaten while landing on the Flotilla, any government would authorize the use of deadly force.
They were attempting to cross into Gaza's waters and reach Gaza's port, not Israel's.
i think you people who blindly support one side, whether Gaza or Israel, just continue to show your stupidity. you war buffs need to learn one thing, there are no rules to war, they're forever changing. sometimes learning from history will be your undoing.
We did the same with Germany and Japan during world wars. If America were faced with a bordering enemy that fired thousands of rockets, we would not only use an embargo but find a way to annihilate its armed forces and anyone else who supported them.
Unfortunately, all too many in the West lack the imagination and charity to understand Israel's parlous existential situation, facing Arab enemies who are determined to annihilate the country.
It is good to hear that the boycott has saved lives.
I wonder if there are more clever ways to get around some of the difficult obstacles preventing Israel from defending itself as effectively?
1) A ship engaged in blockade-running may be captured on fresh pursuit and brought into port for adjudication and condemnation by a Prize court. If it resists, it may be attacked.
2) If merchants, or others, are prepared to run the risk of the capture and condemnation of their ships and cargos, by blockade-running or shipping contraband of war to a belligerent, they commit no crime, in international law, by doing so.
3) Neutral states are not obliged to prevent their citizens from engaging in blockade-running (although they may do so, if they choose, providing they apply such prohibition impartially to all belligerents)
The most recent statements of the law on this subject are to be found in the San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea (1995) and the Helsinki Principles on Maritime Neutrality (1998). Much misunderstanding over this contentious issue would be avoided, if people were to refer to these valuable works.