WRMEA, August 2010, Pages 12-16

Five Views

Another Israeli Attack on the High Seas

Why Israel's Attack on the Freedom Flotilla Was Illegal And a Crime Against Humanity

By Lynda Brayer

DURING the pre-dawn hours of May 31, 2010, the Israeli navy attacked the six civilian vessels of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. The attack took place in international waters against ships flying under national flags of countries with which Israel is not at war, namely Turkey, Greece and the United States. The ships were carrying civilians from more than 16 countries.

Since no state of war existed at the time, the attack on these vessels constitutes an act of war against those governments under whose flags the vessels were sailing.

The attack falls within the purview of the ius ad bellum, those laws which govern the resort to armed conflict. Israel's action does not fall into the category of the ius in bello, or the laws which govern the actual conduct of war.

Because this attack was carried out in international waters, the status of the relationship between Hamas, or any other Palestinian body, and the state of Israel is of no relevance whatsoever. Likewise, neither the blockade of Gaza nor Israel's claims and legal interpretations regarding it has any bearing on its acts of aggression in international waters.

This is not an act of piracy. Piracy is an act of aggression carried out in international waters by individuals and not by states.

The following internationally binding treaties, charters, and agreements are relevant to the attack by Israel:

1. Article 6 of the Charter Provisions of the Nuremburg Trials

(a) Crimes against Peace: namely, planning, preparation, initiation, or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing;

(3) Crimes against Humanity: namely murder...deportation, and any other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war...in execution of or in connection with any crime...whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated.

2. 1907 Hague Regulation Convention (XI) Relative to Certain Restrictions with Regard to the Exercise of the Right of Capture in Naval War

Chapter II—The Exemption from Capture of Certain Vessels

Article 4. Vessels charged with religious, scientific, or philanthropic missions are likewise exempt from capture.

Salient points

The standard for judging the Israeli acts is objective and not subjective. It is irrelevant what Israeli ministers, generals, admirals, or soldiers thought or intended. The test is in what they did.

What they did was engage in acts of war using weapons of war in international waters against vessels that are protected not only in peacetime but also in times of war.

Israel has therefore committed both crimes against the peace and crimes against humanity.

These are crimes that have international jurisdiction. Israeli political and military personnel can be named in trials held in any and all countries of the world. If the Israelis do not attend the trials, they can be tried in abstentia, and those decisions in which the Israelis are found guilty can be executed anywhere in the world.

Because unarmed civilians were murdered by a preplanned military attack, capital crimes have been committed. While it would appear that the international community no longer finds capital punishment civilized, the punishments for these capital crimes can be multiple life sentences.

These crimes give rise to damage claims for huge sums of money and Israeli accounts can be blocked using decisions finding them guilty.

The unarmed vessels were on a philanthropic mission, carrying civilians and humanitarian supplies. Even if Israel were in a state of war with any of these countries, it would be prohibited from capturing the vessels according to the terms of the Hague Convention of 1907.

It follows, therefore, that Israel was first of all not allowed to attack these vessels militarily, and then not to board these vessels by force, capture these vessels, attack the passengers, imprison them on the vessels, forcibly remove them from the vessels, and steal their private property in the form of cameras, computers, clothes, etc.

Every single act carried out by the Israeli military forces in international waters on May 31, 2010, is unqualifiedly and absolutely a violation of international law.

Appendix

The Gaza Freedom Flotilla included six vessels on May 31, 2010:

1. Mavi Marmara, passenger boat, Turkey
2. Sofia, cargo ship, Greece
3. Gaza I, cargo ship, Turkey
4. Gaza II, cargo ship, Turkey
5. Spendoni, passenger ship, Greece
6. Challenger I, passenger ship, United States

At least nine passengers were killed, eight Turkish citizens and one U.S. citizen, Furkan Dogan, 19. The majority of the passengers aboard the ships were Turkish citizens. There were also nationals from Britain, Australia, Greece, Canada, Malaysia, Algeria, Serbia, Belgium, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Kuwait and the United States.

Three German parliamentarians were aboard the Turkish boat that was stormed. There were also two Palestinian members of the Knesset. Swedish author Henning Mankell was also on board the flotilla.

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Lynda Brayer is an Israeli human rights lawyer who specializes in the laws of war and international law in representing Palestinians. A graduate of the Hebrew University Faculty of Law, she lives in Haifa and can be reached at <>.

Israeli Murders, NATO and Afghanistan

By Craig Murray

I was in the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) for over 20 years and a member of its senior management structure for six years. I served in five countries and took part in 13 formal international negotiations, including the U.N. Convention of the Law of the Sea and a whole series of maritime boundary treaties. I headed the FCO section of a multidepartmental organization monitoring the arms embargo on Iraq.

I am an instinctively friendly, open but unassuming person who always found it easy to get on with people, I think because I make fun of myself a lot. I have in consequence a great many friends among ex-colleagues in both British and foreign diplomatic services, security services and militaries.

I lost very few friends when I left the FCO over torture and rendition. In fact I seemed to gain several degrees of warmth with a great many acquantances still on the inside. And I have become known as a reliable outlet for grumbles, who as an ex-insider knows how to handle a discreet and unintercepted conversation.

What I was being told last night was very interesting indeed. NATO HQ in Brussels is today a very unhappy place. There is a strong understanding among the various national militaries that an attack by Israel on a NATO member-flagged ship in international waters is an event to which NATO is obliged—legally obliged, as a matter of treaty—to react.

I must be plain—nobody wants or expects military action against Israel. But there is an uneasy recognition that in theory that ought to be on the table, and that NATO is obliged to do something robust to defend Turkey.

Mutual military support of each other is the entire raison d'etre of NATO. You must also remember that to the NATO military the freedom of the high seas guaranteed by the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea is a vital alliance interest which officers have been conditioned to uphold their whole career.

That is why Turkey was extremely shrewd in reacting immediately to the Israeli attack by calling an emergency NATO meeting. It is why, after the appalling U.S. reaction to the attack with its refusal to name Israel, President Obama has now made a point of phoning President Erdogan to condole.

But the unhappiness in NATO HQ runs much deeper than that. I spoke separately to two friends there, from two different nations. One of them said NATO HQ was "a very unhappy place." The other described the situation as "Tense—much more strained than at the invasion of Iraq."

Why? There is a tendency of outsiders to regard the senior workings of governments and international organizations as monolithic. In fact there are plenty of highly intelligent—and competitive—people and diverse interests involved.

There are already deep misgivings, especially among the military, over the Afghan mission. There is no sign of a diminution in Afghan resistance attacks and no evidence of a clear gameplan. The military are not stupid and they can see that the Karzai government is deeply corrupt and the Afghan "national" army comprised almost exclusively of tribal enemies of the Pashtuns.

You might be surprised by just how high in NATO skepticism runs at the line that in some way occupying Afghanistan helps protect the West, as opposed to stoking dangerous Islamic anger worldwide.

So this is what is causing frost and stress inside NATO. The organization is tied up in a massive, expensive and ill-defined mission in Afghanistan that many whisper is counter-productive in terms of the alliance aim of mutual defense. Every European military is facing financial problems as a public deficit financing crisis sweeps the continent. The only glue holding the Afghan mission together is loyalty to and support for the United States.

But what kind of mutual support organization is NATO when members must make decades-long commitments, at huge expense and some loss of life, to support the United States, but cannot make even a gesture to support Turkey when Turkey is attacked by a non-member?

Even the Eastern Europeans have not been backing the U.S. line on the Israeli attack. The atmosphere in NATO on the issue has been very much the U.S. against the rest, with the U.S. attitude inside NATO described to me by a senior NATO officer as "amazingly arrogant—they don't seem to think it matters what anybody else thinks." Therefore what is troubling the hearts and souls of non-Americans in NATO HQ is this fundamental question. Is NATO genuinely a mutual defense organization, or is it just an instrument to carry out U.S. foreign policy? With its unthinking defense of Israel and military occupation of Afghanistan, is U.S. foreign policy really defending Europe, or is it making the world less safe by causing Islamic militancy?

I leave the last word to one of the senior NATO officers—who, incidentally, is not British:

"Nobody but the Americans doubts the U.S. position on the Gaza attack is wrong and insensitve. But everyone already quietly thought the same about wider American policy. This incident has allowed people to start saying that now privately to each other."

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Craig Murray is a human rights activist, writer, former British ambassador, and an honorary research fellow at the University of Lancaster School of Law. Visit his blog at <www.craigmurray.org.uk>. This article was first posted on <www.informationclearinghouse.info> June 2, 2010.

Why Israel Chooses Violence

By Patrick Seale

Israel's deadly May 31 commando assault on the Free Gaza flotilla has been variously denounced around the world as state terrorism, piracy, a war crime, and as the latest example of Israel's arrogant contempt for international law and its criminal indifference for (non-Jewish) human life.

In view of the enormity of the act—and the toll of dead and wounded among unarmed activists seeking to break the three-year Gaza siege—these charges appear justified. But they do not explain why Israel chooses to behave as it does. Its leaders, both civilian and military, are not fumbling, hysterical novices. Their actions are deliberate and carefully weighed. So what is the cold-eyed strategy behind them?

There would seem to be two distinct security doctrines at work, one directed at the Palestinians, the other at Israel's adversaries in the wider Middle East—Iran, first and foremost, but also Tehran's radical Arab allies, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas.

There is no great mystery about Israel's strategy toward the Palestinians. From the very beginning of the Zionist project, it has sought to defeat them and chase them off their land. Ever since the 1967 war, Jewish settlement in the occupied Palestinian territories has proceeded apace under Israeli governments of all political colorings. The longing for a Greater Israel extending from the sea to the Jordan River is not confined to messianic zealots and far-right nationalists. It is more widely shared in Israel today than at any time since the creation of the state.

To realize its expansionist ambitions, Israel has always sought to avoid serious negotiations with the Palestinians because, if negotiations were to succeed, they would inevitably mean ceding territory. Israel detests Palestinian moderates, who want to negotiate—like Mahmoud Abbas, the luckless president of the Palestinian Authority—and far prefers Palestinian radicals, like Hamas, with whom no negotiation is possible. A familiar Israeli refrain gives the game away. "How can you negotiate with someone who wants to kill you?"

The attack on the flotilla off the Gaza coast must be seen as Israel's latest attempt to radicalize the Palestinians, and hence torpedo, even before they have properly started, the so-called "proximity talks," which George Mitchell, President Barack Obama's Middle East envoy, has laboriously set up. Mahmoud Abbas will now be under great pressure to withdraw from the talks or risk being denounced as a traitor by inflamed Palestinian and Arab opinion.

No doubt the Israeli calculation is that the storm will blow over and time will have been gained for more expansion. Israel's latest armed assault will soon be forgotten in much the same way as its murderous war on Gaza in December-January 2008-9 has itself been largely overtaken by events. The Gaza siege continues, the Palestinians remain divided, the international community huffs and puffs but does nothing, and Israel prepares to extend its settlements.

No doubt, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu believes Obama will not dare to get tough with Israel before the mid-term elections next November—or indeed after them, if the Democrats lose ground.

As for Israel's security doctrine toward the wider Middle East, this was forged even before the creation of the state by David Ben-Gurion, its first prime minister: to guarantee its security and continued existence in a hostile environment, Israel must be the military master of the region, more powerful than any combination of its adversaries. Israel must never show weakness and must never fail to react with full force to any challenge—even one posed by unarmed pro-Palestinian peace activists. "Never again!" is the slogan of a belligerently defiant Jewish state.

To retain its military mastery over the region, Israel and its American friends—well-placed at the time in the Pentagon and the vice president's office—pushed America into war against Saddam Hussain's Iraq in 2003, not hesitating to forge the evidence of Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction. From Israel's point of view, if not from America's, the war was a success since it set back any Iraqi threat to Israel for at least a generation.

Today, Israel sees Iran as its main challenger. If it decides to attack Iran's nuclear sites, it wants to be sure the United States will join in to finish the job and protect it from any backlash. But to ensure America's backing it must demonstrate its own utter resolve to confront—and defeat—any threat to its supremacy, however trivial. The attack on the Gaza flotilla should perhaps be seen, therefore, as a show of force to prepare the ground, politically and psychologically, for an attack on Iran. In Netanyahu's mind, and in Obama's, Israel's struggle with the Palestinians and its contest with Iran are linked together.

Netanyahu and his fellow ideologues are, of course, engaged in a high-risk and high-cost strategy. Israel now finds itself at odds with much of the world. Hatred of the Jewish state will become more intense, and not only among Muslims, with its inevitable accompaniment of anti-Semitism. The "de-legitimization" of Israel—which already worries many Jewish intellectuals in the United States and Europe—will gather pace.

International pressure on Israel to lift the cruel three-year siege of Gaza may become irresistible. Egypt, formally at peace with Israel since 1979, will come under great pressure from its own angry public to break relations. Accused by many Arabs of complicity with Israel's siege, Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak has already ordered the opening of the Rafah crossing into Gaza for the passage of humanitarian aid. Jordan, close to Israel for many years, may also find it necessary to distance itself.

Turkey, once Israel's ally, has now joined the ranks of its most bitter enemies. This is the heaviest price Israel will have to pay for its violent oppression of the Palestinians, its land hunger and its extravagant regional ambitions. The crisis has developed into a contest for regional supremacy between Israel and Turkey.

As a right-wing Israeli commentator, Mordechai Kedar of Bar-Ilan University, wrote on Ynet this week: "Who is the master of this region?...The forces of the Ottoman Empire, who aspire again to rule the Middle East...will be stopped at Gaza's shore."

The United States will itself pay a heavy price for Israel's aggressive behavior. Its troublesome ally has become a burden. This is Obama's dilemma. If he confronts Israel firmly—as he would no doubt like to do—he will suffer politically at home; if he does not, his reputation will suffer abroad.

The key, so-far-unanswered question is whether the international crisis will lead to an internal crisis in Israel itself. There is just a possibility that Israeli opinion, alarmed at the hostility of the world and fearful of losing American support, may rebel against Netanyahu's intransigent and dangerous policies. He may be forced to resign and face fresh elections.

This is perhaps the outcome Obama is praying for.

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Patrick Seale is a leading British writer on the Middle East. His latest book is The Struggle for Arab Independence: Riad el-Solh and the Makers of the Modern Middle East (Cambridge University Press). Copyright © 2010 Patrick Seale. Distributed by Agence Global.

Lift the Siege of Gaza

By Patrick J. Buchanan

In June 1948, our wartime ally imposed a blockade on Berlin, cutting off and condemning to death or Stalinist domination two million Germans, most of whom, not long before, had cheered Adolf Hitler.

Harry Truman responded with the Berlin airlift, in perhaps the most magnanimous act of the Cold War.

For nine months, U.S. pilots flew into Tempelhof, carrying everything from candy to coal, saving a city and earning the eternal gratitude of the people of Berlin, and admiration everywhere that moral courage is admired.

That was an America that lived its values.

And today, President Obama should end his and his country's shameful silence over the inhumane blockade of Gaza that is denying 1.5 million beleaguered people the basic necessities of a decent life.

Time to start acting like America again.

That bloody debacle in the Eastern Mediterranean on May 31 was an inevitable result of Israel doing what it always seems to do: going beyond what is essential to her security, to impose collective punishment upon any and all it regards as hostile to Israel.

Israel claims, and film confirms, that its commandos rappelling down onto the Turkish ship were attacked with sticks and metal rods. One was tossed off a deck, another tossed overboard into a lifeboat.

But that 2 a.m. boarding of an unarmed ship with an unarmed crew, carrying no munitions or weapons, 65 miles at sea, was an act of piracy. What the Israeli commandos got is what any armed hijacker should expect who tries to steal a car from a driver who keeps a tire iron under the front seat.

And the response of these highly trained naval commandos to the resistance they encountered? They shot and killed nine passengers, and wounded many more.

But we have a blockade of Gaza, say the Israelis, and this flotilla was a provocation. Indeed, it was. And Selma was a provocation. The marchers at Edmund Pettus Bridge were disobeying orders of the governor of Alabama and state police not to march.

Yet, today, liberal Democrats who regard Martin Luther King as a moral hero for championing nonviolent civil disobedience to protest injustice are cheering not the unarmed passengers trying to break the Gaza blockade, but the Israelis enforcing the blockade.

Where were these fellows when "Bull" Connor really needed them?

Comes the retort: Israel is a friend and ally, and we stand with our friends.

But is not Turkey a friend and ally of 50 years, whose soldiers died alongside ours in Korea and who accepted Jupiter missiles targeted on Russia, even before the Cuban missile crisis? Was it not Turkey whose citizens were wounded and killed in the bloody debacle?

Why are we not at least even-handed between our friends?

On the trip to Israel where he was blindsided by news that Israel would build 1,600 new housing units in East Jerusalem, Joe Biden told Shimon Peres, "There is absolutely no space between the United States and Israel when it comes to Israel's security."

And that is the problem.

America is a superpower with interests in an Arab world of 300 million and an Islamic world of 1.5 billion—interests Israel treats with indifference if not contempt when it comes to doing what she regards as necessary for her security.

While Israel had a right to build a wall to protect her people from terror attack, did she have a right to build it on Palestinian land?

While Israel had a right to go after Hezbollah when her soldiers were shot on the border and several kidnapped, did Israel have a right to conduct a five-week bombing campaign that smashed Lebanon, killing hundreds of civilians and creating upward of a million refugees?

While Israel had a right to go into Gaza to stop the firing of crude rockets on Sderot, did she have a right to smash utilities and public buildings and kill 1,400 people, most of them civilians?

Is whatever Israel decides to do in the name of her security fine with us, because there is "absolutely no space" between our interests and hers, our values and Israel's values?

Even with Winston Churchill's Britain, there was "space" between us on strategic goals and national policies.

Israel has a right to secure Gaza to deny Hamas access to weapons, especially rockets that could reach Israel. But that does not justify denying 1.5 million people what they need to live in decency.

According to The Washington Post, "80 percent of the population [of Gaza] depends on charity. Hospitals, schools, electricity systems and sewage treatment facilities are all in deep disrepair."

With our silence, we support this. And we wonder why they hate us.

Obama should tell the Israelis that Joe got it wrong. There is space between us. The Gaza siege must end. And America will herself be sending aid, but will also support Israel's right to inspect trucks and ships to see to it no weapons get through to Gaza.

Let's start behaving like who we once were.

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Copyright 2010 Creators.com. Reprinted by permission of Patrick J. Buchanan and Creators Syndicate, Inc.

A Flash of Lightning

By Uri Avnery

Night. Utter darkness. Heavy rain. Visibility close to nil.

And suddenly—a flash of lightning. For a fraction of a second, the landscape is lit up. For this split second, the terrain surrounding us can be seen. It is not the way it used to be.

Our government's action against the Gaza aid flotilla was such a lightning flash.

Israelis normally live in darkness as far as seeing the world is concerned. But for that instant, the real landscape around us could be seen, and it looked frightening. Then the darkness settled down over us, Israel returned to its bubble, the world disappeared from view.

This split second was enough to reveal a dismal scene. On almost all fronts, the situation of the state of Israel has worsened since the last flash of lightning.

The flotilla and the attack on it did not create this landscape. It has been there since our present government was set up. But the deterioration did not start even then. It began a long time before.

The action of Ehud Barak & Co. only lit up the situation as it is now, and gave it yet another push in the wrong direction.

How does the new landscape look in the light of Barak's barak ("barak" means lightning in Hebrew)?

The list is headed by a fact that nobody seems to have noticed until now: the death of the Holocaust.

In all the tumult this affair has caused throughout the world, the Holocaust was not even mentioned. True, in Israel there were some who called Recep Tayyip Erdogan "a new Hitler," and some Israel-haters talked about the "Nazi attack," but the Holocaust has practically disappeared.

For two generations, our foreign policy used the Holocaust as its main instrument. The bad conscience of the world determined its attitude toward Israel. The (justified) guilt feelings—either for atrocities committed or for looking the other way—caused Europe and America to treat Israel differently than any other nation—from nuclear armaments to the settlements. All criticism of our governments' actions was branded automatically as anti-Semitism and silenced.

But time does its work. New tragedies have blunted the world's senses. For a new generation, the Holocaust is a thing of the remote past, a chapter of history. The sense of guilt has disappeared in all countries, except Germany.

The Israeli public did not notice this, because in Israel itself the Shoah is alive and present. Many Israelis are children or grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, and the Holocaust has been imprinted on their childhood. Moreover, a huge apparatus ensures that the Holocaust will not disappear from our memory, starting from kindergarten, through ceremonies and memorial days, to organized tours "there."

Therefore, the Israeli public is shocked to see that the Holocaust has lost its power as a political instrument. Our most valuable weapon has become blunt.

The central pillar of our policy is our alliance with the United States. To use a phrase dear to Binyamin Netanyahu (in another context): it's 'the rock of our existence."

For many years, this alliance has kept us safe from all trouble. We knew that we could always get from the U.S. all we needed: advanced arms to retain our superiority over all Arab armies combined, munitions in times of war, money for our economy, the veto on all U.N. Security Council resolutions against us, automatic support for all the actions of our successive governments. Every small and medium country in the world knew that in order to gain entrance to the palaces of Washington, the Israeli doorkeeper had to be bribed.

But during the last year, cracks have appeared in this pillar. Not the small scratches and chips of wear and tear, but cracks caused by shifts of the ground. The mutual aversion between Barack Obama and Binyamin Netanyahu is only one symptom of a much deeper problem,

The chief of the Mossad told the Knesset in June: "For the U.S., we have ceased to be an asset and become a burden."

This fact was put into incisive words by Gen. David Petraeus, when he said that the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict is endangering the lives of American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. The later soothing messages did not erase the significance of this warning. (When Petraeus later fainted at a Senate hearing, some religious Jews viewed it as divine punishment.)

Fateful Changes

It is not only the Israeli-American relationship that has undergone a fateful change, but the standing of the U.S. itself is changing for the worse, a bad omen indeed for the future of Israeli policy.

The world is changing, slowly and quietly. The U.S. is still by far the most powerful country, but it is no longer the almighty superpower it had been since 1989. China is flexing its muscles, countries like India and Brazil are getting stronger, countries like Turkey—yes, Turkey!—are beginning to play a role.

This is not a matter of one or two years, but anyone who is thinking about the future of Israel in 10, 20 years must understand that unless there is a basic change in our position, our position, too, will decline.

If our alliance with the U.S. is one central pillar of Israeli policy, the support of the vast majority of world Jewry is the second.

For 62 years, we could count on it with our eyes shut. Whatever we did—almost all the world's Jews stood at attention and saluted. In fire and water, victory or defeat, glorious or dark chapters—the world's Jews did support us, giving money, demonstrating, pressuring their governments. Without second thoughts, without criticism.

Not anymore. Quietly, almost silently, cracks have appeared in this pillar, too. Opinion polls show that most American Jewish young people are turning away from Israel. Not shifting their loyalty from the Israeli establishment to Israel's liberal camp—but turning away from Israel altogether.

This will not be felt immediately either. AIPAC continues to strike fear into Washingtonian hearts, Congress will continue to dance to its tune. But when the new generation comes to man key positions, the support for Israel will erode, American politicians will stop crawling on their bellies and the U.S. administration will gradually change its relations with us.

In our immediate neighborhood, too, profound changes are underway, some of them beneath the surface. The flotilla incident has exposed them.

The influence of our allies is decreasing constantly. They are losing height, and an old-new power is on the rise: Turkey.

Hosni Mubarak is busy with his efforts to pass power to his son, Gamal. The Islamic opposition in Egypt is raising its head. Saudi money is trumped by the new attraction of Turkey. The Jordanian king is compelled to adapt himself. The axis of Turkey-Iran-Syria-Hezbollah-Hamas is the rising power, the axis of Egypt-Saudi Arabia-Jordan-Fatah is in decline.

But the most important change is the one that is taking place in international public opinion. Any derision of this reminds one of Stalin's famous sneer ("How many divisions has the pope?")

Recently, an Israeli TV station showed a fascinating film about the German and Scandinavian female volunteers who flooded Israel in the '50s and '60s to live and work (and sometimes marry) in the kibbutzim. Israel was then seen as a plucky little nation surrounded by hateful enemies, a state risen from the ashes of the Holocaust to become a haven of freedom, equality and democracy, which found their most sublime expression in that unique creation, the kibbutz.

The present generation of idealistic youngsters from all over the world, male and female, who would once have volunteered for the kibbutzim, can now be found on the decks of the ships sailing for downtrodden, choked and starved Gaza, which touches the hearts of many young people. The pioneering Israeli David has turned into a brutish Israeli Goliath.

Even a genius of spin could not change this. For years, now, the world sees the state of Israel every day on the TV screen and on the front pages in the image of heavily armed soldiers shooting at stone-throwing children, guns firing phosphorus shells into residential quarters, helicopters executing "targeted eliminations," and now pirates attacking civilian ships on the open seas. Terrified women with wounded babies in their arms, men with amputated limbs, demolished homes. When one sees a hundred pictures like that for every picture that shows another Israel, Israel becomes a monster. The more so since the Israeli propaganda machine is successfully suppressing any news about the Israeli peace camp.

Many years ago, when I wanted to ridicule the addiction of our leaders to the use of force, I paraphrased a saying that reflects much of Jewish wisdom: "if force does not work, use brains." In order to show how far we, the Israelis, are different from the Jews, I changed the words: "If force doesn't work, use more force."

I thought of it as a joke. But, as happens to many jokes in our country, it has become reality. It is now the credo of many primitive Israelis, headed by Ehud Barak.

In practice, the security of a state depends on many factors, and military force is but one of them. In the long run, world public opinion is stronger. The pope has many divisions.

In many respects, Israel is still a strong country. But, as the sudden illumination of the flotilla affair has shown, time is not working in our favor. We should deepen our roots in the world and in the region—which means making peace with our neighbors—as long as we are as strong as we are now.

If force doesn't work, more force will not necessarily work either.

If force doesn't work, force doesn't work. Period.

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Uri Avnery, a former member of the Israeli Knesset, is a founder of Gush Shalom, <www.gush-shalom.org>.

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