Israel’s Bogus Claims
Israel’s Bogus Claims
[About Article 67(a)]
Israeli spokespeople are cheerfully quoting the “San Remo Agreement” or the “San Remo Accord” as if it gives their recent action legitimacy; that Article 67(a) confers on them the special right to board civilian craft of other countries in international waters if they are threatening to run a blockade.
But it does not and you’ll see why.
The actual title of the San Remo “Agreement” is San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea, 12 June 1994.
The first doubt you might have is whether there was “an armed conflict at sea” before the Israelis dropped from the helicopters onto the civilian ferry and other craft.
It is true that the Manual initially seems to offer some legitimacy:
Article 67 (a) says:
67. Merchant vessels flying the flag of neutral States may not be attacked unless they:
(a) are believed on reasonable grounds to be carrying contraband or breaching a blockade, and after prior warning they intentionally and clearly refuse to stop, or intentionally and clearly resist visit, search or capture;
This is the one paragraph that they quote because it suits their purposes. But wait, there’s more. It goes on to say:
(b) engage in belligerent acts on behalf of the enemy;
(c) act as auxiliaries to the enemy s armed forces;
(d) are incorporated into or assist the enemy s intelligence system;
(e) sail under convoy of enemy warships or military aircraft; or
(f) otherwise make an effective contribution to the enemy’s military action, e.g., by carrying military materials, and it is not feasible for the attacking forces to first place passengers and crew in a place of safety. Unless circumstances do not permit, they are to be given a warning, so that they can re-route, off-load, or take other precautions.
68. Any attack on these vessels is subject to the basic rules in paragraphs 38-46.
69. The mere fact that a neutral merchant vessel is armed provides no grounds for attacking it.
Paragraphs 38-46 say:
Part III : Basic rules and target discrimination
Section I : Basic rules
38. In any armed conflict the right of the parties to the conflict to choose methods or means of warfare is not unlimited.
39. Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between civilians or other protected persons and combatants and between civilian or exempt objects and military objectives.
40. In so far as objects are concerned, military objectives are limited to those objects which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage.
41. Attacks shall be limited strictly to military objectives. Merchant vessels and civil aircraft are civilian objects unless they are military objectives in accordance with the principles and rules set forth in this document.
42. In addition to any specific prohibitions binding upon the parties to a conflict, it is forbidden to employ methods or means of warfare which:
(a) are of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering; or
(b) are indiscriminate, in that:
(i) they are not, or cannot be, directed against a specific military objective; or
(ii) their effects cannot be limited as required by international law as reflected in this document.
43. It is prohibited to order that there shall be no survivors, to threaten an adversary therewith or to conduct hostilities on this basis.
44. Methods and means of warfare should be employed with due regard for the natural environment taking into account the relevant rules of international law. Damage to or destruction of the natural environment not justified by military necessity and carried out wantonly is prohibited.
45. Surface ships, submarines and aircraft are bound by the same principles and rules.
Section II : Precautions in attack
46. With respect to attacks, the following precautions shall be taken:
(a) those who plan, decide upon or execute an attack must take all feasible measures to gather information which will assist in determining whether or not objects which are not military objectives are present in an area of attack;
(b) in the light of the information available to them, those who plan, decide upon or execute an attack shall do everything feasible to ensure that attacks are limited to military objectives;
(c) they shall furthermore take all feasible precautions in the choice of methods and means in order to avoid or minimize collateral casualties or damage; and
(d) an attack shall not be launched if it may be expected to cause collateral casualties or damage which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated from the attack as a whole; an attack shall be cancelled or suspended as soon as it becomes apparent that the collateral casualties or damage would be excessive.
All of this is in a context of warfare and one is not at all sure that Israel is in a state of declared war with the Palestinians. Or with an international bunch of peace activists.
The rules about Blockades are:
Section II : Methods of warfare
Blockade
93. A blockade shall be declared and notified to all belligerents and neutral States.
94. The declaration shall specify the commencement, duration, location, and extent of the blockade and the period within which vessels of neutral States may leave the blockaded coastline.
95. A blockade must be effective. The question whether a blockade is effective is a question of fact.
96. The force maintaining the blockade may be stationed at a distance determined by military requirements.
97. A blockade may be enforced and maintained by a combination of legitimate methods and means of warfare provided this combination does not result in acts inconsistent with the rules set out in this document.
98. Merchant vessels believed on reasonable grounds to be breaching a blockade may be captured. Merchant vessels which, after prior warning, clearly resist capture may be attacked.
99. A blockade must not bar access to the ports and coasts of neutral States.
100. A blockade must be applied impartially to the vessels of all States.
101. The cessation, temporary lifting, re-establishment, extension or other alteration of a blockade must be declared and notified as in paragraphs 93 and 94.
102. The declaration or establishment of a blockade is prohibited if:
(a) it has the sole purpose of starving the civilian population or denying it other objects essential for its survival; or
(b) the damage to the civilian population is, or may be expected to be, excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated from the blockade.
103. If the civilian population of the blockaded territory is inadequately provided with food and other objects essential for its survival, the blockading party must provide for free passage of such foodstuffs and other essential supplies, subject to:
(a) the right to prescribe the technical arrangements, including search, under which such passage is permitted; and
(b) the condition that the distribution of such supplies shall be made under the local supervision of a Protecting Power or a humanitarian organization which offers guarantees of impartiality, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross.
104. The blockading belligerent shall allow the passage of medical supplies for the civilian population or for the wounded and sick members of armed forces, subject to the right to prescribe technical arrangements, including search, under which such passage is permitted.
So Articles 102 and 103 expressly forbid the Israeli blockade of Gaza.
All of this makes the mendacity of the Israelis starkly clear. Particularly the oozing, excremental (and happily ex-Australian) Regev.
And they are relying on you and me not having read the whole San Remo Manual which they flash so briefly and so nonchalantly.
Shame on you, Israel! Big Shame!
And big international lawsuits ahead.
Just a Question
Just a Question
When menace lurks behind every door
If the Israelis approached civilian craft in international waters with the intention to – and in fact did – board, take control of and then tow, or with armed force cause, those craft to land in an Israeli port, isn’t that piracy? What is the difference really between the the Israelis and the Somali pirates? […despite the claim by Mark Regev, the unctuous Israeli spokesperson, that (“as you know”) interception on the high seas with warning is allowed in some convention or other …]
There are, however, these Articles from the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea:
Article 88: Reservation of the high seas for peaceful purposes
The high seas shall be reserved for peaceful purposes.
Article 89: Invalidity of claims of sovereignty over the high seas
No State may validly purport to subject any part of the high seas to its sovereignty.
Article 90: Right of navigation
Every State, whether coastal or land-locked, has the right to sail ships flying its flag on the high seas.
Article 110 : Right of visit
1. Except where acts of interference derive from powers conferred by treaty, a warship which encounters on the high seas a foreign ship, other than a ship entitled to complete immunity in accordance with articles 95 and 96, is not justified in boarding it unless there is reasonable ground for suspecting that:
(a) the ship is engaged in piracy;
(b) the ship is engaged in the slave trade;
(c) the ship is engaged in unauthorized broadcasting and the flag State of the warship has jurisdiction under article 109;
(d) the ship is without nationality; or
(e) though flying a foreign flag or refusing to show its flag, the ship is, in reality, of the same nationality as the warship.
As far as one knows there is no suggestion that the flotilla was suspected of piracy, slavery, unauthorised broadcasting, or having no or bogus nationality.
There is just one thing you need to know in order to understand Israeli politics:
NEVER AGAIN
If you understand that you understand the Wall, this recent piracy, and even Mark Regev (ptooey ptooey) — possibly Australia’s most embarrassing export.
They will do and say ANYTHING – lie, cheat, kill, stab friends in the back – whatever it takes to maintain their existence so that NEVER AGAIN will they be the victims.
You can understand this for obvious historical reasons.
Of course, the problem is that this attitude/policy makes them their own victims; cages and imprisons them and shrouds them in the fog of their own delusion and blindness.
They blockade the Palestinians, but they also besiege themselves.
The paradox is that a policy that is all about NOT being a victim, because it is predicated on the reaction to victimhood actually makes the policy all about being a victim – in the present and into the future. And protecting against victimhood ignites the resentment and fuels the very fury that threatens them.
Who are they, after all, if they are not Victim reacting to Victimhood, struggling for survival in a hostile world in which terror surrounds them, menace lurks behind every door and NOBODY can be trusted?
Who are they?
What else is Israel?
What else do, or could, they stand for?
That’s the question for them that, when they can answer it, might free them and much of the rest of the world.
Anyway, it’s fascinatingly awful to watch them self-destructing, as they are – making increasingly appalling choices, telling increasingly preposterous lies and taking increasingly hysterical actions, marching with deliberate, inexorable, arrogance to self-inflicted defeat.
Ike’s Insight
Ike’s Insight
It seems so strange to realise that Dwight Eisenhower, a 5-star General and highly-respected Republican President in his day, would nowadays be regarded by most ordinary Republicans as a pussy, a commie and a traitor to “traditional” American values.
Values Australia has been saying for years that the American right is crazy mad. Now here is statistical proof:
Seems pretty precisely to map the Republican vs Democratic states.
But Eisenhower’s understanding of America’s role in the world is as relevant today as it was when he was President and the Republicans could do worse than to take another look:
“ The way chosen by the United States was plainly marked by a few clear precepts, which govern its conduct in world affairs.
First: No people on earth can be held, as a people, to be enemy, for all humanity shares the common hunger for peace and fellowship and justice.
Second: No nation’s security and well-being can be lastingly achieved in isolation but only in effective cooperation with fellow-nations.
Third: Any nation’s right to form of government and an economic system of its own choosing is inalienable.
Fourth: Any nation’s attempt to dictate to other nations their form of government is indefensible.
And fifth: A nation’s hope of lasting peace cannot be firmly based upon any race in armaments but rather upon just relations and honest understanding with all other nations.
He also said in his “Cross of Iron” speech:
“ Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . .
This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
~ April 16, 1953
Bertrand Russell & The Life of Brian
Bertrand Russell & The Life of Brian
Bertrand Russell’s grandmother’s favourite Bible verse was this:
“ Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil.”
(Exodus 23:2)
We can think of a lot of people we would like to see taking that to heart. The ones with special vests and exploding underpants1, for example. Christian missionaries and evangelists, for instance. This is how it works:
Perhaps these words from Bertrand Russell will enrich and enwisen(!) you as they do Sir Roger.
30 years ago Russell said of the “Palestinian problem”:
“ The tragedy of the people of Palestine is that their country was “given” by a foreign power to another people for the creation of a new state.
The result was that many hundreds of thousands of innocent people were made permanently homeless. With every new conflict their numbers increased.
How much longer is the world willing to endure this spectacle of wanton cruelty? It is abundantly clear that the refugees have every right to the homeland from which they were driven, and the denial of this right is at the heart of the continuing conflict.
No people anywhere in the world would accept being expelled en masse from their own country; how can anyone require the people of Palestine to accept a punishment which nobody else would tolerate?
A permanent just settlement of the refugees in their homeland is an essential ingredient of any genuine settlement in the Middle East.
We are frequently told that we must sympathise with Israel because of the suffering of the Jews in Europe at the hands of the Nazis. […] What Israel is doing today cannot be condoned, and to invoke the horrors of the past to justify those of the present is gross hypocrisy.
—Bertrand Russell , 31 January 1970
How quaint! Look how much has changed in the 30 years since Russell made that statement!
… What? …
Yes, so the only thing that has changed is that the problem has become worse. The situation in Palestine now inexorably drives and inflames global politics. 9/11, Afghanistan, the rise of islamic fundamentalism all feed from this one trough. Not any amount of cosmetic or diplomatic pretense, no “negotiated compromise”, no artificial “roadmap to peace” will make any difference at all.
The problem is not on the surface but in the poison in the system that causes the inescapable and constant eruption of the angry, putrid, existential carbuncles that are likely to haunt this century as they have the last 50 years.
The Israelis know this (as do the Americans, of course) but they are willing to watch — no, force — the rest of the world to pay the price for what they believe is their god-given right to their “promised land”.
Religion.
Always a force for good.
Without it we wouldn’t know what was the right thing to do.
Here’s how Russell summed up his life at the age of 84:
“ Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy—ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness—that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what—at last—I have found.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.
Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.
¹ Just a question … if a person’s exploding underpants actually do work, are the 72 virgins of any use to him in heaven? Just another question? (Okay, just a few more.) If a suicide bomber is a woman does she get the 72 virgins as well? How does that work? Does she have to fuck 12-year-old muslim boys (given, after all, that only muslims are allowed into heaven)? Does she really want to? If a muslim is male and over 12 and is still a virgin surely he’s gay? Does she have to fuck him? Does she want to? Will he let her? Or do female suicide bombers have to be lesbians? Are there enough muslim virgins in heaven to pass 72 around each suicide bomber? They must be getting younger and younger nowadays. Are the virgins forced to be fucked by suicide bombers? How would that not be rape? Or is rape okay in islam?
Sir Roger’s optimistic feeling about suicide bombers is that the dickheads are doing the rest of the world the favour of removing themselves from the gene pool. It can only get better, right?
Sam Harris: The God Fraud
Sam Harris: The God Fraud
God May Be Dead But Damned if I Am
I n her recent outing in Foreign Policy Magazine, noted apologist, Karen Armstrong, says Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins:
“ … are wrong … about human nature.
Homo sapiens is also Homo religiosus.
As soon as we became recognizably human, men and women started to create religions. We are meaning-seeking creatures.
While dogs, as far as we know, do not worry about the canine condition or agonize about their mortality, humans fall very easily into despair if we don’t find some significance in our lives.
Theological ideas come and go, but the quest for meaning continues.
So God isn’t going anywhere.
And when we treat religion as something to be derided, dismissed, or destroyed, we risk amplifying its worst faults.
Whether we like it or not, God is here to stay, and it’s time we found a way to live with him in a balanced, compassionate manner.
Or in other words, god may be dead but don’t let’s upset the natives – they’ve got guns and bombs and exploding underwear and if you’re unkind to them they might set them off.
So let’s pretend for the sake of a peaceful life that he’s not dead, okay? And after all, the human diddums is fragile and if we tell her there is no objective meaning “out there” diddums might cry.
I don’t know about you but when you read her article do you get the awful feeling of sly inauthenticity and wheedling manipulation all for the sake of her desperation for … what? Her own frantic need for a sense of her own meaning, probably. The fact that people may naturally, in a search for meaning, have conjured up an imaginary friend doesn’t make the imaginary friend either real, or worthy of respect or protection.
If there are no gods then there are no gods – end of story. No point in the prolonging the fantasy. And, by the way, there is no evidence that there is one.
Anyway, we can’t respond to the Armstrong nonsense nearly as neatly as Sam Harris’s reply:
“ In her article (“Think Again: God,” November 2009), Karen Armstrong discovers that Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and I have mistaken “fundamentalism” for the totality of religion. (Sorry about that.) But do Richard and Christopher really hold religion responsible for “all human cruelty”? That is a surprise. I hadn’t realized that they were idiots.
In any case, I am hopeful that Armstrong’s winsome depiction of Islam will shame and enlighten them, as it has me. They will discover that Hassan al-Banna and Tariq Ramadan are paragons of meliorism and wisdom, while we are ignorant bigots who know nothing of theology (of course), politics (Christopher, are you listening?), human nature (what’s to know?), or the proper limits of science (um … narrower?).
[ … ]
But in Kenya elderly men and women are still burned alive for casting malicious spells. In Angola, unlucky boys and girls have been blinded, injected with battery acid, and killed outright in an effort to purge them of demons. In Tanzania, there is a growing criminal trade in the body parts of albino human beings — as it is widely believed that their flesh has magical properties.
I hope that Armstrong will soon apply her capacious understanding of human nature to these phenomena.
[ … ]
People will torture their children with battery acid from time to time anyway — and who among us hasn’t wanted to kill and eat an albino? I sincerely hope that my “new atheist” colleagues are not so naive as to imagine that actual belief in magic might be the issue here.
[Armstrong’s response to Harris is upsettingly whining, disingenuous, special pleading, illogical and just nonsense. She seems to want a “dialogue” about the existence or not of a god but the existence is not open to question.]
R’Amen (and may his noodley appendage be upon you)
