Opinion

Why Israel doesn’t care

Hamna Zubair June 02, 2010

Question: Will Israel’s attack on the Gaza-bound ‘freedom flotilla’ shift the balance of power in the Middle East at all? Answer: No.

The pre-dawn raid carried out by Israeli navy commandoes on the morning of May 31 can be termed premature, ill-planned, badly executed or just plain crazy. The strike may have cost Israel its friendship with Turkey, but Israel doesn’t care. International criticism of the raid may be harsh, but Israel won’t be moved.

The reason? Even though we have lived through a century that bred multilateral organisations claiming to influence a country’s policies and ambitions, the reality is that the state is still the most important player on the world stage. And this situation looks likely to continue for a very long time.

The latest crisis in the Middle East, the unfortunate massacre on the Mavi Marmara, is the most recent illustration of this reality. No matter how much outrage followed Israel’s strike, the UN Security Council could not evolve consensus on a statement that called for an independent probe into the incident, because states friendly to Israel held the right to veto such a response.

Even international law falters in the face of a state’s might. Much has been made of the fact that Israel attacked the flotilla in ‘international waters,’ as if this indiscretion magnifies the illegality of the act.

The reality is that to Israel, a state which has not even endorsed the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, ‘international waters’ are about as significant as a paddling pool.

Of course, Israel is not the only state that is protected by the multilateral body’s inability to act. Ironically, the same limitations on achieving international consensus that shelter Israel also shelter its nemesis, Iran.

Ultimately, evolving ‘true’ multilateral consensus will not be possible until every state has an equal vote in the decision-making process.

Until then, we have to resign ourselves to the fact that the state always comes out on top.

Published in the Express Tribune, June 3^rd, 2010.

COMMENTS (9)

Waqas | 14 years ago | Reply Lets step back and analyse it from another angle. What if you are demographically a small nation with a very hostile existense. Then, like Israel you want to create an image of being tough and a bully to slay any resistence before it gathers momentum and also to keep enemies thinking twice before taking you on. Simple. All these barbaric acts are simple psychological warfare tactics-- to create a facade. Ask any military tactician and they will tell you that even with the technology, you still need men on ground. And that Israel, is not very rich in, due to being a minority. So the nation resorts utter barbarism to quash resistence before its start.

talha | 14 years ago | Reply This is not the answer that Israel have more PhD’s and their army destroyed Arab countries, the fact is that we the Muslims are not united and we all have our own agendas for which we are scattered. Lets pray for the unification of Muslims countries to face the brutalities of Jewish and American lobbies. **Momin hay to bay-taigh bhee larta a sipahi**

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Nadir El-Edroos | 14 years ago | Reply @Murtaza - they were a few americans on the ship

Sharif Lone | 14 years ago | Reply Faraz, well said. Israel produces more PHDs in a year than all Muslim countries combined. Its army single handedly destroyed numerous arabs armies. Jews are firm on their ideology and they have a stable political system. Muslim countries are deficient on all of these basics. I might add that Israelis do not kill each other to reach heaven. But Israel is wrong to attack the ship.

faraz | 14 years ago | Reply Israel produces more PHDs in a year than all Muslim countries combined. Its army single handedly destroyed numerous arabs armies. Jews are firm on their ideology and they have a stable political system. Muslim countries are deficient on all of these basics.

sunil | 14 years ago | Reply very well put. why are we still living under the legacy of World War II?

Bob | 14 years ago | Reply The reality is that to international law on enforcing a blockade "international waters" are as significant as a wading pool. Not just blockades either. The U.S. Coast Guard is constantly stopping foreign flagged (and U.S. flagged) ships in international waters. If they suspect smuggling, they can legally board and search a ship without permission from the crew or the country whose flag the ship flies. People who think "international waters" means "no government can legally touch me but the one whose flag I fly" have been watching too much television. However, you are right about one thing. No State enforces international "law" unless it is in the best interest of the State to do so. A damned good thing too, since there is no impartial judiciary either. If you go by what the U.N. and the international "courts" (political bodies) say, all international law has an unwritten clause that says "any rights granted to a country by this law don't apply to Israel". Also that "any limitations that only kick in when both sides obey a treaty are binding on Israel even when its enemies violate the treaty". For example, most of the Geneva Conventions, according to their text, protect only the people from countries that obey the Geneva Conventions. The Palestinians don't (e.g., they won't let the Red Cross visit Gilad Shalit), but they get a pass on it, because they are fighting Israel. The GCs say "you can't permanently take the territory of someone who obeys the Geneva Conventions" (paraphrasing). It doesn't say "you can't take territory". But for the Jews, the international bodies read it that way.

Luboš Motl | 14 years ago | Reply Thank God that the states are more powerful than international groups that try to control the whole world. I wouldn't be happy if my homeland were controlled by dictators from super-poor and super-corrupt Africa or from the Middle East where poweful wild animals are supported by more than a billion of brainwashed Muslims. There are problems with the Czech politicians, especially with some of them, but these problems could quickly turn out to be a nostalgy from the good old times. I wish Israel a lot of success in ignoring the screams of the biased, hypocritical, but largely impotent international pro-Islamic, pro-terrorist, and politically correct subset of the public.

Murtaza Ali Jafri | 14 years ago | Reply I bet the world would have been a lot more peeved off if there were a few Americans on there. Hell Hath No Fury as an American Citizen Shot of Foreign Shores.

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