The Gaza Flotilla

If you haven't heard, at the beginning of last week, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) attacked the Gaza Flotilla, six ships carrying humanitarian aid to the Gaza strip. The intent of the Flotilla was to break an Israeli blockade of the Gaza strip, which is illegal under international humanitarian law. Immediately following, a propaganda war ensued, in which both sides played a game of "who started it first." The IDF set out to prove that soldiers that attacked the six ships were met with violence from the peace activists, and were thus justified based on self-defense in their use of tear gas and live ammunition, which killed nine people. I would like to write about a few thoughts I have about the incident.

First of all, the argument of the IDF falls short. The excuse of self-defense cannot be used, because they were the initial attackers, repelling onto the boats in international waters. Secondly, the whole incident would not have happened if Israel did not insist on keeping the Gaza strip under blockade. The intention of the IDF was to keep the ships from delivering humanitarian aid and therefore prolonging their already illegal siege of the strip.

There has been, however, a large silence on the side of Palestinian supporters regarding the violence of the peace activists aboard the ship. If these accounts are true, there should be more of an effort to admit that violence of any kind is wrong. If people are in favor of true peace, there must be no excuse for the use of violence of any kind. The article below, entitled Lying about the Gaza Flotilla Disaster compares the struggle against the Israeli occupation to the struggle against Segregation in the South. It is important, however, to remember that Martin Luther King Jr. did not condone violence of any kind and use this as a model in the struggle against the occupation.

This whole incident makes me feel even deeper how much I do not like war. In war, the majority of people act out of fear, instead of love and compassion. The activists may have been afraid of the soldiers attacking their ship and thus acted out of this fear. Soldiers in the IDF are taught to fear Palestinians and Palestinian supporters throughout their life and then handed guns at the age of 18. They too act out of fear.

It was ironic for me that this attack occurred on Memorial Day, a US holiday with which I struggle due to my sensitivities to war. It is hard for me to celebrate war of any kind when I know that war teaches people to act out of fear, and when I know that many of us, including myself, do not know the details of war and what even our soldiers have committed out of fear and a sense of duty.

I may be an unreasonable idealist when, deep down, I hope for a world without war, where people understand each other and the beauty of our different cultures, instead of fearing and judging others, but I honestly pray that we would all work to understand others and eliminate their fears, even if it means going against our own culture, country, and even families.

An initial article from the incident:
Israel Attacks Gaza Aid Fleet

Here are two opinion articles about the Gaza Flotilla attack:

This first one is from the Minnesota Star Tribune:
Flotilla Attack: Media Reporting Lacked Critical Thinking

Lying about the Gaza Flotilla Disaster