Though Israeli officials have so far declined to confirm or deny the reports, an Israeli television station is claiming that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has proposed allowing an “international force” to monitor every ship entering Gaza ports in return for “easing” the blockade.
Israel has had a full blockade on the Gaza Strip for years, preventing everything from chocolate and toys to cement from reaching the tiny enclave’s 1.5 million people.
But while Israel has regularly stopped aid ships attempting to reach the strip it was an Israeli attack on an aid ship on Sunday night, an attack which killed at least 9 aid workers (initial reports indicated the toll could be as high as 19) that has drawn renewed attention to the blockade.
Israel has responded by defending not only the blockade but the killing of the aid workers, who they claimed were secretly in league with terrorists. Yet international pressure is clearly on the rise, and despite claims to the contrary it could force Israel to rethink the blockade, at least as it is currently constituted.
USA should have it's own Blockaid of Israelies using US as big suckers
Yes, George, we should stop sending billions to Israel that they use to finance their war machine.
Israel's sneaky way of getting other countries involved in her war.
Looking at that map, it is obvious that Israel is accomplishing what they set out to do –to push the Palestinians into the sea.
Israel: "Wow! Look at that prime seaside real estate! How many hotels can we build on it?"
There's a natural gas field off that coast. More money there than just hotels.
I dont see what the problem is – Israel was merely enforcing a blockade neccesary for its safety.
Its not as if Israel is starving Gaza…. they let thousands of tonnes of aid in every week.
The young turk and american citizen that was killed , we dont know for sure by whom or why . We here in Minnesota had a young Somolian muslim killed in Somolia . Now I find out we have many young Somolians missing from Minnesota . All believed to be on Jihads in Somolia . In Bosnia foreign Jihadists were suspected of killing felow muslims to creat sympathy for the Islamic side of the war . it worked too , becuase then the US airforce bombed the christians . Our Minnesotian Jihadist was brought back to the USA for his burial at great expense for the U.S. taxpayers . It was very difficult to find his total body becuase he died as a sucide bomber . Iam not saying this young turkish american was on Jihad , I dont even know if he was a muslim , Iam only saying muslims go on Jihad . And I do believe there is a muslim side to the Palestine and Israel conflict . I wonder if anybody else has ever suspected this ?
Yes Muslims go on Jihad and Israelis go on genocide.
nutter …. I presume you have facts to back this up.
I don't watch Faux News, but I'd have thought the pro-Israel, right-wing noise machine would have made such a racket about a suicide bomber being brought here to be buried at tax payer expense that it would have made it even to me.
And I suppose you have names and proof to back up your other claims about the legions of Minnesotan suicide bombers attacking the world. Some facts beyond that some nutter 'believes' them to be on Jihad.
And regardless, using this to smear a 19 year old kid who was shot four times in the head by Israeli assassin's is just sick.
Israel tries to act like a Blockade is a normal thing and not controversial. In fact, history shows that blockades are always controversial and that its only those who impose them who say they are legitimate.
The US has gone to war twice in its history over this very issue. Both times they were opposing a European power that was trying to impose a blockade. The boarding and sinking of the US's neutral ships brought the US to war with the European power.
The first was the War of 1812. Britain was trying to blockage Napoleon's Europe. The US eventually went to war with Britain largely because of this issue.
The second was World War One Germany had declared a blockade of England using its new submarines. The sinking of US ships brought the US into WWI against Germany. Interestingly, the Germans fully expected this. In other words, the Germans accepted that their blockade of England to be such a belligerent act towards the world's neutral countries that they fully expected the US and other neutrals to declare war on them because of it.
Remember the Lusitania!
For a yet more recent example, during the Iran-Iraq war, both sides wanted to stop oil shipments from the others. The US ended up 'reflagging' neutral tankers as US Ships so the US Navy could escort them up and down the Persian Gulf. The US had a ship attacked and lost some 40 or 50 sailors if I remember correctly defending free trade against attempted blockades.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy was advised to call his blockade of Cuba a "quarantine" because the word "blockade" was universally recognized as an act of war.
PS .. .during the Cuban Missile Crisis, many in the US government felt that the blockade would lead to war no matter what they called it. Gen. LeMay and the Joint Chiefs argued against the blockade for that reason, and instead just wanted to launch pre-emptive attacks on the Soviet Union.
Now if these were oil tankers trying to bring oil out of Gaza to fuel US SUV's, the US Navy would be there and suddenly we'd hear a lot of talk about "Freedom of the Seas".
The amazing thing about trying to starve people into submission is that it so rarely works.
Leningrad didn't surrender to the Nazis when the Nazis tried to starve that city.
England didn't surrender to the Kaiser, when they tried it either.
Gaza doesn't seem to be surrendering to Israel anytime soon.
All it really seems to do is to seriously piss people off. And that just seems to lead to a determination not to submit. And then eventually there's payback. Leningrad was on the minds of the Soviet soldiers as they raped and pillaged the Germans into starvation at the end of world war two.