by John Grant, This Can’t Be Happening, 06/24/2011 – 21:34 —
Two veteran friends of mine will be on one of the ships planning to leave Athens next week to challenge the Israeli sea blockade of Gaza. The Israeli government, after attacking a previous flotilla in May 2010 and killing nine people, has said it will use violence if necessary to prevent the ships from entering what any reasonable person by now should agree are Palestinian waters.
This confrontation should not be necessary. The Israeli military occupation over Palestinian life should have been eased and sovereign rights established for Palestinians long ago. The crisis of Palestinian status has reached the level of a disaster, and like the creation of Israel itself it is more than a Jewish problem: It is a world problem.
The flotilla as an act of civil disobedience is occurring at a time Israel/Palestine peace talks are dead in the water and the fledgling coalition of Fatah and Hamas is planning in September to seek recognition of Palestine as a sovereign state from the UN General Assembly, the very same body that recognized Israel in 1947. The US doesn’t want this to happen because, if the past is a guide, it will feel it has to reject the Palestinian request. Since the US is only one of many equal votes in the General Assembly — versus the Security Council where its veto rules — a US vote supporting Israeli intransigence will do nothing but be galling for much of the world.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, left, and Prime Minister Benjamin NetanyahuIsraeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, left, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
At a time when people in the Middle East and North Africa are in the streets seeking new governing relationships and United States citizens of both parties are becoming fed up with foreign wars, the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman is acting like a dangerous, petulant child covering its eyes to make the real world go away.
Why does this matter? Why should ordinary Americans care about this?…
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