The Gaza Blockade was started about 3 years ago by Israel and Egypt to contain Hamas, the militant Palestinian group that controls Gaza. The Israeli raid on the Free Gaza Flotilla last week has refocused international attention on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and also onto the Gaza’s isolation. international leaders question the reasons for the blockade to continue. Some critics call it inhumane oppression. Supporters of the whole thing say the blockade is essential to prevent rocket attacks by Hamas on Israeli soil.
Israeli raid investigation wanted by UN
The United Nations, European leaders and many others criticized Israel after its commandos stormed six ships in international waters. Around 700 activists were trying to break the Gaza Blockade by bringing in about 10,000 tons of aid. Voice of The US reports that U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the violence aboard the Turkish ship could are avoided if Israel had heeded earlier calls to lift the Gaza Blockade, which has prevented essential goods from reaching Gaza’s 1.5 million residents. Ban said he is considering an investigation into the Israeli raid that resulted within the deaths of nine pro-Palestinian activists.
Israel defends Gaza Blockade
Israel says that it allows more than enough food, medicine and supplies into Gaza and opposes any independent investigation of the attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. As outlined by the Associated Press, Israel also rejects claims that Gaza is within the midst of a humanitarian crisis. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an address to his nation the aim of the flotilla was to break the blockade, not to bring aid to Gaza. “This was not the ‘Love Boat’,” Netanyahu said, “It was a hate boat.” Israel says its soldiers were acting in self-defense because passengers attacked them when the commandos rappelled onto the ship from helicopters.
Hamas wins by losing
The attack on the Free Gaza Flotilla is seeming to be the latest public relations coup for militant organizations dedicated to antagonizing Israel. In 2006 Hezbollah scored a huge victory over Israel merely by surviving an onslaught it sought to provoke in southern Lebanon that devastated the countryside. Hamas, which regularly terrorizes Israel with rocket attacks that come from Gaza, seems to escape international rebuke for that misbehavior. In the meantime, Israel finds itself in lose-lose situations when it claims to be defending itself. Netanyahu has warned that if the blockade ends, there can be hundreds of ships bringing in thousands of missiles from Iran to be aimed at Israel.
Israel gives gift to its enemies
The situation created by the Gaza Blockade and also by the Free Gaza Flotilla creates a geopolitical Rubik’s Cube for the United States. America’s relationships Middle East may have to be reset to some kind of balance of power that now sees Turkey — a non-Arab country who gained massive Middle East street cred by sanctioning the blockade — as the linchpin. Israel is the loser. Hamas gets to be the winner. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace reports the U.S., Egypt and even the Palestinian Authority had been betting on the weakening and eventual demise of Hamas. But now, Hamas can operate from a position of strength, ironically, because of Israel.
