How to Kill the Next Flotilla

 

We reported earlier this week in our article How Does Europe Define NGO in Israel and More? where we examined the funding for much of the costs of the ‘Freedom Flotilla III’ being funded largely through a French NGO using funding provided by the government of France. We had mentioned how so many European NGOs are more government agencies than non-governmental agencies and there are even a fair number of Israeli NGOs financed by funds from European nations and the European Union, some directly and some through other go-between NGOs, levels of separation and deniability. The ‘Freedom Flotilla III’ should be reaching Israel after they drum up enough media coverage stopping at port after port all across the southern ports of Europe along the Mediterranean Sea. Some of those on the flotilla are paid instigators which must be rough duty to sail around the Mediterranean between ports watching those chosen to be the most telegenic and sympathetic looking and sounding giving interviews to an eager press giving coverage about the plight their supplies will alleviate. If only that were true. The provisions on former flotillas consisted of spoiled food stuffs and outdated medical provisions which were not even bothered to be picked up after being transferred across the border into Gaza the day after being unloaded at an Israeli port.

 

The one question I have heard that got me to thinking (yes, I actually do think at times) was why Israel would go to such extremes to prevent a flotilla from reaching Gaza if it was known they normally did not carry any contraband such as weapons, explosives or dual use materials? Great question was my reaction and I attempted to point out that once you make one exception and then that blockade is breached, then the entire reason for the blockade can be challenged in the international courts which might lead to the blockade being determined to no longer be required and then Iran and others could ship any and all weapons into Gaza making their next war with Israel far more dangerous. Still, what if Israel began their own news blitz and each time the flotilla spokesperson gives their spiel about the mean Israeli blockade and how they are carrying only humanitarian supplies and still the Israelis are likely to answer their purely good intentions with excessive violence. Of course they will leave out the part about their having specialists who will instigate the confrontation with violent attacks on the Israeli units in attempts to throw them overboard, kidnap one or two and injure or otherwise prevent any diversion of the ship hoping to either get pictures of IDF violence or forcing the final and last ditch measure of sinking one of the vessels. The person who asked why not allow the flotilla pass is a dangerous precedent as this would permit for Israel to be relying that some other nation making a determination that there is no contraband (contraband includes weapons, explosives, certain fertilizers, and numerous dual use items some of which are less obvious than others) aboard replacing Israel actually checking themselves and also the potential for contraband to be transferred at sea after any inspection thus defeating the blockade through simple deceit. Still, there might be a way of prolonging the gamesmanship of this flotilla and use it to Israel’s advantage. Make it known that if the flotilla were to get their cargo inspected by three nations certifying their cargo, any three stops they desire, and add one last inspection made by Egyptian military authorities at the port of Alexandria and then come straight to Gaza once cleared by the Egyptian military, they would be given free escorted entry to Gaza. Israel should then arrange for the Egyptians to escort the flotilla to their maritime border where an Israeli naval vessel to escort and assure that no other transfers are made at sea and then allow them to continue unhindered further to Gaza port. The Israelis should encourage media live television coverage of the arrival and unloading of the flotilla ships if they can spirit up any actual media excitement for such a momentous occasion. Whether there will be live coverage or not, Israel should place a few drones at high enough altitude to make them difficult to see and beyond any possible audible detection with sufficiently capable to televise the unloading live even using night vision technology if the unload is done at night. When the flotilla arrives and Hamas and Islamic Jihad and their other friends refuse to unload the flotilla and simply send them back from whence they came, then the world will see the falsehood of the flotilla racket and hopefully such shame will end the flotilla farce once and for all.

 

I can hear the sceptics with their claims that such bad media won’t prevent the next flotilla as they will simply keep coming and refusing to allow anybody, especially the Egyptians from inspecting their cargos. The main part of the plan is the Egyptian inspection using the Egyptian military overseen by officers picked by President Sisi for their honor and dedication to the new government and the desires of the President and who will do a thorough inspection as they have no love lost for Hamas and friends thus Israel can reliably expect the Egyptians to perform the cargo inspections. The demand for three European nations to perform some kind and unspecified inspection will be to provide evidence should the Egyptians find contraband that the Europeans either missed or intentionally overlooked, then the Europeans will share in any disgrace. This could lead to another manner of checking shipments headed for Gaza but sufficiently onerous demanding three inspections in different nation’s ports and then for the final and most important inspection at Alexandria by the Egyptian military. This may sound like a ponderous set of demands but one must remember that there is another alternative of docking and unloading at an Israeli port and permitting an Israeli inspection and then their delivering your approved goods as quickly as possible by overland in the earliest available trucks as part of the many tens of tractor-trailer loads delivered daily with food, medical and other non-military provisions each day except the Sabbath. Each delivery should be given this choice to every ship intending to make a delivery to Gaza and let them know that after the Egyptian inspection clears their deliveries then they must be escorted to international waters by an Egyptian military vessel which will turn the ship over to Israeli escort to the maritime border of Gaza from which they are on their own. This should be a fair alternative and those who wish to take advantage of such an offer may find some surprises should they also believe that they could get some contraband past the Israelis by using the alternative method. Even the Europeans would be inclined to make an honest inspection should they ever, intentionally or through error or misunderstanding of definitions for contraband, something Israel would be glad to provide a list to any nation requesting such, permit things to pass which they know should be prevented to pass once they have been disgraced when the Egyptians find the contraband and alert the Israelis while confiscating the contraband turning it over to the Israelis when they pass the now inspected cargo without the contraband to continue on to Gaza. There is no reason Israel should be forced to appear brutish when they can offer an alternative to docking in an Israel port so they might be able to take wonderful and generously offered alternative method by which they would be granted full permission to dock at Gaza and even take all the celebratory pictures and videos with their friends in Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the people of Gaza.

 

Israel has no real desire to add to the suffering for the citizens of Gaza. The proof is that the Israelis removed every last Israeli from Gaza on August of 2005 while even took the trouble of exhuming the graves of every Jew and moved them to a new location to keep their graves from being desecrated by any Palestinians desire to act on their vengeful hatreds and bulldozed the synagogue building after removing every last religious items so as to prevent its desecration. Then all of Gaza, every last millimeter was given to the Arab Palestinian Authority who lost their control over Gaza in the Fatah and Hamas with Islamic Jihad in the civil war for the control of Gaza which had been building in intensity but exploded into its final violence filled conflagration from June 10, 2007 to June 15, 2007 setting up the situation of steady rising of violence out of Gaza largely firing rockets on Israel targeting almost exclusively Israeli civilians and other provocations. Now Israel has all of that to thank for the flotillas testing their resolve but perhaps the time has come to use brains over brawn, intelligence as resolve and finally using the flotilla be the ones choosing which venue they prefer. If they choose to force a confrontation with Israel rather than receive merely four inspections with three from potentially friendly European co-conspirators plus an inspection from the Arab state of Egypt and after passing these small requirements then they preferred to force a confrontation, not Israel. By forcing Israel to divert them to an Israeli port instead of, what Israel in their magnanimity had offered to the flotilla coordinators, financiers, political activists and other members and crews, to have inspections at three of their European ports of call plus have them make their next to the last port call in Alexandria for an Egyptian Military run inspection permitting them to achieve direct access to the Port in Gaza. The monies of their arrival at the Gaza City port should prove interesting as will any unloading of goods from flotilla ships which have little or no cargo. The light of truth can be a wonderful light to use to reveal the reality of such farcical attempts to put the IDF, and in turn all Israel, in the worst light possible and refusing to circumvent the unfair Israeli inspections and instead take an alternative method of inspection where the first three are of their choice and one of Israeli origin. Simply offer an alternative and then allow nature and absurdity take their selected path.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Upcoming Midterm United States Elections, a Slightly Different Look

Who is ahead in the different races depends on the state and even on the political leanings of the news or talk shows one follows. If you go to polling it gets even more confusing. Not only are the polls often slanted depending on who ordered the polling but it also depends on what the subject the poll is covering. Here are a few examples from some polls. A CBS poll recently showed that fifty percent of those responding said the Democrats are the party that “cares more about the needs and problems of people” while only 34 percent chose the Republicans. Meanwhile, the Republicans have a nine point lead concerning the economy, an eleven point lead on foreign policy and a twenty-one point lead on addressing terrorism in an October CBS poll. So, who wins; the party of the people or the party which appears to be more competent? These numbers are nothing new as often the Democrats have polled well on sympathy and feeling the people’s pains while the Republicans historically win on foreign policy and confronting threats from the outside world. The fact the Republicans are polling slightly ahead of Democrats on the economy is not nationally definitive enough to be applied to every race. The probability is that in the traditionally Democrat leaning states the Democrats will probably poll even or ahead of the Republicans while in traditionally Republican states the Republicans will poll ahead. The place where that mere nine point lead for the Republicans becomes evident will be in what is often referred to as the ‘purple’ states where the parties have split the wins between them would thus likely give the Republicans a slight lead on the economy. Unfortunately that may not transfer to votes as there is also the personality of the candidates as well as the effectiveness of their campaigns and whether there are third party or independent candidates on the ballot and from which side they will draw away votes. Libertarian and Constitution Party candidates tend to take more votes from Republicans while Green and sometimes Libertarian Party take more votes from the Democrats. But other than their campaign, their affability or their campaign commercials and use of media and social networks, the most important determining item will simply be which party gets the voters to the polls, period.

With this year not being a Presidential election year, the national party machines are operating but there are far fewer volunteers and fewer funds for them to make a large determining difference. This means that it will be up to the State and even more local party machines and the candidate supporting campaign staff which will make up a significant part of the get out the vote efforts. States with Gubernatorial elections this election will have more party influence than those without. What makes these midterms so difficult to make predictions is because there is no real enthusiasm evident in the electorate and it is very possible that both of the major parties will suffer from miserable voter turnout and thus calling the elections near impossible. There will be some states where polling data is so skewed to one candidate that there is almost no challenge to picking the likely winner short of an unseen stumble where the leading candidate is caught in a criminal act or other compromising situation. They do not even need to actually be guilty as that will depend on a court of law, but such accusations can sway the court of public opinion and that is exactly what elections are, the court of public opinion choosing those they feel are less guilty of potentially bad leadership. That has been the truth in all too many elections in the United States in recent times where people are literally trying to choose which evil is less harmful. Some have gotten to the point that they have finally refused to vote for the lesser from two evils and they refuse to ever again vote for evil no matter how slight. These voters are demanding the parties to put forth candidates who are capable of leading and representing the people with integrity and virtue. This might even lead to making a third party or independent candidate to have a real possibility to take elections and possibly change the American political landscape once again. Perhaps it is time for a new political movement as the last great movement was the Abolition Movement which birthed the Republican Party and the Whig Party was laid to rest. The more likely bet is that the two major parties have so slanted and poisoned the election laws throughout the United States that it has become next to impossible for any third party or independent candidate to make the ballot, let alone have any funds remaining should they manage to make ballot, and trust I know from where I speak. This is really a sad problem as this may prevent a new direction to be proposed and placed before the American electorate and instead continue forcing them to choose between two toxins, progressive Democrats who want to double the size of government every decade, or the progressive Republican who wishes to slow government growth so that it doubles only four or five times each century. Since both the major parties are in favor of growing government and the sole difference is exactly the rate of growth the American people can rest assured that over time the Republicans will seem like the Democrats of a few decades back while the Democrats will be breaking new ground which the Republican will fall in love with a few decades hence. Should this trend not be reversed soon the United States will continue in decline and only accelerate with time.

Beyond the Cusp

Backdoor Gun Control; Not so Fast

The United Nations member States are once again working to implement an all-inclusive weapons treaty with dual intents. The publicized intent is to control the trading of weapons between weapons manufacturers and countries such that all weapons transactions will be covered thus preventing any sales to terror or other non-state actors. This treaty will presumably prevent terrorist and criminal entities from acquiring armaments from handguns to advanced weapons systems such as rockets and mortars. The secondary and less mentioned impetus is to control all private ownership of weapons by individuals. This time the treaty will not be aiming to necessarily disarm all non-state individuals but will instead be satisfied in simply having complete lists of every weapon privately owned. Of course these lists are guaranteed not to be a first step towards eventual weapons confiscation and everyone can believe that the world’s governments would never go back on this promise. But why should this be of any concern to the American people as they have the Second Amendment which guarantees them the right to keep and bear arms. But is the Second Amendment really sacrosanct or can it be abridged through international agreements?

John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State under President Dwight Eisenhower, asserted that treaties are a form of law which overrides the Constitution. The Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution is in Article VI and states, “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.” This clause was primarily intended to forbid the individual States from being allowed to enter into treaties independently and also to guarantee that all the individual States would be bound by and treaty entered and legally ratified by the Federal Government. There have been numerous people who have maintained that a treaty entered into by the United States through ratification by the Senate and signed by the President would then supercede the United States Constitution. This statement can be made true if one replaces one little word; remove ‘United’ from before the word ‘States’ and instead replace it with the word ‘individual’ and then it would be correct. Treaties do override the individual State’s Constitutions, not the United States Constitution. This also applied to individual State laws, regulations, statutes or other legally binding resolutions.

The reasoning behind the contention that international and other treaties entered into by the United States would supercede the Constitution ignores the semicolon replacing it with a comma. The treaties that are enacted must be tempered by the Constitution and can be rendered mute if found to be unconstitutional. The phrasing which states that treaties are to be made “under the authority of the United States” places the limitations within the constitution in effect for treaties just as it is for laws passed by the States or Congress. So, the Administration is limited in its power to enter into and negotiate treaties even with the ratification of the Senate by the same restrictions that the Congress and President are under when enacting Federal Law. So, let the world negotiate a presumable universal arms treaty which will eventually be used to implement the universal disarmament of individuals because even should the Senate ratify such a treaty and the President sign same, the Supreme Court, in theory, should render the enforcement of such a treaty unconstitutional and hopefully support the individual rights of the American peoples.

So sorry to those in the Administration and to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who have been rumored to be hoping they could use such a treaty to negate the Second Amendment and were working for Senate ratification. The Founding Fathers were smart enough to preclude the meddling of the outside world with the unique rights granted by the revolutionary Constitution they crafted. The world around them was full of Emperors, Kings, Caliphs and other absolute rulers whose slightest whim was law. With a world where any treaty the nascent United States would enter would be with countries with such autocratic rulers that they realized that the rights provided by the United States Constitution would not be respected or even understood outside the nation they were founding. With such a world surrounding the Founding Fathers it is only logical that they would protect the delicate balance which gave the individual supreme rights even over and above the government which was crafted to serve the people and be endowed with limited powers, a strange and unique concept in their time. The American people will owe those men a debt of gratitude as long as there continues to be those who guard and keep those precious rights safe and protected. That is the task that the Founding Fathers demanded of those generations which followed and upon whom they had doubts and hopes, much as many patriots today harbor.

Beyond the Cusp