On Monday 31st May 2010 Israeli forces stormed a flotilla of ships carrying aid and medical equipment to Gaza, 40 miles out to sea in what are traditionally seen as international waters, killing and injuring many peaceful activists.

Many people around the World have rightly condemned this criminal act and Israeli leader Netanhayu has cancelled a scheduled meeting with US President Obama. Following these events we would like to make the following points:

1. Israel’s latest murderous crime proves more than ever that they have little regard for human life or that they have been condemned for murder and piracy. They cared nothing that they were condemned after previous massacres in Jenin, Lebanon and Gaza. Calls for a ‘peace process’ only strengthen Israel. A ‘two-state solution’ would institutionalise imprisonment and oppression of Muslims. A repeated use of massive force, murderous actions and arrogance is the response of all nationalists and supremacists throughout history justifying killing and oppression in order for their ‘survival’.

2. Only armies can defend against an army of occupation. The Arab countries surrounding Palestine have sufficient force to liberate the usurped land, and end the oppression of the people – with over 2 million soldiers, spending over $100 billion on arms annually. Egypt alone has 220 F-16 fighter planes and 450,000 soldiers. Why is it that aid workers have to risk life and limb to do the good work of breaking the sanctions isolating Gaza when there is enough strength to deliver help?

3. The treacherous regimes in the Muslim world are the real protectors of Israel. It is only the treacherous regimes that block the Muslim armies from fulfilling their duty. Their condemnations and calls for ‘emergency summits’ are meaningless gestures while they maintain diplomatic, trade and military cooperation with Israel, as they have done before and after every criminal act of the past few decades.

4. These regimes must be replaced with the Islamic Khilafah – with rulers like Salahuddin or Mehmed al Fatih – that would mobilise the armies, liberate the land and rule over Muslim lands with justice, stability and harmony. Indeed, it is only under Islamic governance that this region enjoyed any peace and stability for any significant period.

5. The muted responses from Washington and London should surprise no one. Israel was conceived by the British government in the Balfour declaration and has been nurtured and strengthened by the West for decades, for their national interests. Doubtless they will try their best to resume the ‘Road Map’ to a ‘two-state solution’ – in their national interests – but for Muslims in Palestine such a road would be little more than institutionalising imprisonment and subjugation.

We call upon all Muslims to join the call for the corrupt regimes to be removed and establish the Islamic Khilafah to enable the Ummah to act as it should and liberate the whole of Palestine.

Hizb ut-Tahrir
Britain

31st May 2010
17th Jumada II, 1431