Whatever can be said about the legality of the raid off Gaza, it was not, as a legal matter, piracy.
Let's go to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, Article 101:
"Piracy consists of any of the following acts:
(a) any illegal acts of violence or detention, or any act of depredation, committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship or a private aircraft, and directed:
(i) on the high seas, against another ship or aircraft, or against persons or property on board such ship or aircraft;
(ii) against a ship, aircraft, persons or property in a place outside the jurisdiction of any State;
(b) any act of voluntary participation in the operation of a ship or of an aircraft with knowledge of facts making it a pirate ship or aircraft"
The section is carefully designed to exclude acts by nation-states or politically motivated violence.
6 comments:
While I agree that piracy is an innacurate term, neither Israel nor Turkey are members of UNCLOS, so the issue resolves under customary international law and the law of the seas. Whatever the cause and whomever is to blame, poor political strategy and equally poor operational tactics.
You are technically, if not morally, correct. In fact, as an attack upon a ship flying the Turkish flag upon the high seas, it was an act of war against the sovereign state of Turkey.
Things will get very interesting indeed if the Turkish Navy accompanies the next flotilla.
They were flying the Turkish flag? I know one of them was flying the US flag, but I doubt that means war.
"Things will get very interesting indeed if the Turkish Navy accompanies the next flotilla."
Yes, they would. Do you think that maybe trying to run the blockade into Gaza, by force, just might be a little provocative? The good news is you are dreaming if you think Turkey will do that. The Arab brothers of the Palestinians won't help even though they have a border, why would the non-Arab Turkish government get involved beyond a bit of posturing for their Islamist base?
I think it much more likely that the Turkish military, the protectors of the secular state, would refuse that order and return Turkey to military rule. Quebec isn't the only place Hijab-wars are being fought. Politics in Turkey are a little more complicate that you seem to think.
Complicated enough that the military won't be staging coups anytime soon, given that Turkey is trying to enter the EU. Give your head a shake.
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