Blair hails deal with Netanyahu to ease Gaza blockade
Former British prime minister: The plan will allow us to keep weapons and weapon materials out of Gaza, but on the other hand help the Palestinian population there.
By Barak Ravid and Jonathan Lis Tags: Israel news Gaza Gaza flotilla Tony BlairTony Blair, the Quartet’s envoy to the Middle East, hailed Tuesday the Israeli cabinet’s expected approval of a plan to ease the blockade of the Gaza Strip and allow more aid into the territory as “a very important step.”
The plan, which was formulated jointly by Blair and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, will likely come before the cabinet for approval on Wednesday.
 |
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shakes hands with Middle East Quartet Envoy Tony Blair on June 08, 2010 in Jerusalem, Israel. |
| Photo by: GPO |
It contains three main elements: formulation of a blacklist of goods and supplies that will not be allowed into Gaza, particularly items that could be put to use in manufacturing weapons; Israel’s acquiescence to the entry of building materials for UN-sponsored construction projects; and Israel’s agreement to consider stationing European Union as well as Palestinian Authority monitors at border crossings to inspect incoming goods.
In remarks to Haaretz on Tuesday, Blair stressed the importance of the cabinet’s anticipated approval of the plan.
“It will allow us to keep weapons and weapon materials out of Gaza, but on the other hand to help the Palestinian population there,” the former British prime minister said. “The policy in Gaza should be to isolate the extremists but to help the people.”
The goal, Blair added, was always to get to a situation in which there would be no need for the smuggling tunnels in order to get commercial goods into Gaza, because all these goods would get in through the border crossings.
Now, after the easing of the blockade and the change in policy, “we will have to redouble our efforts to release [kidnapped soldier] Gilad Shalit,” he said.
The Blair-Netanyahu understandings are the end result of intensive discussions between the two men that were launched after the Israel Navy’s botched raid of a Turkish aid ship bound for Gaza. Nine people were killed when naval commandos encountered violent opposition from scores of passengers immediately after being rappelled onto the deck from helicopters.
Blair has met with the premier three times over the past 10 days, in addition to numerous telephone conversations, to discuss easing the civilian blockade of Gaza while meeting Israeli security concerns.
At their first meeting, the envoy handed Netanyahu a document prepared by Blair’s staff that included suggestions for easing the blockade. The prime minister told Blair that he never thought the blockade as constituted was particularly wise, as he understood that the civilian population, and not Hamas, bore the primary brunt.
 |
Quartet Middle East envoy Tony Blair, left, and President Shimon Peres during a conference in Tel Aviv in 2008. |
| Photo by: Archive |
“It’s important for me to have a policy that I can defend before the world,” Netanyahu told Blair.
In his talks with Blair, Netanyahu also raised the sensitive subject of Shalit. For four years, Israel has said it would ease the Gaza blockade only as part of a deal for Shalit’s release. Netanyahu thus told Blair that if he eases the blockade now, the international community must do more to obtain Shalit’s freedom.
Diskin warning
Meanwhile, Shin Bet security chief Yuval Diskin warned the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee yesterday that ending the naval blockade on Gaza would be “a dangerous development for Israel.”
“This would be a gaping security breach even if security checks were conducted [on ships] en route, at international ports, before they reach Gaza,” Diskin said.
He added that Gaza-based terrorist organizations continue to stockpile arms, most of which are self-manufactured, though some are still being smuggled into the Strip.
“Hamas and Islamic Jihad have 5,000 rockets in the Strip, with ranges of up to 40 kilometers,” Diskin said. “Of those rockets, 4,000 belong to Hamas.”
“Hamas also possesses several rockets that can reach central Israel,” Diskin warned.
The Shin Bet head also discussed Israel’s willingness to ease the land blockade on Gaza, saying, “there is no humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. I don’t have any problem with easing the transfer of goods from Israel. But weapons are being smuggled in right now from Sinai.”
“Sinai is an attractive destination for Al-Qaida refugees who came from Iraq and made their way to the peninsula via Jordan,” Diskin added. “All kinds of terrorist collaborators from the Gaza Strip, as well as from Hezbollah, also go to Sinai, which is a huge landmass that is difficult to control. It’s also hard to regulate entry visas into Sinai.”
Why Facebook Connect?
Comment on Haaretz.com articles with your Facebook login, and share your thoughts on your own wall.
- Latest
- Most Viewed
- Most Rated
- Open all
The "commercial goods" tunnels will now be available for wapons.
Wow! how generous, they will allow more aid; food that is! What about allowing goods out of Gaza, or should that area be fed by the international community forever while being denied the dignity of earning a living!
Is that the proposal actually balances legitimate interests in Gazans getting access to non military materials and products and Israel's need for security. Having said this, I'm not sure what kind of security Israel gets when Hamas remains steadfastly committed to her destruction. And call me cynical but I doubt that free-er access to more foodstuffs or medicines will actually make a difference to the quality of life for Gazans but I do hope it does. Anything that might ameliorates the meanness and hatred of Gazans is a good thing but I doubt this will do it.
So the international community must demand that Israel release prisoners, so they get Shalit back. That is how Shalit will be returned through diplomatic means, everyone understands this. But Bibi is not willing to accept the political price of being the one to release prisoners. He is too weak, and talking tough about Shalit scores more political points than actually releasing prisoners (which will cost him political points).
Bibi offered HUNDREDS of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Shalit. Some of them even had blood on their hands. The caveat with the particularly nasty ones, was that they were to be exiled. Hamas refused. You sir, are a moron, which is typical for anti-Israelis.
Bibi offered HUNDREDS of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Shalit. Some of them even had blood on their hands. The caveat with the particularly nasty ones, was that they were to be exiled. Hamas refused. You sir, are a moron, which is typical for anti-Israelis.
It would be wonderful, but how? If Israel itself has not been able to get him back with all the operations (the Gaza war), how any international organisation would be able to do it. It is only Israel and not with the violence ( it has not worked and will not work).
The "international community" did help in negotiating the deal. But as long as Netanyahu is against it, Shalit's suffering will continue. And it is well known that the Israeli government stubbornly rejects all foreign advice, so demands by other nations will not bear fruit (maybe even backfire). I suspect the right wingers even want Shalit to stay a hostage, in order to use him as an excuse for stalling the two state solution!
If it is possible to stop weapons without sealing the borders completely as was done, then they could have implemented this setup a long time ago. But of course, the blockade was never about weapons was it... just about punishing a people for democratically electing a government that had renounced violence.
"just about punishing a people for democratically electing a government that had renounced violence. " Who are you talking about? I know it can't be Hamas
Actually, the easing will allow material construction, which will go directly in Hamas's hands (what a surprise) and nowhere else: Hamas uses everything for its own use (except when it sells it for money at hefty prices). Construction material becomes bunkers. Prepare complaining for Hamas's next war. Israel will have to kill more terrorists. Oh poor murderers...
If that's Hamas you're talking about,you must be a very idiot person
Is anyone tired of Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin expressing his political policy views in public? Challenging the prime minister's proposed new Gaza blockade policy is beyond chutzpah, and in any other country he would be dumped. Whatever Diskin thinks are the risks of loosening the blockade, they are dwarfed by the risks of the deepening alienation of Israel from it's most important allies.
This sounds like a trial balloon being run up a flagpole. Lets see if anybody salutes. More importantly, will the IDF bureaucracy ignore it? And what might the blacklist include? Bricks OK, but mortar not allowed? Netanyahu has promised stuff before that turned out to be like a mirage in the desert. He specializes in promises with loopholes a mile wide. Can the EU deliver the desalination facility they tried to deliver in 2005?
"Bricks OK, but mortar not allowed?" Indeed and there's the rub. Monitor how this impacts anything and hail nothing until this is effectively done.
The Israeli raid on the Flotilla was not botched as everyone is reporting. In my mind it went well. The IDF troops expected a peaceful boarding and met with a pre planned cynical attempt to incite an incident. The IDF troops had no choice but to deal with it. That does not make it botched, it makes it correct, go in as if peaceful, if not defend yourself. Stop reporting Botched raid, tell it as it is, well executed. You dont have to excuse anything, you have the right to defend yourself. If it were USA the reporting would be cut and well forgotten by now. Even hero US marines on parade!
anywhere else this is a non issue Israel in my opinion the best place in the Middle East
Why did the IDF expect a peaceful encounter when they were on a mission to thwart the plans of another? According to the NY Times report, the action started with a "startle bomb", a loud explosion of noise, followed by IDF troops rappelling down to the ship on ropes, firing presumably paint guns -- but how were the people on the ship to know they were just paint guns --they make a load explosive.e - like pop all the same. Whether the mission was humanitarian or politically motivated (and there is nothing inherently evil about political motivations), remains to be determined. What happened in those few opening minutes seems pretty clear.
Any way you slice it, this it was a failure. Even if as you say, the IDF was caught in a "pre planned" trap, it was the IDF that fell for the trap. It was the IDF who got so stuck in the trap that they could find no other way out besides shooting somewhere around 40-60 people, killing 9 or more. If the IDF was on a "peaceful boarding" mission as you say, and they failed to control the peace without having to resort to going on a shooting spree, they botched it.
Your kidding right? The flotilla styled itself and told the world that it was peopled with "peaceful activists". What you expect, reasonably, with peaceful activists is either no resistance or passive resistance, not bars, knives and slingshots. The loud explosion followed an offer conveyed to ship organizers to deliver the humanitarian aid and followed a warning to turn around and another offer to deliver the aid. The point you make is completely misleading and in fact quite the opposite is true. The people on board had every reason to think that they would be intercepted by Israeli troops and that is what happened. That the troops expected a peaceful encounter is reflected by the toys that they boarded with.
American politics. If this had happened and the Obama administration was involved, there would be nightly calls for an investigation, charges of a cover-up, and Congressional hearings to examine the incompetence. Don't you think?
The guys on the ship were ready with every kind of weapon that they could get their hands on. In the videos I saw, they were clubbing the Israel's with long metal bars. And then throwing one over down to a lower deck. And I saw several knives (though they were mysteriously cropped out of Reuters photos).
"Why did the IDF expect a peaceful encounter when they were on a mission to thwart the plans of another? " Why did those on the flotilla expect a peaceful encounter if they were on a mission to thwart the plans of another (e.g. the blockade) -- particularly when they went prepared to act with aggression?
Paint guns and weapons do not sound anything of the same. It is not as if IDF came firing deadly weapons and suddenly those on the ship were able to quickly dismantle rails and such as for protection. There is enough evidence to show those on the ship were well prepared ahead of time to do damage and perhaps deadly confrontation if they could. Previous raids did not begin or end this way.
That the troops expected a peaceful encounter reflects the inexcusable stupidity of the people who planned the operation and briefed them.
Ships were stopped ,humanitarian aid inspected in Ashdod as promised by government (and abandoned by Hamas when it could not be used for propaganda purposes anymore) and even hired IHH murderers failed to brake the blockade so you are right when you say that the operation went well.They did not achieve their goal to brake the blockade and that is all about.
Ok guys, you say the IDF botched it. What's your ideal scenario then? I'm not talking about not taking the ship, since it could have contained weapons. Indeed, it is legal to board a ship to check it in international waters (otherwise, drug dealers would leave in boats). Now that the boat wouldn't stop, IDF had to raid it. Now they're attacked by wanna-be shahids. What's next? Get stabbed and stay calm? They shot the legs but that wouldn't dissuade the others. Only bodies did... Sorry for these Turks.