Israel’s military action

CYNTHIA RAMSAY

Before it was even clear what had happened Monday morning in the Mediterranean, condemnations of Israel and anti-Israel rallies flourished around the world, including in Vancouver.

That day, six Turkish-led ships, carrying 10,000 tons of aid and more than 600 activists to the Gaza Strip, attempted to break an Israeli naval blockade. Israel closed its border with Gaza and, along with Egypt, imposed a blockade in 2007. The terrorist group Hamas – which governs Gaza – has been responsible for firing more than 10,000 rockets and mortars at Israeli civilians.

Well before Monday’s events, as well as on the morning of the incident, there were repeated warnings by Israel that it would not allow any ships to cross the blockade, which is an internationally recognized and legitimate barrier. The ships refused to acquiesce and Israel intercepted the vessels for inspection; on five, the procedure went relatively peacefully, but on the sixth, the Mavi Marmara, there was violent resistance. At least nine passengers were killed and many others injured, including several Israel Defence Forces commandos, after their paintball rifles proved ineffective and they were given permission to use their handguns.

“My understanding of what happened was that Israel was within its rights to request that they be able to board and inspect these boats,” Michael Elterman, chairperson of Canada-Israel Committee Pacific Region, told the Independent in an interview Monday. “There were six ships that were en route to Gaza and when they [IDF soldiers] went onto one of these six ships, there were some militant Turkish young men – terrorists – who were armed with knives and metal bars and handguns and the Israeli soldiers, fearing for their lives, because they were coming down on a single rope from a helicopter, had no choice but to respond.

“And Israelis were wounded, including by gunfire from these activists aboard the ship, and my understanding is that Israel made every effort to provide the organizers with an opportunity to avoid a confrontation. They offered to bring the flotilla into Ashdod, to transfer the aid that they were bringing to Gaza through security checks, and the organizers of the flotilla rejected this offer and the organizers told the Israeli authorities that the mission is not about delivering supplies and that it’s about breaking the siege of Gaza.... The reality is that there is no blockade of humanitarian aid to Gaza. In fact, Israel delivers 15,000 tons of humanitarian aid, including medicines and food and water, every week, and the blockade is only really there to prevent unknown cargo, particularly weapons and rockets, from entering Gaza and falling into the hands of Hamas.

“That is really what this is about, and it’s really not about these people being victims,” said Elterman. “These people knew what would happen and they wanted to create a PR stunt to turn sympathies away from Israel.”

Rabbi David Misavair and his congregation, Ahavat Olam, take a different view. They were one of the Jewish groups that participated in the anti-Israel rally in front of the CBC building in Vancouver Monday.

About 120 people showed up at noon to block traffic for awhile and chant things like, “End the siege of Gaza now!” and “Liar, liar, pants on fire! Netanyahu is a liar!” Amid the noise of traffic and jackhammers, organizers condemned, among other things, “Israel’s acts of war and aggression” and Canada for supporting Israel. Speakers included Lawrence Boxall of Jews for a Just Peace and Mivasair, who also blew the shofar, as a “voice of warning, an alarm ... to the Jewish people.”

“We’re going as an act of conscience,” Mivasair told the Independent prior to the rally. “Our board discussed this [issue] this morning and unanimously believes that Jews in Israel and the Diaspora just have to speak up about Israel’s disregard for other people’s lives.”

As an example, he said, “Well, they shot and killed 15 people [later reports put the total at nine] who were bringing relief supplies to Gaza and they wounded something like another 60; people who, in fact, were not armed. I’ve been watching the news out of Israel for hours and it’s clear that the only firearms that were on the ship were Israeli firearms. [Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister] Danny Ayalon said that himself. The Israeli commandos were attacked with steel bars but to open fire with, you know, rifles, and kill 15 people is such a huge overreaction and just total disregard for people’s lives.

“And, the siege on Gaza,” he continued. “They’re holding one and a half million people under a siege now for years, without access to food, medicine, construction equipment and supplies.” He claimed that many groups have tried to deliver humanitarian aid “through what Israel calls proper channels, and their supplies don’t get through. Israel has kept ambulances and medical equipment and never let it through. You need to research this.”

About this accusation, Elterman said, “You’re not hearing Red Cross or you’re not hearing Human Rights Watch saying that there is no humanitarian aid coming in. It is coming in. I’ve seen convoys of trucks going south to Gaza on a weekly basis, and this is stuff which they need: food, water. There would have been a crisis of huge magnitude, think about it, if there was no food and water and medical supplies coming in. This stuff is not coming in through tunnels [built by Palestinians to Egypt], this is coming in through Israeli trucks.”

About the protest in Vancouver, Elterman said, “The rational thing to do is, before you jump to any conclusions, you have to look at the facts, look at the evidence. Don’t, on the morning that it is being reported, go and jump to conclusions – wait until the facts emerge.” About the protesters’ claims, he said, “If you are against a country or a group, then you will take on any misinformation or lie and believe it to be true because it supports what you believe, and if you believe that Israel is evil and is victimizing Palestinians, and you come with that predisposition, the facts don’t matter. It’s completely unempirical, and the strange part of it is that these are very intelligent people in their normal lives, many of them professionals, many of them whom are very well educated, but, when it comes to Israel, they are blind ... they are prepared to believe anything nasty about Israel that comes to their attention.”

About Israel’s siege on Gaza – the stated reason for it being security concerns – Mivasair said, “I think they have it to break the will of the Palestinians.” As for Israel’s objective, he said, “To be able to continue to live in Israel unharrassed and unaffected by the suffering of these other people.”

In response to a question concerning whether the protesters were purposefully trying to engage Israel’s military and attacked Israel’s soldiers, Mivasair said that the metal pipes were construction materials. “They’re not designed to be weapons,” he said. “Nobody took them on the ship to be weapons and, when you say ‘confront another country’s military,’ this is a military that, a year and a half ago, killed over a thousand a people [in Operation Cast Lead].”

About the situation in Gaza, Mivasair said it goes way back. “Gaza is populated by refugees, whose homes were destroyed by Israel.” According to Mivasair, “beginning before April 14, 1948, Israelis invaded Arab villages, dragged people out of their homes and killed them in the streets in front of the other villagers, made people flee, destroyed their homes.” About any Jewish refugees from Arab countries at the time, the rabbi said, “That has absolutely nothing to do with it.”

When asked about the warnings the ships received from the IDF, Mivasair said, “Israel has no right to control international waters. Israel has no right to control the waters of Gaza. Israel committed, 15 years ago, in the Oslo Accords, to build a deep-sea port in Gaza so Gaza could have its own trade.”

About Hamas being a terrorist group, he said, “Hamas was actually elected by the people; the majority of the voters in Gaza voted for Hamas.” And, about why construction supplies were part of the flotilla’s aid package, he responded, “Israel destroyed thousands of homes,” referring to Operation Cast Lead. He said he did not know that Hamas was carrying out its own home demolitions in the Gazan town of Rafah. According to Reuters, Hamas “says it destroyed 11 illegally built homes and local residents put the number at 26.” The report noted, “Owners of the disputed tracts in Rafah said the land has been owned by their families since the 1940s.”

About Israeli actions, Mivasair said, “It’s a very deep, complex, psychological thing that comes out of centuries of Jewish oppression and powerlessness and the Holocaust and everything else. What Israel is doing is not rational.” He dismissed any connection between peace talks and the flotilla incident. “This was planned long, long before that and those talks are not peace negotiations,” he said, adding, “They’re window dressing. They’re just a way that Israelis can put off any kind of concessions or compromises even longer.”

In going to the rally, Mivasair said, “We hope to show that there are Jews around the world, as well as in Israel – there are demonstrations all over Israel today by Jews – so we hope to show that the Jewish community is backing away from it support of what Israel’s been doing.”

He concluded, “This kind of thing is actually driving people away from the Jewish community and Jewish identity; it’s driving people away from Judaism.... Rather than leaving Judaism, we need to stand up for what it’s really about, and it’s not about murdering innocent civilians.”

In response to this argument, Rabbi Philip Bregman of Congregation Temple Sholom and founder of the Rabbinical Association of Vancouver, told the Independent, “And if Jews are leaving Judaism because they don’t want to go to Shabbat services, that means we should give up Shabbat services? If Jews are no longer going to keep kosher, does that mean that we should simply throw out kashrut? It’s an absurd argument and discussion. Are there Jews who are angry with Israel? Sure. Are there Jews who are upset with Israel? Sure. Are there individuals who are upset with their family? Sure. Does that mean that any time you get upset with your family you walk away from your family?”

Like Elterman, Bregman noted that “there are many Jews who will look for any excuse, any excuse, to criticize Israel and rarely look for any reason to celebrate, and many of these Jews never look at Israel’s responsibility to defend itself, as any other nation would have to do.” On this issue, Bregman referred the Independent to a recent blog by Dr. Daniel Gordis of Israel’s Shalem Centre, who’s written numerous books and articles on Jewish thought and currents in Israel.

On May 31, Gordis posted a response to an American friend who complained, “yet again a misguided Israeli political and military mission with regard to Gaza that American Jewry will be asked to stand by and support. All over the news Israel will be referred to as ‘the Jewish state,’ as worldwide condemnation will pour in. As a Jew, I will be on the defensive despite the fact that I have no vote and no say in whatever the politicians in Israel decide.... I love Israel as my religious base, but the policies do not reflect my peace-loving values.”

Gordis writes, “Israel’s actions were ‘misguided’? Let’s take that first. Were there tragic outcomes? Obviously. But ‘misguided’? Gaza is under the malicious and cynical rule of a terror organization sworn on Israel’s destruction, that is holding an Israeli soldier captive in contravention of all international treaties, and that oppresses its own population while even Palestinian witnesses there acknowledge that there is no food shortage. Given Hamas’ military objectives, Israel would be crazy not to check what’s going in. But Israel had already pledged to pass on any humanitarian goods after they were inspected, and told the boats the same thing. So, no, I don’t think that the idea of stopping the boats was misguided.

“What we know is that on five of the ships, the commandos (among them friends of our kids, by the way) boarded the boats, and there was no resistance and no fighting.”

He writes, “On one boat, however, the first soldiers to land on the boat were attacked with metal rods and knives.... They were beaten, trampled, shot (yes, there were bullet injuries) but only after 40 minutes of combat did they resort to live fire. They were going to get lynched if they didn’t fight back, they said.

“Was I there? No. Do I know what really happened? No. But do I trust these kids and their officers? Yes, I do.”

Gordis notes the “peace activists” terrorist connections, as well as the legitimate ways a real humanitarian mission could have delivered supplies. “But they didn’t want that,” he writes. “They just wanted to break the blockade. Why? For food? Even a few Palestinian journalists with some guts are reporting that there’s no humanitarian food crisis in Gaza. No, it wasn’t about food. They want the blockade broken so that, after that, non-humanitarian items (read weapons) could brought in. Why should Israel allow that? So that they can be better armed the next time we have to send our kids into Gaza?”

He concludes, “At the end of this excruciating day in Israel, at least given what I know at this moment, I’m saddened but not apologetic. I’m not surprised by most of the world’s reactions. But I haven’t lost sight of who provoked this, and why they did that. But you’re a very smart guy. Why have you?”

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