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Israel intercepts Gaza flotilla, says Hamas

Once again, you're basing your objections on the fact that this happened in international waters, which is (IMO) not really the important issue.

Say that this entire incident had occurred 24 miles from Israel's border. Israel follows your advice and tries to prevent the ships from entering the water by blocking them or asking them to reroute. The ships refuse to be stopped and continue on their course.

How should they prevent them from going forward?

The problem then is on what happened. There is nothing wrong with civil disobedience. There is nothing wrong in even deliberately trying to get publicity by your actions. This as well as going with humanitarian aid seems to be what most people were doing.

The problem comes from the killings. Did the Israeli army go into all ships by helicopter? Could it be said that they provoked the people? It is something everyone is going to have to wait and see.

Could the deaths have been avoided is going to be something that lots of people are going to want to know.

A number of people on this forum have claimed that this was to be expected, that the aid bringers were terrorists and so on. This seems extremely unlikely to me. More likely is that there were the odd one or two who turned violent in the moment. You always get that sort of thing from a minority on almost any protest.

People are questioning whether Israel dealt with this in the best way. Whether these deaths and injury's to passengers and Israeli soldiers could have been avoided.

Here's some pictures on the boat and protests against Israel's actions.

Israel condemned over raid on aid ships | The Daily Telegraph
 
I'd agree with you if you said that treaties are not the foundations of international custom. If they aren't the foundations of international law, then what the devil is? I thought that treaties were agreements entered into by 2 or more nations, designed to define acceptable and unacceptable behavior on one or a range of subjects.

Where else could international law possibly come from?

My layman's understanding of international law in these circumstances is that the international law in question is defined by treaty. As such, to invoke the law is to invoke the treaty.

Israel's Foreign Minister has most certainly invoked international law to justify his nation's actions:

FM: 'boarding legal under int. law'

"Treaties," in the way that we refer to them today, are a relatively modern concept. You'll notice that almost every "treaty" that we talk about as a source for international law comes from the last 50 years. Since international law obviously existed prior to the UN, it must have come from another source - custom.

Customary international law is made up of norms that have existed since the first diplomatic exchanges took place hundreds of years ago. They are the backdrop and foundation for all international law today. Every time that countries pass new treaties, they are simply codifying and modifying those preexisting norms as they apply to certain situations. It's the same way that statutory law in the US evolved from the common law.

It's perfectly logical to say that something is in accordance with "international law" if that action is in accordance with customary international norms, even if the speaker declined to sign a treaty that would have laid out additional rules in that area. It sounds like that's what Israel is saying.
 
It is important in determining the legality of Israel's actions. There are several different questions to be answered about this incident.

Was it Legal? Probably.
Was it the boarding justified? Probably.
Was stopping the flotilla from reaching Gaza the right course? To my mind yes.
Was the boarding planned well? I suspect that it could have been done better.
Was Israel's use of force in the boarding appropriate? Dunno yet, not enough information.
Was the flotilla carrying weapons? Unknown.
Was the flotilla planned to create an incident? Almost certainly.

There are lots more.

It certainly makes a difference in terms of the technical legality, but I think it's being overblown in terms of assigning moral fault. If the actions were perfectly acceptable save for the fact that they happened outside of Israel's waters, then we should be focusing on that issue. If the actions were uniformly unacceptable wherever they happened, then we should be focusing on that issue. I just don't think it's useful to be focusing on the second issue under the guise of the first.

The problem then is on what happened. There is nothing wrong with civil disobedience. There is nothing wrong in even deliberately trying to get publicity by your actions. This as well as going with humanitarian aid seems to be what most people were doing.

Of course, but there's something to be said for the assumption of the risk. Let's say that I think that the security guards at Yankee Stadium are assholes and decide to streak across the field with "SUCK IT RENTACOPS" painted on my ass. If I get tazed and tackled in the course of fighting the guards off of me, is that unfortunate? Sure. Did the officers use disproportionate force? Possibly. Does that mean that I'm some poor downtrodden victim who deserves sympathy from the world? Of course not. I'm a dickhead who chose to create an incident that caused harm all around.

The problem comes from the killings. Did the Israeli army go into all ships by helicopter? Could it be said that they provoked the people? It is something everyone is going to have to wait and see.

Could the deaths have been avoided is going to be something that lots of people are going to want to know.

I'm sure we'll hear plenty about this going forward.

A number of people on this forum have claimed that this was to be expected, that the aid bringers were terrorists and so on. This seems extremely unlikely to me. More likely is that there were the odd one or two who turned violent in the moment. You always get that sort of thing from a minority on almost any protest.

I'm not saying that these people were terrorists, but I think it's absolutely the case that they knew full well what they were trying to do and had planned out exactly how they would fight back if the Israelis tried to board. They were not innocent lambs sparked to action out of self-defense.
 
"Treaties," in the way that we refer to them today, are a relatively modern concept. You'll notice that almost every "treaty" that we talk about as a source for international law comes from the last 50 years. Since international law obviously existed prior to the UN, it must have come from another source - custom.

Israel -- by which I mean the nation which was formed roughly 60 years ago, and not the nation that was scattered to teh 4 winds for thousands of years -- just barely predates this "relatively modern concept."

As such, I fail to see how they can in any way justify invoking international law as it would theoretically apply to this situation, when this law as it has existed from around the birth of model Israel is defined in part in a treaty which Israel has not signed.

That aside, your definition of international law would be entirely applicable if we were talking about a situation that occured, say, 100 or more years ago.
 
It would most certainly be in Israel's interest to have neutral (if such can be found) observers when these vessels are unloaded, in order to discover exactly what merchandise they are actually carrying.

In much the same vein it would be in their interest to have Neutral (if such can be found) investigators to discover what happened.

It could well be that small arms were on 1 or more of these vessels, that would be common in this day and age, but I would not suppose that any heavy armaments would have been on board prior to arrival of Israeli troops.

IMO I think that Israel was ill advised to carry out this operation in International waters irrespective of whether they felt entitled or were legally permitted to so do.

IMO they have caused enormous PR damage to themselves.
 
The standard you quote concerns only piracy. It does not concern the rights of states to inspect/visit ships. Enforcement of a blockade, even if one disagrees profoundly with the blockade, is not the same thing as piracy any less than a police officer's shooting a suspect who attacks him/her is not the same thing as a criminal's attacking a police officer.
And where is your source for the rights of states to inspect ships outside its jurisdiction?

UNCLOS and Agreement on Part XI - Preamble and frame index
Article110

Right of visit

1. Except where acts of interference derive from powers conferred by treaty, a warship which encounters on the high seas a foreign ship, other than a ship entitled to complete immunity in accordance with articles 95 and 96, is not justified in boarding it unless there is reasonable ground for suspecting that:

(a) the ship is engaged in piracy;

(b) the ship is engaged in the slave trade;

(c) the ship is engaged in unauthorized broadcasting and the flag State of the warship has jurisdiction under article 109;

(d) the ship is without nationality; or

(e) though flying a foreign flag or refusing to show its flag, the ship is, in reality, of the same nationality as the warship.

2. In the cases provided for in paragraph 1, the warship may proceed to verify the ship's right to fly its flag. To this end, it may send a boat under the command of an officer to the suspected ship. If suspicion remains after the documents have been checked, it may proceed to a further examination on board the ship, which must be carried out with all possible consideration.

3. If the suspicions prove to be unfounded, and provided that the ship boarded has not committed any act justifying them, it shall be compensated for any loss or damage that may have been sustained.

4. These provisions apply mutatis mutandis to military aircraft.

5. These provisions also apply to any other duly authorized ships or aircraft clearly marked and identifiable as being on government service.
 
Of course, but there's something to be said for the assumption of the risk. Let's say that I think that the security guards at Yankee Stadium are assholes and decide to streak across the field with "SUCK IT RENTACOPS" painted on my ass. If I get tazed and tackled in the course of fighting the guards off of me, is that unfortunate? Sure. Did the officers use disproportionate force? Possibly. Does that mean that I'm some poor downtrodden victim who deserves sympathy from the world? Of course not. I'm a dickhead who chose to create an incident that caused harm all around.

They didn't do that. They did the sort of thing people did in the 60's and people like Greenpeace have done since. Basically it falls under civil disobedience as far as I can see and I think that is how the world is seeing it.


I'm not saying that these people were terrorists, but I think it's absolutely the case that they knew full well what they were trying to do and had planned out exactly how they would fight back if the Israelis tried to board. They were not innocent lambs sparked to action out of self-defense.

What they were trying to do was to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza and to bring the issue to the attention of the world. There were 5 or 600 people on this boat I think and a handful were in some way which we do not yet know involved in some violence towards the soldiers. If such a response was a possibility, then more care was needed in the way Israel dealt with the situation.

This is what I find strange. If you knew people were planning this, then Israel knew people were planning this. More care should have been taken. Innocents were almost certainly killed.



(Now, I'm off to bed)
 
Once again, you're basing your objections on the fact that this happened in international waters, which is (IMO) not really the important issue.

Say that this entire incident had occurred 24 miles from Israel's border. Israel follows your advice and tries to prevent the ships from entering the water by blocking them or asking them to reroute. The ships refuse to be stopped and continue on their course.

How should they prevent them from going forward?

I'm basing my objections on what actually happened. You are basing yours on pure speculation.

But I'll play this little scenario for you:

There are a total of 6 ships that are part of that convoy. Israel's Navy is more than capable of maintaining a proper naval blocking of those six ships. If they do not comply with rerouting requests, they either take the risk of running into the naval blocking by Israel's Navy or they get boarded. All of this is fine... off Israel's territorial waters. It is not fine in international waters, outside of Israeli jurisdiction.
 
Israel -- by which I mean the nation which was formed roughly 60 years ago, and not the nation that was scattered to teh 4 winds for thousands of years -- just barely predates this "relatively modern concept."

As such, I fail to see how they can in any way justify invoking international law as it would theoretically apply to this situation, when this law as it has existed from around the birth of model Israel is defined in part in a treaty which Israel has not signed.

That aside, your definition of international law would be entirely applicable if we were talking about a situation that occured, say, 100 or more years ago.

The date on which Israel became a state is entirely irrelevant to the question of whether it is bound by customary international law. If a state were created tomorrow, it would be bound by the same customary norms as the UK or France.

Customary norms continue to be relevant today because they are the default rule of international law. Treaties are abberations from that norm.
 
They didn't do that. They did the sort of thing people did in the 60's and people like Greenpeace have done since. Basically it falls under civil disobedience as far as I can see and I think that is how the world is seeing it.

What a complete insult to all the dedicated people who struggled for civil rights in the 60's to have you compare them to these terrorist supporters who attacked those who boarded their ship.
 
They didn't do that. They did the sort of thing people did in the 60's and people like Greenpeace have done since. Basically it falls under civil disobedience as far as I can see and I think that is how the world is seeing it.

How does that make it okay? See my avatar for more info.

What they were trying to do was to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza and to bring the issue to the attention of the world. There were 5 or 600 people on this boat I think and a handful were in some way which we do not yet know involved in some violence towards the soldiers.

Again, the fact that their end goal might be laudatory from one's perspective is irrelevant to the question of whether or not the way they went about it was appropriate. As to the number of people involved in the incident, I'm sure we'll learn more in the coming days.


If such a response was a possibility, then more care was needed in the way Israel dealt with the situation.

This is what I find strange. If you knew people were planning this, then Israel knew people were planning this. More care should have been taken. Innocents were almost certainly killed.

That's a perfectly reasonable argument, and we don't know enough yet to say more about what should have happened re:planning. Nevertheless, I think it's clear that this was not unprovoked or unexpected.

I'm basing my objections on what actually happened. You are basing yours on pure speculation.

Because we're talking about a hypothetical situation. I'm trying to determine whether your objections come from the location of the incident or what actually happened.

But I'll play this little scenario for you:

There are a total of 6 ships that are part of that convoy. Israel's Navy is more than capable of maintaining a proper naval blocking of those six ships. If they do not comply with rerouting requests, they either take the risk of running into the naval blocking by Israel's Navy or they get boarded. All of this is fine... off Israel's territorial waters. It is not fine in international waters, outside of Israeli jurisdiction.

So you're saying that your objections to the incident are based on the fact that it happened in international waters? If Israel had boarded the ships in the same fashion 24 miles from its borders, you wouldn't have a problem?
 
Because we're talking about a hypothetical situation. I'm trying to determine whether your objections come from the location of the incident or what actually happened.
Degreez said:
I'm basing my objections on what actually happened.
So you're saying that your objections to the incident are based on the fact that it happened in international waters? If Israel had boarded the ships in the same fashion 24 miles from its borders, you wouldn't have a problem?
Degreez said:
All of this is fine... off Israel's territorial waters. It is not fine in international waters, outside of Israeli jurisdiction.

Are you satisfied? Can we get back to discussing what actually happened and not a hypothetical situation? Cause I can continue hypothetical situations if you want. For example, what if Godzilla came out of the ocean and started harrassing the flotilla? Does Israel have a right to intervene? What is Godzilla doing so far from Japan?
 
Are you satisfied? Can we get back to discussing what actually happened and not a hypothetical situation? Cause I can continue hypothetical situations if you want. For example, what if Godzilla came out of the ocean and started harrassing the flotilla? Does Israel have a right to intervene? What is Godzilla doing so far from Japan?

I'm sorry if I didn't make my point clear, but if I'm going to debate you on this, I think it's rather important to determine whether your objections are based on the location of the activity or on the activity itself, as that bears directly on what we're really discussing.

You just said that it would be fine had Israel done this in its territorial waters, but that contradicts what you said a few posts back:

degreez said:
It's not just the fact that it was done in international waters, away from Israeli jurisdiction. It's the fact that they even attempted to forcefully board a humanitarian ship instead of rerouting it. There were half a dozen choices that could've been made. Don't blame me because Israel chose the most stupid one.

Which is it?
 
The Law of the Sea Convention (LOSC) is based on principles of international law that go as far back as the Hague Conventions. That Israel didn't sign the Convention does not mean that it lacks such jurisdiction as exists under international law. In short, while Israel cannot invoke the LOSC, it most definitely can invoke international law and the general principles relevant to the incident in question.

byebye bibi
as a'jad smiles

please remember the position you have staked out above when we next discuss iran's development of nuclear technology and israel's refusal to be compliant with the NPT, with which it is similarly not a signatory. i am pleased to see you recognize israel is obligated to invoke international law and general principals even if it failed to execute the NPT document
apologies for the detour from the topic about the armed israeli assault on the humanitarian effort to break the seige of gaza; i could not pass up the opportunity to force certain members to either be hypocrites or acknowledge that israel's obligation to conform to international conventions exists ... even if it has chosen not to execute the underlying documents putting words to those international expectations
 
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please remember the position you have staked out above when we next discuss iran's development of nuclear technology and israel's refusal to be compliant with the NPT, with which it is similarly not a signatory. i am pleased to see you recognize israel is obligated to invoke international law and general principals even if it failed to execute the NPT document
apologies for the detour from the topic about the armed israeli assault on the humanitarian effort to break the seige of gaza; i could not pass up the opportunity to force certain members to either be hypocrites or acknowledge that israel's obligation to conform to international conventions exists ... even if it has chosen not to execute the underlying documents putting words to those international expectations

This doesn't make any sense - what customary principles of international law govern the development of nuclear weapons?
 
This doesn't make any sense - what customary principles of international law govern the development of nuclear weapons?

the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
the one israel also chose not to sign
 
That's a treaty, not a customary norm of international law. That's my point.
and my point is you want it both ways. israel is not on the document pretaining to conduct on the seas but you expect to invoke its provisions when it might be to israel's benefit
but when it comes time to comply with the international NPT isreal insists it is not relevant because it refused to sign
and to demonstrate further hypocrisy, israel dares to inveigh against iran's nuclear development, citing the provisions of the NPT
this is the kind of behavior which causes the term 'to be jewed down' to become part of the prevalent lexicon
but stow this away for another thread on the iran nuclear development topic rather than continuing to derail this one
 
and my point is you want it both ways.

I don't think you understand what I'm saying.

israel is not on the document pretaining to conduct on the seas but you expect to invoke its provisions when it might be to israel's benefit

Where have I said anything remotely like this? Again, treaties are not the same thing as customary international law.

but when it comes time to comply with the international NPT isreal insists it is not relevant because it refused to sign

This is in no way logically inconsistent with my above statements.

and to demonstrate further hypocrisy, israel dares to inveigh against iran's nuclear development, citing the provisions of the NPT

A) I don't really care
B) That's in no way relevant to anything being discussed in this thread
C) I'm not sure that you're relaying this information correctly

this is the kind of behavior which causes the term 'to be jewed down' to become part of the prevalent lexicon

No, "jewed down" is an epithet that comes from a belief that jews are prone to haggling or otherwise cheating business correspondents. Not only does it have nothing to do with this discussion, but it's offensive as well.

but stow this away for another thread on the iran nuclear development topic rather than continuing to derail this one

Let's do that, and get back to your misunderstanding of international law as applied to this incident.
 
The date on which Israel became a state is entirely irrelevant to the question of whether it is bound by customary international law. If a state were created tomorrow, it would be bound by the same customary norms as the UK or France.

All I'm trying to say is that Israel has no tradition of custom to call upon that pre-date these treaties. They can't say "we've been doing this for hundreds of years, suck it."

Customary norms continue to be relevant today because they are the default rule of international law. Treaties are abberations from that norm.

How much of what is recognized by most of the world these days as international law defined strictly by custom, and not by treaties?

If most of the rest of the world defines the law of the sea via a particular treaty, and Israel is not a signatory nation, isn't it fair to say that Israel can't use the law of the sea to justify what they're doing?

If there is significant disagreement over what the law of the sea actually is -- custom versus treaty -- then that serves to further prove my point, that Israel can't claim some sort of universal standard to justify what they did.
 
this is the kind of behavior which causes the term 'to be jewed down' to become part of the prevalent lexicon
e

What's next -- suggesting that other minorities also deserve the hate speech of ignorant racist pricks?
 
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