Gaza: Collective Punishment is Terrorism

Gazans elected the HAMAS party to lead them in a
free and fair election endorsed by the US and Israel
before the results were known. After HAMAS was
elected a Blockade was implemented as Collective
Punishment by Israel to punish the people of Gaza
for their free choice. A blockade without provocation
is an act of war. It punishes people by depriving them
from exporting and importing materials which crushes
the ability to build a viable economy. It is no crime Gaza
has responded to the blockade with rocket attacks and
calls for the destruction of a state whose officers have been
candid about starving the people of Gaza to near death.
The United States has fully supported this illegal blockade
along with two brutal bombings and one invasion with
weaponry, diplomatic cover and tax dollars.

Last year an Humanitarian Aid ship, full of unarmed

activists and out of Turkey, sailed to Gaza through

international waters and was attacked by the IDF.

Nine people were killed and one was a 19 year old

US citizen. The United States upheld Israel's right

to defend itself despite the event taking place in

International Waters without any credible threat

to Israel. This controversy was buried in the United States

with zealous defense of Israeli piracy and condemnation

of the activists trying to bring food and material to people

suffering under a criminal blockade.

Today Flotilla ships are docked in the port of Athens.

One ship is manned with American activists, even an

elderly Jewish survivor of the Holocaust, who wish to

protest the criminal blockade. The US Secretary of State

released a statement warning American citizens on

the boat they are needlessly provocative and,

furthermore, Israel "has a right to defend itself".

This statement grants Israel permission to be brutal

as possible and kill as many US activists in International

Waters as they wish with impunity and that Americans

should not expect the support of their government against

high seas piracy. The statement went further by intimating

American activists on the flotilla could be prosecuted in the

US if they join this flotilla for Material Supporter of

Terrorists(HAMAS).

The people of Gaza are in Limbo. Leaders they freely

chose are titled terrorists. As a result, they cannot

"legally" receive humanitarian aid according to a few

states who uphold an illegal Blockade. Collective

Punishment is Terrorism. Pronouncements of a

state against another state waging war on its people

is not Terrorism. The state whose people are being

collectively punished, a War Crime, has a right to

defend itself against the nation enforcing the Blockade.