Israel under fire for aid ship attack

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There was increased international criticism today of Israel for its raid on a flotilla of aid ships trying to get relief to Gaza. The raid left nine pro-Palestinian activists dead. Former US diplomat Edward Peck was on one of the ships. He tells anchor Marco Werman about the experience.

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MARCO WERMAN:  I’m Marco Werman.  This is The World.  The international community is stepping up its criticism of Israel’s attack on a flotilla of aid ships that were trying to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza.  NATO’s Secretary General condemned the loss of lives in the assault and he demanded the immediate release of ships and civilians.  Turkey called the assault a bloody massacre.  Meanwhile, Israel is holding around 600 of the pro-Palestinian activists in detention centers.  It has deported a few others.  One is former U.S. diplomat Edward Peck.  He was onboard one of the ships in the flotilla, not the one where the violence occurred.  Ambassador Peck is now back home in Chevy Chase, Maryland.  He recounts what happened early yesterday morning.

EDWARD PECK:  Israeli soldiers came on boar at 4:00 in the morning and the passengers had determined that they would offer passive resistance, getting in the way, in other words.  So we had people try to block access to the wheelhouse and engine room and so forth.  This was a very small ship, you know, 30 meters.  And some of the people got roughed up.  We had some bruises, some bashes, some twists, some cuts, nothing vicious, nothing serious.  I’m not defending what they did, understand.  But I served in the military twice, and I know what you’re supposed to do when you have that kind of a situation.

WERMAN: I’m wondering if you’ve seen the video of the lead ship, the Mavi Marmara that was presented by the Israeli Defense Force.  It’s the video that they shot.

PECK: I’ve seen a photograph of it in one of the newspapers, but one of the advantages that the Israelis have here is that everybody else has been incommunicado since 4:00 Saturday morning.  So they are in total control of putting out the information as to what happened.

WERMAN: So it would be kind of unfair for me to ask you about the video that I’ve seen that you haven’t seen.  Tell me, though, why were there 600 people on this mission?

PECK: Well there were more than that.  There were more than 30 countries involved in this thing and a number of organizations who went on a humanitarian mission.  Everybody was unarmed; there was no military or that kind of equipment on board the cargo ships.  They went to bring to the people of Gaza supplies and hope.

WERMAN: So you didn’t see any evidence of people looking for a fight?

PECK: I did not.  I did not see it at all.

WERMAN: What did you think your presence would achieve?  What did you see your role as?

PECK: Me personally?

WERMAN: Yes.

PECK: Being a reasonably well informed and quite balance American on these issues, I went to see if I could find some way to help to bridge the gap.  For example, I don’t see any reason why it could not have been discussed between the Israelis and representatives of Hamas if the Israelis couldn’t let the supplies and medical equipment and so forth come into Gaza and be inspected there by the Israelis.

WERMAN: But the Israelis did say we’d let it through as long as we can inspect it.  Does it really matter where the boat gets inspected?

PECK: You had to land it in Israel, turn it over to them, and given the fact that the Gaza strip has been under a blockade now for all this time, there wasn’t much confidence that they would actually do it.

WERMAN: Which raises a question for me about your presence on the boat Mr. Peck?  Surely you recognize that any mission like this will have a highly provocative quality given precisely the blockade.  You have to challenge the blockade in order to get the aid to Gaza.

PECK: This is exactly what we wanted to do, but peacefully.  We did not come with any intent to harm anyone.

WERMAN: U.S. Ambassador Edward Peck, thank you for your time.

PECK: A pleasure, and thank you for yours.

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