Terror at dawn

Arab News Editorial: Terror at dawn

Israel has once again shown its true colors to the world with its murderous piracy in international waters.

What Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has so rightly called "a massacre" saw the death of at least 10 peace activists on board the lead ship of the six-vessel Freedom Flotilla and the injury of scores others, as heavily armed Israeli commandos seized the convoy and sailed it toward their port of Ashdod. Israeli sources put the toll at nine. The full details of this outrage are not yet clear since the Israeli authorities are censoring all reports and used sophisticated jamming technology to halt media broadcasts from the vessels as they were assaulted. The truth will only become known when 700 journalists and peace activists are released and can give their testimony.

Meanwhile, the world is appalled at this blatant and deadly act of piracy. Governments around the globe are demanding an explanation for this crime and a full investigation of what occurred. International fury has only been increased by the threadbare excuses the Israelis have trotted out in an attempt to justify this carnage. According to them, they opened fire in self-defense when they were attacked with sticks and knives and two pistols as their commandos surged aboard the aid ships. Two pistols — against dozens of heavily armed Israeli soldiers who proceeded to shoot at least 19 people dead. What were the peace activists doing — passing the two pistols to each other with their dying breath? This was surely cold-blooded murder on the high seas, an international crime, which demands the highest penalty for those who planned and carried it out.

Israeli spokesmen were yesterday protesting they had to stop the Freedom Flotilla otherwise it would have breached their blockade and reached Gaza carrying weapons for Hamas fighters, as well as the 10,000 tons of aid that activists insist was the convoy's only cargo. Given the news blackout, the Israelis will have plenty of time to ensure that when the ships' holds are inspected, probably with orchestrated publicity, some weapons will indeed be found. Such a "discovery" would provide some sort of smokescreen for the brutal violence of their piracy. However the international community is unlikely to be taken in, even though planted weapons might provide a fig leaf for Washington.

Netanyahu was last night returning to Israel from Canada having canceled his planned White House meeting with President Barack Obama. So far the US administration has said only that it "deeply regrets" the loss of life. This is a completely inadequate response to a brazen crime.

If the Israelis were intent on maintaining their illegal blockade of the 1.4 million Palestinians trapped in the Gaza Ghetto, there were other less deadly ways of stopping the Freedom Flotilla. They had sufficient notice to prepare booms or nets to entangle propellers and immobilize the convoy. They did not have to board with guns blazing and cause such a bloodbath.

This was Israel once again at its most violent and unacceptable worst with vicious behavior that demands utter condemnation as well as real sanctions from the international community.