It
has been fascinating to watch the international response
to Israel’s pirate attack on the humanitarian flotilla headed
to Gaza. Not only has the international
response, characterized by near universal condemnation of
Israeli military action been noteworthy, but also the response
within Israel.
The
Israelis may have underestimated the willingness of most
of the world to speak up on this issue. This
should come as no surprise. Over the forty plus
years of the Occupation of Palestinian territories, the
Israelis have been able to get away with repeated violations
of international law, and have had no price to pay for it. Why,
then, should they have expected anything different when
they enforced their blockade of Gaza and carried out the
killings?
Whether
it was the fact that Turkish citizens (and one US citizen) were
killed, and Israel’s long-time ally—Turkey—found itself
insulted, or whether it was the fact that everyone in the
world knew that there was no military equipment in the flotilla,
something seemed to snap in the international community. In
this sense, we have to wonder whether we are witnessing
the equivalent of the Birmingham demonstrations carried
out by Civil Rights activists in 1963 that resulted in brutal
repression, all of which was captured on television. The
outrage from across the USA was critical in reshaping discussions
regarding both civil rights and the nature of Jim Crow segregation.
The
world seemed to have stood at silent attention for a moment
after the revelations concerning the attack on the flotilla. That
silence then broke and country after country—not to mention
the social movements within various countries—joined in
calling for an independent investigation of the killings
as well as an end to the Israeli blockade of Gaza.
The
response of the world to the flotilla murders also mirrored
another aspect of the response to Birmingham: Jewish
Israeli public opinion overwhelmingly seemed to identify
nothing wrong with the attack. A common view was that
Israel is being treated as a pariah state. In
the context of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, white opponents
of equality and justice regularly reacted in anger when
they were criticized by anyone outside of the South. In
fact, a siege mentality prevailed, and with it a sort of
neo-Confederate mentality of ‘us’ against the world. This
was illustrated by the placement of the battle flag of the
Confederate States of America on the flags of several Southern
states.
The
rightward shift in Israel, witnessed over the last several
years, has brought with it an adamant arrogance in the face
of growing international concerns regarding the denial of
human rights for the Palestinian people. The
official Israeli response to the murders should not come
as a surprise, but rather should bring with it disgust on
the part of all those who support justice for the Palestinians. This
response stands as evidence that very little can be expected
from the current Israeli regime in terms of sincere compromises
until and unless they receive very significant pressure.
With
the Israeli killings of participants in a humanitarian mission
has come renewed discussion of, and interest in, the Boycott/Divestment/Sanctions
Movement as a means to put the pressure on the Israelis
to end the Occupation and afford full human rights, including
but not limited to the right to self-determination, to the
Palestinian people. For the Black Freedom
Movement and its struggles against Jim Crow segregation,
it was not one action that tipped the scales, but it was
a protracted struggle combined with a public demonstration
of the utter brutality of the enemy that forced the hand
of the Federal government to advance the deconstruction
of the US version of apartheid.
One
cannot assume that the brutal murders on the high seas of
humanitarian allies of the Palestinian people will lead
to an immediate end to the Israeli Occupation. Yet
each demonstration of their flagrant dismissal of international
law and precedent leads greater numbers of reasonable people
to one conclusion: Israel must be isolated and compelled
to end its own apartheid oppression of the Palestinians. The
time for excuses and suggestions of extenuating circumstances
simply do not pass the straight face test, let alone the
test of international law.
BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member, Bill
Fletcher, Jr., is a Senior Scholar with the Institute
for Policy Studies,
the immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum and
co-author of, Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path
toward Social Justice (University
of California Press), which examines the crisis of organized
labor in the USA. Click here to contact Mr. Fletcher. |
Jun 17, 2010 - Issue 380
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