Israel and the "Freedom Flotilla"

Under no circumstances does Israel, or any other country, have the right to board humanitarian aid vessels, guns blazing, in international waters. By most definitions, this is piracy, pure and simple. International maritime law gives the crew of ships attacked in international waters the right to defend themselves. Certainly it would have been better if the largely Turkish crew of the ship where most of the fatalities took place had not fought back. But it was well within their legal right to do so.

The "Freedom Flotilla" — a convoy of six ships organized by a coalition of human rights activists from Europe, North America, the Middle East, and elsewhere — allowed people to take part in the "Freedom Flotilla,"only on the grounds that they "agree to adhere to the principles of non-violence and non-violent resistance in word and deed at all times."

Critics of the flotilla are partially correct in observing that the purpose of the voyage was not just to deliver badly needed aid, but to "provoke a confrontation." This, however, is part of the great tradition of nonviolent direct action. For example, civil rights activists in the 1960s were similarly criticized for provoking confrontation by sitting in at lunch counters, marching across Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge, and demonstrating in downtown Birmingham. It was only through such confrontations, revealing the brutality of the oppressor, that change was made.

The Obama administration does not appear to be very interested in making change when it comes to its policies toward Israel. Indeed, the U.S. response to this tragedy is very reminiscent of the U.S.-backed Salvadoran junta's atrocities in the 1980s. For example, when the U.S.-backed Salvadoran military murdered three American nuns and a Catholic lay worker involved in humanitarian relief efforts, the Reagan administration claimed that they were actually "political activists" who may have engaged in "an exchange of fire" with the Salvadoran soldiers, resulting in their deaths. Similarly, when the junta arrested 60 humanitarian aid workers, the Reagan administration defended the mass kidnapping on the grounds that the army had found such "weapons" as sharp sticks and gasoline, in the church basement where some of these aid workers had created a sanctuary for peasants seeking refuge from government-backed death squads. That such objects might have civilian uses was deemed irrelevant in an effort to depict the church workers as supporters of terrorism.