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Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/ct-perspec-0703-flotilla-20110703,0,3044501.story
International Law and the Flotilla II
(Chicago Tribune) Robert P. Barnidge Jr. - In the coming days, a flotilla of pro-Palestinian activists is set to break Israel's naval blockade of Gaza in what many see as a publicity stunt wrapped in a humanitarian veneer. Whatever the motives of the flotilla, international law permits Israel to respond rather robustly, just as the Israel Defense Forces ended up having to do when it confronted the chaos of the Mavi Marmara flotilla in May 2010. From an international law perspective, Israel is in an armed conflict with Hamas, the de facto governing authority of Gaza. Hamas has fired thousands of rockets into southern Israel in recent years as part of its concerted plan, to quote from its 1988 covenant, "to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine." If the upcoming flotilla attempts to break the naval blockade and ignores radio warnings and refuses to stop its journey, the IDF should exercise maximum restraint. At the same time, however, Israel should be careful not to make the same naive assumptions about the flotilla's passengers that it made in 2010, namely that all of the passengers aboard the Mavi Marmara were committed practitioners of nonviolent civil disobedience along the lines of Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. This would be both folly and a dereliction of its rights under international law. The writer is a lecturer at the School of Law at the University of Reading in England.