While the international community has, once again, ganged up on Israel, one thing is for certain: the legality of Israel's actions in stopping the Gaza flotilla is not open to question. What Israel did was entirely consistent with both international and domestic law.

In order to understand why Israel acted within its rights, the complex events at sea must be deconstructed.

First, there is the Israeli blockade of Gaza, which included a naval blockade. Recall that when Israel ended its occupation of Gaza, it did not impose a blockade. Indeed it left behind agricultural facilities in the hope that the newly liberated Gaza Strip would become a peaceful and productive area. Instead Hamas seized control over Gaza and engaged in acts of warfare against Israel.

These acts of warfare featured anti-personnel rockets, nearly 10,000 of them, directed at Israeli civilians. This was not only an act of warfare, it was a war crime. Israel responded to the rockets by declaring a blockade, the purpose of which was to assure that no rockets, or other material that could be used for making war against Israeli civilians, was permitted into Gaza.

Israel allowed humanitarian aid through its checkpoints. Egypt as well participated in the blockade. There was never a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, merely a shortage of certain goods that would end if the rocket attacks ended.

The legality of blockades as a response to acts of war is not subject to serious doubt. When the United States blockaded Cuba during the missile crisis, the State Department issued an opinion declaring the blockade to be lawful. This was despite the fact that Cuba had not engaged in any act of belligerency against the United States. Other nations have similarly enforced naval blockades to assure their own security.

The second issue is whether it is lawful to enforce a legal blockade in international waters. Again, law and practice are clear. If there is no doubt that the offending ships have made a firm determination to break the blockade, then the blockade may be enforced before the offending ships cross the line into domestic waters. Again the United States and other western countries have frequently boarded ships at high sea in order to assure their security.

Third, were those on board the flotilla innocent non-combatants or did they lose that status once they agreed to engage in the military act of breaking the blockade? Let there be no mistake about the purpose of this flotilla. It was decidedly not to provide humanitarian aid to the residents of Gaza, but rather the break the entirely lawful Israeli military blockade.

The proof lies in the fact that both Israel and Egypt offered to have all the food, medicine and other humanitarian goods sent to Gaza, if the boats agreed to land in an Israeli or Egyptian port. That humanitarian offer was soundly rejected by the leaders of the flotilla who publicly announced -

"This mission is not about delivering humanitarian supplies, it's about breaking Israel's siege on 1.5 million Palestinians." (AFP May 27, 2010.)

The act of breaking a military siege is itself a military act, and those knowingly participating in such military action put in doubt their status as non-combatants.

It is a close question whether "civilians" who agree too participate in the breaking of a military blockade have become combatants. They are certainly something different than pure, innocent civilians, and perhaps they are also somewhat different from pure armed combatants. They fit uncomfortably onto the continuum of civilianality that has come to characterize asymmetrical warfare.

Finally, we come to the issue of the right of self defense engaged in by Israeli soldiers who were attacked by activists on the boat.

There can be little doubt that the moment any person on the boat picked up a weapon and began to attack Israeli soldiers boarding the vessel, they lost their status as innocent civilians. Even if that were not the case, under ordinary civilian rules of self defense, every Israeli soldier had the right to protect himself and his colleagues from attack by knife and pipe wielding assailants.

Lest there be any doubt that Israeli soldiers were under attack, simply view the video and watch, as so-called peaceful "activists" repeatedly pummel Israeli soldiers with metal rods (http://www.youtube.com/user/idfnadesk).

Every individual has the right to repel such attacks by the use of lethal force, especially when the soldiers were so outnumbered on the deck of the ship. Recall that Israel's rules of engagement required its soldiers to fire only paintballs unless their lives were in danger. Would any country in the world deny its soldiers the right of self defense under comparable circumstances?

Notwithstanding the legality of Israel's actions, the international community has, as usual, denounced the Jewish state. In doing so, Israel's critics have failed to pinpoint precisely what Israel did that allegedly violates international law. Some have wrongly focused on the blockade itself. Others have erroneously pointed to the location of the boarding in international waters. Most have simply pointed to the deaths of so-called peace activists, though these deaths appear to be the result of lawful acts of self-defense. None of these factors alone warrant condemnation, but the end result surely deserves scrutiny by Israeli policy makers.

There can be little doubt that the mission was a failure, as judged by its results. It is important, however, to distinguish between faulty policies on the one hand, and alleged violations of international law on the other hand. Only the latter would warrant international intervention, and the case has simply not been made that Israel violated international law.

Boats, Bias and Big Lies

HonestReporting adds:

In some of the latest video footage released by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), it is clear that the Israeli naval commandos were certainly unprepared for the violence they encountered, including being attacked with live fire. Live video had the voice of IDF soldiers shouting:

- Real weapons, real weapons!
- They have real weapons?
- Yes, yes, real weapons. They are firing on us!

It's not too late to counter the wave of anti-Israel sentiment unleashed by the events surrounding the boarding of the Turkish Mavi Marnara ship and the deaths of nine of its passengers. The claims of so-called "peace activists" that they were unarmed and non-violent victims of Israeli brutality, are laughable in the face of the openly available video evidence taken during the incident.

Jerusalem Post editor-in-chief David Horovitz explains the powerful effect of the IDF's video footage.

For some of the foreign press, who had been less willing to accept [IDF Spokesman] Benayahu's improbable account of commandos overpowered by civilians, the footage was a revelation.

"I saw it, and I realized I had done Israel an injustice," one of my foreign colleagues said on Monday, with admirable candor. "At that point, and only at that point, I understood what the Israelis had been saying."

The IDF videos reveal the truth about what took place. But we can't rely on the media to spread the word to the general public. We must make every effort to forward the videos and updates to our networks and post them across the Internet.

Media Unable to Ignore the Evidence

When confronted with the compelling video evidence, many media outlets (though not all) have been unable to bat away the images of Israeli soldiers attacked with clubs, iron poles and knives.

The UK's Channel 4 News invited a British naval analyst and counter-terror expert to analyze IDF footage.

Peace Activism or Military Preparations?

Since when do "peace activists" have access to sophisticated night vision equipment, rifle scopes and bullet proof vests? These photos taken by the IDF of items found on board the Mavi Marnara would indicate that the portrayal of non-violent humanitarians interested only in distributing aid to Gaza is thoroughly inaccurate.

The equipment, along with the clubs and knives found by the IDF on board the Mavi Marnara is evidence of the premeditated nature of the violence perpetrated by those on board.

Photos show one of the electric saws used to saw metal rods off of the Marnara's deck. These rods were used to attack the Israeli soldiers boarding the ship.

Activists even threw stun grenades as the video footage shows.

In addition, large quantities of cash were found on board ready to be transferred to Hamas upon landing in Gaza. The Turkish IHH organization responsible for the Mavi Marnara is an open supporter of Hamas and has been implicated in the recruitment and funding of Islamic terrorism, including al-Qaeda.

What Happens Now?

The flotilla's cargo is being off-loaded in Ashdod and the humanitarian items transferred overland to Gaza in accordance with standard operating procedures while the participants of the flotilla are to be repatriated as expediently as possible. (since deported).

Israel does not prevent aid from reaching Gaza via established land-based crossings and there is no lack of humanitarian aid to the Strip. Israel repeatedly proposed that the flotilla organizers land in the port of Ashdod and transfer their aid to Gaza through the existing overland crossings. Had the aid been delivered directly to Ashdod in the first place, as Israel offered, the entire tragic incident could have been avoided.

IDF spokesperson said, June 2, that attackers of the IDF Soldiers were found to be Al Qaeda Mercenaries. In a special meeting of the Security Cabinet it was disclosed that a group of 40 people on board the Mavi Marmara with no identification papers belong to Al Qaeda. According to intelligence disclosed during that June 1 meeting, the terrorists wore bullet-proof vests, and carried with them night-vision goggles, weapons, and large sums of cash. Each person in this group had the exact same amount of cash in his pockets. While the civilian protestors were sent to the lower deck during the Shayetet Naval Special Force's interception of the ship, the group divided into cells and remained on the upper deck in order to attack the soldiers.

An announcement delivered at the completion of this special meeting stated that blocking the entrance of these ships into Gaza is an act of self defense. The Cabinet places full responsibility for the incident on those who started the violence which clearly endangered the lives of the IDF soldiers, and commends the IDF for the way it responded.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during the meeting that he regrets all loss of life, but gives full support to the IDF. "This was not a flotilla for peace, but instead was a violent and organized force. We have films and photographs which show what our soldiers faced, but the last thing that can be said about this ship is that it was a flotilla of peace," he said.

"We know from the experience of Operation Cast Lead, and beforehand, that weapons entering the Gaza Strip are used against our civilians. Within Gaza there is a terror state aided by Iran, and therefore we attempt to prevent the entering of weapons to Gaza by land, air and sea. On the Francop ship alone we caught approximately 200 tons of weapons which were smuggled by Iran to Hezbollah, he added.

The Prime Minister emphasized that "Opening a maritime channel to Gaza will present a grave danger to the security of our civilians. Therefore we are upholding the policies of the maritime blockade, and check the ships. There is no possibility to establish these policies without checking the contents of the ships. It is true that there is international pressure on and criticism of this policy, but we must understand that it is necessary in order to ensure the security of Israel and her right to self defense."

[This article was posted by Alan M. Dershowitz on June 2, and filed under http://frontpagemag.com/2010/06/02/israel's-actions-entirely-lawful.]