Israel's Investigation and Intelligence Flaws from the Mavi Marmara to Bilin

“We can rejoice and celebrate today because we are living in a miraculous time. Everything is changing and everything is possible” - Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Maried Corrigan-Maguire

Teargas grenade thrown at protesters, Bil'in. Photo: Haitham Alkatib

(CLERMONT, Fla.) - Israel’s investigation of the Memorial Day massacre aboard the Mavi Marmara concluded that Israeli commando reactions were “appropriate” and that the soldiers “lacked sufficient intelligence.”

Surviving eyewitnesses who had been aboard the Turkish-flagged ship have reported that under the cover of darkness, Israel began its assault upon the civilians with percussion grenades, tear gas and a hail of bullets. Read those reports here: freegaza.org/

On June 20, 2010, Haaretz reported “The Israel Navy's internal probe into its deadly commando raid of a humanitarian aid flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip has found serious defects in the planning and intelligence aspects of the operation, Israel Radio reported on Sunday [and] concluded that the commando unit that embarked on the May 31 raid was inadequately prepared and lacked sufficient intelligence when approaching the activists.

“The investigation concluded that the raid on the ship should have only been conducted after hosing the attackers down with water hoses and smoke grenade. The navy admitted that they were prepared for ‘resistance like we encounter in Bil'in.’”

One of the commanders involved in the attack said that "I still awake at three A.M. every morning and ask myself: Damn it, how did we not know more?"[1]

On 25 May 2010, The Guardian quoted Yigal Palmor, an Israeli foreign ministry spokesman: "The boats will not be allowed to enter Gaza territorial waters. This is a territory in a self-declared state of war with Israel. There can be no uncontrolled transportation in or out of Gaza." [2]

Lynda Brayer, a graduate of the Hebrew University Faculty of Law, is an Israeli human rights lawyer who specializes in the laws of war and international law and she wrote:

“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.”[3]

“Israel claims that its blockade is directed simply at the Hamas government in Gaza, and is limited to so-called 'security' items. Yet When U.S. Senator John Kerry visited Gaza last year, he was shocked to discover that the Israeli blockade included staple food items such as lentils, macaroni and tomato paste. Furthermore, Gisha, the Israeli Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, has documented numerous official Israeli government statements that the blockade is intended to put 'pressure' on Gaza's population, and collective punishment of civilians is an illegal act under international law.” [4]

Back to Bil’in

Due to a mainstream media blackout on the five-year struggle in Bil’in, most of the world is unaware of the thousands of nonviolent Palestinians and growing legions of Israeli and International activists who have been waging a nonviolent campaign of resistance to the construction of the route of Israel's Wall in the Occupied Territories and in seeking an end to the occupation of Palestine.

Farmers, mothers, children and activists have been braving teargas, beatings, bullets, arrest, and even death to rise up against the route of The Wall/Fence and most well equipped army in the world, with nothing more than their own bodies and the innate persistent determination within all people for justice and freedom.

In 2004 the International Court of Justice ruled that The Wall is a violation of International Law because it cuts through the West Bank appropriating Palestinian land and destroying Palestinian villages and economy in order to establish more illegal settlements.

The Wall/Fence in Bil'in and the Israeli army prohibit the indigenous people to tend and harvest their olive groves. Over 2,003 dunums of prime agricultural land have been confiscated by The Electric Fence. The Israelis have built apartments for Jewish only settlers, which the indigenous people are forbidden to even enter.

In Bil’in, the Green Line is five miles from The Wall/Fence and the Popular Committee in Bil’in has been fighting the Israeli government and forces with legal actions and nonviolent demonstrations.

The Israeli government attempts to justify their land theft by returning to the Ottoman Law that states if the landowner doesn't tend his land it can be confiscated by the State. The Israeli army and the Wall/Fence have prevented the indigenous people from accessing their legally owned land, thus depriving them of food, income and human rights.

After the indigenous people of Bil’in brought their case to the Israeli Municipal Court and the High Court; both courts agreed the building of the settlement dwellings was indeed illegal and ordered the construction to cease in January 2006. Construction continued and the settlers have moved in.

The High Court accepted these 'facts on the ground' but the indigenous people and all who believe in equal human rights and international law will never give up seeking justice and resisting the route of the wall/fence. In many West Bank villages, the indigenous people are being joined by growing numbers of locals, Israelis and internationals and many have been injured, arrested and yet return for more-except those who have been imprisoned, incapacitated or killed by Israeli forces.

The indigenous people of Bil'in brought their case against the settlement to the Municipal Court and that Court agreed the building of the settlement dwellings was illegal and ordered construction to cease. But, building continued and the day I was there, a half dozen USA made Caterpillar tractors were moving earth for the anticipated paved road that only Jewish colonists- most of them from the USA-will be allowed to travel upon.

My first visit to Bil’in was in January 2006. I met many locals and a few internationals and Israelis who had created their own facts on the ground with an outpost where they held the ground 24/7. They slept for weeks at a time inside the 10x10 brick house on sleeping bags on a dirt floor, a few hundred yards from where a settlement of 700 upscale apartments was being erected for Jewish only settlers upon legally owned Palestinian property.

Bil'in Outpost, January 2006: More on You Tube: Bilin Reenacts Avatar Film 12-02-2010 Bill'in outpost in 2006

I was inspired to go to Bil'in, after attending a power point lecture in Gainesville, Florida given by a Palestinian and Jonathan Pollak, an Israeli member of Anarchists Against the Wall/AAtW.

Pollak was also a keynote speaker at the 5th International conference in Bil’in, but in November 2006, Pollak informed this reporter:

"I was six years old at my first demonstration and active on my own at thirteen. I am 23 now. When they started to build the Apartheid Wall in the West Bank I would go a few times a week and watch them deceive the world. The Israeli government successfully marketed the Apartheid Wall as a security barrier. But it is all about segregation, separation and ethnic cleansing.

"Civilian uprising and non-violent activism is not like the Gandhi movie. It’s not carrying posters and saying we don’t like your wall, go away. We stand in front of Caterpillar’s knowing we will be shot and arrested. I was shot five times in the last two years by rubber bullets, which are 1/2-inch steel bullets covered with plastic. I have been shot in the head and the more experience I have the scarier it is. One learns to recognize the ritual of it all: when the IOF will begin using the Billy clubs, when the tear gas will come, when the bullets will come.

“We are not a dialogue group, we are an Israeli organization and we are not colonial liberators. All the strategy is done by Palestinians, we are with them seeking justice and giving support. There is no price to high to pay for freedom, equality and universal rights. Without justice there can be no peace.

"Negotiations alone will not secure freedom for the Palestinian people. During the negotiations of the so-called Oslo Peace Process from 1993-2000, Israel simply imposed its will on the Palestinians, using its overwhelming military and economic power, and US support. During seven years of supposed peace, Palestinians saw 200,000 new Israeli settlers arrive in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the same number of settlers that had arrived there in the previous 26 years.

"However, the recent grassroots struggle against Israel's Wall has demonstrated that it may be possible to counter Israel's overwhelming power, and its exploitation of negotiations, through nonviolent resistance. The Wall, is just one blatant Israeli attempt to impose its will, and has become a focus for civilian resistance.

"Although Israel marketed the Wall as a security barrier, logic suggests such a barrier would be as short and straight as possible. Instead, it snakes deep inside the West Bank, resulting in a route that is twice as long as the Green Line, the internationally recognized border. Israel chose the Wall's path in order to dispossess Palestinians of the maximum land and water, to preserve as many Israeli settlements as possible, and to unilaterally determine a border.

"In order to build the Wall Israel is uprooting tens of thousands of ancient olive trees that for many Palestinians are also the last resource to provide food for their children.

 "The Palestinian aspiration for an independent state is also threatened by the Wall, as it isolates villages from their mother cities and divides the West Bank into disconnected cantons [Bantustans/ghettos]. The Israeli human rights organization B`Tselem conservatively estimates that 500,000 Palestinians are negatively impacted by the Wall.

"Faced with a history of suffering, Palestinians have no alternative but to struggle. The only question is how? Killing diminishes our humanity, and Israel's occupation, which has killed thousands of Palestinians, shouldn't be our teacher. It is time for both sides to refuse killing.

"Though Palestinians have employed nonviolence since 1929, they have seen little evidence that it will help them to achieve freedom. In 2003-2004, the West Bank village of Budrus decided to set an example for how nonviolence can defeat the Wall.

 "All the people of Budrus mobilized, and were joined by Israeli and international activists. In 55 nonviolent marches, Israeli soldiers injured more than 300 people, arrested 33 and killed one, as the villagers, with their bodies alone, attempted to stop the destruction of their land. Faced with Budrus` determined protests, the Israeli government eventually moved the Wall to the Green Line. The village saved 300 acres of its land and 3000 olive trees. Children, women and old people were among the heroes of Budrus` nonviolent struggle.

"Throughout the West Bank, nine protesters were killed in marches against the Wall, thousands were injured and hundreds arrested. Hundreds of civilian protests throughout the West Bank are the reason the world learned of the injustice of the Wall. As a direct result, the International Court of Justice at the Hague ruled in 2004 that Israel's construction of the Wall violated international law.

"The village of Budrus and the International Court of Justice ruling represent victories for nonviolent resistance. Another success of the joint struggle was the connection forged between Palestinians and the Israelis who joined them in their resistance. This connection, stronger than anything that ideas could create, was unwittingly forged by the Israeli army, through their beatings, the joint arrests and the bullets. Joining Palestinians in nonviolent struggle has allowed some Israelis to voice very clearly that the struggle against occupation and for freedom is not a Palestinian struggle alone, but is their struggle as well.

"We believe that, as with Apartheid South Africa, Americans have a vital role to play in ending Israeli occupation - by speaking out, coming to Palestine as witnesses, or standing with Palestinians in nonviolent resistance.

 "We are confident that Israeli occupation will one day be defeated, as were other US government supported repressive regimes - Apartheid South Africa, Pinochet`s Chile and racial segregation in the United States. There is no price too great to pay for freedom, and nothing will deter us from achieving this goal."