‘The Freedom Flotilla II – Stay Human’, a group of 10 to 15 vessels, will sail to Gaza with 350 to 1000 passengers from 22 countries on June30 to challenge Israel’s blockade of Gaza and provide humanitarian aid to the Palestinians living there.
The Flotilla will sail from a number of Greek ports. The first Flotilla sailed in May 2010 with 6 vessels and 688 participants from 41 nations to break the Gaza blockade. It was attacked by the Israeli troops, who killed nine Turkish activists on a Turkish vessel “Mavi Marmara”. Several others were injured during the attack by the Israeli commandos. Israel has stated that it will once again use its military to maintain its naval blockade of the Gaza strip, if diplomacy fails.
Israel alleges that Hamas has carried out terrorist attacks in Israeli population centers since it took over the Gaza strip in 2007. Therefore it considers the blockade necessary for security reasons. It claims that it is lawful because Israel is currently in a state of armed conflict with Hamas and international laws allow it to impose a blockade.
Legal experts, however, say those attacks do not give Israel the right to impose such a blockade. Human rights groups have classified it as a “collective punishment” for Gaza’s 1.5 million people and a violation of laws of war in the Geneva conventions.
“There is no question that Israel’s near hermetic closure of the Gaza Strip is illegal,” says the Freedom Flotilla II press statement released on June 27, 2011.“The only question is: why does the international community of states allows Israel to keep violating the law and rights of the Palestinian people with impunity?”
According to an IHH Foundation Facebook page dedicated to the Flotilla, the founding organizations of Freedom Flotilla II include the pro-Palestinian activist umbrella group Free Gaza Movement, the European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza, the IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation, the Ship to Gaza, Sweden, and the Ship to Gaza, Greece. The organizers say the Israeli blockade hinders the supply of sufficient aid to the Palestinians, proven by the state of emergency declared by the health authority in Gaza this month.
By sending two full cargo boats and passenger vessels carrying supplies and medical equipment for the Palestinians, with famous politicians, journalists, intellectuals and activists on board, the organizers aim to make a clear political stance of non-violently supporting the Palestinian resistance. Additional organizations taking part in flotilla II come from the U.S., U.K., Ireland, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Venezuela, Norway, Spain, Canada, the Netherlands, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
Israel accuses the Flotilla activists of planning to kill soldiers using chemical weapons. “They want to purposely create a provocation, they are looking for a confrontation, they are looking for blood; they are looking for many images on the TV screens,” Arutz Sheva, an Israeli newspaper, quoted Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman as saying. “No one doubts the intention of those people… But I am sure we will cope with them,” he said.
The organizers deny this accusation because all the passengers have signed a pledge of non-violence.
While Israel has started training its navy for another interception, it is involved in a massive campaign to prevent the sail of the Flotilla. According to media reports, the American government has discouraged Americans from sailing on “Audacity of Hope”, an American-flagged ship in the Flotilla, labeling it as a “provocative action”.
Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Alice Walker, former US ambassador to Ecuador Samuel Hart, and activist Hedy Epstein are among the 36 Americans on board. On June 28, the Journal of Turkish Weekly said that a loose coalition of activist groups reported “administrative obstacles” being put by Greece in response to pressure from Israel and other countries. Juliano, a Swedish ship, due to join the Flotilla was damaged by hostile divers at a Greek port on June 28.
Several activists from the IHH -a Turkish aid organization that has been a major organizer of the Flotillas – would be on board but Mavi Marmara – the organization’s vessel damaged in Flotilla I – will not sail.
“The legal position is plain. A vessel out with the territorial waters (12 mile limit) of a coastal state is on the high seas under the sole jurisdiction of the flag state of the vessel. The ship has a positive right of passage on the high seas,” said Ambassador Craig Murray, an internationally recognized authority on maritime jurisdiction and naval boarding issues. “The coastal state can regulate economic activity exploiting the resources of the seas and continental shelf up to 200 miles, the extent of the continental shelf, or the agreed boundary, but there is no indication of fishing, oil drilling or analogous economic activity in this case. The vessel is entitled to free passage.”
The first two vessels of the Flotilla have left France for Greece, where they will meet other ships to sail to Gaza. The ship with damaged propellers is sitting on the Greek port to be repaired. Due to the obstacles in the way of implementing the initial plan to leave in the third week of June, the Flotilla organizers had to postpone the departure. While they haven’t specified any date, they are expected to leave soon.
The Israeli government has announced that the Flotilla will not be allowed to enter. The Israeli navy is well prepared to board the vessels and deal with scenarios of non-violence to extremely hard resistance by the passengers, reported The Jerusalem Post.
The coalition members announced on June 28. “The bully criminal attacks of Israel and their associates only strengthen our will.”
Will the Flotilla go and come back with no difference made upon the condition of the Palestinians? Can it manage to free Palestinians from all forms of Israeli occupation? Or will the second Flotilla too end in bloodshed like first one? People across the globe will wait for the results.
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