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About John Loftus John Loftus is an American author, former US government prosecutor and former Army intelligence officer. In 1979, Mr. Loftus joined the US Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations, which was charged with prosecuting and deporting Nazi war criminals in the US. He is a president of The Intelligence Summit and, although he is not Jewish, a president of the Florida Holocaust Museum. Loftus also serves on the Board of Advisers to Public Information Research.

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Past Articles In the Long Run, the Truth Will Always Come Out

John Loftus
In the Long Run, the Truth Will Always Come Out
June 10, 2010

I must politely disagree with those who have come to denounce the Israeli blockade of Gaza as an act of "piracy" etc. Those who hold these contentions are as wrong as wrong can be on the legality of the Israeli boarding of so-called “humanitarian aid” flotilla ships. As you know from my history as a Nazi war crimes prosecutor, I do have a bit of passing familiarity with international law.

It seems to me that the main problem is that so many nice people do not have any accurate idea of what international law requires. As a non-Jewish lawyer (but a friend of Israel) I hope I can explain this arcane legal question.

Here is how it works:

History records that Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza without any blockade, let alone any military or naval "occupation." There were no Israeli troops left in Gaza, no Israeli civilians left, not even any Jews left inside Gaza. There were no naval blockade ships offshore, not one.

In fact, as a peace gesture, Jewish citizens from the USA raised millions of dollars to help the Gazans take over the flower export market, including ownership of all the greenhouses which were left behind. No doubt, the greenhouses were a gift from Jews to Gazans. No doubt peace existed on both sides of the Gaza border at this time. No doubt there was no naval blockade.

Shortly after the Israeli pullout, Hamas overturned their democratic restraints, seized dictatorial power, massacred the Palestinian opposition party, and, most importantly, declared war on Israel.

Not only did Hamas declare war, it refused any peace negotiations whatsoever as peace talks would mean recognizing Israel's very right to exist. Hamas followed up its declaration of war with active shelling of Israeli border towns, timed to coincide with school bus departures and arrivals at the schools of Sderot, etc. This targeted shelling of civilian juveniles was a major war crime. Yet, Hamas has never been prosecuted under international law.

Once Hamas declared war by shelling civilians, including schoolchildren, Israel had full authority under international law to institute a blockade. A blockade is permitted to prevent contraband from reaching an enemy state in time of war. Among the more unusual blockaded items: cement and sewer pipes. Was this a justified use of the international law of blockade? I believe that it was.

One the one hand, sewer pipes and cement have obvious civilian uses. On the other hand, overwhelming evidence exists that a substantial part of the Gaza sewer system was torn out of the ground by Hamas for pipes to be made into Qassem rockets. Thousands of Qassem rockets made from these sewer pipes were launched at Israel without any retaliation whatsoever. Year after year, the Israelis held their fire.

Knowing that Israel would eventually fight back, cement was stolen from international charities by Hamas to make bomb proof military bunkers. No neutral international lawyer would disagree that under these circumstances, both sewer pipes and cement are reasonably qualified as contraband. It should be noted that Israel has always made contraband exceptions for pipes and cement shipped to Gaza NGO's outside Hamas control.

In a brilliant counter-move, Arab states passed UN Resolution 1860, claiming that the Israeli blockade was banning not just military goods, but "humanitarian goods". Cement and pipes, when used for war material, may be dual use material but are clearly not humanitarian goods. That term is usually restricted to medicine, bandages, baby food, clothing, etc. Humanitarian goods are understood to mean Red Cross type material, not dual use items that could help the enemy rebuild his war power, restock his Qassem arsenal or repair his forts.

Bottom line: Israel clearly complied with UN resolution 1860, and therefore was allowed to continue its lawful blockade of Gaza. No one (and I mean no one) in the UN legal community has denied the lawfulness of the blockade because Israel was never found to be in violation or even partial noncompliance with the terms of UN resolution 1860. Show me the resolution, and I will apologize.

Once Israel declared a naval blockade, five out of the six flotilla ships complied with the Israeli blockade instructions. The humanitarian goods were offloaded at Ashdod, inspected and transshipped to Gaza. No big deal. Israel and Egypt do this routinely.

In response to UN 1860's call for easier passage of humanitarian goods through the blockade, Israel offered to let all ships offload at Ashdod to be cleared by non-Israeli NGO inspectors. Israel even agreed to pay to re-ship the offloaded non-contraband items by truck into Gaza. On average, the Government of Israel delivers more humanitarian goods into Gaza each week than were carried by the entire flotilla. (15,000 tons typical Israel weekly shipment vs. 10,000 tons one time flotilla shipment).

However, one ship in the flotilla not only refused to allow any contraband / humanitarian goods inspection, even if carried out by neutral non-Israeli inspectors. Instead, they prepared for violent resistance. As both the Israeli and ship videotapes show, the well prepared armed resisters overwhelmed the Israelis with their paint pall guns.

Usually at this point, well meaning people like you distract on the issue of the pros and cons of armed resistance and ignore the main legal point: The flotilla had publicly and repeatedly announced that their goal was to help Hamas by breaking the blockade. There can be no question that the flotilla's goal was more than just the delivery of humanitarian goods, it was their stated public purpose to open a Hamas sea channel through the Israeli blockade. The flotilla's clear intention was to permit Hamas to ship both military contraband and humanitarian goods to Gaza without any international inspection.

The flotilla's public announcement ( "declared intent") to break the blockade with non-inspected cargoes immediately gave Israel extra rights on the high seas under international law. Israel immediately received the lawful right to intercept such declared blockade runners with their potentially contraband cargoes in international waters, not just inside coastal boundaries.

Yes, that is exactly right. The flotilla’s PR announcement that they were going to break the blockade is exactly what gave Israel a complete legal right to intercept and board flotilla vessels on the high seas.

Israel remains so confident that their blockade was legal under 1860 that they have agreed to submit to yet another UN review, this time headed by a maritime legal expert from New Zealand. I predict he will not find sufficient evidence to support any allegations that Israel has violated international maritime law.