Quote:
Originally Posted by jimbuna
I don't think that is actually the case Sky....there have been many instances in history where a blockade has been breached by single ships (usually) but the 'Blockade' continues to be in effect.
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Yes, you can continue a blockade, of course. But you loose the legal status of it being recognised as a "legal" blockade by treaties and/or laws.
It is a juristic formality.
I tried to find an article I read about this during the time of the first Gaza flotilla that escalated so entertainingly, but I haven't found it. There, a university professor for international law explained this and other details of how "blockades" are regulated by international treaties and laws, and very extensively he did. The "one-exception-nullifies-whole-blockade" rule either is an explicit formulation, or a implication, and I never have read or heared it being disupted by law experts.
I am certain that I repeated the key points and also the detail you mention correctly, and while checking that again, I only found this mistake: I said the declaration of London was 1919, but in fact it was 10 years earlier, in 1909.
However, Google is everybody's friend.
What it comes down to, is this: if Israel fails a single ship to stop from breaking the blockade, then it would continue the blokckade, no doubt. But there would be an international uproar since from then on it can no longer claim that its blockade is legal and covered by international law. Go figure what that would mean in the media echo, and for the criticism fired by pro Gaza-lobbies. Once again, Israel woulkd be the bad bad bully of the bloick. Said lobbies, and Turkey, already claim - wrongly - that it is an illegal blockade right now. But then - they would be right, and political Western actors would need to distance themselves even more from Israel.
This is the reason why Turkey is pressing so strongly for breaking the blockade, Turkish ships and warship escort and such. It would be a propaganda coup with long-reaching legal consequences if even just one boat reaches the beach, and it would mount a lot of diplomatic pressure on Israel. If Israel would give up and lift the blockade, Erdoghan I. then could come and present himself as victor and collect the sentiments and build on that for acchieveing Turkish dominance in the region. He does not like that during the Arab spring revolts the Turkish flag
was not the banner under which the revolting crowds assembled.