Noam Chomsky, the 81 year old activist and intellectual, has released a statement condemning Israel’s attack on the Gaza flotilla that resulted in the death of nine peace activists.  Chomsky writes, “Israel assumes that it can carry out such crimes with impunity because the US tolerates them and Europe generally follows the US lead.”

Noam Chomsky

Recently Israel refused to allow Chomsky to enter the West Bank from Jordan.  According this this NYT article, the barring of Chomsky from the West Bank caused “a fierce debate broke out in Israel about how a country that frequently asserts its status as a robust democracy could keep out people whose views it found offensive.”

In his article, Chomsky urges an end to the siege of Gaza and writes, “The siege is savage and cruel, designed to keep the caged animals barely alive so as to fend off international protest, but hardly more than that.  It is the latest stage of long-standing Israeli plans, backed by the US, to separate Gaza from the West Bank.”

Chomsky’s comments, as recorded at Common Dreams:

Hijacking boats in international waters and killing passengers is, of course, a serious crime.  The editors of the London Guardian are quite right to say that “If an armed group of Somali pirates had yesterday boarded six vessels on the high seas, killing at least 10 passengers and injuring many more, a Nato taskforce would today be heading for the Somali coast.” It is worth bearing in mind that the crime is nothing new.

For decades, Israel has been hijacking boats in international waters between Cyprus and Lebanon, killing or kidnapping passengers, sometimes bringing them to prisons in Israel including secret prison/torture chambers, sometimes holding them as hostages for many years.

Israel assumes that it can carry out such crimes with impunity because the US tolerates them and Europe generally follows the US lead.
Much the same is true of Israel’s pretext for its latest crime: that the Freedom Flotilla was bringing materials that could be used for bunkers for rockets.  Putting aside the absurdity, if Israel were interested in stopping Hamas rockets it knows exactly how to proceed: accept Hamas offers for a cease-fire.  In June 2008, Israel and Hamas reached a cease-fire agreement.  The Israeli government formally acknowledges that until Israel broke the agreeement on November 4, invading Gaza and killing half a dozen Hamas activists, Hamas did not fire a single rocket. Hamas offered to renew the cease-fire.  The Israeli cabinet considered the offer and rejected it, preferring to launch its murderous and destructive Operation Cast Lead on December 27.  Evidently, there is no justification for the use of force “in self-defense” unless peaceful means have been exhausted.  In this case they were not even tried, although—or perhaps because—there was every reason to suppose that they would succeed.  Operation Cast Lead is therefore sheer criminal aggression, with no credible pretext, and the same is true of Israel’s current resort to force.

The siege of Gaza itself does not have the slightest credible pretext.  It was imposed by the US and Israel in January 2006 to punish Palestinians because they voted “the wrong way” in a free election, and it was sharply intensified in July 2007 when Hamas blocked a US-Israeli attempt to overthrow the elected government in a military coup, installing Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan.  The siege is savage and cruel, designed to keep the caged animals barely alive so as to fend off international protest, but hardly more than that.  It is the latest stage of long-standing Israeli plans, backed by the US, to separate Gaza from the West Bank.

These are only the bare outlines of very ugly policies, in which Egypt is complicit as well.

Israel’s May 31 attack on the flotilla of boats, resulting in the death of nine peace activists seeking to break the Gaza embargo has brought protest from orthodox Jews.

An orthodox group called “Neturei Karta” protested at the White House and released this message:  “We express our profound condolences to the families of the murdered innocents, as well as our heartfelt wishes for speedy recoveries to all those wounded by the Zionist occupational forces. May Heaven send you complete and swift healing.”

Wikipedia reports, about this Jewish Orthodox group, “Neturei Karta believes that the exile of the Jews can only end with the arrival of the Messiah, and that human attempts to establish Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel are sinful. In Neturei Karta’s view, Zionism is a presumptuous affront against God.”

Orthodox Jews, at the White House, protest Israel's attack on the Gaza flotilla that resulted in nine deaths.

Neturei Karta’s position is that that State of Israel is illegitimate:

We find it imperative to clearly declare that the State of “Israel” does not represent the Jewish people, and certainly not the Jewish religion. They have no right to speak in our name, nor in the name of the holy Torah. They profane the Holy Land with their abominations, slaughters and countless other actions that emanate from this illegitimate State. Furthermore, the actual existence of this State is illegitimate as the holy Torah strictly and explicitly forbids any Jewish rule over the Holy Land. When the Zionist movement arose a century ago, our rabbis all warned us not to have any connection with them.

The Sunday ABC show “This Week” featured a roundtable with George Will, Liz Cheney, Arianna Huffington and Markos Moulitsas.

Jack Tapper, the moderator, noted that the United States was the only Western country in the world that refused to condemn Israel for  its actions that caused the death of nine people on a flotilla bringing relief supplies to Gaza.

I thought Arianna made a good point when she emphasized that the suffering in Gaza is “a real humanitarian disaster in violation of the Geneva convention that prohibits collective punishment.” I felt that Markos muffed his chance to say much of anything of significance.

What was interesting was the energy and zeal with which Liz Cheney and George Will defended the indefensible. You would think to hear them talk that the flotilla carrying supplies for Gaza was laden with scud missiles and weapons and  that this violent confrontation in international waters was required for Israel’s self defense.

According to Liz Cheney it is Israel that is being attacked.  With a straight face, she said, “When we don’t stand with Israel in the face of this kind of attack by Iran, by Syria, by Turkey, we send a very clear message that those nations can if fact attack Israel with impunity, that they can threaten to destroy Israel with impunity.”

George Will seemed lost in the forest of his own thoughts.  He seemed to argued that Israel’s indefensible actions were needed in order for Israel to defend itself and that anyone who might question Israel is only seeking war.  He said, “The next war becomes likely, all because people are trying to undermine the legitimacy of Israel’s self defense …”

Liz Cheney’s Comments:

Israel is under attack by Hamas which uses Gaza as a platform from which to launch attacks against Israel. They want to destroy the state of Israel and they are supported in that by Iran, Syria and, now, it looks like Turkey, as well.  This flotilla, had it really been committed to providing humanitarian aid, could have taken the Israel government up on its offer to dock and take that relief in.  They didn’t do that.  It was clearly a propaganda ploy. You had members of the Moslem brotherhood that were on board, you had people who were armed, ready for Israeli commandos to arrive. The United has to stand with Israel.  The United States, in a choice between Israel and Hamas, tries to stand above it, which is what this president likes to do on every issue, sort of be detached, and say, on the one hand, as he said in his Cairo speech a year ago, “on the one hand you have the holocaust and on the other hand you have Palestinians living under occupation.” That kind of moral equivalence is not only wrong and shameful, it is dangerous for the United States of America to not be standing with Israel.  When we don’t stand with Israel in the face of this kind of attack by Iran, by Syria, by Turkey, we send a very clear message that those nations can if fact attack Israel with impunity, that they can threaten to destroy Israel with impunity, and the United States won’t stand by its most important ally in the Middle East.

George Will’s Comments:

To the extent that that fiction called the international community makes it impossible for Israel to conduct this kind of boycott to keep Hamas from becoming re-amed, two things happen. You hasten the coming of the next Middle East war, because scuds are coming from Hezbellah in Syria from the North, weapons will pour into Gaza — from which 6000 rockets have already been fired at Israel. So Israel again will have to take active defense and go again into Gaza and Southern Lebanon.  Furthermore, no Israeli prime minister is going to allow a two state solution, if a Palestinian State, based on the West Bank, cannot allow some kind of armed presence on its eastern border to prevent a new influx of arms into the new Palestinian state.  Therefore,a two state solution becomes impossible and the next war becomes likely, all because people are trying to undermine the legitimacy of Israel’s self defense.