Tel Aviv boardwalk

What the Freedom Flotilla Incident Can Teach Us

On May 31, 2010, Israel drew worldwide condemnation when an Israel Navy commando unit boarded the Mavi Marmara, the largest ship of the humanitarian aid-carrying Freedom Flotilla. Immediately Israel was accused of using disproportionate force, of being a bully and of having caused at the very least a PR disaster for itself. But the truth of it is that although nine deaths were surely not part of the plan, Israel did fall completely into the trap that was set for it.

Since the election of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) party in Turkey, the latter has been moving towards a more pro-Islamist stance. Although Israel and Turkey have enjoyed a long relationship of good standing, Turkey has had a lot of sympathy for Hamas and the plight of the people of Gaza. The first taste we got of the trouble that was to come was at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January 2009 when Prime Minster Erdogan stormed off stage after having told Israeli president Shimon Peres: “When it comes to killing you know well how to kill” (Arsu). He was referring to Israel’s offensive in Gaza, of which he strongly disapproved.

The offensive in question, Operation Cast Lead, was the direct result of Hamas’ firing rockets into Israel for three years following the latter’s unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. In the summer of 2005 Israel withdrew from Gaza both militarily and, in their entirety, its settlements. The settlers did not go without a fight, and it took a lot of political courage on Ariel Sharon’s part to implement. It was very unpleasant for secular Israelis to watch the settlers fighting the IDF soldiers who were evacuating them. Israel offered to leave their homes standing so that the Palestinians would be able to occupy them, but they were turned down, as the Israelis’ single-family buildings did not suit the Palestinians’ custom of living with their extended families. So the houses were razed but the settlers’ greenhouses were left standing as an economic asset which Israel wanted to pass on to the Palestinians. It was in Israel’s best interests for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to be successful within their own society. So it is a real shame for both sides that with their new-found freedom and copious foreign aid they did not concentrate their energies on building up their economy and infrastructure. Instead they vandalized the greenhouses and spent their time and money building weapons and rockets to fire into Israel (Muravchik).

One reason for they may have had for electing Hamas, and for spending so much energy on weaponry rather state-building, could be that the elections were more or less forced onto the Palestinians after the death of Yasser Arafat in November of 2004. President Bush, as part of his misguided push for democracy, played a large role in bringing about these elections. In hindsight it is clear that it might have been better to give the people a little more time. Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections in January 2006 and immediately made it clear they would not honor any agreements that had been reached with Israel by the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), the entity set up during the Oslo accords, responsible for Palestinian civilian and security issues, with Fatah and the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) Yassir Arafat as its first president.

In June 2007 Hamas overthrew Fatah who had still been in control of the Palestinian security forces in the Gaza Strip, sending Mahmoud Abbas into “exile” in the West Bank. Several members of the secular Fatah party were brutally murdered to achieve this end, some being thrown from the rooftops with their hands tied. Fatah’s alienation from Hamas, at least, gave Fatah and Israel some common ground.

Another major factor in the Gaza blockade is that Hamas has been holding an Israeli soldier in captivity since June 25, 2006. Gilad Shalit, 19 at the time, was kidnapped at the Kerem Shalom crossing into the Gaza Strip. Since then Hamas has not allowed access by the International Red Cross and no attempts at negotiations have led to any success. Hamas is asking for the release of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails in return for his release (NYT).

Then in 2008 alone Hamas fired 1,750 Qassam rockets and 1,528 mortar bombs on Israel, a culmination of such attacks over the last three years (MFA). These rocket attacks, although causing few fatalities, did cause a lot of injuries and shock-related hospitalizations. Parents feared for their children’s lives when they sent them off to school in the morning and some schools even had to close because they were under such heavy attack. In an attempt to put a stop to this, Israel launched Operation Cast Lead on December 27, 2008. Apart from the name of the operation not being exactly inspired, Israel came under heavy criticism from the international community for killing too many civilians. We have to remember, however, how tiny and densely populated the Gaza Strip is (40km long by 10km wide with a population of 1.5 million) and how much Hamas wanted civilian deaths to further their cause. According to the Jewish Virtual Library website (JVL):

The IAF (Israeli Air Force) has taken extreme measures to avoid civilian casualties and have gone so far as to call apartment complexes that are known to house Hamas forces and warn the civilian residents of coming airstrikes. 90,000 Palestinian homes in Gaza received phone-calls in warning of an airstrike. After receiving phone-calls, resident dissidents often climb to the roof in an effort to dissuade the IAF from firing. The IAF then fires a very small, harmless rocket to just graze the apartment building so as to scare the civilian dissident away. Only then, when it is believed that the complex is empty of civilians, does the Air Force strike the building.”

Even before Operation Cast Lead began, Israel has been supplying the Gaza Strip with humanitarian aid to counter the effect of the blockade imposed on Gaza by Israel and Egypt following Hamas’ overthrow of Fatah. On November 2, 2009 the Israel Navy intercepted a ship 100 miles off the coast of Israel which was carrying 500 tons of weapons disguised as civilian cargo (MFA). However, the fact that Israel inspects all ships bound for Gaza has not affected the amount of aid reaching the Palestinians. Here is a small sample of goods delivered to Gaza during the year 2009 (IDF):

Cooking Oil 910 truckloads 21,821 tons

Produce 3,183 truckloads 65,048.8 tons

Milk powder 340 truckloads 5,793.2 tons

Medicine 569 truckloads 4,883 tons

Granted, the IDF has been in complete control of what enters the Gaza Strip, and some of the banned items that make the list (coriander, jam) are pretty mind-boggling. Even pasta was prohibited until Senator John Kerry expressed his surprise about this fact when visiting Gaza in February of 2009 (Hass). Another big stumbling block has been building supplies. Israel does not want Hamas to have any access to building supplies and yet the people living in the Gaza Strip need to rebuild the homes razed during Operation Cast Lead. So far only small amounts of cement, mortar and such have been allowed into the Strip and most homes remain unbuilt.

Operation Cast Lead ended on January 18, 2009, when Israel declared a unilateral ceasefire, brokered by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, halting all operations in Gaza. On that very same day Hamas fired rockets into Israel once more but followed swiftly with a week-long ceasefire of their own which they broke a day later by firing mortar shells and guns at IDF troops. In response Israel destroyed a Qassam rocket launcher (YA). Hamas declared victory, claiming that only 48 of their fighters were amongst the 1,300 dead. According to research conducted by B’Tselem, the Israeli Human Rights lobby, it was more like 623 (BT). Despite the unilateral ceasefire, Iran vowed to continue to arm Hamas in their fight against Israel.

The Gaza blockade was implemented by Israel and Egypt in June 2007 directly after Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip. The reason for the blockade was and is threefold: to force the Palestinians to oppose Hamas, to stop Hamas from obtaining weapons and to put pressure on Hamas to release Sergeant Gilad Shalit. So far, it does not look like any of these goals are being met. Hamas has not been weakened, the Palestinians of Gaza are held prisoners in the Strip and Sergeant Shalit will be entering his fifth year of captivity on June 25. Israeli officials, however, point to the difference between life for Palestinians in the West Bank compared to the Gaza Strip as proof that the blockade is, in fact, serving its intended purpose. And there is no doubt that life in the West Bank is the polar opposite of life in the Gaza Strip.

As Thomas L. Friedman of the New York Times illustrates:

The Israeli Army has become impressed enough by the performance of the new Palestinian National Security Force, or N.S.F., under Abbas and Fayyad that those forces are now largely responsible for law and order in all the major West Bank towns, triggering an explosion of Palestinian building, investment and commerce in those areas.

During the last few years Israel has seen a decided shift in its political landscape, from a dovish, left-wing government to a hawkish right-wing one. There can be no doubt that the reasons for this shift are the failed Oslo accords as well as the failed peace process. When Ehud Barak and Yassir Arafat were unable to reach an agreement at Camp David in July 2000 it is clear that despair started to set in amongst the Israeli population. After Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination in November 1995 there was a determination not to let the peace process die, but it seems that it was never in Arafat’s interest to reach an agreement. By all accounts the Camp David offer was the most generous ever presented to the Palestinians and yet Arafat declined. Ninety-four to ninety-six percent of the West Bank and a 1 to 3 percent land swap was the deal (Ross). But once a two-state solution would have been reached, Arafat would have become irrelevant as the icon he had grown accustomed to being. With his death a lot of Israelis were hopeful that a new beginning was ripe for the taking, and when they withdrew from Gaza, this feeling was heightened. Then Hamas was elected in the Gaza Strip. In the Israeli elections of February 2009 Kadima, the party created by Ariel Sharon and led by Tzipi Livni, won 28 seats to Binyamin Netanyahu’s Likud’s 27. In the event Livni was unable to form a coalition government. But Netanyahu did, together with, amongst others, the decidedly racist, anti-Arab parties Shas and Yisrael Beitenu. With Binyamin Netanyahu as prime minister, former prime minister Ehud Barak (Labour) as defense minister and the ultra-nationalist Avigdor Lieberman of Yisrael Beitenu (who himself lives in a settlement in the West Bank) as foreign minister, Israel is being steered clearly rightwards.

And this brings us to the early morning of May 31, 2010. The approaching six-ship Freedom flotilla had already advised that it was planning to break the blockade, and the Israel Navy had contacted it repeatedly to redirect it to the Israeli port of Ashdod. Elite troops from a naval commando unit, Shayetet 13, lowered themselves onto the Mavi Marmara with the intent of taking the boat to Ashdod themselves. They did not expect to meet resistance, and it is still a mystery as to why they didn’t expect it. Instead of landing on a deck full of peace activists they found themselves amidst a hostile crowd who attacked them as soon as they dropped on board. Several activists attacked the troops with knives and metal bars; two soldiers were thrown onto the deck below and two had their firearms taken from them. One of the commandos was struck on the head and trampled and this is when the IDF field commander decided not to take any chances and gave the order to open fire (Harel, Issacharoff, Pfeffer).

The defying mob, however, was not the trap that had been set for them. Instead it was the certainty of those aboard the Mavi Marmara that Israel would react exactly the way that it did. Turkey, therefore, got exactly what it was looking for in the wake of its exclusion from the EU: an excuse to break off its alliance to Israel and the West and a reason to create new coalitions with its Arab neighbors. What is truly unfortunate about the whole incident, but not entirely surprising at such close quarters, is that nine of the ship’s passengers died in the ensuing gunfire. The biggest blunder of this operation seems to be that of having sent soldiers on board the Mavi Marmara, placing them in an exceptionally difficult situation right from the start. But what would have been a good alternative plan? More troops? The police instead of soldiers? Shayetet 13 is not a unit specializing in mobs.

It is important to note that the five remaining ships of the Freedom flotilla were boarded peacefully by the Israel Navy, meeting with no resistance whatsoever. Regarding the incident on the remaining ferry, one officer was quoted as saying: “We were arrogant and complacent. We didn’t anticipate the scale of the resistance and didn’t conduct ourselves accordingly.” (Harel). The result, therefore, was that the commandos were not prepared to confront such a large and violent crowd as the one they encountered. The bottom line is that as an operation it failed miserably, whatever the reasons may turn out to be. The damage to Israel’s public image is done, not matter what may come out in subsequent investigations. Most people will have stopped paying attention by that time.

The blockade is a no-win situation for Israel: if they stop boats they are considered a villain and if they let boats through, they‘re potentially arming Hamas. However, the blockade is not sustainable at this point. Hamas’ control of the Gaza Strip has only strengthened, Gilad Shalit is no closer to being released and Israel is internationally more isolated than ever. What’s worse, as was illustrated in the incident on May 31, the blockade is drawing challenges from pro-Hamas militants on top of the well-meaning humanitarian groups.

Since the events on May 31 which took place 70 miles off the shore of Israel, several facts have become clear. One is that Turkey, who is looking to become more of an Arab power in the region, was perfectly willing to alienate Israel. This is evident from the fact that although the Gaza blockade has been a joint Israel/Egypt venture, Turkey has only had criticism for Israel, and none for Egypt. It is also clear from Erdogan’s rhetoric that it holds Israel solely responsible for the Gaza Strip’s situation, siding completely with Hamas, a militant group whose creed is the elimination of the State of Israel. But as one prominent Israeli writer, Amos Oz, put it:

But Hamas is not just a terrorist organization. Hamas is an idea, a desperate and fanatical idea that grew out of the desolation and frustration of many Palestinians…To defeat an idea , you have to offer a better idea, a more attractive and acceptable one.

Maybe Oz is giving Hamas too much credit, but he does make a good point in that Hamas needs to be dealt with. They are not going to go away because Israel wishes they would. They are not going to go away because Israel keeps oppressing them. So this is where Israel needs to change its approach before it is too late. Only a liberal democratic society is sustainable – anything else is an impractical and miserable adventure. So either Israelis wake up to this fact and start to vote accordingly, or the country is going to head more and more towards the path of segregation and racism.

The international community should play a much more active role in helping both sides. The rhetoric of the “road map to peace” and “the peace process” has grown old and stale, and we need to change our approach completely. Hamas must be engaged somehow and Gilad Shalit needs to be freed now. In a blog on The Daily Beast, Peter Beinart spoke about a proposal put forward by Israel journalist Eitan Haber. The next time a ship comes determined to break the blockade, Israel should let it through on one condition: the supplies should go not only to the people of Gaza but also to Sergeant Shalit. The activists should demand his release. That way it would also be clear to Israel that the humanitarian aid extends to their side, too. Beinart puts it thus:

The irony isn’t hard to grasp. Shalit’s fate, in a macabre way, echoes the fate of the people of Gaza. He is imprisoned; they are imprisoned.

We must not waste any more time. We must seize the moment and lift the blockade. But international troops must be put into place to patrol the Gaza/Israel border until Hamas is willing to talk to Israel and recognize its right to exist. For all of Israel’s recent dangerous and short-sighted right wing policies, they do have a right to defend themselves from a terrorist organization hell-bent on bringing about their demise. Let’s not forget that whereas Jews in America and the rest of the world send Israel money to plant trees, the only kinds of funds that Palestinians receive are ones to build more weapons.

Works Cited

Arsu, Sebnem. “Leaders of Turkey and Israel Clash at Davos Panel.” New York Times. 30 Jan, 2009.

Beinart, Peter. “How to Free Gaza”. www.thedailybeast.com 4 June 2010

B’Tselem. www.btselem.org BT.

Friedman, Thomas L. “The Ballgame and the Sideshow” New York Times. 4 June 2010

Harel, Amos; Issacharoff, Avi and Pfeffer, Anshel. :Israel Navy commandos: Gaza flotilla activists tried to lynch us.” Ha’aretz. www.haaretz.com 31 May 2010

Harel, Amos. “Straight into the Trap” Ha’aretz www.haaretz.com 6 June 2010

Hass, Amira.”Israel bans books, music and clothes from entering Gaza.” Ha’aretz 17 May 2009

Israel Ministry of Defense www.idf.gov.il

Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs. MFA. www.mfa.gov.il

Jewish Virtual Library. www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org JVL. updated 2 Feb. 2009

Muravchik, Joshua. “Goldstone: Ax Exegesis” World Affairs May/June2010

New York Times Archive: Gilad Shalit. NYT www.nytimes.com 23 Nov. 2008

Oz, Amos. “Israeli Force, Adrift on the Sea.” www.haaretz.com 1 June 2010

Ross, Dennis. “The Missing Piece.” Page 802. Publisher Farrar, Straus Giroux, copyright 2004

Sofer, Roni. “Israel ‘green-lights’ Cease-fire.” Yediot Ahronot YA. 15 Jan. 2009

b

This was your place of birth, this daytime palace by Philip Larkin

This was your place of birth, this daytime palace,

This miracle of glass, whose every hall

The light as music fills, and on your face

Shines petal-soft; sunbeams are prodigal

To show you pausing at a picture’s edge

To puzzle out a name, or with a hand

Resting a second on a random page –

The clouds cast moving shadows on the land.

Are you prepared for what the night will bring?

The stranger who will never show his face

But asks admittance; will you greet your doom

As final; set him loaves and wine; knowing

The game is finished when he plays his ace,

And overturn the table and go into the next room?

From The North Ship by Philip Larkin, 1945

Untitled Poem by Philip Larkin

In this essay I am going to be analyzing an untitled poem, a sonnet by Philip Larkin published in 1945 in what was his first collection of poetry called The North Ship. Although the poem appears to be broken up into three parts – the better to represent birth, life and death – it is actually comprised of an octave and a sestet with alternate rhymes or alliterations: in the first stanza hall/prodigal and page/edge; place/palace and clouds/cast and in the second stanza face/ace and doom/room and final/finished. Larkin himself admits, in the introduction to the new edition printed in 1966, to be heavily influenced by W.B. Yeats when writing this collection, and I think that influence shows in the dream-like quality of this poem.

The first stanza, representing birth, is full of luminosity – “daytime”; “light” and “shines”; “sunbeams”. It is also highly ambiguous. What is “your place of birth” exactly?

“…this daytime palace,

This miracle of glass, whose every hall

The light as music fills,”

Does he literally mean a palace of glass, which only exists during the day because at night you cannot see it? Or does he mean the sea, using the glass as a metaphor for water? The mention of music suggests fluidity. However, the glass could also be a mirror and yet the extravaganza of sunbeams makes me think of a skylight or walls of glass. The fairy-tale like quality of a palace contrasts sharply with the down-to-earth “loaves and wine” of the second stanza. Birth and death; light and dark.

“…and on your face

Shines petal-soft;”

suggests a sleeping baby, a tiny (“petal”) newborn (“soft”), vulnerable in a palace of glass filled with so much sunlight it is easy

“To show you pausing at a picture’s edge

To puzzle out a name”

The image of an art museum comes to mind, another peaceful spot if ever there was one. Or does the subject pause in the poet’s mind’s eye? The subject is seeking out things that are always at the edge of discovery – “To puzzle out a name”, to rest a hand “a second on a random page” – just before the poet is cut short. The entire first stanza has a magical quality to it – the glass, the picture, the book. The reader can imagine the subject of the poem almost floating through the halls of light. And the poet seems to want to linger on this image but is interrupted by “clouds” that “cast moving shadows on the land.”

Because this sentence, representing life, stands alone, its words resonate all the more. Not only does it emphasize the declaration, it also gives us some warning of what is to come in the next stanza. The clouds obscure the light of the first stanza and the “shadows on the land” are like life’s experiences leaving their marks on the subject. The sentence casts shadows over the light-filled daytime palace; over the innocence of youth. It also marks the end of an idyll and symbolizes the passing of time and of growing older, thus obscuring the lightness and carefree state of being a child. This sentence conveys movement so well it is hard for me to believe that the words are standing still. I think Yeats’ influence can be clearly seen here, as a friend of Larkin (Vernon, from the introduction to The North Ship, Faber & Faber 1966) called Yeats’ poetry “music” and I find this line to be big and musical.

The poet creates a picture of tranquility and beauty – “the daytime palace” which he then shatters with the mention of night:

“Are you prepared for what the night will bring?”

This sentence immediately sets a completely different tone; a threatening one. The contrast to the first stanza, the darkness compared to the light, is striking. “Night” “doom” and “final” all have a dark edge to them, representing death. Another contrast between the two stanzas is the difference in structure. The first stanza meanders gently along while the second is comprised of two direct questions. This contrast in structure also emphasizes the feeling almost of incomprehension in the first stanza and knowledge in the second, like what takes place in the Garden of Eden after having eaten from the forbidden fruit.

Death’s presence is clear throughout the last stanza:

“Are you prepared for what the night will bring?

The stranger who will never show his face,”

Not only is this the classical depiction of Death, with his face hidden in his cowl, it is also a perfect metaphor for a difficult relationship; of a lack of commitment. This stranger asks “admittance” and if granted can represent both a loss of purity – if the next room were a bedroom – and death, if the next room symbolizes the next world. By setting him “loaves and wine” nightfall is implied and hospitality, or willingness, suggested. In fortune-telling, the ace of spades is the card of death, a fact that cannot be ignored even though the poet does not mention the suit of the card. It is enough that the rest of the stanza is so dark, I feel like the suit is almost as good as named.

It is possible to miss that it is the subject of the poem who is asked whether he or she will

“…overturn the table and go into the next room?”

Real violence is present in the word “overturn” which means to ruin or destroy, and again, the contrast to the virtuousness of the first stanza is masterful.

The two stanzas could almost be from two completely different poems, so far apart do they stand. And yet they complement each other in the same way that day and night do. Each part of the poem leads us to the next part. In the first stanza, the miracle of glass is a part of birth, but really it is also life itself because life is so fragile. The clouds in the sentence symbolizing life prepare us for the darkness that follows in the last stanza. And to complete the narrative, the last stanza ends with an unanswered question, in the same way that death does. Just like we need darkness to show us the beauty of light, Larkin shows us that it is the knowledge of death which makes life what it is.