I think that anybody with any fairness is bound to admit that the statement William Hague came out with is much better than anything on Israel which New Labour ever came out with, especially this bit:
“This news underlines the need to lift the restrictions on access to Gaza, in line with UNSCR 1860. The closure is unacceptable and counter-productive. There can be no better response from the international community to this tragedy than to achieve urgently a durable resolution to the Gaza crisis.
I call on the Government of Israel to open the crossings to allow unfettered access for aid to Gaza, and address the serious concerns about the deterioration in the humanitarian and economic situation and about the effect on a generation of young Palestinians
?.”
http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/news/latest-news/?view=News&id=22300485
But as I told this afternoon’s tremendous spontaneous demonstration on Whitehall, fine words are not enough and we must now see the kind of sanctions regime we saw against apartheid South Africa.
A word on the legal position, which is very plain. To attack a foreign flagged vessel in international waters is illegal. It is not piracy, as the Israeli vessels carried a military commission. It is rather an act of illegal warfare.
Because the incident took place on the high seas does not mean however that international law is the only applicable law. The Law of the Sea is quite plain that, when an incident takes place
on a ship on the high seas (outside anybody’s territorial waters) the applicable law is that of the flag state of the ship on which the incident occurred. In legal terms, the Turkish ship was Turkish territory.
There are therefore two clear legal possibilities.
Possibility one is that the Israeli commandos were acting on behalf of the government of Israel in killing the activists on the ships. In that case Israel is in a position of war with Turkey, and the act falls under international jurisdiction as a war crime.
Possibility two is that, if the killings were not authorised Israeli military action, they were acts of murder under Turkish jurisdiction. If Israel does not consider itself in a position of war with Turkey, then it must hand over the commandos involved for trial in Turkey under Turkish law.
In brief, if Israel and Turkey are not at war, then it is Turkish law which is applicable to what happened on the ship. It is for Turkey, not Israel, to carry out any inquiry or investigation into events and to initiate any prosecutions. Israel is obliged to hand over indicted personnel for prosecution.
Craig Murray is a former British Ambassador. He is also a former Head of the Maritime Section of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He negotiated the UK’s current maritime boundaries with Ireland, Denmark (Faeroes), Belgium and France, and boundaries of the Channel Islands, Turks and Caicos and British Virgin Islands. He was alternate Head of the UK Delegation to the UN Preparatory Commission on the Law of the Sea. He was Head of the FCO Section of the Embargo Surveillance Centre, enforcing sanctions on Iraq, and directly responsible for clearance of Royal Navy boarding operations in the Persian Gulf.
Reviews of Craig Murray’s War on Terror Memoir, “Murder in Samarkand” – published in the US as “Dirty Diplomacy”:
“It really is a magnificent achievement” – Noam Chomsky
“A fearless book by a fearless man. Craig Murray tells the truth whether the “authorities” like it or not. I salute a man of integrity” – Harold Pinter
Clark
That’s getting a BBC page not found message – the page may have been amended removed or deleted
The Rulers of Turkey have no power.
They are just window dressing to give the impression of democracy.
The people who rule Turkey are its Zionist army, and they only answer to Israel.
The Turkish president, priminister and parliment haven’t even got the authority to do something as simple as relaxing the headscarf ban, the wives of the priminister and president aren’t even allowed to enter millitry bases. Because it is the Millitry that gives the orders and every turk knows it.
The Turkey will do nothing to Israel for attacking a Turkish ship considered Turkish territory, because Turkey is nothing.
It is a country that has no power over what women are allowed to wear in Turkey so what power do you think this castrated nation has in getting justice for its murdered citizens?
The Turks need to remove the Zionist millitry rulers that occupied Turkey after capturing it just after ww1.
They need to bring back the Khilafah which was abolished by the unelected millitry that captured Turkey and reunify with the wider middle east. Then it needs to reincorperate all of Palestine in to its territory.
I am pretty damn sure that in case Israel had requested (non-agressive way) to enter the ship and check the cargo, due to the character of the shipment and publicity this voyage has, they would have been admitted access to her. We would not face the tragedy like today..
Yevgeny Satanovskiy from Institute of Middle-East studies in Russia states that this incident was planned personally by the Prime minister of Turkey with participation of the Turkish secret service in order to break diplomatic relationships with Israel.
Russian Business Consulting: http://top.rbc.ru/politics/31/05/2010/414378.shtml
I am an American and happened to run across the “live action” on the dailykos.com blog in the middle of the night. Fortunately, many Americans understand the truth about the wholesale buyout of the American government to AIPAC and the pro-Israeli powers that be.
However, we have not as yet been able to force our politicians to close the door to their money and their total ownership of both the House and Senate and the BIG White House that is currently occupied by a man who won a Nobel Peace Prize for no reason other than his promise for change and his brilliant smile.
What are we to do? I wrote my congresswoman and copied in the Israeli embassy in DC. I begged and then demanded her to take action. I’m sitting here several hours later with no hope that this situation will ever change, and definitely not in my lifetime.
Why is this impossible problem so defiant? Victimhood has gone a long way for the Israelis; it got them a homeland and it appears that it won’t be long before they bully their way through the door of no return for the families of those original landowners.
What’s wrong with that kind of thinking, or is it just me?
Thanks for offering thoughts that make sense to people with rationale minds.
Sami
So what did the turks do?
Force the ZIonists on to the helicopters and boats, and then pulled teh trigger for them?
Or did the 6 turks who were killed kill themselves, after shooting all the other dead and wounded, just to make Israel look bad?
Israel is a gangster republic,
Just encase you don’t know Israel is the one that had planned this for a long time. It had even put pressure on cyprus to prevent more westerns from joining.
Dead Turks don’t matter, they are just dark skinned Muslims whose deaths can be ignored. But it is harder to explain away the deaths of white faced Christians.
All good stuff up to “Israel is obliged to hand over indicted personnel for prosecution”.
Am I right in thinking that would only be true assuming there was a suitable extradition treaty between Israel and Turkey? If there wasn’t, is there any other reason why such a handover would be required in international law?
Plenty of bold words. So long as Washington endorses Israel unconditionally in its programme of butchery there is so little we can do.
Shame on Obama – Nobel Peace Prize Winner. I believe Washington gave this the green light and is equally guilty. The six-ship flotilla was carrying 10,000 tons of humanitarian aid along with 600 people, all civilians, which included 1976 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire of Northern Ireland, European legislators and an elderly Holocaust survivor, Hedy Epstein, 85.
Obama is a charlatan and puts politics before people.
Ed,
If they were civilians Israel would not hand them over without an extradition treaty. Mind you Turkey and Israel were very close and there might well be an extradition treaty. But there are provisions specific to military personnel, which I’ll dig out in the morning.
Nice remarks about your speech from Lenin’s Tomb:
http://leninology.blogspot.com/2010/05/gaza-freedom-protest-pictures.html
Gaza Freedom Protest pictures posted by lenin
Some pictures from today’s protest, which – given that people only have this morning to organise over it – was extraordinarily large, and raucous. There weren’t very many coppers about, which is probably more due to its being a bank holiday than to the ConDem government’s concern for civil liberties. I have to apologise for having failed to get a picture of the only Liberal Democrat I saw at the protest, that being Craig Murray. But he did deliver an incredible speech, second only to Lowkey in the reception he received from the crowd.
If nothing is done this time then the Israelis will feel even further emboldened in their lawlessness.
I wrote that the last time the Israelis murdered and slaughtered as they pleased.
There comes a time when decent people just have to stand up against the total immorality of the Israeli state, and supporters of that immorality in the BBC.
It’s about time the British people took a class action against the BBC, for its continual refusal to represent the views of those who fund it.
Yes, I agree. Surely there must be some law which can safeguard us from having to pay for propaganda.
Craig,
sorry, I’ve been otherwise engaged. The page I linked to seems OK from here; anyone else tried it? The comments there were overwhelmingly condemnatory of the Israeli actions. The few pro-Israel remarks kept coming from the same names.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/haveyoursay/2010/05/was_israel_right_to_board_the.html
This link appears fine for me too. Maybe Craig missed a character off.
Watching some of the new Israeli footage of the boardings on TV I cannot help but think some of it looks stage managed. I may be wrong but…
Thanks Craig for your post. Few replies to people who claimed Israel acted legally:
I. Under San Remo Manual, a prerequisite for the capture and search of neutral vessel is that it is breaching a blockade. But under the Manual the Blockade has to be effective, a fact that is highly contested! It is also quite contested if Israel’s blockade on Gaza is lawful (see Gisha.org)
II. Rules of precaution and proportionality should be respected at all times and capturing the vessel should make an effective contribution to Israel’s military actions.
III. Israel has a documented record of defying the laws of war not to mention its pathetic consistency to deny the applicability of IHL and GCs to its actions in the West Bank and Gaza, so invoking the Sane Rimo Manual seems to me at best a cheap act of cherry picking!
@ writerman.
“the gang of corrupt, vicious, bloodthirsty, bastards who are running the country at present” – Is that sustainable? Has there ever been a non-Zionist, non-crime commiting administration of this contemporary and fraudulent inversion of the glorious Israel of old. You dabble with imperialist apologetics “Oh that was just a rogue element at work. We’re not really like that – honest”
“Many of them feel that Zionism has simply gone too far” Zionism has ALWAYS gone too far. You know little about Zinism if you think otherwise. Here’s some help: http://giwersworld.org/israel/terrorists.phtml
“a state that’s becoming fascist, totalitarian, racist and undemocratic.” – /becoming/ writerman?
“Possibility one is that the Israeli commandos were acting on behalf of the government of Israel in killing the activists on the ships. In that case Israel is in a position of war with Turkey”
Turkey is a member of NATO. Can you comment on the implications of this?
NOT a LAWYER
Hamass weapons cant begin to compare with Israels, which the US smuggles in on secret cargo planes…
also the flotilla was not HAMAS…so your reasoning with your 67 paragraph is as bogus as is your humanity
Well, it seems, according to Sky this morning that film has been released showing the commando unit bieng violently attacked with one of thier members bieng thrown overboard. Seems like they had no option but to defend themselves.
craig, although I live in turkey and you don’t, you seem to more alot about turkey’s history and current situation then me. I’m sorry but calling turkey’s military zionist without giving ANY reason behind it is just bullshit. turkey had problems with the amount of power the amry holds over the government that is true, but elected government holds no power? that is a little bold isn’t it? did you know most of people in turkey sees turkish army as the protection against islamic regime, and the islamic biased government right now is constantly having conflict with the army. if they would have no power why would there be any conflict?
and the scarf problem.. it has nothing to do with military or anything. its just the turkish citizens who are trying to find a solution about the problems between 99% muslim population and a secular government. this does not show the weakness of a government or democracy rather than its the strength of different opinions clashing what makes democracy work.
Turkey is not ottoman empire as you clearly mix with. Turkey is a muslim populated country which is on the way of the membership in EU for a long time. your racist words about muslims clearly shows your lack of knowledge about my country. i hope you get rid of your hatred for muslim people soon or I will really feel sorry for you.
And calling turkish citizens dark skinned muslims whos death is not important is just plain racism.
My post was a reply to Arsalan not Craig sorry i mixed poster names.
It is because America and it’s Jewish lawyers had made torture legal only to keep top U.S. officials from being sent to prison that doesn’t mean more might makes it right.
America’s war monster should be locked up by now, proving the entire forward way of thinking is heading backward.
This how they plan to start the New World Order? God help us.
One thing. I see how the true patriotic spirit of America’s Middle Class are going to take the country away from the hands of greed.
If America decides to join-in and rebel against it’s insane and parasitic virtual’s, for sure the world will close it’s eye’s and thank God for helping America find it’s true self.
Not a lawyer:
An armed conflict with Hamas and a declared war with anyone, are two entirely different animals. And this flotilla was not Hamas. But regardless of that, I followed this situation live last night, and before Israel’s attack on the flotilla, they had chosen to turn away from Gaza so that nothing could be misinterpreted during the night. They were going to turn back to Gaza after sun up. Satellite photos show that the flotilla had turned away after dark. Israel’s attack on a Turkish ship in international waters is indefensable.
“It is because America and it’s Jewish lawyers had made torture legal”
Someone should tell John Yoo that he’s actually a Joo.
Frazer
“Well, it seems, according to Sky this morning that film has been released showing the commando unit bieng violently attacked with one of thier members bieng thrown overboard. Seems like they had no option but to defend themselves.”
Or not get on the ship in the first place. Why did the IDF lower a small number of armed troops onto a ship full of activists at 4.30am? Were they expecting to hear a few verses of a John Lennon song ?
If I was an Israeli I’d be wondering why the military is so heavy on weaponry and so light on brains.
“And calling turkish citizens dark skinned muslims whos death is not important is just plain racism.”
I see someone who never heard of sarcasm…
The jews can do whatever they want.
Volkan
Firstly, my hatred isn’t against Muslims, it is against Turkey’s Zionist Military.
Secondly when the president of a country, the priminister of a country, most of the parliament and almost all of the countries population agree on something, and their will is vetoed by the military, that doesn’t indicate democracy, that doesn’t indicate difference of opinion that indicates military dictatorship.
Turks do not see the Zionist military as guardians of secularism against themselves, and the people they elect. If they wanted the military to decide on which laws the people they elect are allowed to make, they would have elected the military and not parliament.
Yes Turkey isn’t the Ottoman empire, that is key to way it is such a rubbish country now, a country begging unsuccessfully to join the European Union.
The European Union has made it clear time and time again, they don’t want you. It is time Turkey takes the hint and has some self respect and reforms its own Union with the countries it was once part of.
It needs to reunite in to the Khilafah.