Global outrage over the raid on a civilian flotilla headed toward Gaza being directed at Israel – and by extension the United States – is perhaps even more coordinated and visceral that the outcry over Israel’s 2007 operation against Hezbullah in Lebanon.
This editorial from Mexico’s La Jornada reflects the general global mood, outlines the additional difficulty the attack on the Freedom Flotilla brings for President Obama’s efforts to bring Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table, and warns that without war crimes trials for Israeli leaders, ‘the world will advance not toward civilization – but savagery.’
The La Jornada editorial says in part:
The bloody attack executed the other night by the Israeli military against a flotilla of six ships that intended to bring humanitarian aid to the besieged population of Gaza – which left 19 activists dead and dozens wounded – is the consequence of the unacceptable margin of impunity that the United States and Western Europe have permitted the regime in Tel-Aviv to commit all sorts of war crimes, atrocities and violations of human rights. And not only against the Palestinians who are prisoners in their own land, but against any expression of solidarity with that unfortunate people. Israeli leaders know they can commit any crime, anywhere in the world, without bringing on themselves negative consequences of any kind.
The attack on the humanitarian flotilla wasn’t an isolated case of losing control, but the consequence of a state decision, the purpose of which can only be to derail diplomatic efforts aimed at alleviating – even minimally – the predatory occupation of the West Bank and the siege of Gaza, whose population has been enduring acts of genocide that inevitably bring to mind the horrific circumstances of the Jews who were herded and massacred by the Nazis in the Warsaw ghetto.
If Washington and the European Union allow to go unpunished, a criminal aggression perpetrated on international waters against civilian ships traveling to Gaza on a humanitarian mission, they will void all of their speeches and pronouncements in favor of the rule of international law, and human rights and justice. And the world will advance not toward civilization – but savagery.
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