The state wants Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan-Maguire ejected from
Israel.
After permitting Maguire ample opportunity to make her case, the
Central District Court ruled last week in the state’s favor and the Supreme
Court on Monday appeared poised to do the same.
We applaud this stand –
and not because of Maguire’s outrageous comparison in 2004 of Israel’s purported
nuclear capability to Auschwitz’s gas chambers, nor because of her absurd,
reprehensible accusation made in court Monday that Israel is an “apartheid
state” perpetrating “ethnic cleansing against Palestinians.”
Rather,
Maguire should be deported from Israel for undertaking actions that undermine
Israel’s ability to protect itself.
MAGUIRE, WHO at 32 was the
youngest-ever peace prize winner when she received it in 1976 for working to end
sectarian violence in her native Northern Ireland, was intending to lead a
delegation called the Nobel Women’s Initiative that is visiting Israel and the
West Bank between September 28 and October 5.
Maguire is a woman with
considerable merits who once acted courageously and peacefully to help end
conflict in her own country. But her actions on behalf of Palestinians has
revealed a sorrowful dearth of moral sensibilities.
She was first
deported from Israel on September 30, 2009, after she took part in an attempt to
break the Israeli blockade of Gaza. She and the other activists from the Free
Gaza Movement attempted to forcibly prevent Israel from defending itself against
Hamas-controlled Gaza via the blockade, which has never prevented the transferral
of food, medicine and other necessities that cannot be turned into rockets,
mortars or other deadly weapons and aimed at Israeli civilians.
All
humanitarian aid on board Maguire’s ship, the Arion, was promptly transferred to
Gaza after a security check, as is all other humanitarian aid provided by
foreigners to Gaza’s residents, along with truckloads of Israeli aid provided
weekly.
When the Arion was stopped by the IDF, Maguire was notified that
she would be forbidden to enter Israel for 10 years. Nevertheless, this June, a
few days after the fateful
Mavi Marmara interception, Maguire was once again on
board a ship – the
MV Rachel Corrie – attempting to violate Israel’s blockade of
Gaza. Once again she was notified by Israeli officials that she was banned from
entry for a decade.
Yet last week Maguire ignored Israel’s sovereign
right to decide who crosses its borders, insincerely claiming she did not know
she was banned; she might have had the honesty to make plain that she refused to
respect Israel’s sovereignty.
If Maguire and her fellow activists truly
desire to improve the lives of Gazans, they should send their humanitarian aid
in coordination with Israel. More importantly, they should put pressure on Hamas
and the other radical Islamists who control the Gaza Strip to stop senseless
ballistic attacks on Israeli towns and villages, kibbutzim and
moshavim.
They should also insist that Hamas provide Gaza’s citizens with
a stable, responsible leadership that respects human rights and religious
freedom, as well as that it accept the UN-recognized right of the Jewish people
to self-determination and political sovereignty in their historical
homeland.
But Maguire, who has called for Israel to be removed from the
UN, seems more intent on enabling Israel’s terrorist enemies.
THIS
NEWSPAPER has argued in the past that even the most rabid critics of Israel –
such as Noam Chomsky, who was denied entry by Israel in May – should be allowed
to come here to voice their opinions. We trust the ability of free-thinking,
informed individuals to distinguish between baseless and credible narratives and
claims.
But in Maguire’s case, the issue is different. Those who work to
forcibly break the blockade on Gaza are essentially seeking to endanger the
lives of Israeli citizens, by making it easier for Hamas to obtain the rockets
and mortars it insistently fires into our territory.
Israel can and must
use its hard-earned and well-deserved sovereignty to stop people like Maguire –
people who try to exploit charges of a “humanitarian crisis” in Gaza in order to
empower Hamas terrorists.