Europe to Join Blockade of Gaza
January 24th, 2009 § Leave a Comment
According to AFP “France, Britain and Germany have offered to help prevent arms smuggling into the Gaza Strip.” Why don’t they offer to help get aid into Gaza? Seeing as Israel has been ramming aid shipments in international waters, a grave act of lawlessness and piracy to quote Chomsky:
“a small boat, the Dignity, was on its way from Cyprus to Gaza. The doctors and human rights activists aboard intended to violate Israel’s criminal blockade and to bring medical supplies to the trapped population. The ship was intercepted in international waters by Israeli naval vessels, which rammed it severely, almost sinking it, though it managed to limp to Lebanon. Israel issued the routine lies, refuted by the journalists and passengers aboard, including CNN correspondent Karl Penhaul and former US representative and Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney. That is a serious crime — much worse, for example, than hijacking boats off the coast of Somalia. It passed with little notice. The tacit acceptance of such crimes reflects the understanding that Gaza is occupied territory, and that Israel is entitled to maintain its siege, even authorized by the guardians of international order to carry out crimes on the high seas to implement its programs of punishing the civilian population for disobedience to its commands — under pretexts to which we return, almost universally accepted but clearly untenable.”
