Israel has turned in recent days to a number of Western governments requesting
they issue travel warnings to their nationals not to participate in additional
flotillas trying to break the naval blockade of Gaza, government officials told
The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.
According to the officials, the requests
have fallen on attentive ears, especially since Hizbullah and Iran have said
they will send ships of their own, something that is causing some Western
governments to rethink the entire tactic.
RELATED:'UN to transfer flotilla aid to Gaza'Have we lost Turkey?At the same time, however, no
government has actually issued an advisory.
The security cabinet is
scheduled to meet Wednesday to discuss both how to deal with the
impending
flotillas and how to ease restrictions on the goods and materials
allowed into
Gaza. The meeting comes amid a growing sense in Jerusalem that a
decision by the
government to significantly ease up on what is allowed into Gaza through
land
crossings would bring about more cooperation by governments in
dissuading their
citizens from taking part in future attempts to break the
blockade.
“Where there is a will, there is a way,” one senior Israeli
official said of the ability of Western governments to prevent
participation by
their nationals.
The significance of the travel advisories, the official
said, was that the minute a country recommended, for instance, that its
parliamentarians not take part in a flotilla, a parliamentarian who goes
ahead
and does so would be “on his own.”
That particular country, then, would
be less able to come with complaints and demands against Israel after an
arrest,
since it had officially warned its citizens against participation.
The
nationals of 12 countries were involved in the attempt by the Turkish
ship
Mavi
Marmara to break the naval blockade.
Nine people were killed on the ship
after they attacked IDF soldiers dropped on board to keep it from
sailing to
Gaza.
Netanyahu expresses interest in easing blockade for civilian items
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has on a number of occasions in
recent days expressed an interest in easing up on civilian items allowed
into
the Gaza Strip, while keeping the naval blockade in place to keep
weapons and
terrorists out.
For the last three years, despite the objections of the
US, EU and Quartet, Israel has controlled what is allowed into Gaza as
part of a
policy to weaken Hamas and free kidnapped soldier Gilad Schalit. This
policy –
adopted by the Olmert government – has been roundly condemned by the
international community in the wake of the IDF raid on the Turkish
ship.
Late Tuesday evening, the Prime Minister’s Office issued a
statement saying that the Terkel Committee, which is looking into the
raid,
would convene on Wednesday for what was called an “introductory
meeting.”
The time and place were not specified.
State Comptroller
Micha Lindenstrauss notified the Knesset’s State Control Committee that
he
intends to investigate the events surrounding the raid, Israel Radio
reported.
His investigation will focus mainly on the government’s
decision-making process, intelligence and public diplomacy.
George Mitchell to arrive on Thursday
Easing the
restrictions on the Gaza Strip is expected to be a high priority item in
discussions US envoy George Mitchell will hold over the next few days.
Mitchell
is expected to arrive on Wednesday night and hold a day of talks with
Israeli
officials on Thursday, and with Palestinian officials on Friday, before
possibly
going to Egypt over the weekend for talks there as well.
The indirect
talks with the Palestinians that Mitchell is mediating have been
completely
overshadowed over the last two weeks by the flotilla raid and the
situation in
Gaza.
Quartet envoy Tony Blair, who has met Netanyahu three times in the
last 10 days to discuss Gaza, said Monday after briefing EU foreign
ministers
meeting in Luxembourg that he hoped the blockade would “be eased within
days.”
The key, Blair said, “is to shift from a list of goods that are
permitted into
Gaza to a list of goods that are prohibited from entering, such as
weapons and
combat material, so that anything that is not on the list of prohibited
items is
allowed to enter.
“The prohibition on the entry of weapons and combat
material should of course remain in place, and Israel is justified in
seeking to
check items that go into Gaza to ensure that such items are kept out,”
he
said.
Blair said that after holding intensive talks with Netanyahu, he
believed that “Israel has agreed in principle to move to such a
list.”
From Blair’s comments it was also possible to conclude that Israel
would likely okay the transfer of building materials such as steel and
concrete
into Gaza for UN infrastructure projects, once a mechanism was in place
that
would “ensure that the goods that enter for those projects are used for
their
intended purposes.”
Israel has up until now prohibited these materials
from entering Gaza out of a concern they would be diverted to Hamas and
used to
build bunkers and factories for the manufacturing of Kassam
rockets.
Israel monitoring reports of boats coming from Iran and Lebanon
Meanwhile, Israel – according to sources in the Prime Minister’s
Office – was carefully following reports that boats to break the
blockade would
be coming from Lebanon and Iran.
“We don’t know how much of the threats
are real, and how much are bravado,” one official said.
According to the
official, Iran and Lebanon are “hostile countries,” and if there had
been a need
to intercept the Rachel Corrie ship from Ireland some 10 days ago, “how
much
more of a need will there be to intercept a ship from a hostile
country.”
Among those threatening to break the blockade with an aid ship
is a group of Lebanese women, led by the wife of an imprisoned Lebanese
general.
Samar Hajj, whose husband Ali Hajj has been in jail for four
years in connection with the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime
minister Rafik Hariri, declared that the female activists were “all
independent
women who believe in breaking the siege on Gaza.”
She stated that she and
the 50 other women who had signed up as passengers on the ship
Mariam –
Muslims
and Christians alike – were not associated with Hizbullah and had no
political
affiliations.
“This has nothing to do with Hizbullah, although it is an
honor for us to be supporters of the resistance,” she said.
Regarding
continuing fallout from the
Mavi Marmara episode, there were a number of
reports
Tuesday that the Turkish government was weighing various measures if
Israel
failed to apologize.
Among the steps reportedly being considered were a
downgrading, and perhaps severing, of diplomatic ties with Israel; no
longer
allowing Israeli ships of any kind to dock in Turkish ports; denying
tourist
visas to visiting Israelis; and cutting all bilateral economic,
sporting,
academic and cultural ties.
Hilary Leila Krieger contributed to this
report from Washington.