Ha'aretz reports Israel accepts Greek deal to bring cargo to Gaza.
The Greek government yesterday proposed a compromise over the Gaza aid flotilla to both Jerusalem and the organizers of the operation, under which UN-supervised Greek diplomats would transport the humanitarian aid on the boats to the Gaza Strip.
Israel, Haaretz reported, accepted the Greek offer.
The offer calls for loading the aid onto ships owned by the Greek government and bringing it to Gaza through accepted channels, as requested two weeks ago by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. The ships would dock either in Ashdod or the Egyptian port of el-Arish, and the goods transported to Gaza under Greek and UN supervision.
"[F]lotilla organizers had not responded by press time" for this Haaretz story.
Now, however, Haaretz reports Greek coast guard seizes Canadian ship bound for Gaza, thus spurning the Greek offer.
In related news, the Associated Press reports that Turkish authorities have determined that the Irish vessel was not damaged by sabotage. Flotilla leaders, echoed by some here, have alleged Israeli sabotage.
Selcuk Unal, a spokesman for the Turkish Foreign Ministry, said authorities had determined that there was no act of sabotage on an Irish vessel in the flotilla that docked in the Turkish port of Gocek on the Aegean Sea.
The wisdom of the blockade can be debated. The problem is how to reconcile conflicting imperatives. On the one hand, as Haaretz and others recognize, "In fact, the naval embargo is justifiable, in terms of the need to prevent the entry of heavy weaponry." Indeed, Israel has intercepted ships carrying weapons for Hamas. On the other hand,as Ethan Bronner wrote, just yesterday, in The New York Times, although
[o]ne result [of the relaxation], largely unacknowledged by the flotilla leaders [is that] far more goods have gone into Gaza over the past year, and while the 1.6 million people there still need many things, basic supplies are not among them. . . . Nonetheless, Gaza remains a deeply sad and deprived place.
I suspect that an international humanitarian campaign to further relieve the needs of ordinary residents of the Gaza Strip, rather than a political campaign to score points against Israel, can achieve much practical good, as well as create opportunities for people of good will in both the "pro-P" and "pro-I" camps to work together and discover, perhaps, that we have more in common than sometimes appears.