Israel Attacks Aid Ship Off Malta (Kevin Barrett and Charlotte Kates on Press TV)

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Hello and welcome to Spotlight. Israel’s blockade on Gaza knows no borders as a civilian aid ship bound for Gaza has been hit by Israeli drone strikes in international waters off Malta. Outrage is growing as activists and human rights organizations have slammed the attack, calling it a grave violation of international law, marking yet another violent escalation in Israel’s long-standing campaign to block humanitarian missions from reaching Gaza.

The vessel, part of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, was struck near Malta, igniting a fire and forcing the crew to send out a desperate distress signal. The Maltese government confirmed 16 people were on board, but the Freedom Fertile Coalition insists there were 30 activists and crew members, all civilians, whose lives were at risk. The coalition has called for Israeli ambassadors worldwide to be summoned, demanding accountability for what they describe as a blatant violation of international law, including the bombing of civilian ships and the illegal blockade of Gaza.

Reacting to the Israeli attacks, Hamas condemned it as state terrorism and maritime piracy, urging the UN Security Council to take immediate action. Palestinian Islamic Jihad echoed those calls, accusing Israel of endangering humanitarian workers and flouting moral and legal norms. Both groups praised the activists for their bravery, emphasizing that their mission was purely humanitarian to deliver urgently needed food and medical supplies to Gaza’s starving and besieged population. The Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement also reacted to the attack, saying that it shows Israel has no respect for international law and conventions.

This is not an isolated incident, as human rights organizations point to a clear and documented pattern of Israeli aggression against aid flotillas. Euromed Humanitarian Rights Monitor has called for an independent investigation, stating that the attack violates the UN Charter, the Law of the Sea, and the Rome Statute, which prohibits targeting humanitarian missions. The group stressed that Israel has a history of using lethal force to prevent aid from reaching Gaza, even in international waters, far from its own shores. The most infamous case was the 2010 Gaza flotilla raid, when Israeli commandos stormed the Mavi Marmara, killing nine activists and wounding dozens. That ship, like this one, carried no weapons, only medicine, food, and building materials for Gaza’s civilians. Israel confiscated evidence, leaving survivors to recount the horror.

Now, 14 years later, the same brutal tactics are being used again, as Gaza’s 2.3 million people remain trapped under a 17-year blockade, with hospitals out of medicine, children starving, and families eating animal feed to survive.

And these are our guests joining us for tonight’s edition of Spotlight. International coordinator at the Samadun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, Charlotte Kates, joining us from the Lebanese capital, Beirut. And we also have Kevin Barrett joining us from Saadia, Morocco. Welcome to the program. To both of our guests, let’s start off with Ms. Charlotte Kates. In Beirut, a vessel belonging to the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, the name of the ship Conscience, carrying aid to Gaza, has come under attack by Israeli drones in international waters near Malta. Share with us your initial reaction to hearing the news that the Gaza Aid Flotilla had come under attack.

Well, this is yet another example of the blatant impunity and the complete disregard for international law, the law of the seas and the laws of humanity. You have an occupation entity that is carrying out a genocide in Gaza. And so we can see the blatant commitment to absolute impunity taking place on a daily basis in Gaza. And we’re seeing that taking place around the world right now. This drone attack on a civil society humanitarian aid mission that is working to break the illegal blockade and siege imposed upon Gaza and bring aid that has been denied completely. not just for the past several months, but really fundamentally for over 17 years, being attacked in international waters with passengers and crew left to wait for hours for any kind of rescue or support. I mean, this just shows how severe the crisis is, and how necessary it is that there is real, meaningful international action to impose accountability on the Zionist regime for its ongoing crimes against humanity. Those crimes against humanity are not just limited to the borders of occupied Palestine. After tens of thousands of martyrs in Gaza, after the expulsion from the refugee camps of the West Bank, of tens of thousands of Palestinians. Just like in 2010, when we saw the violent assault on the Mavi Marmara of the same Freedom Flotilla Coalition, today we are seeing the same kind of violent attack taking place again. And this requires a serious, meaningful accountability to be imposed if there is to be any meaning to the concept of laws of the sea, maritime law, or international law.

Kevin Barrett, this is not an isolated incident with the Israelis having a history of attacking eight flotillas that were attempting to challenge the illegal naval blockade of Gaza. Of course, back in 2010, the Gaza Freedom Flotilla was attacked by Israel. A Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmara, was raided by Israeli commandos. Nine were killed. Around 50 were wounded. I covered that incident myself personally here on Press TV. There was no accountability for that attack. Fast forward to today, and the Israelis continue such actions, most likely with full impunity.

That’s right. And this history actually doesn’t just go back to 2010. In fact, it’s an example of Zionist terrorism, which goes back really to even before the founding of the official Zionist entity in 1948. Thomas Suarez’s book, State of Terror, explains how Israel invented modern terrorism, brought it not only to the region, but really to the world, and has been the leading terrorist entity in the world ever since, certainly on a per capita basis. But even in terms of its assassinations, it’s likely that, as Ronan Bergenman suggests in his book, Rise and Kill First, that Israel has carried out more political assassinations than all the other nations on earth combined, which is astounding considering that the population of Israel is only around 15 million. This tiny little country is slaughtering people all over the world in countries much larger and theoretically more powerful than it.

So this is part of a pattern of of terrorism and lawlessness that goes hand in hand with the history of this Zionist entity which is a lawless illegal entity from the get-go. It was never legally made an actual nation the security council resolution that voted in favor of that did not actually authorize or make official the existence of any such nation. It was simply an advisory vote. It would have required a Security Council vote to make Israel a legal nation. That never happened. So it’s not a legal nation under international law. And boy, do they ever act like it’s an illegal nation. They’re an outlaw, rogue, piratical terrorist organization that’s based in an occupied territory where they’re committing genocide. And the fact that they’re willing to slaughter people and in this case, thank God, they didn’t actually kill anybody, but with the Mavi Marmara of course they did. And they’re certainly willing to kill innocent people not only to kill tens of tens of thousands of women and children in Gaza, which is happening even as we speak. But anybody who wants to even bring food and water to the starving people, the people dying of thirst, in Gaza, is risking being attacked and killed by these genocidal maniacs. This makes a complete mockery out of international law and the international community. And the European Union, which fancies itself a flag bearer in the push for international respect for human rights and international law, is completely asleep on the job, letting the Israelis carry out these kinds of terrorist attacks against their part of the world without any kind of meaningful reaction.

Charlotte Cates, it’s not just aid convoys, it’s medical workers, journalists, even UN peacekeepers that have been targeted by Israel, according to data by the Committee to Protect Journalists. The Israeli war on Gaza has killed more journalists over the past year and a half than any other conflict over the past 30 years. What does this say about the Israeli intent? As Mr. Barrett just also pointed out, the attacks and massacres have not just been against the resistance in Gaza.

Well, certainly not. I mean, this is a genocide. And as a genocide, that means it’s an attack against an entire people, against an entire population. And so it’s the entire Palestinian people that are under attack. And we see that who and where does the occupation bomb with their U.S. made and U.S. provided and German made and U.S. and German provided bombs and missiles and weaponry? It’s refugee camps, it’s schools, it’s hospitals, it’s universities, it’s markets, it’s aid distribution points. It’s all of the things that are necessary for daily life. And so what we’ve actually seen is an assassination policy that is not limited to the political leadership of the resistance or the military leadership of the resistance. And it’s an assassination policy in Gaza being directed at journalists, hospital workers, health workers, paramedics. For example, we just saw several weeks ago the massacre of 15 paramedics and civil defense workers, of civil service workers who are working to repair damaged places, of aid workers, of police, of basically all of the elements of society that help and allow the society to continue to flourish and continue to grow. And so attacking all of these is part and parcel of carrying out a genocide that is designed to eliminate the Palestinian population or to force it from its land through ethnic cleansing. This is the same reason why we see the mass imprisonment of Palestinians, why we see the mass use of torture against Palestinian prisoners, and the same reason we’re seeing this attack on the flotilla, because by denying Palestinians food and necessary aid, this enables the Zionist regime to carry out and accomplish its aims of genocide in Gaza and throughout occupied Palestine.

Kevin Barrett, a guest that we spoke to earlier regarding this incident said that such attacks cannot happen without the full support of the United States. And what is really alarming is that the U.S.’s tentacles, in his own words, can even extend into Europe. Do you see it in that light as well?

That’s right. The United States is guilty of genocide, right alongside the government of Israel. And the Europeans aren’t much better, but they do have the excuse of being occupied by the United States. Although that occupation, of course, has been thrown into chaos by the current Trump regime, which is basically declaring war on a number of America’s previous vassals, like the Canadians and the Europeans. So things are currently in total flux. But no, it’s true that the U.S. government is part and parcel of this genocide. And it wouldn’t have continued for one day if the U.S. government had said no back in October of 2023. But instead, the U.S. government said, “oh yeah, no problem,” and has been supplying the weapons that the Israelis are using, these huge bombs that they’re dropping on apartment blocks to murder whole families, women and children, making no real serious pretense of going after military leadership of the resistance, just exterminating and torturing the civilian population. This is the worst possible war crime, the crime of genocide.

And even before this genocide of Gaza, Professor Francis Boyle, the late great Professor Boyle of the University of Illinois, one of the greatest international law professors, had written a very convincing paper pointing out that Israel was already guilty of genocide against Palestine. But this Gaza massacre that just seems to never end is really making it something that the world can no longer ignore. And as a citizen of the United States, I am beyond ashamed of my government. I’m at the point right now where I honestly feel that taking up arms against these genocide perpetrators is absolutely required under the R2P responsibility to protect provision of international law. That is, the United States so-called government, the Israeli so-called government, are committing the worst crime that it’s possible for human beings to commit. And that obliges all people of conscience to do everything they can, including military action, to stop those crimes.

Charlotte Cates, talking about this support that the Israeli regime receives from the United States and a number of other European countries as well. Looking at all the non-combatants that have been targeted and killed by the Israelis, apart from just the innocent Gazans, all those that we just mentioned earlier, aid workers and journalists and peacekeepers and so on, even including staff from the World Central Kitchen that were murdered, in Gaza, shouldn’t the countries that are supporting the regime start to feel ashamed about this unconditional support?

I mean, speaking about noncombatants, it’s important for us to be clear that people who are living under occupation have an absolute right to engage in armed struggle and resistance struggle and resistance to defeat that occupation and to liberate their land. On the other hand, those who are carrying out an occupation have absolutely no right to so-called self-defense, because there is no right to defend yourself while engaged in the plunder and suppression of an entire population. And of course, genocide is the greatest crime in international law. So what we are seeing all along is not a case of the United States and these European powers somehow believing in a false story that’s being sold to them by the occupation regime. What we’re looking at is partners in crime and genocide. Fundamentally, the Zionist regime serves as an outpost of Western imperialism in the region, and they view its perpetuation as essential to maintaining domination and hegemony over the people of the region to prevent any kind of independent development and self-determination. And so this is the reason why the United States is throwing billions upon billions upon billions of dollars of weaponry to the Zionist regime in order to massacre Palestinians. This isn’t because they’ve been bamboozled. This is because they are part and parcel of the crime that’s taking place. And any kind of real accountability for genocide. requires holding them accountable as well.

Kevin Barrett, A, where’s the international condemnation for this attack on the aid flotilla? And B, where’s the mainstream media coverage and outrage?

Well, the condemnation is right here. You’re watching it. But the mainstream media coverage is…well, some of it isn’t quite as bad as I was afraid it might be. The mainstream coverage of this genocide has been so atrocious that I honestly think that many of the people who control Western journalism are exposing themselves to being prosecuted as accomplices in genocide. But I did look at a couple of stories about this and it’s kind of amusing to see how the authors of these mainstream media stories try to sort of dance around the fact that this is fact that this was the Israelis firing a drone at the ship and putting a hole in it and endangering the lives of these people. The way the (CNN) story is written, they take Israel’s not admitting to it openly as some kind of evidence that, well, maybe it didn’t happen or maybe they’re just making it up. But then the pictures show the damaged ship. And they pull up the flight records showing the Israeli military plane that flew right over this ship, straight from occupied Palestine and back, not landing anywhere else, right at the time that the drone was fired. So it seems as if it’s kind of schizophrenic or two-minded that, on the one hand, the mainstream journalists are trying to report known facts. And on the other hand, because those known facts get in the way of the pro-Zionist slant and the apology for genocide, they have to somehow try to write them in a way that allows some sort of wiggle room. And so they’re really writing themselves into pretzel positions and contortions of logic. But still the facts shine through, even in the couple of mainstream stories that I looked at about this particular incident. But they’re not writing it in such a way as to make their audience outraged the way their audience ought to be outraged. And that goes for the entire story of this genocide. The media is covering it in such a way as to try to prevent the outrage that should have been unanimous and worldwide and should have stopped this genocide a year and a half ago.

Sure. And Charlotte, Kate, same question to you as well. Where’s the mainstream media coverage? Where’s the outrage against this attack on an aid flotilla in international waters?

The fact is that people throughout this entire genocide have been getting their information about what is taking place, not from the mainstream media, but from social media, despite the censorship by big tech corporations, from independent media, and from other sources of information. We are calling this the world’s first live streamed genocide. But that live streaming is not taking place on mainstream US or European media. By and large, those platforms are designed to actually minimize the level of information that people have, because the fact is that most people, even in the heart of the imperial core, do not want to be carrying out this genocide. They are living their everyday lives. They do not see an interest in massacring the Palestinian people, in forcing Palestinians out of Gaza, in bombing schools and refugee camps, in killing kids looking for food, in slaughtering families in their beds, in kicking tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees out of their homes, in attacking Lebanon, in attacking Yemen, in attacking all of the people of the region. The only way that they’re able to manufacture consent for these policies is through lying, distortion, misinformation. But it’s also through just refusing to give people the information about what’s going on.

Speaking about this happening in Malta..In 1995 the Zionist regime murdered Fethi Shikaki, the founder of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in Malta. And in response to that, the Israeli embassy wasn’t even asked to close, the ambassador wasn’t recalled. And there was no prosecution and there was no accountability. And that was 30 years ago. But it’s clear that the lesson taken from that was one of absolute impunity to continue these crimes and attacks everywhere around the world. This is why the Palestinian resistance in the late 1960s and early 1970s pursued the policy that we’re going to be behind our enemy everywhere, that we saw with the actions that were taken by Wadiya Haddad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and others, because the fact is that the Zionist regime is behind the Palestinian people and really anyone who is standing for justice and accountability and liberation around the world and poses a threat to them everywhere.

Kevin Barrett, about the issue of accountability, what steps can be taken to prosecute Israeli war criminals, and how can the issue of accountability begin to take shape?

Well, people can pressure the legal systems in whatever jurisdiction they’re in. Here in Morocco, there was pressure that led to the arrest of an IDF person who had come to Morocco. He was held for several months, and I unfortunately think they managed to ship him back. They should have locked him up for longer. But all over the world, there are opportunities for trying to hold these people to account. And even where the legal systems are not responsive, it is possible to find ways of shaming war criminals. Basically, anybody who served in the IDF at this point is a presumed war criminal. And these people that serve in the IDF do go all over the world. They have certain kinds of vacation spots where they show up in great numbers, and they make themselves targets for various forms pushback by people who want to see some kind of justice for this genocide. So both pressure on legal systems – and some places it will work in some places it won’t – and calling for other kinds of prosecutions that we want to see at The Hague and so on, the large-scale prosecutions – building up movements for that – is one track to follow.

And then of course the other track is to track these war criminals. We have facial recognition, we have all kinds of tools that people can deploy through social media to figure out who these people are, posting themselves after they’ve slaughtered a family, they dress up in the women’s panties and dance around and film themselves and put it on social media. Well, we’ve got their face. Facial recognition means anywhere that guy ever goes again in his life, we can be on top of him.

So there are all sorts of ways to push for accountability, and we need to be using every last one of them.

Charlotte Cates, our last question to you, the issue of accountability. Given the unequivocal support that the Israelis have from the likes of the United States, how can this issue of accountability begin to take shape?

Well, it’s going to require action from people in the United States as well. Right now what we’re seeing is that it’s the Palestinian resistance, the Yemeni resistance, the Lebanese resistance, the people of Iran, really all of the people of the region who are fundamentally leading the world in demanding accountability and attempting to impose that accountability. Efforts like this flotilla, like the mass demonstrations we’re seeing around the world, like the vast growing boycott movement to refuse to do business with corporations that continue to profit from the occupation, are part of this kind of grassroots international movement that has really snowballed in the past 18 months amid the genocide. But it’s necessary to escalate those actions, to put real meaningful forms of pressure on the governments that are continuing to provide the weaponry, the funds, and the unlimited diplomatic and political support that allow this impunity and to allow these war crimes and this genocide to continue. The fact is that if the US, European, et cetera, protection was removed from the Zionist regime, it would fall tomorrow. And so they are fully responsible for these crimes, and it’s going to require real mobilization, action, boycotts, strikes, and intensification and escalation of organizing by all means in order to create a situation in which it is possible to impose accountability on the Zionist regime for war crimes. Because it is not going to take accountability by itself. It can only be imposed upon it.

Okay, we’re going to end the discussion on that note. Thanks to my guest Charlotte Kates joining us from the Lebanese capital Beirut and thanks to Mr. Kevin Barrett speaking to us from Saidia, Morocco. And also special thanks to your viewers for staying with us on tonight’s edition of Spotlight. It’s goodnight for now and see you next time.

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