The core problem in resolving the Israeli Apartheid is that this is the liberal option:
I’m not asking Israel to be Utopian. I’m not asking it to allow Palestinians who were forced out (or fled) in 1948 to return to their homes. I’m not even asking it to allow full, equal citizenship to Arab Israelis, since that would require Israel no longer being a Jewish state. I’m actually pretty willing to compromise my liberalism for Israel’s security and for its status as a Jewish state.”
There may be Israeli’s who genuinely want to end Apartheid, just like there were White South Africans who wanted to end theirs, but they’re too few and too powerless to count, unless Israel starts to suffer for its policies the way South Africa suffered. Hence the importance of the boycott and disinvestment campaign as well as the aid offered to the Palestinian population.
Which is part of the reason why the relief flottila was attacked the way it was, as Jim Henley explains:
Simply, the Jewish people have historically been weak. The Israeli state is currently strong. It’s the only military power of significance in its region and it has the apparently unswerving support of the only global military power that matters. Israel attacked the relief convoy because Israel did not want the relief convoy reaching Gaza, and the convoy offered an opportunity to demonstrate that it meant what it said. In particular that it wasn’t going to stand on ceremony about technicalities like “international waters†or “attacking civilians.†It’s not more complcated than that.
As I said before, Israel wanted to make it clear that they and only they would decide when the population of Gaza had suffered enough and was allowed help.
Meanwhile, here’s what happens if you attempt to protest this attack in the Occupied Westbank:
A 21-year old American student at Cooper Union lost an eye after getting hit in the face with a tear gas projectile fired by an Israeli soldier during a demonstration at a crowded checkpoint between Israel and the West Bank yesterday. Emily Henochowicz (here’s her blog) was part of a group protesting the deaths of at least nine pro-Palestinian activists aboard the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. According to her fellow activists, Henochowicz is undergoing surgery to remove her left eye, and one protester, Sören Johanssen, says Israeli soldiers intentionally fired at her face:
“They clearly saw us,” says Johanssen. “They clearly saw that we were internationals and it really looked as though they were trying to hit us. They fired many canisters at us in rapid succession. One landed on either side of Emily, then the third one hit her in the face.” Israeli soldiers have previously killed and injured demonstrators with tear gas canisters.