Dear El Bohemio News,

Israel has sought peace and compromise with its neighbors for all of its 62 years.

However, Hamas activists and supporters, in an intentional provocation against Israel, violated international law, violently attacked Israeli military and security personnel with steel pipes, knives, rocks and, according to the most recent news reports, with gun fire, and provoked bloodshed.

It did not have to turn out this way.

The organizers of the anti-Israel flotilla claimed that their goal was bringing "humanitarian aid" to Gaza’s residents. Israel offered to accommodate them in any way possible, and deliver the donated goods through Ashdod, using normal search procedures. The activists rejected the offer.

The Israeli navy contacted the boats, and warned them not to proceed to Gaza, but to go instead to Ashdod. They refused.

Their refusal violated international law and directly attacked Israel’s sovereign rights. The Oslo Accords give Israel sovereignty over the Gaza coast, and international law allows countries to ask suspicious boats to identify themselves before entering their waters, and to require that they conform to the nation’s laws and security needs.

Israel cannot allow unknown goods and people to enter Gaza. Gaza is controlled by Hamas, a terrorist regime that calls for the murder of Jews, the obliteration of Israel and its replacement with an Islamist theocracy. In the past, Israel has intercepted weapons-laden boats headed for Gaza’s coast.

No government allows unidentified people and goods to flout their border regulations and enter their countries freely. If these activists behaved similarly at passport and security control in the U.S. or any other nation’s shores, ignoring their official protocol and violently attacking security personnel, they would also have been stopped and arrested.

It should not come as a surprise that any country’s navy would find it necessary to board and search a vessel attempting illegally to enter their sovereign shores. What is surprising is that the Israeli security personnel were brutally attacked with knives, lead pipes, and other weapons when they carried out predictable and routine security procedures.


The flotilla organizers claim they are “peace activists.” They should be very concerned that the Hamas government they seek to aid is an enemy of peace, opposes all compromise and negotiations, and systematically incites its people to hate and kill Israelis. They should be concerned that Hamas is a brutal regime that has tortured and murdered almost a thousand Palestinian rivals, summarily executes alleged Israeli “collaborators,” terrorizes and oppresses Gaza residents, and has held kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit incommunicado for nearly three years, violating all human rights standards. They should also be concerned that in supporting the Hamas regime, they endorse the murder of Jews and the genocidal threats of Hamas’ main sponsor, Iran.
Please act to support the real Democratic country in the Middle East against "cold war" of Media and direct threats from radical Islamic movements!

Sincerely

Daniel Zilberman

San Francisco, CA 94115-4758