Israel's Maritime Piracy: An Open Letter to Humanity

By Antoine Raffoul* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

It is thought that at times like these, people would be lost for words. Perhaps. But people should never be lost for action.

We, at 1948.Lest.We.Forget, as anyone who has scanned our website would come to realize, are focused directly on events relating to the Palestinian Nakba of 1948 and which, we strongly believe, have given rise to all tragic events in the Middle East from the Nakba until today. Let us not mince our words: from even as far back as 51 years before that Nakba. However, Israel has been so consistently clear in its Zionist projects for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine that not one single bead in a long necklace of bloody beads can be removed on its own without exposing the fragility of all the others in that chain. Israel is nothing but a series of weak beads tied together with the weakest of links. When the string break, the whole structure collapses. Once broken, the chain is hard to put back.

Which brings us to the early sneaky criminal raid this so-called state had launched on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. This criminal attack reminds us of two things:

The timing of the attack, and the arrogance of Israel.

First, the Timing:

Israel has never chosen to launch any criminal attack except under the cover of darkness. Like thieves, Israel's Zionist leaders commit their crimes away from the prying eyes of the world community. I recall that, prior to the issue of the UN Partition Plan in November 1947, and from the rooftop of our house in Haifa Al-Ateeqa adjacent to Haifa Port, we could see the many ships chartered by the various Zionist organizations carrying Jewish immigrants from all over Europe, enter the port ready to dock and to dispose of their illegal cargo unto our Palestinian soil. These ships docked in the dark to avoid scrutiny and inspection. They would break any blockade imposed by the Mandatory Power, Great Britain, and would swiftly buss its cargo unto human carriers and deep into our Palestinian hinterland. One of these ships was the notorious and high profile The Exodus which briefly docked in Palestine ports on 18 July 1947.

Israel's massacres prior to its declaration of fake statehood, from Deir Yaseen to Tantura, were carried out by the murderous Zionist gangs in the early hours as Palestinian families huddled in their ramshackle beds. They were woken up, rounded up, the young separated from the elderly only to be shot at point blank. In the dark. Now, if memory fails you, you are reminded that Operation Cast Lead, Israel's heinous crime on Gaza in December 2008, started in the middle of the night as well, and also against a civilian society that had just gone to sleep. Also asleep, it turned out, was the conscience of the world community. The blood on their hands will never dry. During that crime which lasted 21 days, the world press were kept at such a distance that they could only peer through their binoculars hoping to see more than phosphorous clouds and whisper more than unstructured reports back to home base thousands of miles away, also as they slept. Israel's PR machine was left alone to tell the lie.

The timing of the Zionist attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla was also carried out in the darkness of the blue Mediterranean sea. In international waters. Against a ship of a sovereign nation. Fifty miles away from any shore. Against civilians of 32 civilized nations, unarmed except for tons of humanitarian aid destined for the starving people of Gaza. The cloak of darkness protected the masked thieves who dangled from helicopters supplied by western powers. The powerful beams of light from the attacking helicopters and gunboats blinded the aid workers on the Mavi Marmara Ferry as they tried to defend themselves against the terrorist gangs of Israel who finally shot and reportedly killed nearly 19 civilians. In the middle of the night. In open seas.

Second, the Arrogance:

Since its pre-mature birth, the deformed Zionist state, has continued on the path of conquest by design, defiance by choice and arrogance through power. All the crimes committed by this Zionist state against Palestinians stem from the condition of a sick mind. For over 63 years, Israel's arrogance has manifested itself in hundreds, neigh, thousands of massacres and crimes against the Palestinian people.

Yet, the world remained silent.

But now that this arrogance of power and this defiance of international law have been exposed naked through acts of terror by a so-called member state of the United Nations against citizens from 32 members of this same United Nations, it is time to re-asses the condition of the state of mind of a sick nation and place it a detention camp of world public opinion. This so-called state which, according to the Turkish Foreign Minister "has lost its legitimacy" must be made answerable to the International Court of Justice for crimes not only against the Palestinian people but also against the United Nation itself.

This is not a time for general declarations of regret and mild statements of condemnation against Israel. It is a time for accountability, punishment and isolation of a state whose twisted ethics and warped norms have defied the science of civil behaviour.

The world must now take action against a state who has gone berserk.