Israel's Unchallenged Acts of Piracy

5 November 2009
Israel's Unchallenged Acts of Piracy 5 November 2009
The Israeli commandos who boarded the Francop, a ship from Iran bound for Syria, committed an act of piracy in violation of international law regardless of what the vessel was carrying.

Surely a shipment of arms from Iran to Syria is perfectly reasonable and is no different from the transfer of weapons from Moscow to Iran or Syria or Serbia and there is no legislation in international law that prohibits it. Israel itself is the fourth largest arms exporter in the world, arming more than two hundred member nations of the UN, and accrues revenues from arms sales of more than $10 billion annually.

Israel has been allowed to build an advanced military industry, consisting of both conventional and nuclear weapons which it readily sells to whoever wishes to purchase them. Clients have included both India and China.

Avigdor Lieberman [Israeli Foreign Minister] recently took ten representatives from the Israeli weapons industry on a tour of Africa. Clearly the aim was to contribute to their arsenals and, in the case of the Nile basin countries, butter them up for a deal whereby Nile water destined for the Egyptian quota could instead be diverted to Israel.

There is not enough room here to list Israel's many acts of piracy, at sea, in the air and on land. All these crimes take place in broad daylight, with no objection from the international community. At the same time there is international clamour to criminalize hungry Somalis who hi-jack ships – Western meddling having turned their country into a failed state.

This is the second time in less than six months that Israel has antagonized Syria in a deliberately provocative and demeaning manner. The first time, was in September when they sent warplanes to destroy a military site in the north-east (near Deir ez-Zor) under the pretext that a nuclear plant was under construction, with North Korean involvement.

Syria has yet to respond to this act of piracy, and probably won’t. Syrians have been uncharacteristically silent about such Israeli abuses, but silence is not useful to them in this case, and may compound the problem. Israel's insults shame the Syrians, as does their failure to respond, and the other Arab nations are equally at fault here.

Israel is preparing for war to restore its dignity after the defeat of its forces during the war in Lebanon in the summer of 2006; it faces international isolation, and is increasing reviled by nations across the globe for its massacres in the Gaza Strip, and the accusations of war crimes contained in the Goldstone report. Renewed aggressions against Lebanon and Gaza are increasingly likely, in an attempt to drag Syria and Iran into a wider war. For this reason Israel does not want any new weapons, especially anti-aircraft missiles, to arrive in the hands of Hezbollah. Israeli fighter and surveillance planes have violated Lebanese airspace on numerous occasions over the past few weeks.

This has several implications:
First: The West's negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, aimed at stopping it enriching uranium, has reached an impasse. Supreme leader Ali Khamenei’s delay in responding to the West’s proposal, submitted during the Vienna talks, with regards to the transfer of low-enriched Iranian uranium for processing in Russia and France, means that Iran intends to push ahead with its nuclear projects. If this is the case then Iran will leave the West with few options: they could accept these projects and live with them, or impose crippling economic blockades or military attacks, or both.

Secondly: for months security 'experts' and the Israelis have been monitoring Syrian shipments of weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon. In addition, Hamas has succeeded in developing rockets in the Gaza Strip with the range to hit Tel Aviv – Israeli military action seems inevitable.

Third: The recent shift in US policy towards the Arabs and the peace process, as expressed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during a recent trip in the region, abandons the previous requirement to freeze settlement construction in exchange for the resumption of negotiations and demonstrates the ‘unshakable’ support for Israel Mrs Clinton described to Netenyahu. This indicates that the Obama administration now gives priority to dismantling the Iranian nuclear program, and will back Israel if it uses military force to achieve this.

As for the Arabs, we are divided into three camps: the first fully supports the US/Israeli position and would support, even join, any military campaign against Iran. The second, led by Syria, publicly supports Iran and would back it diplomatically and, if required, militarily. The third camp comprises of countries who do not wish to oppose Israel – some African countries for example – because their priority is development and they cannot afford to offend Israel's staunch ally, the US.

The absence of Arab reaction, the pursuit of peace as a strategy in its own right and the abandonment of all other options, even in theory, have led to the current excesses of Israeli arrogance. At the economic summit in Kuwait, Mr Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League, told delegates that the Arab peace initiative will remain on the table forever and that he would 'personally' find ways of ensuring Israeli co-operation. All former Arab dignity has wasted away in the face of Israeli's constant provocations.

We do not expect any Arab leader to openly object to Israel's piracy of the alleged weapons shipment, or to attacks carried out by Israel in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. When the Israelis hijacked a ship carrying international activists to break the siege on Gaza in July Egypt's response to this insult was to tighten security at the Rafah crossing. Israeli warships violate Egyptian territorial waters with impunity, but the hungry African trying to get to Israel via the Sinai is shot for his trouble.

The question that comes to my mind, and perhaps the minds of millions of other Arabs, is when will our governments respond to such blatant breaches of sovereignty and airspace? Will the day ever come when Arab navies commandeer ships carrying weapons to Israel and force them into Arab ports for inspection? Especially when such weapons are being shipped to an aggressor State occupying Arab lands which has committed flagrant war crimes against innocent Arabs and Muslims?