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BBC MUNDO RADIO
(May 31) -- In the tangled strategic contest of Middle East statecraft, Israel's interception of ships carrying activists bent on aiding Palestinians may have played right into the hands of Hamas and the Islamist Palestinian group's principal sponsor, Iran.
Israeli commandos disembarked from warships and helicopters and boarded the six boats early this morning in international waters as the flotilla was steaming from Turkey to the blockaded Gaza Strip. Israel had warned the ships to change course for the Israeli port of Ashdod, saying the cargo of food, medicine, construction materials and other aid could be transferred to Gaza from there. But the so-called Freedom Flotilla led by Palestinian and Turkish activists, determined to break the 3-year-old blockade, refused to stop.
The initial result: Nine passengers were killed and dozens wounded from Israeli gunfire after some of the activists allegedly tried to repel the Israelis with slingshots, metal rods and possibly knives. Six Israeli soldiers were also wounded, and the Israeli Foreign Ministry said the activists seized two Israeli pistols and turned them on the troops. The roughly 700 activists aboard the flotilla, which was towed to Ashdod, were set to be deported or jailed.
The secondary result of the confrontation was nearly universal condemnation of Israel.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, once Israel's closest friend in the region, called the assault "inhumane state terrorism." U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the action and called for a "full investigation." Spain, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, decried the "unacceptable" and "completely out of proportion" attack and renewed European calls for an end to the blockade.
Israeli newspapers and human rights activists also called for an investigation.
The geopolitical consequences could be dire. The Israeli government lost a key opportunity to shore up shaky relations with its most important ally, the United States, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled a planned trip to meet with President Barack Obama in Washington, returning instead to Israel to handle the crisis.
The White House issued a statement saying the two leaders spoke by phone for 15 minutes, agreeing to reschedule their meeting, and that Obama "expressed deep regret at the loss of life in today's incident." The president, it added, "also expressed the importance of learning all the facts and circumstances around this morning's tragic events as soon as possible."
In the meantime, a nascent U.S.-led effort to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks is likely to be declared stillborn, with even the most moderate Palestinian leaders unwilling to talk with Israel.
And in a potentially much bigger setback, an international effort to impose tough new United Nations sanctions on Iran over its suspect nuclear program is now likely to be overshadowed by a Middle East agenda dominated by the Israeli raid for weeks or months to come.
The incident happened to come the same day the head of International Atomic Energy Agency produced reports updating the IAEA on the lack of cooperation from Iran and Syria. These reports are now bound to be drowned out by the Israeli raid in headlines and at the U.N. Security Council, which held an emergency meeting today to discuss the crisis.
Slingshots and Marbles
Netanyahu, speaking in Canada before boarding a plane for home, said Israel was acting against a violation of sovereignty and international law in stopping the ships. Israel has enforced the blockade of Gaza partly in response to the rockets regularly fired from there into Israel since 2007, when the militant group Hamas gained control of the territory.
Once the passengers resisted with force, Netanyahu said, "our soldiers had to defend themselves."
The Israeli Foreign Ministry posted a video of activists physically assaulting Israeli soldiers aboard the main ship, the Mavi Marmara, and another of "weaponry found in ships" that included images of a standing soldier showing his wound and another being evacuated in a stretcher.
But the footage of slingshots and the marbles they launched are just as likely to be used as propaganda by Hamas to argue the passengers faced a David-vs.-Goliath fight against the heavily armed Israelis.
Other details of the flotilla may point to what seems to be a clear mission of provocation, such as the inclusion among passengers on the Mavi Marmara of "women, children, and the elderly, all of whom are organizers," as a correspondent for Al Jazeera reported before communication from the ship was cut.
But the consensus of international opinion was overwhelmingly against Israel.
"Nothing can justify the appalling outcome of this operation," said Navi Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. "I unequivocally condemn what appears to be disproportionate use of force, resulting in the killing and wounding of so many people attempting to bring much-needed aid to the people of Gaza, who have now been enduring a blockade for more than three years."
Washington's Dilemma
The Obama administration now faces the difficult task of sticking up for its ally in the face of condemnation from even its main partners on the Iran issue -- including Britain -- at a time when outreach to the Islamic world is one of its key foreign policy initiatives.
That precarious balance could be seen in remarks from State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley to reporters today: "We support expanding the flow of goods to the people of Gaza. But this must be done in a spirit of cooperation, not confrontation."
Another issue sure to enter the president's calculations: Netanyahu's visit was to cap a concentrated administration courtship of American Jews at a time when many supporters of Israel were alienated by the White House's clash with the prime minister over new housing projects in east Jerusalem. Netanyahu had been personally invited by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel last week when Emanuel was in Israel for his son's bar mitzvah.
Netanyahu, meanwhile, is likely to be greeted by a political firestorm when he arrives back in Israel, where his critics can bring up a botched assault against Hamas that helped scuttle a previous Netanyahu premiership.
In 1997, he ordered a Mossad poisoning of Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Jordan, but one of Meshaal's bodyguards and Jordanian authorities captured the two Mossad agents. Netanyahu was forced to send the antidote to Jordan to save Meshaal's life and ordered the release from prison of Hamas co-founder Ahmed Yassin in order to get the agents returned.
The Israeli government may now find itself forced to make a similar act of contrition, but it is unlikely to quiet the clamor over today's raid anytime soon.
Israeli commandos disembarked from warships and helicopters and boarded the six boats early this morning in international waters as the flotilla was steaming from Turkey to the blockaded Gaza Strip. Israel had warned the ships to change course for the Israeli port of Ashdod, saying the cargo of food, medicine, construction materials and other aid could be transferred to Gaza from there. But the so-called Freedom Flotilla led by Palestinian and Turkish activists, determined to break the 3-year-old blockade, refused to stop.
The initial result: Nine passengers were killed and dozens wounded from Israeli gunfire after some of the activists allegedly tried to repel the Israelis with slingshots, metal rods and possibly knives. Six Israeli soldiers were also wounded, and the Israeli Foreign Ministry said the activists seized two Israeli pistols and turned them on the troops. The roughly 700 activists aboard the flotilla, which was towed to Ashdod, were set to be deported or jailed.
The secondary result of the confrontation was nearly universal condemnation of Israel.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, once Israel's closest friend in the region, called the assault "inhumane state terrorism." U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the action and called for a "full investigation." Spain, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, decried the "unacceptable" and "completely out of proportion" attack and renewed European calls for an end to the blockade.
Israeli newspapers and human rights activists also called for an investigation.
The geopolitical consequences could be dire. The Israeli government lost a key opportunity to shore up shaky relations with its most important ally, the United States, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled a planned trip to meet with President Barack Obama in Washington, returning instead to Israel to handle the crisis.
The White House issued a statement saying the two leaders spoke by phone for 15 minutes, agreeing to reschedule their meeting, and that Obama "expressed deep regret at the loss of life in today's incident." The president, it added, "also expressed the importance of learning all the facts and circumstances around this morning's tragic events as soon as possible."
In the meantime, a nascent U.S.-led effort to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks is likely to be declared stillborn, with even the most moderate Palestinian leaders unwilling to talk with Israel.
And in a potentially much bigger setback, an international effort to impose tough new United Nations sanctions on Iran over its suspect nuclear program is now likely to be overshadowed by a Middle East agenda dominated by the Israeli raid for weeks or months to come.
The incident happened to come the same day the head of International Atomic Energy Agency produced reports updating the IAEA on the lack of cooperation from Iran and Syria. These reports are now bound to be drowned out by the Israeli raid in headlines and at the U.N. Security Council, which held an emergency meeting today to discuss the crisis.
Slingshots and Marbles
Netanyahu, speaking in Canada before boarding a plane for home, said Israel was acting against a violation of sovereignty and international law in stopping the ships. Israel has enforced the blockade of Gaza partly in response to the rockets regularly fired from there into Israel since 2007, when the militant group Hamas gained control of the territory.
Once the passengers resisted with force, Netanyahu said, "our soldiers had to defend themselves."
The Israeli Foreign Ministry posted a video of activists physically assaulting Israeli soldiers aboard the main ship, the Mavi Marmara, and another of "weaponry found in ships" that included images of a standing soldier showing his wound and another being evacuated in a stretcher.
But the footage of slingshots and the marbles they launched are just as likely to be used as propaganda by Hamas to argue the passengers faced a David-vs.-Goliath fight against the heavily armed Israelis.
Other details of the flotilla may point to what seems to be a clear mission of provocation, such as the inclusion among passengers on the Mavi Marmara of "women, children, and the elderly, all of whom are organizers," as a correspondent for Al Jazeera reported before communication from the ship was cut.
But the consensus of international opinion was overwhelmingly against Israel.
"Nothing can justify the appalling outcome of this operation," said Navi Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. "I unequivocally condemn what appears to be disproportionate use of force, resulting in the killing and wounding of so many people attempting to bring much-needed aid to the people of Gaza, who have now been enduring a blockade for more than three years."
Washington's Dilemma
The Obama administration now faces the difficult task of sticking up for its ally in the face of condemnation from even its main partners on the Iran issue -- including Britain -- at a time when outreach to the Islamic world is one of its key foreign policy initiatives.
That precarious balance could be seen in remarks from State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley to reporters today: "We support expanding the flow of goods to the people of Gaza. But this must be done in a spirit of cooperation, not confrontation."
Another issue sure to enter the president's calculations: Netanyahu's visit was to cap a concentrated administration courtship of American Jews at a time when many supporters of Israel were alienated by the White House's clash with the prime minister over new housing projects in east Jerusalem. Netanyahu had been personally invited by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel last week when Emanuel was in Israel for his son's bar mitzvah.
Netanyahu, meanwhile, is likely to be greeted by a political firestorm when he arrives back in Israel, where his critics can bring up a botched assault against Hamas that helped scuttle a previous Netanyahu premiership.
In 1997, he ordered a Mossad poisoning of Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Jordan, but one of Meshaal's bodyguards and Jordanian authorities captured the two Mossad agents. Netanyahu was forced to send the antidote to Jordan to save Meshaal's life and ordered the release from prison of Hamas co-founder Ahmed Yassin in order to get the agents returned.
The Israeli government may now find itself forced to make a similar act of contrition, but it is unlikely to quiet the clamor over today's raid anytime soon.
