Nothing but contempt for international norms

STEVEN KING asks “why is the MV Saoirse and its assorted passengers heading for Gaza and not the Syrian coast?”

He follows this with another rhetorical question: “Or do you just have a problem with a Jewish state in the Middle East?” Mr King’s purpose, of course, is to imply that Israel is being “singled out” for anti-Semitic reasons. But of course Israel has long been “singled out” by the West in an unprecedented manner: it has been exempted from international law and international humanitarian law, and has been protected from condemnation in the UN Security Council by an indiscriminate US veto. A blind eye has been turned to its illegal blockade of the tiny Gaza Strip. Marking the blockade’s fifth anniversary on June 15, the UN’s Chris Gunness said: “It is hard to understand the logic of a man-made policy which deliberately impoverishes so many and condemns hundreds of thousands of potentially productive people to a life of destitution”. Mr King suggests that a flotilla encountering the Syrian navy wouldn’t “be dealing with a regime that abides by international norms”, implying that Israel boasts such a regime. The maintenance of an illegal blockade and the slaughter of unarmed peace activists, together with Israel’s flouting of UN resolutions and the Geneva Conventions, constitute the most flagrant contempt for international norms ever displayed by a purportedly democratic state.

Raymond Deane