Photo: Baz Ratner/Reuters
By Dr. Elias Akleh* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz
Terrorist Israelis had done it again. One more time they had conceitedly acted as the only God's chosen people, who have the right to violate international laws set by all other nations; the Goyims, who according to Israel's Talmudic teachings, are only animals, sub-humans at the best, whom God had created only to serve his chosen people.
Terrorist Israeli naval forces had boarded early Wednesday ...
morning (11/4/09) the Antiqua-flagged trading ship "Francop" while in the international waters close to Cyprus, and kidnapped it to Ashdod port in Israel. The Israelis claimed that the ship was carrying Iranian weapons, with English markings, destined to Syria and to Lebanese Hezbollah.
They consider it their duty to intercept every ship they suspect of carrying any weapons to their enemy and to confiscate these weapons. It is an act of self defense as they claim.
This Israeli false claim of self defense comes as a violation of international laws and freedom of trade, and is consider a piracy. Contrary to all laws Israelis are proud of this piracy, broadcast it through international media, and demand it to be legitimized. Furthermore they demand their enemies to be punished for weapons trade that many countries, including Israel itself, are deeply involved in, and consider a major pillar to their economy. Such hypocrisy can be found only in God's chosen people.
Israel is claiming, without any proof, that these weapons were destined to Lebanese Hezbollah in violation of UN Resolution 1701 that prohibits weapons delivery to any Lebanese entity except its government. On the other hand Israel's military fighter planes are routinely penetrating Lebanese skies in flagrant violation of the resolution.
Israeli Prime President Benjamin Netanyahu had pledged to take to matter to the Security Council to demand an investigation into the alleged arms smuggling. Iran, Syria, and Lebanon had denied any knowledge of the arms shipment, and accused Israel of staging the whole incident as another step towards another war against Lebanon. Israeli politicians and military leaders keep stating that another round of attack against Hezbollah is not far away.
One should remember that Israel has been continually accusing Iran of sending weapons to Hezbollah through Syria, and keeps asking the UN to investigate the matter. Two days before this Israeli piracy the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon released a report to the UN security Council, in which he stated that the UN had taken Israeli allegations of weapons smuggling to Hezbollah seriously, but investigation had shown no evidence of such allegations.
It would be so foolish to believe that Iranians would risk sending any arms to Syria through a sea route full of Western (American, British, French and German) and Israeli war ships patrolling the international waters, starting from the Persian Gulf and through the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, intercepting every ship and subjecting them to scrutinizing search for alleged arms smuggling to Hamas or to Hezbollah. These war ships have been described by Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Mouallem as official pirates in the seas, who under the guise of security and inspection obstruct trade between countries.
It would be safer, faster, shorter, and probably cheaper for Iran to airlift arms to its neighboring Syria if it really wanted to. Besides the two countries have the legal right to sell and buy weapons like any other countries in the world. It certainly has been legal for Israel to sell weapons to Turkey, India, China, Russian Georgia, South Africa, and even to Iran itself during the Iran/Iraq war.
Israel's justification of its piracy as self defense in the form of preventing other countries from arming Israel's enemies is really a very dangerous justification. If endorsed, it would give justification to any country to intercept and kidnap any ship under the claim of such self defense. It would mean that Iran and Syria have the legal justification of intercepting and confiscating American arms shipments to Israel.
It should be noticed that this alleged Iranian arms shipment had come two days ahead of the UN General Assembly discussing Goldstone's report accusing Israel of war crimes and crimes against humanity during its holocaust against Palestinian civilians in Gaza Strip. Many had accused Israel of staging the arms shipment incident in order to divert attention away from Goldstone's report and to justify its war crimes.
Looking back into Israel's history one finds that Israelis had used piracy as a tool to further their terrorist agenda. Even before the establishment of Israel, Zionist terrorists had destroyed ships carrying Jews to Palestine in order to bring attention to the Zionist agenda (Naeim Giladi's "Ben-Gurion's Scandals" found on the net). Zionists had bombed the Patria ship in November 25th 1940, the ship Struma in February 24th 1942, the Empire Life Guard ship in July 23rd 1947, and the Egoz boat in January 10th 1961.
In June 8th 1967 during the Six-Day War Israeli planes and torpedo boats attacked the American USS Liberty ship while in international waters with the full knowledge of its identity killing 34 crew members and wounding 171 others. This was a clear act of war the US, but President Lyndon Johnson, at the time, chose to ignore the matter.
In December 2008 Israel perpetrated its holocaust assault against Gaza. After 19 days of attack an Iranian ship attempted to deliver 2000 ton of humanitarian aid Gaza after coordinating with the Palestinian Red Cross. The Israeli gun boats intercepted the ship and under the threat of arms prevented it from docking into Gaza.
In February 6th 2009 the Lebanese Brotherhood Ship carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza victims was attacked by Israeli navy while in Egyptian territorial waters and kidnapped to the Israeli port of Ashdod. All 18 passengers including former Greek Catholic archbishop of Jerusalem Hillarion Capucci, 86 years old, and crew members were abused, beaten, handcuffed, blindfolded and imprisoned for hours before turned in to UN Interim Force in Lebanon. All the humanitarian goods were confiscated by Israel.
The campaign to end the siege of Gaza had sent several boats with humanitarian aid to Gaza. The pirates of the Israeli nave had intercepted the boats, shot at them, damaged some of them, kidnapped some to Ashdod, imprisoned international humanitarian organizers, and confiscated goods. The famous incident was the kidnapping of the "Spirit of Humanity" boat in July 2009 with 21 international human rights workers from 11 countries including Nobel laureate Mairead Maguire and ex-member of the American House of representatives Cynthia McKinney. Israel jailed the activists for few days before releasing them.
The Israeli navy went a little further when they torpedoed an Iranian ship off the coast of Sudan in April 2009. The Israeli Haaretz paper reported that the Iranian ship was suspected of carrying weapons to Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
A more serious and dangerous act of Israeli piracy was the boarding and kidnapping of the Russian ship "Arctic Sea" end of July 2009. Israeli special forces had intercepted the Russian ship while en route from Finland to Algeria. Israel suspected that the ship was carrying Russian S-300 anti-aircraft missile batteries to be delivered to Iran. This piracy prompted Netanyahu's mysterious half-day trip to Moscow to resolve the problem.
Israeli state pirates are worse than the Somali pirates. Western countries had turned Somalia into a nuclear waste dump, had destroyed its economy, had waged proxy wars against the country and massacred its inhabitant. Somalis were, thus, driven into piracy in order to make a living. Israelis on the other hand had chosen piracy as a tool to further its occupation of Palestine and to perpetrate war crimes and crimes against humanity in gross violation of all international laws.
UN member countries have sent their ships to stop the Somali pirates, would they send their ships to stop the Israeli pirate?
* Dr. Elias Akleh is an Arab writer from a Palestinian descent born in the town of Beit Jala. His family was first evicted from Haifa after the "Nakba" of 1948, then from Beit Jala after the "Nakseh" of 1967. He lives now in the US, and publishes his articles on the web in both English and Arabic.
Israel's State Piracy is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.
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