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<h1 class="page__title title balance-text" id="page-title">Israel
seizes Gaza-bound boat in “act of piracy”</h1>
<header class="node__header">
<p class="node__submitted">
<span class="field field-author"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/ali-abunimah"
typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel"
datatype="">Ali Abunimah</a></span>
<span class="field field-blog"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blog/activism-and-bds-beat"
typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel"
datatype="">Activism and BDS Beat</a></span></p>
<p class="node__submitted"><span class="field
field-publication-date"><span class="date-display-single"
property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime"
content="2015-06-29T12:58:50+00:00"><b><small><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-seizes-gaza-bound-boat-act-piracy">https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-seizes-gaza-bound-boat-act-piracy</a></small></small></small></b><br>
29 June 2015</span></span> </p>
</header>
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<p>Israeli forces boarded and commandeered the <em>Marianne</em> on
Monday, one of four boats that were bound for Gaza in the latest
attempt to break the tight Israeli siege of the occupied
territory.</p>
<p>At around 2 am Gaza time <em>Marianne</em> was surrounded by
three Israeli navy boats while in international waters more than
100 miles off the coast of Gaza, organizers Freedom Flotilla III <a
href="https://ff3.freedomflotilla.org/israel-once-again-commits-an-act-of-state-piracy-in-the-mediterranean/">said
in a press release</a>.</p>
<p>“After that we lost contact with the <em>Marianne</em> and at
05:11 am (Gaza time) the IDF [Israeli army] announced that they
had ‘visited and searched’ <em>Marianne</em>,” the press release
states. “They had captured the boat and detained all on board ‘in
international waters’ as they admitted themselves. The only
positive content in the IDF announcement was that they still
recognize that there is a naval blockade of Gaza, despite the
Netanyahu government’s recent denial that one exists.”</p>
<p>Organizers called the seizure of the boat and its passengers an
“act of piracy.”</p>
<p>Israel’s <em>Haaretz</em> <a
href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.663423">reports</a>
that the boat is being towed to Usdud (Ashdod), a port in
present-day Israel, where the passengers “will be interrogated
before being escorted to Ben Gurion Airport and flown out of
Israel.”</p>
<p>The <a
href="https://ff3.freedomflotilla.org/freedom-flotilla-iii-47-participants-on-four-boats-sailing-now/">18
passengers</a> aboard the <em>Marianne</em> include Basel
Ghattas, a Palestinian citizen of Israel and member of the Israeli
parliament, former Tunisian president Moncef Marzuki, Spanish
member of the European Parliament Ana Miranda and Professor Robert
Lovelace, retired chief of the Ardoch Algonquin First Nation in
Canada.</p>
<p>Many Palestinians in had eagerly awaited the flotilla, hoping
that it would call international attention to the siege which
Israel imposed eight years ago.</p>
<figure id="file-31330--2" class="file file-image file-image-jpeg"><picture><source
srcset="https://electronicintifada.net/sites/electronicintifada.net/files/styles/original_800w/public/marianne_crew_in_lisbon_pablo_miranzo_rumbo_a_gaza_0.jpg?itok=zyZTbTdW×tamp=1435581526
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<p>Three other boats – <em>Rachel</em>, <em>Vittorio</em> and <em>Juliano
II</em> – that also made up the flotilla have <a
href="https://ff3.freedomflotilla.org/freedom-flotilla-iii-marianne-approaches-gaza-sailing-boats-return-back/">headed
back to their ports of origin</a>.</p>
<p>In total, 47 passengers from 17 countries were aboard the boats,
which carried medicines, solar panels and above all a strong
message of solidarity for the 1.8 million Palestinians still
besieged in Gaza one year after Israel began its 51-day
destructive assault that killed more than 2,200 people.</p>
<p>An <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/balance-un-gaza-report-cant-hide-massive-israeli-war-crimes">independent
UN Human Rights Council inquiry</a> into the attack, published
last week, found extensive evidence of war crimes approved by
Israel’s leaders at the “highest level.”</p>
<h2>Violence incitement</h2>
<p>Ghattas joined the flotilla despite violent threats and
incitement from fellow lawmakers in Israel to lift his
parliamentary immunity so that he could be prosecuted.</p>
<p>Yair Lapid, head of Israel’s purportedly centrist Yesh Atid
party, for instance <a
href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4673286,00.html">denounced
the flotilla</a> as a “provocation against the state of Israel.”</p>
<p>“This is a flotilla of a group of terror supporters a heinous
flotilla that needs to be stopped,” Lapid added. “We need to act
against the flotilla the same way we do when dispersing a violent
protest and these guys need to all be arrested.”</p>
<p>In a <a
href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-basel-ghattas/the-flotilla-question_b_7674866.html"><em>Huffington
Post</em> column</a> on Sunday,he defended his right to take
part in the flotilla.</p>
<p>Bigots in “a discriminatory Jewish state as a white Southern
extremist in a Confederate state, seek to diminish the rights of
Palestinian citizens of Israel and their representatives in the
parliament,” Ghattas writes.</p>
<p>“More than anything, it is obvious that the situation of
Palestinians in Gaza will inevitably lead to another round of
bloody war, perhaps even more horrifying than the one we had less
than one year ago,” Ghattas adds. “Still, my very outspoken
colleagues in the Knesset would not even consider lifting the
blockade as a means to avoid future war.”</p>
<h2>“No siege on Gaza”</h2>
<p>In a statement Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
justified the seizure of the <em>Marianne</em> claiming that the
“flotilla is nothing but a demonstration of hypocrisy and lies
that is only assisting the Hamas terrorist organization and
ignores all of the horrors in our region.”</p>
<p>Netanyahu insisted that “preventing entry by sea was done in
accordance with international law and even received backing from a
committee of the UN Secretary General.”</p>
<p>“Israel is the only democracy that defends itself in accordance
with international law,” Netanyahu insisted, adding that “there is
no siege on Gaza.”</p>
<p>The fact that 18 civilians aboard a yacht cannot sail to Gaza,
and that there has been virtually no reconstruction in Gaza since
Israel’s attack last year would tend to undermine Netanyahu’s
contention.</p>
<p>According to <em>Haaretz</em>, after boarding the boat, Israeli
army gunmen were “to hand out a letter issued by the Prime
Minister’s Office, welcoming [the captives] to Israel and
wondering why they sailed to Gaza and not Syria.”</p>
<p>“Perhaps you meant to sail somewhere else nearby – Syria, where
Assad’s regime is massacring his people every day, with the
support of the murderous Iranian regime,” the letter would
reportedly state.</p>
<p>Netanyahu’s statement did not specify which UN “committee” he was
talking about, but this was a likely reference to the 2011 “Palmer
report” commissioned by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon into
Israel’s attack the previous year on the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/mavi-marmara"><em>Mavi
Marmara</em></a>.</p>
<p>Turkey rejected the report into the assault that killed 10 of its
citizens on the <em>Mavi Marmara</em> in international waters and
<a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/why-palmer-uribe-report-israels-flotilla-attack-worthless">imposed
sanctions on Israel</a>.</p>
<p>The inquiry was heavily criticized for bias. The four-member
committee that wrote the Palmer report was chaired by former New
Zealand Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer and vice-chaired by former
president of Colombia Alvaro Uribe, <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/why-palmer-uribe-report-israels-flotilla-attack-worthless">a
notorious human rights abuser close to Israel</a>.</p>
<p>The inquiry commissioned by Ban was in addition to an <a
href="http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/15session/A.HRC.15.21_en.PDF">official
UN Human Rights Council fact-finding mission</a> which found
that Israel’s attack on the 2010 flotilla was illegal.</p>
<h2>Determined</h2>
<p>“It is disappointing that the Israeli government chose to
continue the absolutely fruitless policy of ‘no tolerance,’
meaning it will continue to enforce an inhumane and illegal
collective punishment against 1.8 million Palestinians in Gaza,”
flotilla organizers said in their statement.</p>
<p>“Israel’s repeated acts of state piracy in international waters
are worrying signs that the occupation and blockade policy extends
to the entire eastern Mediterranean.”</p>
<p>They also urged governments”to ensure that all passengers and
crew from the <em>Marianne</em> are safe, and to strongly protest
against the violation of international maritime law by the Israeli
state.”</p>
<p>“We call on all civil society organizations to condemn the
actions of Israel,” the statement concludes. “People all over the
world will continue to respond and react to this injustice, as
will we, until the port of Gaza is open and the siege and
occupation is ended.”</p>
<p>This video, published on 20 June, shows <em>Marianne</em>
calling at the Italian port of Messina for a solidarity visit.
</p>
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