Israeli: the Pirate State

The president of Turkey today accused Israel of state terrorism for its totally illegal, immoral, and unjustified assault and massacre on the Free Palestine Movement's flotilla of ships trying to bring material aid to Gaza despite the Israeli blockade. State terrorism is an appropriate term, but, given the circumstances, I prefer the term piracy. This is by no means Israel's first act of piracy. The Israeli nuclear weapons program obtained its first  supply of uranium by hijacking a ship at sea with a cargo of uranium. Then they signed their1976 agreement with apartheid South Africa to help them with counterinsurgency, to harden their military vehicles, and to jointly develop nuclear weapons in exchange for a supply of yellowcake uranium from South Africa. Secret details of that agreement have just been published in the UK. Israel also conducted the first airplane hijacking, the first car bombing, and the kidnapping of antinuclear whistleblower Morcechai Vanunu from Rome. The state of Israel has no respect for the laws of nations. Its army  has no honor or respect for human rights. This has been true since 1947. Israeli spokesmen announce that their soldiers were "attacked" when they landed on the Free Palestine Movement's ships in uncontested international waters. Even if that is true (and Israeli accounts of such affairs are routinely proven to be falsified), since when is there something wrong with the use of force to repel pirates on the high seas. Israeli propaganda exists in a netherworld of illogical and unrealistic fantasy which nobody believes in with the exception of a few diehard supporters of Israel in the United States (which unfortnately always includes the US government executive and legislative branches). The use of piracy, defiance of international law, state terrorism, ethnic cleansing, and the other tools of out-of-control rogue states is no accident. It derives from the essential nature of the Israeli state, which is to defend at all costs the spoils of colonial conquest and to extend them as far as they can possibly go.

For five decades, Israel with the reprehensible support of foreign governments, most notoably that of the United States, has ruled its region t itwith naked force and repression. Now, that is finally beginning to reverse. The feeble forces of Hamas resisted Israel's brutal attack on Gaza. Hezbolleh in Lebanon threw back an Israeli invasion and now promises to respond to any future attack with a fullscale attack against Israel. Everyone takes that seriously, including Israel's government, which knows that Hezbolleh's leader does not make false promises and that he has the force to back it up. Secondly, American public opinion is finally waking up to Israel's reality. What has begun with student governments is spreading further. Of course, the American public is alienated with its government over many, many issues: health care, bank bailouts, pointless wars, etc. Let us hope that increasing hostility to Israeli policies will find a way to express itself in this mix.