MrGareth’s Missives

It occurred to me that there are strange and ironic echoes of the past in the events taking place right now in off the coast of what used to be called The Levant.  It turns out that I am not the only one this has occurred to  The echoes are of the British Navy’s blockade off the coast of what was then called Palestine.  Baring responsibility for the mandate as a result of the Treaty of Versailles after the First World War, Britain was forced to blockade the coast in order to stop Jewish refugees migrating to what they now call Israel after the Second World War.  Those intercepted were then interned in camps on Cyprus.  Many found this a fairly sick irony considering the kind of accommodation these concentration camp vicitms had just left behind them in Europe. Increasingly the blockade became unworkable as thousands upon thousands of Zionists took part in Aliyah_Bet - driven by belief that after 2,000 years’ history of pogrom upon pogrom since their exile from what was then called Judea by The Romans, the Jews should return to their homeland. (For a unsurprisingly unbalanced view of these events, visit the Israeli Clandestine Immigration and Naval Museum in haifa as I did.)  Some people drew parallels between these events and The Crusades.

The rest is of course history , the Jewish state of Israel was officially recognised by the UN in 1949 as hundreds of thousands of Jews occupied what is sometimes called The Fertile Crescent.  An immediate by-product was the interning of the evicted Palestinians in refugee camps in The West Bank and...Gaza – the area Israel now finds itself controversially blockading today. 

It is certainly true that the blockade of Gaza is unjust – as unjust as the British Blockade before it during and after WW2.  Easily the site of one of the worst collective human rights abuse in the world today, Gaza is in a woeful state – still trying to rebuild after the vicious bombing campaign of last year, and desperately needs the aid activists are and will continue to bring.  However, it must be said that the Strip is ruled by Hamas - a terrorist organisation that would like to see Israel destroyed both as a land as well as a people. Furthermore, that same organisation is bank rolled by a nation whose president himself has expressed his desire to see Israel “wiped off the face of the map” .  This organisation rains rockets on Israel as often as it physically can.  Currently it is not able to as regularly as it would like.  It is understandable how the Israelis might imagine that should the blockade be lifted, that regularity would increase – significantly and fatally. 

Obviously the recent attempt to board an aid ship approaching Gaza was a catastrophic disaster and quite clearly another Israeli crime against humanity.  So Israel’s ability to execute this blockade must now be brought into question, let alone its right to do so.  But given the above reality, perhaps aid convoys to Gaza should be searched as Hamas’ hunger and desire for military muscle is inherent.  So perhaps an international peace-keeping force should conduct the blockade from a humanitarian point of view.  The irony would be complete if the Navy chosen to do so was The Royal Navy.