Porcupines In Heat

"The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Prof. Olivier De Schutter, has received a draft of this report and he firmly opposes its conclusion. According to Olivier De Schutter, the blockade and the Israeli intervention clearly violate international law and the human right to food." email from De Schutter's office.

A predictable response from a UN agency. But the truth of the matter is other than what this UN rapporteur states, for there is no shortage of food in Gaza. In fact there is an abundant selection, as well as luxury items available to those who, as in any market, will pay the going price. There are modern shopping plazas within Gaza selling anything available in markets elsewhere in the world.

Yet the perpetual Israel-bashers have no intention of recognizing reality, for they live in a world inside their heads where Israel is responsible for denying the very basics of life to Palestinian Gazans. The actual situation where Gazans are firmly ruled by a recognized terrorist group whose mandate is to violently dismantle the Jewish state necessitating that Israel maintain a blockade is too inconvenient to recognize.

When the United Nations took it upon itself to set up an investigative committee to come to a final conclusion on the legality of both the blockade and Israel's response to the flotilla led by the Turkish ship the Mavi Marmora, perhaps it erred in selecting former New Zealand premier Geoffrey Palmer to chair it. For it would seem that Mr. Palmer has his own clearly defined morals and is not averse to stating the truth.

Israel's own Turkel Committee report exonerated Israel of wrong-doing in the May 2010 blockade-busting flotilla when Turkish thugs associated with a Turkish jihadi group launched a violent attack against Israeli naval commandos boarding the Mavi Marmora to apprehend the flotilla. Israel's own committee comprised of Nobel Laureate David Trimble and former Canadian Forces Judge Advocate General Ken Watkins as well as an Israeli judge was also found wanting in its conclusion clearing Israel of wrong-doing.

Here, however, is the UN's own investigation reaching a similar conclusion, clearing Israel of responsibility in the deaths of the nine violence-bent Turkish 'protesters' who initiated the violence and who died for their efforts. The report set to be released appears to declare the blockade legitimate, affirming what the Quartet itself has previously declared, and that Israel took legitimate steps in self defence.

The UN Human Rights Council is decidedly displeased with this conclusion, and predictably it had concluded in an earlier investigation which Israel had refused to co-operate with, citing obvious bias, that the blockade was illegal, leaving them to condemn both the blockade and the seizure of the Mavi Marmora, along with the apprehension of the international protesters.

The Palmer report is being held back in an effort to give Israel and Turkey time and opportunity to settle their differences over this incident and previous incidents when Turkey's Erdogan stormed out of a World Economic Forum in Davos, accusing Israel of murderous intent in its response to Hamas rockets being fired into Israel and the short offensive that resulted.

To which a senior Israeli official, referring to the heated, relationship-mending discussions between the two countries, once staunch allies, that their rapprochement talks resembled "two porcupines trying to come together."