Aid ships wait for Gaza go-ahead

IRAN // A week after announcing it would send two aid ships to Gaza, the Iranian Red Crescent made clear yesterday it has yet to receive ministerial approval for the voyage. "We are ready but awaiting permission from the foreign ministry, given the political, military and security conditions in the region," Mojtaba Majd, a senior Red Crescent official, said. That approval is likely to come, say analysts, who argue that Iran cannot risk losing face by rowing back on plans to challenge Israel's blockade of Gaza after announcing them with such fanfare.

The Iranian regime, which has long portrayed itself as the main champion of the Palestinians, also feels it has lost ground to its recent ally, Turkey. A Turkish-flagged ship led the "freedom flotilla" convoy that suffered a deadly Israeli commando raid earlier this month as it tried to deliver aid to Gaza. Nine people on board the Turkish vessel were shot dead. "Iran has sent hundreds of millions of dollars to Gaza, yet there are lots of Turkish flags there and not one Iranian flag in sight," Meir Javedanfar, an Iranian-born analyst living in Israel, said in an interview.

Iranian leaders revelled in the international condemnation of Israel's botched and bloody attack on the flotilla, joining in with their own denunciations of what the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, called the "brutal and barbaric Zionist regime". Iran's opposition green movement leaders also condemned the Israeli raid. Despite its tough rhetoric, however, the Iranian regime did not authorise mass anti-Israeli demonstrations, as it usually does on such occasions.

It feared that any pro-Palestinian protests would be hijacked by green movement supporters and turned into demonstrations against the Iranian regime, commentators said. It was a concern based on recent experience. The regime was deeply embarrassed last September when protestors exploited an ostensibly legitimate opportunity - Iran's annual al-Quds rally in support of the Palestinians - to take to the streets in huge numbers to vent their fury against their government.

Sending two aid vessels to Gaza, the regime calculates, will help restore its stature on the Palestinian issue. One of the Iranian ships is to carry food, medicine and medical equipment, the other medical staff. They are expected to sail this week, the Iranian Red Crescent said. But other far-fetched plans appear certain to come to nothing. Mr Majd declared yesterday that more than 100,000 Iranians had volunteered to sail to Gaza as aid workers and that the registration of others would continue for another fortnight.

He acknowledged, however, that they may not be sent, given the conditions in the region. "The important point is that the people of Gaza know that hundreds of thousands of brave Iranians have signed up and prepared themselves to offer help to Gazans." It also seems unlikely that anything will come of last week's suggestion by a senior Iranian regime official that Revolutionary Guard naval units could be sent to escort the two Iranian aid vessels.

Any intervention by the Iranian military would be considered highly provocative by Israel, which accuses Tehran of seeking to build a nuclear bomb, and of backing Hamas, the Islamist movement that controls Gaza. Egypt, which has no diplomatic ties with Iran, would be unlikely to allow Iranian military vessels to pass through the Suez Canal on such a mission, according to regional diplomats and analysts.

But Cairo is likely to allow aid ships passage and let Israel deal with the fallout when they approach Gazan waters, Mr Javedanfar said. The Iranian Red Crescent sent an aid ship carrying food and medicine to Gaza in December 2008 but it was prevented from reaching the impoverished Palestinian territory by the Israeli navy. Iran and Israel have had no diplomatic ties since the 1979 Islamic revolution. The autocratic, US-backed Shah enjoyed good relations with the Jewish state. But the revolutionary new regime swiftly closed the Israeli embassy, turning it over to the Palestinians to use as their diplomatic mission.

A major Tehran thoroughfare called Kakh, or Palace, because it was next to one of the ousted Shah's palaces, was renamed Palestine Avenue. Mr Ahmadinejad regularly predicts the demise of Israel. In turn, Israel, which has the Middle East's sole, if undeclared nuclear arsenal, has refused to rule out a resort to military action against Iran to prevent it acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. Iran insists its nuclear programme is solely peaceful in nature. Any military-escorted Iranian aid effort would be most unwelcome in the Arab world, which opposes the blockade on Gaza, but is also wary of Iranian interventions.

Mr Javedanfar said: "No one wants Iranian participation turning the attention of the world away from the humanitarian issue [in Gaza] into an [Israeli] confrontation with Iran." mtheodoulou@thenational.ae