Israel can't break laws and then cry foul
Campaigner Greta Thunberg was recently detained in Israel along with other activists aboard a Gaza-bound aid boat.
Activist and campaigner Greta Thunberg gets right up the noses of conservatives around the world and now that she has set her sights on agitating for Palestinian rights, she has angered many more.
It is also true that Thunberg has a knack for gaining global publicity for her causes… which is why many of her critics will have welcomed the Israeli action to prevent her and her Gaza-bound aid boat from reaching Palestinian territory.
However, what those Thunberg haters – and supporters of Israel – are ignoring is the fact that the boat was intercepted in international waters.
Israel already will not recognise Palestinian territorial waters and has blockaded the territory to prevent arms getting in.
ALSO READ: Israeli forces seize Gaza-bound Madleen with aid and Greta Thunberg [VIDEO]
While Israel and its supporters may argue that action is pre-emptive self-defence, what is indefensible, in terms of international law, is seizing ships which are in international waters.
Doing so – and arresting the boat's crew and passengers, including Thunberg – is nothing more or less than piracy.
The Mediterranean does not belong to Israel, nor does Israel have any right to kidnap people not breaking any international law.
When you perpetually violate global laws and standards, it is much more difficult to keep claiming you are the victim.
NOW READ: 'Planetary emergency': Climate activist Greta Thunberg detained twice at Dutch protest
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Maverick
3 hours ago
- Daily Maverick
UN nuclear watchdog says Iran in breach of obligations, Iran announces counter-measures
The U.N. nuclear watchdog's board of governors declared Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations on Thursday and Tehran announced counter-measures, as an Iranian official said a "friendly country" had warned it of a potential Israeli attack. U.S. and Iranian officials will hold a sixth round of talks on Tehran's accelerating uranium enrichment programme in Oman on Sunday, the Omani foreign minister said on Thursday. But security fears have risen since U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday American personnel were being moved out of the region because 'it could be a dangerous place' and that Tehran would not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon. Trump has threatened to bomb Iran if the nuclear talks do not progress, and in an interview released on Wednesday said he had become less confident that Tehran would agree to stop enriching uranium. The Islamic Republic wants a lifting of the U.S. sanctions imposed on the country since 2018. The International Atomic Energy Agency's policy-making Board of Governors declared Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations for the first time in almost 20 years, raising the prospect of reporting it to the U.N. Security Council. The step is the culmination of several stand-offs between the Vienna-based IAEA and Iran since Trump pulled the U.S. out of a nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers in 2018 during his first term, after which that accord unravelled. An IAEA official said Iran had responded by informing the nuclear watchdog that it plans to open a new uranium enrichment facility. After the IAEA decision, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said Tehran's actions undermine the global Non-Proliferation Treaty and posed an imminent threat to regional and international security and stability. Iran is a signatory to the NPT while Israel is not and is believed to have the Middle East's sole nuclear arsenal. MARKET REACTION Markets absorbed the developments in a volatile Middle East. Oil prices eased on Thursday as the market assessed the situation, having surged more than 4% on Wednesday to their highest since early April. But shares in European airlines, travel companies and hotel chains were among the biggest fallers in morning trade as investors worried the heightened tensions would knock demand for travel and higher oil prices would add to costs. 'Clearly it is Iran that is at the centre of this and the possibility that you see a strike from the U.S. or Israel,' said Paul McNamara, a director of emerging market debt for investment firm GAM. 'There is a lot of scope for things to get a whole lot worse if we do see a military strike and a sustained attack.' Iran's response to the IAEA resolution was among several countermeasures being taken, Iranian state TV said. The IAEA official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Tehran had given no further details on the planned new enrichment sites, such as its location to enable monitoring by U.N. nuclear inspectors. Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesperson for Iran's atomic energy organisation, told state TV that Tehran had informed the IAEA of two countermeasures including 'the upgrading of centrifuges in Fordow (enrichment plant) from first to sixth generation, which will significantly boost the production of enriched uranium'. Enrichment can be used to produce uranium for reactor fuel or, at higher levels of refinement, for atomic bombs. Iran says its nuclear energy programme is only for peaceful purposes. Reiterating Iran's stance that it will not abandon the right to enrichment as an NPT member, a senior Iranian official told Reuters that rising Middle East tensions served to 'influence Tehran to change its position about its nuclear rights'. 'POTENTIAL ISRAELI STRIKE' The Iranian official said a 'friendly' country had alerted Tehran to a potential strike on its nuclear sites by arch-adversary Israel and reiterated that the Islamic Republic would not abandon its commitment to enrichment. 'We don't want tensions and prefer diplomacy to resolve the (nuclear) issue, but our armed forces are fully ready to respond to any military strike,' the official said. Iranian state media reported that Iran's military had begun drills earlier than planned to focus on 'enemy movements'. Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and Mossad head David Barnea will travel to Oman to meet U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff ahead of the U.S.-Iranian talks in another bid to clarify Israel's position, Israeli media reported on Thursday. The decision by Trump to remove some personnel from the region comes at a brittle and highly sensitive juncture in the oil-producing Middle East, where security has already been destabilised by the Gaza war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas that began in October 2023. Oil prices initially rose after Trump's announcement but later eased. Foreign energy companies were continuing their operations as usual, a senior Iraqi official overseeing operations in southern oilfields told Reuters on Thursday. The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad advised American citizens on Thursday against travelling to Iraq, Iran's western neighbour. Foreign energy firms continue to operate normally in Iraq, a senior Iraqi official told Reuters. Bahrain's state oil firm Bapco Energies is monitoring the situation in the region and its operations are unaffected, it said on Thursday, after dependents of U.S. military personnel were advised to leave the country because of regional tensions.
TimesLIVE
7 hours ago
- TimesLIVE
Iran will not compromise right to enrichment, says official
Iran will not abandon its right to uranium enrichment because of mounting frictions in the region, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Thursday, adding that a 'friendly' regional country had alerted Tehran over a potential military strike. The official said the tensions were intended to 'influence Tehran to change its position about its nuclear rights' during talks with the US on Sunday in Oman. The sixth round of US-Iran nuclear talks will be held in Muscat, the Omani foreign minister said on Thursday, after US President Donald Trump reiterated that Tehran would not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. Trump said on Wednesday that US personnel were being moved out of the Middle East because 'it could be a dangerous place'. Iran's nuclear programme is spread over many locations. While the threat of Israeli air strikes has loomed for decades, only some of the sites have been built underground. The US and the UN nuclear watchdog believe Iran had a co-ordinated, secret nuclear weapons programme that it halted in 2003. The Islamic Republic denies ever having had one or planning to have one. Iran agreed to restrictions on its nuclear activities in exchange for relief from international sanctions under a 2015 deal with world powers. That pact fell apart after Trump — then serving his first term as president — pulled the US out of it in 2018 and Iran started abandoning the restrictions in the following year. Iran has been expanding its uranium enrichment programme ever since the pact broke down, reducing the so-called 'breakout time' it would need to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a nuclear bomb to days or little more than a week from at least a year under the 2015 deal. Actually making a bomb with that material would take longer. How long is less clear and the subject of debate. Iran is now enriching uranium to up to 60% fissile purity, close to the 90% of weapons-grade, at two sites, and in theory it has enough material enriched to that level, if enriched further, for six bombs, according to a yardstick of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN watchdog. WHERE ARE IRAN'S NUCLEAR FACILITIES? NATANZ A complex at the heart of Iran's enrichment programme on a plain abutting mountains outside the Shiite Muslim holy city of Qom, south of Tehran. Natanz houses facilities including two enrichment plants: the vast, underground Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) and the above-ground Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP). An exiled Iranian opposition group revealed in 2002 that Iran was secretly building Natanz, igniting a diplomatic standoff between the West and Iran over its nuclear intentions that continues today. The FEP was built for enrichment on a commercial scale, able to house 50,000 centrifuges. About 16,000 centrifuges are installed there, roughly 13,000 of which are in operation, refining uranium to up to 5% purity. Diplomats with knowledge of Natanz describe the FEP as being about three floors below ground. There has long been debate about how much damage Israeli air strikes could do to it. Damage has been done to centrifuges at the FEP by other means, including an explosion and power cut in April 2021 that Iran said was an attack by Israel. The above-ground PFEP houses only hundreds of centrifuges but Iran is enriching to up to 60% purity there. FORDOW On the opposite side of Qom, Fordow is an enrichment site dug into a mountain and therefore probably better protected from potential bombardment than the FEP. The 2015 deal with major powers did not allow Iran to enrich at Fordow at all. It now has about 2,000 centrifuges operating there, most of them advanced IR-6 machines, of which up to 350 are enriching to up to 60%. The US, Britain and France announced in 2009 that Iran had been secretly building Fordow for years and had failed to inform the IAEA. US President Barack Obama said then: 'The size and configuration of this facility is inconsistent with a peaceful programme.' ISFAHAN Iran has a large nuclear technology centre on the outskirts of Isfahan, its second largest city. It includes the Fuel Plate Fabrication Plant (FPFP) and the uranium conversion facility (UCF) that can process uranium into the uranium hexafluoride that is fed into centrifuges. Iran also stores enriched uranium at Isfahan, diplomats say. There is equipment at Isfahan to make uranium metal, a process that is particularly proliferation-sensitive since it can be used to devise the core of a nuclear bomb. The IAEA has said there are machines for making centrifuge parts at Isfahan, describing it in 2022 as a 'new location'. KHONDAB Iran has a partially built heavy-water research reactor originally called Arak and now Khondab. Heavy-water reactors pose a nuclear proliferation risk because they can easily produce plutonium which, like enriched uranium, can be used to make the core of an atom bomb. Under the 2015 deal, construction was halted, the reactor's core was removed and filled with concrete to make it unusable. The reactor was to be redesigned 'to minimise the production of plutonium and not to produce weapon-grade plutonium in normal operation'. Iran has informed the IAEA that it plans to start operating the reactor in 2026. TEHRAN RESEARCH CENTRE Iran's nuclear research facilities in Tehran include a research reactor.
The Citizen
9 hours ago
- The Citizen
Apartheid then, apartheid now: Israel's aggression is no different
The world can no longer stand in support of Israel, while women, children and the elderly perish daily in Palestine. Activists from various civil organsations demonstrate, 28 May 2025, at the head offices of Glencore at Merose Arch in Johannesburg. Picture: Michel Bega/The Citizen In my early years in journalism, I had an opportunity to visit Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall, which had previously split East and the West Germany during the Cold War. One of the most insightful moments was a visit to Nazi concentration camps like Dachau, where thousands of Jews were persecuted – part of what the world know as the Holocaust. Holocaust and apartheid are matters that should serve as a case study for any nation to not turn back the clock. While condemning the ongoing genocide against the Palestinians, which has left tens of thousands dead and hundreds injured, the world should make a distinction between the people of Israel and the fascist government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In South Africa under apartheid, not all whites could be painted as black oppressors. Among Jews in the forefront against apartheid, were the likes of Benjamin Pogrund, Joe Slovo, Helen Suzman, Albie Sachs, Ronnie Kasrils, Ronald Segal and countless more. Like apartheid, the plight of Palestinians is something the globe should never forget. Efforts by the SA Jews for a Free Palestine (SAJFP) and other global activists in keeping the spotlight on Gaza should be commended. Referring to the Israeli army bombing 70 Palestinian apartment blocks last Sunday, with about 40 Palestinians killed fetching food, SAJFP spokesperson Daniel Friedman said: 'We feel that local 'security concerns' often seem to be a way of distracting from the crime of all crimes – the genocide and murder on a horrifying scale, occurring currently in Gaza.' 'Our purpose as an organisation is to advocate for the freedom of Palestinians, rather than focusing on our own safety as South African Jews. 'We do, however, believe that with a free Palestine, will come greater security for not only the Palestinians themselves, but for Jews and indeed all people worldwide,' said Friedman. With the support of the US government, Netanyahu and his former defence minister, Yoav Gallant, have evaded prosecution for war crimes committed against humanity for depriving Gazans of food and directing civilian attacks. ALSO READ: French grandmother files genocide complaint over Gaza killings US President Donald Trump and his cronies have instead seen fit to punish South Africa for taking the plight of the Palestinians to the International Court of Justice at the Hague. Israeli forces have also attacked activists and journalists on board the Madleen – yet another mission to transport food to the needy in Palestine. The attack on the mission, led by Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, is surely a violation against laws governing international waters. An attack on a civilian mission to help the needy, helpless and the hungry in Palestine, should get all of us to stand up. Attacks by Israel on the people of Palestine, have gone on for too long – despite the United Nations calling for an end to the war. The world can no longer stand in support of Netanyahu, while women, children and the elderly perish daily in Palestine; while we are watching as if all is normal. A call by Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) SA Chapter chair Rev Frank Chikane, to take a stand against the Israeli government, is a campaign worth supporting. The AAM has called for boycotts, disinvestment and an arms embargo against Israel – likening its practices to apartheid-era atrocities in South Africa. 'We want to ensure that countries supporting Israel stop the practice, with their citizens making sure that this happens,' Chikane has said. Until this happens, Netanyahu's reign of terror will continue. NOW READ: Israeli forces seize Gaza-bound Madleen with aid and Greta Thunberg [VIDEO]
