israeli navy kills gaza activists - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

roachboy · 05-31-2010, 06:45 AM

o my.
so it appears that the israeli navy intercept a well-publicized flotilla of ship and activist heading to gaza with tons of supplies. shooting happened and depending on the source between 10-19 people are now dead.

Quote:

Israel attacks Gaza aid fleet

Al Jazeera's report on board the Mavi Marmara before communications were cut

Israeli forces have attacked a flotilla of aid-carrying ships aiming to break the country's siege on Gaza.

At least 19 people were killed and dozens injured when troops intercepted the convoy of ships dubbed the Freedom Flotilla early on Monday, Israeli radio reported.

The flotilla was attacked in international waters, 65km off the Gaza coast.

Avital Leibovich, an Israeli military spokeswoman, confirmed that the attack took place in international waters, saying: "This happened in waters outside of Israeli territory, but we have the right to defend ourselves."

Footage from the flotilla's lead vessel, the Mavi Marmara, showed armed Israeli soldiers boarding the ship and helicopters flying overhead.

The Israeli military said four soldiers had been wounded and claimed troops opened fire after "demonstrators onboard attacked the IDF Naval personnel with live fire and light weaponry including knives and clubs".

Free Gaza Movement, the organisers of the flotilla, however, said the troops opened fire as soon as they stormed the convoy.

Our correspondent said that a white surrender flag was raised from the ship and there was no live fire coming from the passengers.

Before losing communication with our correspondent, a voice in Hebrew was clearly heard saying: "Everyone shut up".

Israeli intervention

Earlier, the Israeli navy had contacted the captain of the Mavi Marmara, asking him to identify himself and say where the ship was headed.

Shortly after, two Israeli naval vessels had flanked the flotilla on either side, but at a distance.

Organisers of the flotilla carrying 10,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid then diverted their ships and slowed down to avoid a confrontation during the night.

They also issued all passengers life jackets and asked them to remain below deck.

Al Jazeera’s Ayman Mohyeldin, reporting from Jerusalem, said the Israeli action was surprising.

"All the images being shown from the activists on board those ships show clearly that they were civilians and peaceful in nature, with medical supplies on board. So it will surprise many in the international community to learn what could have possibly led to this type of confrontation," he said.

Meanwhile, Israeli police have been put on a heightened state of alert across the country to prevent any civil disturbances.

Sheikh Raed Salah,a leading member of the Islamic Movement who was on board the ship, was reported to have been seriously injured. He was being treated in Israel's Tal Hasharon hospital.

In Um Al Faham, the stronghold of the Islamic movement in Israel and the birth place of Salah, preparations for mass demonstrations were under way.

Protests

Condemnation has been quick to pour in after the Israeli action.

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, officially declared a three-day state of mourning over Monday's deaths.

Turkey, Spain, Greece, Denmark and Sweden have all summoned the Israeli ambassador's in their respective countries to protest against the deadly assault.
Worldwide outrage has followed the deadly Israeli attack of Gaza aid convoy [AFP]

Thousands of Turkish protesters tried to storm the Israeli consulate in Istanbul soon after the news of the operation broke. The protesters shouted "Damn Israel" as police blocked them.

"(The interception on the convoy) is unacceptable ... Israel will have to endure the consequences of this behaviour," the Turkish foreign ministry said in a statement.

Ismail Haniya, the Hamas leader in Gaza, has also dubbed the Israeli action as "barbaric".

Hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists, including a Nobel laureate and several European legislators, were with the flotilla, aiming to reach Gaza in defiance of an Israeli embargo.

The convoy came from the UK, Ireland, Algeria, Kuwait, Greece and Turkey, and was comprised of about 700 people from 50 nationalities.

But Israel had said it would not allow the flotilla to reach the Gaza Strip and vowed to stop the six ships from reaching the coastal Palestinian territory.

The flotilla had set sail from a port in Cyprus on Sunday and aimed to reach Gaza by Monday morning.

Israel said the boats were embarking on "an act of provocation" against the Israeli military, rather than providing aid, and that it had issued warrants to prohibit their entrance to Gaza.

It asserted that the flotilla would be breaking international law by landing in Gaza, a claim the organisers rejected.

Israel attacks Gaza aid fleet - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

this on the unfolding reactions to this:
Israel attacks Gaza flotilla - live coverage | World news | guardian.co.uk

more information here:
ei: The Electronic Intifada
this site has a definite agenda but the info is often quite good and is stuff you wont see elsewhere.

i have to say this surprised me quite alot. i wouldn't have expected the israeli navy to board these ships to begin with much less start shooting.

the issue behind all this is the ongoing israeli blockade of gaza, which preceded the massacre of december 2008 by over a year and which continues still. there is little pressure on israel to end the blockade really, though countries will protest about it when something comes up. the united states has shifted its policy toward israel a bit, focusing on the obvious problems caused by the settlements which is good i think, but has not gone anywhere near far enough either on them (stopping the construction of new ones is a step but they really should be taken down. all of them) or on gaza. so an international activist coalition assembled a group of ships loaded them with medical supplies and food and headed toward gaza.

and between 4-5 this morning, the boarding and shooting happened.

what do you make of this?
what should the response of the united states be?
what do you think the israelis are doing? they cannot possibly imagine that this incident helps anything....

what do you think about the ongoing blockade of the gaza strip?
is this an issue that concerns you?

Seaver · 05-31-2010, 07:47 AM

I think we'll have to see what happens as more information comes to light. I'm not doubting Israel's ability to come down with a hammer.... but they are generally pretty reserved in dealing with protests and something sounds fishy.

I have to admit, my first thought was the flotilla was likely smuggling in weapons...

roachboy · 05-31-2010, 10:09 AM

in the guardian news blogs you can check out a few video clips of what happened.
information is still changing around, but personally i don't believe that anyone from the flotilla did anything aggressive toward the israelis.

this edito is from ha'aretz:

Quote:

*

* Published 19:48 31.05.10
* Latest update 19:48 31.05.10

ANALYSIS / Israel needs national inquiry into deadly Gaza flotilla clashes
There is no other fitting or proper way to clarify the circumstances of the incident, which began as an act of protest and ended with dead demonstrators and a grave international crisis.
By Aluf Benn Tags: Gaza flotilla Israel news Benjamin Netanyahu

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must return immediately from North America and convene a national committee of inquiry into Israel's interception of a Gaza aid convoy on Monday, during which at least nine activists were killed.

There is no other fitting or proper way to clarify the circumstances of the incident, which began as an act of protest and ended with dead demonstrators and a grave international crisis.

The government failed the test of results; blaming the organizers of the flotilla for causing the deaths by ignoring Israel's orders to turn back is inadequate. Decisions taken by the responsible authorities must be probed.

Nor can Monday's bloodshed be dismissed with claims that the demonstrators attacked IDF commandos with guns and other weapons. This type of excuse shifts responsibility from the political and military decision-makers to the soldiers, who acted in the heat of combat and for fear of their lives. It may be convenient to Netanyahu and his partners in government to present the battle as a local incident that escalated – but they cannot escape responsibility for the crisis.

This time, no one can put the debacle down to inexperience. Netanayhu's predecessor, Ehud Olmert, and his defense minister, Amir Peretz – both military novices – came to grief in Lebanon in 2006 with that excuse.

The acting prime minister, Moshe Yaalon, and the defense minister, Ehud Barak, are both former chiefs of staff. Between them they have near matchless experience of military planning and combat.

Netanyahu may have been their junior during his service with the elite commando unit, Sayeret Matkal – but has a formidable record of handling intelligence and operations. They could, if pushed, have foreseen the consequences of Monday's action.

A committee of inquiry would have to answer several salient questions:

Tactics. What prompted the decision to stop the flotilla by force - what course of action was presented to the politicians who made the decision and what analysis was made of the consequences of using live fire in any confrontation?

Were there any dissenting views, was there anyone how pointed to the inevitable damage to Israel from any operational failure? What steps were taken to forestall an escalation?

Alternatives. Was any effort made to stop the flotilla through diplomacy, or through negotiation and compromise with its organizers? Or did the government rush headlong into a confrontation, without any thought for the alternatives? Was there anyone who advocated letting the boats through to Gaza, rather than making them a test of Israel's sovereignty and might?

Turkey. What has the government done in the past year to improve ties with a strategically crucial neighbor? How has the prime minister worked to redress the damage to relations with Ankara?

The siege of Gaza. What is the purpose of the siege? Is it just an automatic extension of the previous government's policy, or does it have some practical aim? How much has the usefulness of the policy been discussed during the current government's year in office?

It is clear that public opinion is broadly in favor of punishing Gaza for the continuing captivity of Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit. But the government needs to think about what advantage effect this has on the national interest – and not just on its popularity in weekly opinion polls. Did any of this happen?

Israel's Arab minority. Yisrael Beiteinu's "loyalty" campaign, an attempt by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's right-wing party to enforce laws to stamp down expressions of nationalism by Israeli Arabs, has been followed by the arrest of Arab activists charged with spying for Hezbollah. What effect will this have had on the fierceness of Israel-Arab protest? Did the government consider deepening its ties with the Arab minority? Will it act now, after leading Israeli Arab took part in the flotilla and suspected injuries to the head of the Islamic Movement's northern branch, Raed Salah, aboard one of the protest boats? Have representations been made to Arab community leaders in an effort to forestall internal conflict?

All are weighty issues that demand deep scrutiny by an independent body, which must lay its findings before the international community. Only a national committee of inquiry can meet this need and ameliorate the heavy criticism Israel will face for killing demonstrators.

ANALYSIS / Israel needs national inquiry into deadly Gaza flotilla clashes - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News

i think the above line is wise. little about this makes sense...

dlish · 05-31-2010, 10:42 AM

i have a friend of mine whos a reporter here in the UAE who was on board that ship that got attacked. we had no news of him until a few moments ago.

he just called his brother to say he is fine and is in israel and that there are 15 dead and 16 wounded. the line cut out after that. will give more info as it comes to hand.

from what ive been reading and seeing, some members used sticks or batons against the israeli commandos as they were being raided. seems somewhat of an overkill to be killing people for that. im waiting for more info.

gulfnews for the other side of the news

Willravel · 05-31-2010, 11:10 AM

Just FYI, Turkish governmental officials searched the flotilla very carefully for any kind of weapons before they were allowed to leave port. The last think Turkey wants is to be accused of arming Hamas. I'm afraid the evidence in this matter would suggest the flotilla was not armed as IDF claims.

Do we have any conclusive information about the legality of boarding aid boats in international waters? It was my understanding (layman) that no government has a right to do that.

dlish · 05-31-2010, 11:15 AM

i dont usually go to cnn, but if i wanted the israeli viewpoint, usually i go there.

anyways, from what ive read there, the commandos are saying they were fired on by people below deck. i cant say that its impossible to get weapons on there, but this was a well documented and popular story that's been covered in all the papers in news in the past few weeks. the last thing these guys wanted was a weapon on board.

Strange Famous · 05-31-2010, 11:45 AM

One of those funny terms.

I am an activist
You are a gun runner

But it is a PR disaster for Israel obviously, and they are going to have to appease Turkey.

But people shouldnt be so quick to hate Israel all the time. Their reality is having missiles shot at them every week from Gaza. This informs and influances how they behave and react.

Setting up an illegal prisoner of war camp and holding people without charge and in contravention of the Geneva convention isnt that great either, but America did it. (just as the illegal internment without charhe of Irish Nationalists by the UK isnt that great)

dlish · 05-31-2010, 12:01 PM

are you suggesting that they were running guns into the country? i see this as highly unlikely because of the media exposure over the preceeding weeks leading up to this event.

It was front page news here before it even made front page news worldwide.

i dont see the relevance of your last paragraph nor how those instances can be used to justify what the israelis did today.

Strange Famous · 05-31-2010, 12:14 PM

I am just saying that Israel are not the only country who break international law in what they perceive to be their interests

I dont know if these boats were running guns or not. The Israeli forces obviously suspected or feared that they were, the people on the boat either didnt trust the Israeli's to search the cargo, or had something to hide - at the moment we cant say which. And then someone fires a gun, or throws a rock, or hits someone with a club - and all this happens.

Israel have come out of this looking very bad certainly.

roachboy · 05-31-2010, 12:25 PM

i dont see any plausible scenario in which this group of ships could be taken for running guns.

what seems a whole lot more plausible is that the (rightwing) israeli government saw the flotilla as an embarrassment---which they should but one that follows from the continued blockade of gaza---and decided to do a bit dick-waving---you know, to prevent the ships from docking and bringing evil bad publicity and medical supplies, both of which fly in the face of israel's apparent sovereign right to brutalize the population of gaza without drawing unseemly attention.

i think that was a huge mistake in principle and the material world because when you play that game there's the possibility of things getting very chaotic very quickly and people ending up dead or wounded.

a remarkably bad idea of the sort that netanyahu is famous for.

but gun running? that's nonsense.

Willravel · 05-31-2010, 12:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dlish

the last thing these guys wanted was a weapon on board.

As I said, Turkey checked the flotilla before it left. There were no weapons on board.

roachboy · 05-31-2010, 01:06 PM

how the yay israel narrative gets out there and others don't.

Quote:

Israeli publicity machine cranks into gear over raid on Mavi Marmara

Activists on board flotilla remain silent following Israeli commando assault on convoy

The Mavi Marmara, the lead boat of a flotilla carrying aid and activists to the Gaza Strip, which was stormed by Israeli naval commandos. Photograph: Ariel Schalit/AP

From Jonah's Hill, a lookout point 50m above the Israeli port of Ashdod, the view out to sea on Monday was one of implausible nautical tranquillity.

A handful of bathers dipped into the waves breaking onto the wide sandy beach in the baking sunshine; cargo boats unloaded onto the dock beneath towering cranes.

But out there – somewhere, beyond view – was the Mavi Marmara, the scene in the early hours of today of unexpected carnage which ended in the death of at least nine, possibly more, pro-Palestinian activists.

Jonah's Hill itself was heaving. Shirtless Israeli men draped in their national flag waved placards declaring "Well done IDF" in both Hebrew and English, chanting, singing and applauding their support for the military operation.

Thick cables snaked across the ground from thrumming generators, delivering power to dozens of international TV crews, broadcasting across the globe against the backdrop of the shimmering Mediterranean.

Amid the crowd, a sophisticated public relations operation was underway. Spinners and spokesmen from the Israeli military and government departments politely answered questions and offered their own narrative of the day's events. A barrage of emails and text message alerts firing into inboxes provided a background of electronic muzak.

Shahar Arieli, deputy spokesman for the ministry of foreign affairs, wearing a smart tie despite the heat, said two of the flotilla's boats had been brought into port.

All activists would be offered the chance of immediate deportation at Israel's expense "with their passports", he said. "We want them to leave as soon as possible," he added.

Those who declined would – "as long as they weren't involved in attacks on our troops" – be processed through Israel's justice system.

His patient courtesy was not matched by all those gathered on the hill. Chaim Cohen, a 52-year-old economic consultant from Givatayim, was dripping with both sweat and bile. "We have come to support our soldiers. It is obvious it [the Mavi Marmara] is a terrorist ship. We saw it on TV – they took out knives and put them in the stomachs of the IDF."

There was nothing to challenge the Israeli version of events. Repeated attempts to reach the cell and satellite phones of activists on board the flotilla were rebuffed; it was unclear whether their phones had been confiscated, jammed or if they were simply out of range.

By late afternoon on Monday, activists with lesser injuries were being brought to hospitals in coastal towns and cities from the smaller passenger ships. At the Barzilai medical centre in Ashkelon, just north of the Gaza Strip, a Greek man in a neck brace told reporters: "They hit me." Who? "Pirates," he answered.

A dazed man with a striking black eye was unloaded from an ambulance. There had been "some brutality" on board, he said, but the activists were non-violent. "We are all Palestinian now," he said as the doors of the ER closed behind him.

Israeli publicity machine cranks into gear over raid on Mavi Marmara | World news | The Guardian

Baraka_Guru · 05-31-2010, 01:23 PM

The whole thing is a mess and is an exercise of damage control for Israel.

YouTube - Close-Up Footage of Mavi Marmara Passengers Attacking IDF Soldiers (With Sound)

Willravel · 05-31-2010, 03:06 PM

Three facts about the IDF attack on the aid ships:

Quote:

1) Israeli soldiers invaded these ships in international waters, breaking international law, and, in killing civilians, committed a war crime. The counter-claim by Israeli commanders that their soldiers responded to an imminent “lynch” by civilians should be dismissed with the loud contempt it deserves.

2) The Israeli government approved the boarding of these aid ships by an elite unit of commandoes. They were armed with automatic weapons to pacify the civilians onboard, but not with crowd dispersal equipment in case of resistance. Whatever the circumstances of the confrontation, Israel must be held responsible for sending in soldiers and recklessly endangering the lives of all the civilians onboard, including a baby.

3) Israel has no right to control Gaza’s sea as its own territorial waters and to stop aid convoys arriving that way. In doing so, it proves that it is still in belligerent occupation of the enclave and its 1.5 million inhabitants. And if it is occupying Gaza, then under international law Israel is responsible for the welfare of the Strip’s inhabitants. Given that the blockade has put Palestinians there on a starvation diet for the past four years, Israel should long ago have been in the dock for committing a crime against humanity.

Source (I numbered the facts, they only had asterisks in the article)

These facts, despite all others, make for a fairly cut and dry case. While not all information is available about this incident yet, all available and independently verifiable information points to one undeniable conclusion: the IDF forces have broken the law. They had no right to make any aggressive move on the aid ships.

Seaver · 05-31-2010, 03:18 PM

Quote:

Three facts about the IDF attack on the aid ships:
Quote:
1) Israeli soldiers invaded these ships in international waters, breaking international law, and, in killing civilians, committed a war crime. The counter-claim by Israeli commanders that their soldiers responded to an imminent “lynch” by civilians should be dismissed with the loud contempt it deserves.

2) The Israeli government approved the boarding of these aid ships by an elite unit of commandoes. They were armed with automatic weapons to pacify the civilians onboard, but not with crowd dispersal equipment in case of resistance. Whatever the circumstances of the confrontation, Israel must be held responsible for sending in soldiers and recklessly endangering the lives of all the civilians onboard, including a baby.

3) Israel has no right to control Gaza’s sea as its own territorial waters and to stop aid convoys arriving that way. In doing so, it proves that it is still in belligerent occupation of the enclave and its 1.5 million inhabitants. And if it is occupying Gaza, then under international law Israel is responsible for the welfare of the Strip’s inhabitants. Given that the blockade has put Palestinians there on a starvation diet for the past four years, Israel should long ago have been in the dock for committing a crime against humanity.

Read more: http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/tilted-...#ixzz0pYH7zX5g

1) Israel has been at war with Hamas for decades. They still receive weekly (if not daily) rocket attacks on their civilians.
2) Israel has a right to blockade Gaza as the location for which the majority of rocket attacks are launched from.
3) Regardless of the incidents, Hamas and the PLO have 60 years of smuggling in weapons through "peaceful" supply lines.

Quote:

These facts, despite all others, make for a fairly cut and dry case.

Read more: http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/tilted-...#ixzz0pYHjQMuh

Not really as I've pointed out.

Look I'm not saying it's possible that the ships were completely empty of weapons. Israel has a history of doing things for which they believe is in their defense which appear to not make any sense (including their navy sinking one of our intelligence ships).

However to point fingers before the truth falls out is bullshit.

roachboy · 05-31-2010, 03:40 PM

well, the rocket thing is wildly exaggerated, both in terms of the number of attacks and in particular their effects. this is not to say "yay rockets!" or anything like that. rather it is to say that everything about these attacks have been inflated and manipulated to justify continued brutality visited upon the population of gaza.

second, it's a matter of record that the reason for the blockade is regime change---the israelis made what turned out to be a stupid and brutal tactical choice when hamas won elections in 2006 (i think) & israel decided to undermine hamas by choking the civilian population. so the blockade has been outrageous illegal and brutal from the start--but it's never been about these rocket attacks. it's about trying to starve the population of gaza into no longer supporting hamas politically.

third, if the arms smuggling is a problem that would be a reason to clamp down on the tunnels into sinai that enable gaza to survive at all. and over the past few months egypt has been doing exactly that. i'm not sure of the status of that (they were basically building an underground metal barrier through the tunnel area) but if it's completed or close that would really increase the pressure on the **civilian** population of gaza. which may well be a motivation behind the flotilla. but the idea that the flotilla itself would have arms is patently absurd. the ships are chock-a-block with well-known political figures including egyptian members of parliament, novelists, peace activists, etc.

so i don't think any of these justifications holds any water.

but even if they did this raid is still a remarkably bad idea. consider for example the implications for relations with egypt.

it might be that some of this goes back to a quite famous exchange between the turkish prime minister and olmert (i'm not sure...it mighta been perez) during the gaza atrocity...um...incursion. i can see maybe some sense of fuck you from israeli conservatives aimed at turkey for that. so it's possible that the raid is more about the prominent role of turkish organizations and interests in organizing it than any nonsense about weapons.

just a thought.

dippin · 05-31-2010, 04:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seaver

1) Israel has been at war with Hamas for decades. They still receive weekly (if not daily) rocket attacks on their civilians.
2) Israel has a right to blockade Gaza as the location for which the majority of rocket attacks are launched from.
3) Regardless of the incidents, Hamas and the PLO have 60 years of smuggling in weapons through "peaceful" supply lines.

Not really as I've pointed out.

Look I'm not saying it's possible that the ships were completely empty of weapons. Israel has a history of doing things for which they believe is in their defense which appear to not make any sense (including their navy sinking one of our intelligence ships).

However to point fingers before the truth falls out is bullshit.

the people on board the ships were not hamas and were not armed. That the videos released by the IDF itself shows no initial gunfire from the ship should be enough evidence of that.

People on a ship responded to an illegal boarding in international waters by resisting armed commandos with chairs and bats. An injury to one of those commandos led to the killing of 15 to 16 civilians who were resisting to an unlawful boarding. Short of evidence of the ship engaging the Israeli navy in international waters, what happened is pretty much indefensible from any moral or legal perspective.

Pearl Trade · 05-31-2010, 05:15 PM

I read somewhere that the Israeli's had paintball guns and a side-arm, and were only allowed to use the side-arm if something bad started to happen, which obviously did. Anyone else hear anything about that? In the video Baraka put up you can clearly see a soldier holding a paintball gun, as other soldiers around him are being attacked. It's around the 1:02 minute mark in the video.

Boarding the ships in international waters isn't the best idea, they should have waited until they were legally allowed to board them. Why did the people on the ship attack the soldiers? Their intent was to kill, seeing as how they threw them overboard and attacked the soldiers with pipes. I find it hard to believe that specially trained soldiers like this would start killing people without being provoked by a life threatening force.

timalkin · 05-31-2010, 05:49 PM

roachboy · 05-31-2010, 05:57 PM

right because it's ok for a regional military superpower to lay a 3 year seige to a half million civilians because that regional military superpower didn't like the way an election turned out.

poor israel. yeah.

o and by the way there's a wide range of political viewpoints in israel and alot---ALOT--of israelis don't think the barbaric tactics preferred by the right are ok.

why you'd have to watch tv in the united states to imagine there was anything like unanimity around the policies of likud and the whackjob rightwing organizations that represent those fine settler interests.

so this is about a remarkably stupid action that has ALOT of israelis aghast (read some of the israeli press and stop watching fox) undertaken on the watch of a rightwing government that's made up of ultra-rightwing parties as part of the coalition that alot of israelis do not support. it's nothing like "poor israel, they're always wrong." except maybe in the world of sean hannity. but who takes hannity et al seriously?

Willravel · 06-01-2010, 12:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by timalkin

This thread is the same old dick dance. Israel is always wrong, and the poor Palestinians are always right.

Do you have anything to contribute? If you have a factually supported opinion, I'd like to read it. I've been on Reddit on and off all day about this and, dismissing the outright propaganda, I've been enjoying real debates with people that have a different perspective.

Baraka_Guru · 06-01-2010, 04:59 AM

It ain't over, apparently.

Activists to take another run at Gaza blockade - thestar.com

Lucifer · 06-01-2010, 05:20 AM

Does anyone find this ironic? 70 years ago, ships were trying to get into Palestine loaded with aid, guns and Jewish refugees, and being boarded, attacked and turned back by British ships and commandos. Now ships are trying to get into Palestinian territory loaded with aid and being boarded and attacked by Israeli commandos.

roachboy · 06-01-2010, 06:12 AM

Quote:

From the Guardian's Middle East editor, Ian Black, on Egypt opening the Rafah border crossing to the Gaza strip:

In one of the first signs of fallout from the Gaza Freedom Flotilla incident Egypt has announced that it is opening the the southern border of the Gaza Strip at Rafah to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians.

The crossing normally opens once a month for a few days. The sudden decision seems to show Egyptian embarrassment at Arab charges of complicity with the the Israeli blockade.

President Hosni Mubarak is deeply hostile to Hamas, which has close links to the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest – and semi-outlawed – opposition group.

Israel flotilla raid - fallout live | World news | guardian.co.uk

Xazy · 06-01-2010, 07:27 AM

Sorry I believe in the right to defense of a country, and I cannot imagine how the US would reply if it was their
troops. Israel offered to deliver the goods if they allowed them to inspect them, Israel warned them repeatedly.

roachboy · 06-01-2010, 07:28 AM

this provides a strange window onto the upside-down world of things conservative=to-moderate functionaries are saying about this raid:

No benefit of the doubt? - The Arena | POLITICO.COM

it's kind of grim the degenerate nature of much of what's here. but if this nonsense is an indication of the "thinking" in washington about the raid, then perhaps the administration's silence on the matter makes a little more sense. on its own terms, i mean. personally, i think that silence is reprehensible.

meanwhile:

Quote:

Criticism of Israeli raid builds; hundreds still held

By Janine Zacharia
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, June 1, 2010; 10:12 AM

JERUSALEM -- Hundreds of activists who were captured aboard a flotilla bound for the blockaded Gaza Strip remained in an Israeli prison Tuesday, as criticism mounted inside the country and throughout the world of the Israeli naval operation to seize the aid ships.

Israeli officials said 610 activists were being held in Ela Prison near Beersheba, in the south of Israel, after refusing to sign deportation papers. Another 48 of those taken into custody during the raid had identified themselves and were in the process of being deported or had already left, an Israeli official said.

Among those being taken to Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport were two Americans, retired U.S. diplomat Edward Peck and activist Joe Meadors, an Israeli Foreign Ministry official said. Peck is a longtime critic of U.S. policy toward Israel. Meadors was a U.S. Navy signalman who survived a June 1967 attack on the USS Liberty by Israeli fighter planes and torpedo boats during the Six-Day War, a raid that killed 34 crew members and wounded 171.

More than half of the activists -- 380 -- were identified as Turkish nationals. There were 11 Americans and people from at least a dozen other countries, including nations without peace treaties with Israel such as Syria, Pakistan, Algeria, Lebanon and Oman, an Israeli official said.

Turkey and Israel were coordinating a way to medevac 25 wounded Turks back to Turkey, an Israeli official said. A total of 49 activists were still hospitalized Tuesday.

The U.N. Security Council called for an "impartial" investigation into Monday's raid, which left at least nine activists dead and many wounded, and condemned the "acts" that led to the bloodshed.

The prime minister of Turkey, where the relief convoy originated, called Israel's seizure operation a "massacre" and recalled its ambassador to the country, while Arab, European and other governments demanded that Israel end its Gaza blockade.

Inside Israel, support for isolating Gaza remained high, but commentators and officials questioned whether it was necessary to use force to stop the boats and asked why the naval commando units did not have more non-lethal weapons, such as tear gas, at their disposal.

Much of the disbelief here focused on why Israel didn't plan for a way to subdue those on board the boats in the flotilla without hurting them. Commentators described the whole incident as an intelligence failure more than an international diplomatic debacle. Some called for Defense Minister Ehud Barak to resign.

"The defense minister failed miserably. There isn't a broom broad enough to sweep this failure under the rug,'' Sever Plocker wrote in the daily Yedioth Ahronoth, adding that perhaps Barak's resignation would help mitigate some of the anger exploding against Israel worldwide.

The daily Maariv newspaper questioned why Israel waited hours to release video of its soldiers being beaten by activists aboard the ship, arguing that the images could help explain why the Israeli military had resorted to deadly force.

In Egypt, officials said they were opening the usually shuttered border crossing into Gaza as a gesture of solidarity and to allow the delivery of relief supplies into the impoverished strip.

Protesters demonstrated outside the Israeli Consulate in Istanbul, and Israel released an advisory warning Israelis to avoid traveling to Turkey, which had until recently been one of Israel's closest Muslim friends in the region.

Israeli officials insisted that the commandos acted in self-defense and defended Israel's ongoing blockade of Gaza, which is intended to isolate the Islamist Hamas movement that rules the territory.

Flotilla organizers, who for a week had been girding for a confrontation with Israel, said that the troops used excessive force and that those killed were unarmed. They said another boat, which had been delayed by technical difficulties and so was not part of the flotilla, was en route to Gaza and could be joined by another vessel. It was expected to arrive Wednesday. Israeli officials said they would prevent the ship -- the MV Rachel Corrie -- from entering Gaza's port as well.

Eight previous flotillas were either allowed to reach Gaza or were diverted by the Israeli navy without incident. This time, activists spent a year planning the eight-ship "Freedom Flotilla," soliciting the participation of international parliamentarians and the backing of the Turkish government.

Because of the much larger scale of this flotilla, and because of concerns about the presence of activists with alleged links to militant groups, Israel mounted a far more aggressive military response than it had before, officials said. Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu consulted with his top security advisers and approved "Operation Sea Breeze" to try to stop the flotilla from reaching Gaza.

An Israeli Foreign Ministry official said all nine of those killed in the raid appeared to be Turkish nationals. The bodies of the dead were still at the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute in Tel Aviv on Tuesday awaiting identification. A spokesperson for the morgue said a diplomat from the Turkish consulate had been called but had not yet come to identify the bodies.

Some lawyers for the detainees said they were denied access to those being held on Tuesday morning, but other lawyers said they were allowed into the prison later in the day.

Seven Israeli naval personnel were wounded aboard the Mavi Marmara, the flotilla's main ship. Netanyahu, who canceled a U.S. visit and cut short a trip to Canada to return to Israel after the deadly melee, visited the wounded military personnel after arriving back in the country on Tuesday.

Israeli ambassadors were summoned across Europe on Monday as the European Union called for a formal inquiry. In a cautiously worded statement, the United States expressed regret about the loss of life but said it is seeking more information.

The ships that made up the flotilla, with about 700 passengers and 10,000 tons of supplies, set sail with much fanfare from Turkey and ports in Europe last week. The activists said they would not heed Israel's demand to divert to the Israeli port of Ashdod, and Israeli officials pledged that the flotilla would not be allowed to reach the Gaza Strip.

Gaza residents nevertheless dug trenches in the sea to facilitate the passage of the ships, and decorated their port with Turkish flags and a huge photograph of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Israeli commandos departed from Israel's shores after midnight on Monday and easily took control of the flotilla's five smaller ships. About 4 a.m., they lowered themselves with ropes from a helicopter onto the main Turkish vessel, which was approximately 70 miles off the Israeli coast, well into international waters.

Israel said it is allowed under international law to enforce a maritime blockade on international seas. "A state may take action to enforce a blockade. Any vessel that violates or attempts to violate a maritime blockade may be captured or even attacked under international law," the Israeli Foreign Ministry said.

In a statement to the United Nations, Turkey characterized Israel's action as a "clear violation of international law" and asked U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to "determine how this bloodshed took place and to ensure that those responsible would be held accountable."

Upon touching down, the Israeli commandos, who were equipped with paint guns and pistols, were assaulted with steel poles, knives and pepper spray. Video showed at least one commando being lifted up and dumped from the ship's upper deck to the lower deck. Some commandos later said they jumped into the water to escape being beaten. The Israeli military said some of the demonstrators fired live ammunition. Israeli officials said the activists had fired two guns stolen from the troops.

Israeli forces continued to land on the ship from above and climb aboard from boats, eventually seizing control and navigating the vessel into Ashdod hours later. Israel declared the port a military zone and prevented journalists from interviewing passengers.

Diana Buttu, a Palestinian lawyer who spoke on behalf of the flotilla organizers, said they had been emboldened by the scope of the media coverage surrounding the attempt to run the blockade.

Israel allows goods to pass into the Gaza Strip but limits, or prevents, certain categories, especially for construction. Many goods are smuggled into Gaza through underground tunnels from Egypt.

Flotilla organizers, from the Turkish nongovernmental organization IHH, or Humanitarian Relief Fund, said they were transporting 6,000 tons of cement, more than 2,000 tons of iron, 100 prefabricated houses, 500 wheelchairs, medical equipment, wood and glass for building, electric generators and food.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who is leading indirect talks with Israel brokered by the United States, declared three days of mourning. It was not clear what effect the Israeli raid will have on the negotiations.

washingtonpost.com

this bonehead editorial says that the obama administration messed up by criticizing netanyahu's positions on the settlements so now they can't criticize them about the raid:

PostPartisan - Obama, Netanyahu and the Free Gaza flotilla

dippin · 06-01-2010, 07:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xazy

Sorry I believe in the right to defense of a country, and I cannot imagine how the US would reply if it was their
troops. Israel offered to deliver the goods if they allowed them to inspect them, Israel warned them repeatedly.

This was in international waters.

And if we are going to respond in what ifs, what would be the reaction if this was Cuba opening fire on unarmed civilians in international waters? Cuban exiles have more than once used boats to make anti-Castro transmissions into Cuba, for example.
Or how about the reaction to the North Korean sinking of a South Korean ship?

Baraka_Guru · 06-01-2010, 08:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dippin

And if we are going to respond in what ifs, what would be the reaction if this was Cuba opening fire on unarmed civilians in international waters? Cuban exiles have more than once used boats to make anti-Castro transmissions into Cuba, for example.
Or how about the reaction to the North Korean sinking of a South Korean ship?

Clearly Israel's right to defend itself is far more valuable than the right of communists to defend themselves. It's an entrenched moral relativism.

Regardless, there is enough negative reaction worldwide to suggest that Israel made a serious blunder here.

Cimarron29414 · 06-01-2010, 08:10 AM

If Israel truly wanted to enforce a blockade, it should have waited for the ships to get into Israeli waters, searched them for contraband, and then turned the ships back. This raid was a terrible call by some suit in some position in the Israeli government. The soldiers were forced to obey the order, illegally board a boat, get attacked by deadly weapons and use deadly force to defend themselves. There is no self-defense justification because the deadly force was used during the commission of a seemingly illegal act.

So, the soldiers committed what seem to be illegal actions but may have had no choice. In the US, a soldier can refuse an order which he believes violates his oath or that he believes is illegal. I don't know if Israeli soldiers can do the same. Does anyone know? Obviously, Israeli commandos are thoroughly indoctrinated and perhaps they don't rise out of the haze of devout nationalism long enough to evaluate if this is "the right thing to do."

Regardless, I can't see how one could support the Israeli position here. In every case, I'd rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6, but I really don't want my country to abuse my service and put me in such a lose-lose decision. This whole thing sucks all the way around.

roachboy · 06-01-2010, 08:53 AM

things get curiouser and curiouser. apparently there's now indications that a couple of the boats from the flotilla were sabotaged and that the flotilla was itself the object of "grey operations." the explanation that's being floated is obvious---the same phantom weapons that the idf was on about yesterday.

infotainment on this:

Quote:

Gaza aid flotilla: Israeli sabotage suspected

Israel's military may have sabotaged two boats carrying Free Gaza activists after both malfuntioned at the same time in the same way prior to the raid

Two passenger boats sailing to Gaza as part of the aid flotilla attacked by Israel malfunctioned at the same time and in the same way earlier in their voyage, prompting suspicions they may have been sabotaged.

Challenger I and Challenger II, carrying 36 activists from the Free Gaza campaign, were forced into port in Cyprus on Friday evening when both their steering systems broke down on the journey from Heraklion in Crete, a campaign spokeswoman said.

The problems emerged as Israel's military establishment gave strong indications that clandestine attempts were made to sabotage some of the ships ahead of yesterday's bloody confrontation, in which at least nine pro-Palestinian activists were killed.

Challenger II started taking on water after the bilge pump suddenly stopped working and an inspection yesterday of Challenger II, which was forced to withdraw from the flotilla, revealed "very suspicious" faults, according to a spokeswoman for Free Gaza, Greta Berlin.

Both boats were forced to radio distress signals to Cypriot ports and Berlin said the captain of Challenger I, Denis Healey, was "frightened that he was not going to be able to get the boat in". Once in port in northern Cyprus, he had to repair hydraulic lines on the boat. Challenger II had to pull alongside the main Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmara, on the high seas 70 miles off the coast of Cyprus, to transfer its passengers before it limped into port.

Yesterday Matan Vilnai, the deputy minister of defence, was asked by an Israel Radio interviewer today whether there had not been a smarter alternative to direct assault. He answered that "all possibilities had been considered," adding: "The fact is that there were less than the 10 ships that were due to participate in the flotilla."

An unnamed Israeli Defence Force source who briefed the Knesset's foreign affairs and defence committee on the widely criticised interception spoke of "grey operations" being mounted against the flotilla. No further detail was reported, probably because of the military censorship rules that Israeli media are legally required to follow.

The officer also said that military planners had considered trying to stop the MV Marmara rather than board it but had decided against it because the Turkish ship was too fast.

Both Free Gaza boats had left Heraklion in Crete last Thursday and had been sailing for around 30 hours when the malfunctions happened, the Free Gaza group said.

"We had two very fine captains and they both had steering problems but the bilge pump of the Challenger II began not to pump out water," said Berlin. "That boat was close enough to the Turkish ship to offload its passengers. It did that and started to head back towards Cyprus. The captain radioed a distress signal and said he had to come in. That boat went into Limassol in the early evening."

Meanwhile, Healey, the British captain of Challenger I was having the same problems on his way to Cyprus.

"He had 17 passengeres on board as well," said Berlin. "His steering got worse and worse. Dennis is very calm, but he was frightened that he was not going to be able to get the boat in. He radioed to the Cypriots and said he needed to bring the boat in. He told them he was a motor yacht, carrying passengers on their way to Gaza and he was told he couldn't come in. So he went to Famagusta in northern Cyprus instead where he got off and the passengers stayed on board. He repaired the boat himself through the night and into Saturday morning. He fixed the hydraulic lines."

Challenger II was lifted out of the water at Limassol for inspection.

"The inspector said it looked very suspicious and we are having it inspected again by another person today," said Berlin. "It was very odd that this happened at the same time [on each ship] and in almost the same circumstances."

There is at least once known precedent for naval sabotage by the Israelis. Flotilla 13, the elite naval commando unit that carried out Monday's raid, reportedly blew up a ship named al-Awda (the Return) which was chartered by the PLO in 1988 to dramatise the plight of Palestinian refugees. It sank in Limassol.

Vilnai, whose ministry is under fire because of what many Israelis are calling a bungled operation, still insisted it had been the right thing to do: "You cannot allow supplies to go into the giant terrorist base that is being created in the (Gaza) strip and is threatening Israel's heartland," he said.

Gaza aid flotilla: Israeli sabotage suspected | World news | The Guardian

so let's exclude this weapons nonsense and the standard right wing giant terrorist boogeyman along with it. both seem obvious bullshit. and if the israelis were so worried about weapons coming in they wouldn't have gone after a flotilla with egyptian mps as part of the entourage because a reopened tunnel system back up is WAY more likely to function as a source of weapons than is a highly publicized group of international activists who are interested in ending the 3-year siege of the civilian population of gaza.

just saying.

so that can't be why they did this.
personally i think that the idf was concerned about the political damage allowing the flotilla would cause simply by virtue of the amount of media coverage it would necessarily bring to conditions in gaza. so there must have been a decision taken that's it was less damaging to do things this way, even though it meant 10-15 dead activists and 30 wounded. somewhere there was a calculation that holding hundreds of people hostage after an act of piracy was less damaging than having conditions exposed on the gaza strip. it was apparently less damaging because the spin concerning phantom weapons and the giant terrorist boogeyman are within the control of the idf press machinery and the free gaza action would not have been.

Idyllic · 06-01-2010, 09:14 AM

There is a history here that needs to be revisited, but first a seemingly unbiased viewpoint of the recent incident.

Quote:

JERUSALEM — Israel faced intense international condemnation and growing domestic questions on Monday after a raid by naval commandos that killed nine people, many of them Turks, on an aid flotilla bound for Gaza.

On Sunday, before an Israeli raid, activists held a news conference aboard the Mavi Marmara, part of a flotilla taking aid to Gaza. After the Israeli raid, a speedboat escorted the ship, now with Israeli forces on board, to the port of Ashdod.

Turkey, Israel’s most important friend in the Muslim world, recalled its ambassador and canceled planned military exercises with Israel as the countries’ already tense relations soured even further. The United Nations Security Council met in emergency session over the attack, which occurred in international waters north of Gaza, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel was flying home after canceling a Tuesday meeting with President Obama.

With street protests erupting around the world, Mr. Netanyahu defended the Israeli military’s actions, saying the commandos, enforcing what Israel says is a legal blockade, were set upon by passengers on the Turkish ship they boarded and fired only in self-defense. The military released a video of the early moments of the raid to support that claim.

Israel said the violence was instigated by pro-Palestinian activists who presented themselves as humanitarians but had come ready for a fight. Organizers of the flotilla accused the Israeli forces of opening fire as soon as they landed on the deck, and released videos to support their case. Israel released video taken from one of its vessels to supports its own account of events.

The Israeli public seemed largely to support the navy, but policy experts questioned preparations for the military operation, whether there had been an intelligence failure and whether the Israeli insistence on stopping the flotilla had been counterproductive. Some commentators were calling for the resignation of Ehud Barak, the defense minister.

“The government failed the test of results; blaming the organizers of the flotilla for causing the deaths by ignoring Israel’s orders to turn back is inadequate,” wrote Aluf Benn, a columnist for Haaretz, on the newspaper’s Web site on Monday, calling for a national committee of inquiry. “Decisions taken by the responsible authorities must be probed.”
The flotilla of cargo ships and passenger boats was carrying 10,000 tons of aid for Gaza, where the Islamic militant group Hamas holds sway, in an attempt to challenge Israel’s military blockade of Gaza.

The raid and its deadly consequences have thrown Israel’s policy of blockading Gaza into the international limelight; at the Security Council on Monday voices were raised against the blockade, and the pressure to abandon it is bound to intensify.

Israel had vowed not to let the flotilla reach the shores of Gaza, where Hamas, an organization sworn to Israel’s destruction, took over by force in 2007.

Named the Freedom Flotilla, and led by the pro-Palestinian Free Gaza Movement and a Turkish organization, Insani Yardim Vakfi, the convoy had converged at sea near Cyprus and set out on the final leg of its journey on Sunday afternoon. Israel warned the vessels to abort their mission, describing it as a provocation.

The confrontation began shortly before midnight on Sunday when Israeli warships intercepted the aid flotilla, according to a person on one boat. The Israeli military warned the vessels that they were entering a hostile area and that the Gaza shore was under blockade.

The vessels refused the military’s request to dock at the Israeli port of Ashdod, north of Gaza, and continued toward their destination.
Around 4 a.m. on Monday, naval commandos came aboard the Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmara, having been lowered by ropes from helicopters onto the decks.

At that point, the operation seems to have gone badly wrong.
Israeli officials say that the soldiers were dropped into an ambush and were attacked with clubs, metal rods and knives.

An Israeli official said that the navy was planning to stop five of the six vessels of the flotilla with large nets that interfere with propellers, but that the sixth was too large for that. The official said there was clearly an intelligence failure in that the commandos were expecting to face passive resistance, and not an angry, violent reaction.

The Israelis had planned to commandeer the vessels and steer them to Ashdod, where their cargo would be unloaded and, the authorities said, transferred overland to Gaza after proper inspection.

The military said in a statement that two activists were later found with pistols taken from Israeli commandos. It accused the activists of opening fire, “as evident by the empty pistol magazines.”

Another soldier said the orders were to neutralize the passengers, not to kill them.
But the forces “had to open fire in order to defend themselves,” the navy commander, Vice Adm. Eliezer Marom, said at a news conference in Tel Aviv, adding, “Their lives were at risk.”

At least seven soldiers were wounded, one of them seriously. The military said that some suffered gunshot wounds; at least one had been stabbed.
Some Israeli officials said they had worried about a debacle from the start, and questioned Israel’s broader security policies.
Einat Wilf, a Labor Party member of Parliament who sits on the influential Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said that she had warned Mr. Barak and others well in advance that the flotilla was a public relations issue and should not be dealt with by military means.
“This had nothing to do with security,” she said in an interview. “The armaments for Hamas were not coming from this flotilla.”
The fatalities all occurred aboard the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish passenger vessel that was carrying about 600 activists under the auspices of Insani Yardim Vakfi, an organization also known as I.H.H. Israeli officials have characterized it as a dangerous Islamic organization with terrorist links.
Yet the organization, founded in 1992 to collect aid for the Bosnians, is now active in 120 countries and has been present at recent disaster areas like Haiti and New Orleans. “Our volunteers were not trained military personnel,” said Yavuz Dede, deputy director of the organization. “They were civilians trying to get aid to Gaza. There were artists, intellectuals and journalists among them. Such an offensive cannot be explained by any terms.”

There were no immediate accounts available from the passengers of the Turkish ship, which arrived at the naval base in Ashdod on Monday evening, where nearly three dozen were arrested, many for not giving their names. The base was off limits to the news media and declared a closed military zone. The injured had been flown by helicopter to Israeli hospitals. At the Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer, near Tel Aviv, relatives of injured soldiers were gathered outside an intensive care unit when a man with a long beard, one of the wounded passengers, was wheeled by, escorted by military police.

Organizers of the flotilla, relying mainly on footage filmed by activists on board the Turkish passenger ship, because all other communications were down, blamed Israeli aggression for the deadly results.
The Israeli soldiers dropped onto the deck and “opened fire on sleeping civilians at four in the morning,” said Greta Berlin, a leader of the pro-Palestinian Free Gaza Movement, speaking by phone from Cyprus on Monday.

Israeli officials said that international law allowed for the capture of naval vessels in international waters if they were about to violate a blockade. The blockade was imposed by Israel and Egypt after the Hamas takeover of Gaza in 2007. Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon, said Monday that the blockade was “aimed at preventing the infiltration of terror and terrorists into Gaza.”

Despite sporadic rocket fire from the Palestinian territory against southern Israel, Israel says it allows enough basic supplies through border crossings to avoid any acute humanitarian crisis. But it insists that there will be no significant change so long as Hamas continues to hold Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured in a cross-border raid in 2006.
The Free Gaza Movement has organized several aid voyages since the summer of 2008, usually consisting of one or two vessels. The earliest ones were allowed to reach Gaza. Others have been intercepted and forced back, and one, last June, was commandeered by the Israeli Navy and towed to Ashdod. This six-boat fleet was the most ambitious attempt yet to break the blockade.

Reporting was contributed by Sebnem Arsu from Istanbul, Dina Kraft from Tel Aviv, Rina Castelnuovo from Ashdod, Fares Akram from Gaza and Neil MacFarquhar from the United Nations.
A version of this article appeared in print on June 1, 2010, on page A1 of the New York edition.

1. Mr. Netanyahu defended the Israeli military’s actions, saying the commandos, enforcing what Israel says is a legal blockade, were set upon by passengers on the Turkish ship they boarded and fired only in self-defense. The military released a video of the early moments of the raid to support that claim.
2. Israel said the violence was instigated by pro-Palestinian activists who presented themselves as humanitarians but had come ready for a fight. Organizers of the flotilla accused the Israeli forces of opening fire as soon as they landed on the deck, and released videos to support their case. Israel released video taken from one of its vessels to supports its own account of events.
3. The Israeli public seemed largely to support the navy,
4. Israel had vowed not to let the flotilla reach the shores of Gaza, where Hamas, an organization sworn to Israel’s destruction, took over by force in 2007.
5. Israel warned the vessels to abort their mission, describing it as a provocation.
6. The confrontation began shortly before midnight on Sunday when Israeli warships intercepted the aid flotilla, according to a person on one boat. The Israeli military warned the vessels that they were entering a hostile area and that the Gaza shore was under blockade. (they were not awoken at 4 a.m. by being shot at in bed, as one “activist” claimed.)
7. The vessels refused the military’s request to dock at the Israeli port of Ashdod, north of Gaza, and continued toward their destination.
8. Around 4 a.m. on Monday, naval commandos came aboard the Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmara, having been lowered by ropes from helicopters onto the decks.
9. Israeli officials say that the soldiers were dropped into an ambush and were attacked with clubs, metal rods and knives.
10. An Israeli official said that the navy was planning to stop five of the six vessels of the flotilla with large nets that interfere with propellers, but that the sixth was too large for that. The official said there was clearly an intelligence failure in that the commandos were expecting to face passive resistance, and not an angry, violent reaction.
11. The Israelis had planned to commandeer the vessels and steer them to Ashdod, where their cargo would be unloaded and, the authorities said, transferred overland to Gaza after proper inspection.
12. The military said in a statement that two activists were later found with pistols taken from Israeli commandos. It accused the activists of opening fire, “as evident by the empty pistol magazines.”
13. Another soldier said the orders were to neutralize the passengers, not to kill them.
14. But the forces “had to open fire in order to defend themselves,” the navy commander, Vice Adm. Eliezer Marom, said at a news conference in Tel Aviv, adding, “Their lives were at risk.”
15. At least seven soldiers were wounded, one of them seriously. The military said that some suffered gunshot wounds; at least one had been stabbed. (maybe he just shot himself, his gun was taken from him by the “passive” activists, who were all supposedly asleep in their beds when the mean ole Israelis can shooting form the sky on their drop ropes, right?)
16. The fatalities all occurred aboard the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish passenger vessel that was carrying about 600 activists under the auspices of Insani Yardim Vakfi, an organization also known as I.H.H. Israeli officials have characterized it as a dangerous Islamic organization with terrorist links. (600 activists headed to gaza, why….. maybe to join the battle, maybe to confront the Isrealis who would come and board the ship, a dangerous Islamic organization with ties to terrorist.)
17. There were no immediate accounts available from the passengers of the Turkish ship, which arrived at the naval base in Ashdod on Monday evening, where nearly three dozen were arrested, many for not giving their names. The base was off limits to the news media and declared a closed military zone. (only cowards don’t give their names when they stand up for something they believe in {or terrorist on the watch list}, why not be proud and tell your name?
18. Organizers of the flotilla, relying mainly on footage filmed by activists on board the Turkish passenger ship, because all other communications were down, blamed Israeli aggression for the deadly results. (relying on footage filmed by activists….. blamed Israelis….. you don’t say….)
19. The Israeli soldiers dropped onto the deck and “opened fire on sleeping civilians at four in the morning,” said Greta Berlin, a leader of the pro-Palestinian Free Gaza Movement, speaking by phone from Cyprus on Monday. (all 600 hundred were sleeping on the deck, and these nasty Israelis came down on their ropes with guns blaring, bull shit…..)
20. Israeli officials said that international law allowed for the capture of naval vessels in international waters if they were about to violate a blockade.
21. The blockade was imposed by Israel and Egypt after the Hamas takeover of Gaza in 2007. (imposed by BOTH Israel and Egypt after the Hamas took over Gaza)
22. Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon, said Monday that the blockade was “aimed at preventing the infiltration of terror and terrorists into Gaza.”
23. Despite sporadic rocket fire from the Palestinian territory against southern Israel, Israel says it allows enough basic supplies through border crossings to avoid any acute humanitarian crisis.
24. But it insists that there will be no significant change so long as Hamas continues to hold Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured in a cross-border raid in 2006.
25. The Free Gaza Movement has organized several aid voyages since the summer of 2008, usually consisting of one or two vessels. The earliest ones were allowed to reach Gaza.
26. Others have been intercepted and forced back, and one, last June, was commandeered by the Israeli Navy and towed to Ashdod. This six-boat fleet was the most ambitious attempt yet to break the blockade.

They knew what they were doing to instigate the blockade action, they must have watched whale wars and figured out how to draw the attention they desired while portraying themselves as innocent victims, there are no innocent victims when you step foot aboard a ship to deliver “contraband” to a war inflicted area where you have been told not to go, they were prepared for these soldiers, they were prepared for this fight, they took it to the Israelis and the Israelis shut it down, while protecting themselves, the flotilla had every opportunity to turn back and to change coarse and yet the activist leader put their own patron in danger. But everyone is looking now, and everyone is blaming the dirty rotten Israelis, bull shit.

Hamas:

Quote:

In 1987, the Arabs living in the territories occupied by Israeli in the 6-Day war began a series of riots and violent confrontations now known as the First Intifada, a movement quite independent from PLO leadership. Soon after, Islamic militants founded the Hamas movement.
The Hamas was formed from the Mujama movement, which had been a political party with no military ambitions that was given some encouragement by Israel earlier in the decade, as a means of countering the influence of the PLO, and perhaps because the opposition of the Mujama to an international conference that would adjudicate the problem of Palestine, coincided with the policies of the Begin and Shamir governments.

Hamas capsule history

The Hamas has a 'military' wing, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, that engages in terrorist acts and a 'civilian' wing that supposedly confines itself to education and 'good works.'

Hamas perpetrated numerous suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks, at first in order to sabotage the Oslo Accords and peace process, and then as part of the Second Intifada. Israel successively assassinated its leaders, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Sheikh Ahmed Rantissi, forcing the leadership underground. However, in January of 2006, candidates representing the Hamas swept to victory in Palestinian elections, overcoming the traditional leadership of the Fateh and PLO.

In June of 2006, Hamas affiliates captured an Israeli soldier by tunneling across the border between Gaza and Israel In February of 2007, Hamas, Fateh and other factions entered a unity government in a deal brokered by Saudi Arabia and Egypt. However, in practice, Hamas ruled Gaza on its own. It formed the Executive Force over the protests of the Fatah and Palestinian Authority. The Executive force was a combination internal police force, political force to be used against Hamas opponents and terrorist group. In June of 2007, Hamas ousted Fatah forces from Gaza in a bloody coup, throwing Fatah members off the roofs of buildings after shooting them in the knees.

At least one Fatah member was sliced into steaks that were sent to his family.

Since Gaza had been totally evacuated by Israel in the unilateral disengagement of 2005, Hamas currently (2009) rules Gaza as a de facto state government. It has used Gaza as a base for launching rocket attacks against Israel.

On June 19, 2008, Israel and Hamas concluded a "lull" or Tahdiya agreement that was brokered by Egypt. Hamas, but not Israel, declared that this truce was for a period of six months. Rocket fire from Gaza was reduced but not stopped. Hamas greatly stepped up smuggling of arms through tunnels beneath the Egyptian controlled Rafah crossing. Hamas dismissed the international monitors that were to have controlled the Rafah crossing, and then declared that Gaza is "under siege."

Israel retaliated for rocket fire by closing the Israeli crossings periodically. On December 18, 2008, Hamas declared that they would not renew the truce. Thereafter, Hamas and associated organizations directed a rain of rocket and mortar fire at Israeli towns and cities, reaching as far as 45 KM away with Grad rockets that had been smuggled in during the lull period. On December 26, 2008, Israel launched operation Cast Lead, attacking the Hamas in Gaza at first by air and later in a limited ground invasion.

Hamas Principles

The principles of the Hamas are stated in their Covenant or Charter, given in full below. Following are highlights.

"Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it." (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).

"The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. "

"There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors."

"After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying."

The charter is a rather classical Islamist document, applied to the local issues. It declares that Jihad (in the sense of armed battle) is the only solution. It cites the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a ludicrous anti-Semitic forgery.

The "Zionists" and the freemasons and others are blamed for what Hamas and radical Islamists see as the major calamities of the world, especially the French Revolution.

One of the most ominous aspects of the Charter however, is this Hadith:
Moreover, if the links have been distant from each other and if obstacles, placed by those who are the lackeys of Zionism in the way of the fighters obstructed the continuation of the struggle, the Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realisation of Allah's promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:

"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Muslim).
The implication is clear: Allah promised that the Jews will be murdered, and the Hamas "aspires to the realisation of Allah's promise, no matter how long that should take."

Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood

Some observers deny the relation between the Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. However, the Charter states:

The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the wings of Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine. Muslim Brotherhood Movement is a universal organization which constitutes the largest Islamic movement in modern times.

It is characterised by its deep understanding, accurate comprehension and its complete embrace of all Islamic concepts of all aspects of life, culture, creed, politics, economics, education, society, justice and judgement, the spreading of Islam, education, art, information, science of the occult and conversion to Islam.

Moreover, the Charter quotes Hassan Al-Banna, a Nazi sympathizer who founded the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. There is no doubt that the Hamas views itself as a part of the Muslim Brotherhood and an ideological heir of al Banna. The Muslim Brotherhood spawned a number of radical Islamist movements including Al-Qaeda.

Current Hamas Positions

Some analysts insist that the Hamas is becoming more pragmatic in its ideology following assumption of a political role. The evidence for this is view is conflicting, and it is beclouded by the practice of dissemblance that was copied from Al-Banna and Sayyed Qutb. Recent statements by leaders include the following:

• Imam Yousif al-Zahar of Hamas said in his sermon at the Katib Wilayat mosque in Gaza that "Jews are a people who cannot be trusted. They have been traitors to all agreements. Go back to history. Their fate is their vanishing." Ref IHT 1 April 08

• Sheik Yunus al-Astal, a Hamas legislator and imam, in a column in the weekly newspaper Al Risalah in 2008 discussed a Koranic verse suggesting that "suffering by fire is the Jews' destiny in this world and the next." Astal concluded "Therefore we are sure that the Holocaust is still to come upon the Jews.Ref IHT 1 April 08

• "We will not rest until we destroy the Zionist entity" stated Hamas leader Fathi Hammad in Gaza on Friday January 2nd 2009 - ref -- BBC 2 January 09

• In a sermon aired on Hamas' Al-Aqsa television, cleric Yunis Al Astal stated, "Today, Rome is the capital of the Catholics, or the Crusader capital, which has declared its hostility to Islam, and has planted the brothers of apes and pigs in Palestine in order to prevent the reawakening of Islam.

"I believe that our children, or our grandchildren, will inherit our jihad and our sacrifices, and, Allah willing, the commanders of the conquest will come from among them"

He maintained that Rome would become, ""an advanced post for the Islamic conquests, which will spread though Europe in its entirety, and then will turn to the two Americas, even Eastern Europe." Ref- Fox 14 Apr. 2008

Other statements are more moderate in tone, but Hamas has repeatedly refused international community demands to recognize the right of Israel to exist, abrogate its charter and abide by the previous commitments of the Palestinian Authority

Ami Isseroff
Updated Jan 11, 2009

1. Hamas perpetrated numerous suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks, at first in order to sabotage the Oslo Accords and peace process, and then as part of the Second Intifada.
2. In June of 2006, Hamas affiliates captured an Israeli soldier by tunneling across the border between Gaza and Israel
3. In June of 2007, Hamas ousted Fatah forces from Gaza in a bloody coup, throwing Fatah members off the roofs of buildings after shooting them in the knees. At least one Fatah member was sliced into steaks that were sent to his family.
4. Since Gaza had been totally evacuated by Israel in the unilateral disengagement of 2005, Hamas currently (2009) rules Gaza as a de facto state government. It has used Gaza as a base for launching rocket attacks against Israel.
5. On June 19, 2008, Israel and Hamas concluded a "lull" or Tahdiya agreement that was brokered by Egypt. Hamas, but not Israel, declared that this truce was for a period of six months. Rocket fire from Gaza was reduced but not stopped. Hamas greatly stepped up smuggling of arms through tunnels beneath the Egyptian controlled Rafah crossing.
6. Hamas dismissed the international monitors that were to have controlled the Rafah crossing, and then declared that Gaza is "under siege." Israel retaliated for rocket fire by closing the Israeli crossings periodically.
7. On December 18, 2008, Hamas declared that they would not renew the truce. Thereafter, Hamas and associated organizations directed a rain of rocket and mortar fire at Israeli towns and cities, reaching as far as 45 KM away with Grad rockets that had been smuggled in during the lull period.
. On December 26, 2008, Israel launched operation Cast Lead, attacking the Hamas in Gaza at first by air and later in a limited ground invasion.

Hamas Principles:

1. "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it." (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).
2. "The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. "
3. "There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors."
4. "After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying."

The charter is a rather classical Islamist document, applied to the local issues. It declares that Jihad (in the sense of armed battle) is the only solution. It cites the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a ludicrous anti-Semitic forgery.One of the most ominous aspects of the Charter however, is this Hadith: The Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realization of Allah's promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah, has said: "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Muslim).
Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. Some observers deny the relation between the Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. However, the Charter states: The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the wings of Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine. Muslim Brotherhood Movement is a universal organization which constitutes the largest Islamic movement in modern times.

Moreover, the Charter quotes Hassan Al-Banna, a Nazi sympathizer who founded the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. There is no doubt that the Hamas views itself as a part of the Muslim Brotherhood and an ideological heir of al Banna. The Muslim Brotherhood spawned a number of radical Islamist movements including Al-Qaeda.

including Al-Qaeda……

Current Hamas Positions

1. "Jews are a people who cannot be trusted. They have been traitors to all agreements. Go back to history. Their fate is their vanishing." Ref IHT 1 April 08
2. "suffering by fire is the Jews' destiny in this world and the next." Astal concluded "Therefore we are sure that the Holocaust is still to come upon the Jews.Ref IHT 1 April 08
3. "We will not rest until we destroy the Zionist entity" stated Hamas leader Fathi Hammad in Gaza on Friday January 2nd 2009 - ref -- BBC 2 January 09
4. In a sermon aired on Hamas' Al-Aqsa television, cleric Yunis Al Astal stated, "Today, Rome is the capital of the Catholics, or the Crusader capital, which has declared its hostility to Islam, and has planted the brothers of apes and pigs in Palestine in order to prevent the reawakening of Islam. I believe that our children, or our grandchildren, will inherit our jihad and our sacrifices, and, Allah willing, the commanders of the conquest will come from among them" He maintained that Rome would become, ""an advanced post for the Islamic conquests, which will spread though Europe in its entirety, and then will turn to the two Americas, even Eastern Europe." Ref- Fox 14 Apr. 2008

There is more than one side to this story, the blockade is not new, and the secreting in of boycotted materials is well known by the Israelis, they were within the rights of protection of the Israelis citizens and the continued conflict to board the vessel. The history behind this conflict must not be forgotten or the sympathies toward the hamas may well overtake the necessity to remove them from power and to insure they cannot follow through with their principles of destruction for any and all those who do not believe what they want you to, everyone, that is their principles, that is their positions, and it still rings true today in the remarks made by those who in power would still see the destruction of all that is not Islam.

In a sermon aired on Hamas' Al-Aqsa television, cleric Yunis Al Astal stated, “the Islamic conquests, which will spread though Europe in its entirety, and then will turn to the two Americas, even Eastern Europe.”
This IS the foundation of their belief, the hamas, al-qaeda, et al. the complete destruction of the Hebraic lineage of history, period. There is very little room for freedom in the jihad minds and zero room for freedom outside the IRM or the radicals within the Muslim Brotherhood.

I am NOT attacking Muslims, I am not attacking those who are tolerant of others beliefs, I am merely stating facts about a people (the extremist) whose fundamental belief in the superiority of their own ideology, and the DESTRUCTION of any and all alternate views, and who would fight to death, forever, until they achieve their singular purpose in the annihilation of all that is Hebrew and New Testament, outside of Ishmael, but wanting to destroy the history of their own brother Isaac, or their father Abraham and all those who came from their lineage or beliefs. It’s just more intolerance's within the confines of religious warfare, but to staunch zealots like the majority of the hamas and al qaeda, there is no alternative to Allah, so assimilate or die, and most will die merely because of your lineage outside the Ishmael line.

YouTube - Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and the Imam

I’m sure, since this is partially associated with the FOX network that I will be labeled an extremist right winger, a conservative wacko, if that is how you push aside your own reality, to just assume that all who are not supporting your views are against you, then it is not I who is lost in this effort of world cohesiveness, tolerance and equality, it is you who will lose yourselves to complacency, justification and pacification wherein you will slowly dissolve your own resolution of that which you seek to accomplish, a world of tolerance and equality and whine as it slips from your grasp into tyranny by those who would never admit to being your equal.

dippin · 06-01-2010, 09:34 AM

Idyllic,
And which, of all these actions you outline, were committed by the people on those boats?

And which international treaty or law allows a nation to board a ship in international waters?

The fact that in order to defend this action people must change the subject to organizations and people not associated or on the boat is telling.

roachboy · 06-01-2010, 09:49 AM

from the middle east report online:

Quote:

Outlaws of the Mediterranean

From the Editors

June 1, 2010

At 4 am Eastern Mediterranean time on May 31, elite Israeli commandos rappelled from helicopters onto the deck of the Turkish-registered ship Mavi Marmara, part of an international “Freedom Flotilla” that had met in Cyprus and then set sail to deliver humanitarian relief supplies to the besieged Gaza Strip. The Mavi Marmara, the largest of the relief vessels, was carrying some 600 activists, mainly Turks but also others of diverse nationalities. The commandos fired live ammunition at some of the passengers, who Israel claims were lightly armed with metal rods or knives, and may have resisted the raid. Some reports say that other ships were also boarded and/or fired upon. The lowest reported death toll among the activists is nine, and the lowest number of wounded is 34.

The details are unclear, because Israel took custody of the entire flotilla and everyone on board, dragging the ships to the port of Ashdod, where the wounded are being treated and everyone else “processed” at a detention center prepared for the purpose. Communications with all the aid vessels were cut shortly after the raid, and journalists have strictly limited access to the Ashdod facility, which is located in the section of the port belonging to the Israeli navy. The news blackout has been near total, but official Israeli sources have made it known that those of the activists who are unhurt will be deported, except a handful who refused to sign deportation orders and will be jailed. Seven hundred activists in total were aboard the flotilla.

Reaction to the raid, from Turkey to the European Union to the UN, has been swift and (almost) universally condemnatory. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called it an act of “state terrorism.” Turkey currently sits on the UN Security Council, which convened an emergency meeting. That meeting went into closed session as night fell on May 31. Meanwhile, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri dubbed the raid a “crazy move.” EU countries have summoned Israeli ambassadors to demand an explanation. “No one in the world will believe the lies and excuses which the government and army spokesmen come up with,” said Uri Avnery, a former member of the Israeli Knesset and leader of the Gush Shalom peace group in Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu canceled a visit to Washington scheduled for June 1 -- perhaps in tacit agreement with Avnery, though it seems at least possible that President Barack Obama did not wish to be seen “standing with Israel” on this occasion. Publicly, in any case, the White House remains the odd man out, saying only that it “regrets the loss of life” and is “working to understand the circumstances of the tragedy.”

Much is unknown for certain about the commando operation, but it is nonetheless a moment of clarity in the ongoing drama surrounding Israel’s 43-year occupation of Palestinian lands and its ten-year siege of Gaza, which has been tightened to a stranglehold since the Islamist party Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections. Once again, Israel has made the asymmetry of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict crystal clear. With this raid upon a peaceful ship on the high seas, Israel has made clear its disdain for international law -- and its contempt for the notion that it will be held accountable for its violations. Israel will persist in this behavior until someone, and that someone is the United States, ends its impunity.

Who?

The “Freedom Flotilla” was a convoy of six ships, three bearing passengers and three cargo, organized by the Free Gaza Movement, a coalition of Palestine solidarity activists from Europe, North America, the Middle East and elsewhere. Two additional boats are being held in reserve in Cyprus. The Free Gaza Movement grew out of the first effort to bring aid by sea, in August 2008, when what organizer Huwaida Arraf called “two humble boats” arrived in the coastal strip with a shipment of hearing aids for Gazans deafened by the sonic booms of Israeli warplanes. Subsequent convoys have delivered other goods, despite attempts by the Israeli navy to deter them. In the summer of 2009, Israel interdicted an aid vessel and diverted it to Ashdod.

The activists are motivated by the desire to “break the siege of Gaza” and “raise international awareness” of Gazans’ plight, according the movement’s website. In one of eight “points of unity” on the site, the group members pledge: “We agree to adhere to the principles of non-violence and non-violent resistance in word and deed at all times.” These tactics, expressing activists’ frustration with the official international community’s inaction on Palestine and aiming to embarrass Israel in the global media, are in line with the peaceful campaigns of Palestinians and Israelis to stop construction of Israel’s wall in the West Bank. They also resemble the goals of the International Solidarity Movement, a group founded by Arraf and her husband Adam Shapiro that housed internationals with Palestinians in the West Bank (and, previously, Gaza) as witnesses to everyday excesses of occupation.

Arraf, a Palestinian-American, was aboard a smaller ship of the “Freedom Flotilla,” along with as many as 12 other US citizens, possibly including an ex-ambassador and also Code Pink activist Ann Wright, a retired Army colonel. Three German members of Parliament embarked on the boats, as well as nationals of Britain, Ireland, Greece, Canada, Belgium, Sweden, Australia and Israel, perhaps among other countries. The precise passenger lists of the seized boats are unknown, due to logistical confusion in port in Cyprus. According to Shapiro, Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein, who was scheduled to travel to Gaza, remained in Cyprus, as did the Irish Nobel laureate Mairead Corrigan. Among the passengers who did depart is Hanan Zu‘bi, a Palestinian citizen of Israel and member of Knesset. Thus far, the blackout has covered up her whereabouts as well.

On board the Mavi Marmara were hundreds of Turks affiliated with the Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (known by its Turkish acronym, IHH), an Islamist organization whose relationship with Turkey’s “soft Islamist” ruling party, the AKP, is fraught. Close to the AKP’s more overtly Islamist precursor parties, which were banned by the Turkish courts, the IHH views the AKP as defectors who are insufficiently vocal in their engagement with “Islamic” issues, notably Palestine. The government did nothing to stop the IHH from departing for Cyprus, despite warnings from its nominal ally Israel, for fear that its own “Islamic” credentials might be further questioned. Early reports say that six Turks are among the dead, meaning that this incident will reverberate loudly in Turkish politics.

What?

Spin doctors in Israel have been working fast and furious to mold the metanarrative of what happened aboard the Mavi Marmara. The American mainstream media has mostly concentrated on Israeli allegations that some of the activists were carrying weapons and thus posed a threat to the lives of the highly trained Israel Defense Forces (IDF) commandos. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told European diplomats that the ship’s passengers were “terrorist supporters who fired at IDF soldiers as soon as the latter boarded the ships.” An IDF-distributed video, shot from a helicopter, shows what appears to be a melee on deck and says the activists tried to “kidnap” a soldier. The goal is to spread the story that the commandos acted in self-defense. To this tale, Adam Shapiro replies, “Our understanding is that Israeli soldiers fired first.” In Ashdod, the Associated Press briefly glimpsed one American passenger, who blurted out, “I’m not violent. What I can tell you is that there are bruises all over my body. They won’t let me show them to you,” before being hustled away.

Again, minus the carefully impounded testimony of the activists themselves, it is difficult to know what exactly precipitated the shooting. It is certainly clear that the raid itself was no panicking naval captain’s improvisation, but was approved by the Israeli security cabinet under the imprimatur of Defense Minister Ehud Barak. According to the IDF’s official statement, “This IDF naval operation was carried out under orders from the political leadership to halt the flotilla from reaching the Gaza Strip and breaching the naval blockade.”

The dispute over who started the on-board combat misses the point, however. From a legal point of view, the Israeli operation was completely out of bounds and Israel is the aggressor. The raid occurred in international waters, meaning that Israel violated the convoy’s right of free navigation. Richard Falk, an international legal scholar and the UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, says that the raid is “clearly a criminal act, being on the high seas.” Falk explains that storming a peaceful boat is akin to a home invasion, with the aggravating circumstance that the invaded space in this case was packed with goods intended to alleviate human suffering. “The people on these boats would have some right of self-defense,” Falk continues, as they were the ones who were under unprovoked attack. Israel’s claim of self-defense is preposterous, no matter who threw the first punch, because Israel’s self is not located at sea.

Before the convoy sailed, Israeli passenger Dror Feiler speculated that if the Israeli navy tried to stop the ships by force, “they’ll be the new pirates of the Mediterranean.” The Free Gaza Movement has echoed this charge, as has the Financial Times in its May 31 editorial denouncing “this brazen act of piracy.” This particular accusation will not stick, for the simple reason that by maritime law a state cannot commit piracy, but again it is important not to get tangled up in words. Israel has no legal leg to stand on, because it mounted a military assault upon a civilian boat (which is not, by any conceivable law, barred from carrying knives and metal rods) in waters not its own.

Why?

In part because of the murky details, early commentary on the commando raid has focused on the atmospherics. Everyone except the Israeli state and its kneejerk defenders, like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), believes that Israel has done itself a great disservice, at least in public relations terms. Writing in the May 31 edition of Ha’aretz, columnist Bradley Burston lamented that Israel’s foes have switched the spotlight onto the blockade of Gaza, Hamas or no Hamas. Burston continued: “We are no longer defending Israel. We are now defending the siege. The siege itself is becoming Israel’s Vietnam.” On the Huffington Post website, M. J. Rosenberg, formerly of the liberal Israel Policy Forum, quoted blogger Moshe Yaroni saying that the incident is “Israel’s Kent State.”

The operation comes on the heels of the kerfuffle caused by a lengthy essay by Peter Beinart titled, “The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment,” which appears in the June 10 issue of the New York Review of Books. Beinart is the former editor of the pro-Israel magazine The New Republic, and a slowly recovering liberal hawk who backed the 2003 invasion of Iraq (for which he has repented) and authored A Fighting Faith (2004), a book calling for a revival of Cold War bellicosity in liberal foreign policy thinking. His essay lambasts the likes of AIPAC for maintaining its “Israel, right or wrong” stance amidst the rise of blatantly illiberal political forces in Israel and the continuation of the settlement project. Beinart is worried that the pro-Israel reflex will corrode Israel’s support base among American Jewry. “For several decades, the Jewish establishment has asked American Jews to check their liberalism at Zionism’s door,” he writes, “and now, to their horror, they are finding that many young Jews have checked their Zionism instead.” The editors of Foreign Policy were so struck by the essay that they commissioned eight responses.

The hand wringing among Israel’s backers in the US will intensify as the crisis unfolds. The chorus will rise that Israel has overreacted or miscalculated; much blame will be laid at the door of Netanyahu, who is an easy target because of his brusque demeanor and pointed defiance of the Obama White House on settlement construction. Netanyahu, it will be said, has made a “crazy move” and placed the all-important US-Israeli “special relationship” in jeopardy.

It is more plausible that the Netanyahu government calculated this maneuver precisely, exploiting the Free Gaza Movement’s gift of Memorial Day timing, when the Obama administration would be on vacation and hence readily able to make do with a grunt of “regret.” For decades, Israel has tried the patience of the official international community with its military adventures, but whenever that patience has run out, Washington has stepped in to spare Israel the consequences. The glaring example at present, the commando raid excepted, is the winter 2008-2009 assault on Gaza, when Israel bombarded the tiny strip for over a month, killing some 1,300 Palestinians, and claiming as justification the ineffectual rocket fire of Gazan militants. The Obama administration stymied any Security Council consideration of the UN report on that offensive, by retired South African jurist Richard Goldstone, protecting Israel from investigations of possible war crimes. Compared to the carnage in Gaza itself, the casualties among the Free Gaza Movement are few. Israel is counting on the US, once again, to deflect the international furor over its actions and enshrine the principle that Israel can do whatever it wants, legal or not, to the Palestinians and those who try to help them.

What Now?

Perhaps, nonetheless, Israel did miscalculate. Free Gaza Movement members not on the boats are stunned by Israel’s violence, and mournful at the losses in their ranks, but heartened by the alacrity and sharp tone of world reaction to the raid. The next step for the activists, says Shapiro, will be to decide when and where to sail with the two aid vessels still in Cyprus. Gael Murphy of Code Pink predicts that Palestine solidarity networks will be “moved to action” more concerted and determined than before.

In Israel-Palestine, the burning question is the fate of Sheikh Ra’id Salah, a resident of Umm al-Fahm and the leader of the Islamist Movement in Israel. Salah was a passenger in the “Freedom Flotilla,” and Arab media reports have said that he was injured or even killed by the commandos. Many observers believe that if Salah was hurt there will be massive demonstrations by Palestinians both inside and outside Israel, perhaps sparking confrontations and giving Israel the opportunity to reassert control over the crisis and the coverage of the conflict in general.

In Turkey, the government cannot ignore popular protests over the attack on the Mavi Marmara, the largest of which have taken on a religious dimension. On May 31 crowds of Islamists in Istanbul blocked the Trans-European Motorway linking the European and Asian continents, upstaging the faster-moving, but smaller gatherings of leftists. Both the IHH involvement in the convoy and Erdogan’s impassioned denunciation of the raid have painted the AKP into a corner. They must show the Turkish public that they will stand up to Israel and its US patron in the diplomatic arena, and also that they will not abandon the mission of relief for Gaza. The AKP government has canceled three joint Turkish-Israeli military exercises, recalled its ambassador from Tel Aviv and repatriated the national youth soccer team from Israel. Erdogan promised to order a Turkish naval escort for the next flotilla, and with elections not far off in 2011, he may be hard pressed to renege. At the same time, the AKP cannot be completely comfortable in the role in which it has been cast, which increasingly requires it to face down not only the state-secularist establishment in Turkey but also the country’s mightiest friends in Washington. The Obama administration is already irked by Ankara’s brokering, with Brazil, of a nuclear deal with Tehran.

The destination of the boats, Gaza, stands at risk of being overshadowed by the deadly scuffles off its coast. It is there, however, that the situation is most dire. The “Freedom Flotilla” was carrying, among other items, cement for the reconstruction of the 6,400 Palestinian homes that were razed or damaged in the winter of 2008-2009. The World Health Organization counts some 3,500 families as displaced by the bombing, more than a year later. The Israeli assault exacerbated the effects of the years-long siege, which has sent the already impoverished strip into downward spirals of human misery. In May 2008, the WHO estimates, 70 percent of families were living on less than $1 a day; 10.2 percent of Gazans were chronically malnourished; and 67 percent of young people were jobless. These numbers have certainly worsened since the data was collected, due to the bombing, and to subsequent Israeli and Egyptian crackdowns on the smuggling of goods through tunnels underneath the Gazan-Egyptian border.

What of the response of Barack Obama? The path of least resistance, sure to be greased by Congress, would be to instruct his UN envoy to spurn Turkish and other demands for Israeli accountability. With the assistance of the American media, it may not be so difficult for the White House to pretend that this naked display of unlawful violence was just a “tragedy” occurring in the heat of the moment. The media, after all, is bleating insipidly about the effects this episode may have on the Israeli-Palestinian “peace process.” Obama is likely to face little domestic pressure to put a stop to Israeli impunity and back a full and impartial investigation, though UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called for one. And having just slapped down the Turkish-Brazilian deal with Iran, Obama may be ready to do all his damage to US-Turkish ties at once. It may be harder to avoid a conversation about lifting the indefensible blockade of Gaza, which Assistant Secretary-General Oscar Fernandez-Taranco described as “counterproductive and unacceptable” before the Security Council on May 31. One thing is certain: If Obama chooses the former course and shields Israel from international scrutiny, no speech, however silver-tongued, will persuade the world that his Middle East policy is different from his predecessor’s.

Middle East Report Online: Outlaws of the Mediterranean, From the Editors

if you look here, you see the internal political fallout really starting to take shape as it's now the story that the raid happened without anyone's explicit approval, just a kind of spontaneous combustion thing:

Netanyahu: World criticism won't stop Israel's blockade of Gaza - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News

meanwhile, any idea you might be entertaining that this has wide-spread support in israel has to be coming from deep inside the likud/ultra-right spin machine:

Seven idiots in the cabinet - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News

and in reality, not in the world of conservative myths, relations between israel and the united states are taking a real pounding thanks to the unbelievable incompetence of the netanyahu government. but hey don't take my word for it:

Mossad chief: Israel gradually becoming burden on U.S. - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News

---------- Post added at 05:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:35 PM ----------

i'm working, so have to duck in and out...

here's a piece that outlines something of conditions under the israeli siege:

ei: "No other options:" Gaza's tunnel industry

dippin · 06-01-2010, 09:57 AM

Oh yeah, and as a general FYI, the blockade of Gaza has a lot more to do with securing a market for Israeli goods than actual security.

dlish · 06-01-2010, 12:21 PM

my reporter friend is fine, but is still in israel under some sort of arrest. he's due out tomorrow so ill hear his story first hand if any of you guys are interested.

no ones' been able to glean any further info because his phone calls are monitored and he hasnt been able to speak. the truth will prevail.

idyllic - i have no idea what sort of tangent you've gone on, but that antimuslim dribble doesnt really belong here in this thread. it's irrelevant. i'd be happy to discuss turkeys' islamic connection with hamas because it pertinant to this whole story.

roachboy · 06-01-2010, 12:21 PM

it was predictable i suppose that the israelis would try to link the flotilla to some "terrorist organization" wasn't it?

Israel envoy in Geneva: Gaza flotilla activists linked to terror groups - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News

just as it was predictable that the united states block attempts at condemnation of the action from the un security council or even an investigation of the whole thing, preferring instead an investigation of "acts" within the raid and stipulating that so far as the united states is concerned it'd be hunky dory were israel to investigate itself.

meanwhile the first accounts from the side of the flotilla are starting to surface.
they don't square with those of the idf. what a surprise.

Quote:

Israelis opened fire before boarding Gaza flotilla, say released activists

First eyewitness accounts of raid contradict version put out by Israeli officials

Survivors of the Israeli assault on a flotilla carrying relief supplies to Gaza returned to Greece and Turkey today, giving the first eyewitness accounts of the raid in which at least 10 people died.

Arriving at Istanbul's Ataturk airport with her one-year-old baby, Turkish activist Nilufer Cetin said Israeli troops opened fire before boarding the Turkish-flagged ferry Mavi Marmara, which was the scene of the worst clashes and all the fatalities. Israeli officials have said that the use of armed force began when its boarding party was attacked.

"It was extremely bad and very tough clashes took place. The Mavi Marmara is filled with blood," said Cetin, whose husband is the Mavi Marmara's chief engineer.

She told reporters that she and her child hid in the bathroom of their cabin during the confrontation. "The operation started immediately with firing. First it was warning shots, but when the Mavi Marmara wouldn't stop these warnings turned into an attack," she said.

"There were sound and smoke bombs and later they used gas bombs. Following the bombings they started to come on board from helicopters."

Cetin is among a handful of Turkish activists to be released; more than 300 remain in Israeli custody. She said she agreed to extradition from Israel after she was warned that conditions in jail would be too harsh for her child.

"I am one of the first passengers to be sent home, just because I have baby. When we arrived at the Israeli port of Ashdod we were met by the Israeli interior and foreign ministry officials and police; there were no soldiers. They asked me only a few questions. But they took everything – cameras, laptops, cellphones, personal belongings including our clothes," she said.

Kutlu Tiryaki was a captain of another vessel in the flotilla. "We continuously told them we did not have weapons, we came here to bring humanitarian help and not to fight," he said.

"The attack on the Mavi Marmara came in an instant: they attacked it with 12 or 13 attack boats and also with commandos from helicopters. We heard the gunshots over our portable radio handsets, which we used to communicate with the Mavi Marmara, because our ship communication system was disrupted. There were three or four helicopters also used in the attack. We were told by Mavi Marmara their crew and civilians were being shot at and windows and doors were being broken by Israelis."

Six Greek activists who returned to Athens accused Israeli commandos of using electric shocks during the raid.

Dimitris Gielalis, who had been aboard the Sfendoni, told reporters: "Suddenly from everywhere we saw inflatables coming at us, and within seconds fully equipped commandos came up on the boat. They came up and used plastic bullets, we had beatings, we had electric shocks, any method we can think of, they used."

Michalis Grigoropoulos, who was at the wheel of the Free Mediterranean, said: "We were in international waters. The Israelis acted like pirates, completely out of the normal way that they conduct nautical exercises, and seized our ship. They took us hostage, pointing guns at our heads; they descended from helicopters and fired tear gas and bullets. There was absolutely nothing we could do … Those who tried to resist forming a human ring on the bridge were given electric shocks."

Grigoropoulos, who insisted the ship was full of humanitarian aid bound for Gaza "and nothing more", said that, once detained, the human rights activists were not allowed to contact a lawyer or the Greek embassy in Tel Aviv. "They didn't let us go to the toilet, eat or drink water and throughout they videoed us. They confiscated everything, mobile phones, laptops, cameras and personal effects. They only allowed us to keep our papers."

Turkey said it was sending three ambulance planes to Israel to pick up 20 more Turkish activists injured in the operation.

Three Turkish Airlines planes were on standby, waiting to fly back other activists, the prime minister's office said.

Israelis opened fire before boarding Gaza flotilla, say released activists | World news | guardian.co.uk

====

dlish: please do post what you hear.

Idyllic · 06-01-2010, 12:34 PM

YouTube - Close-Up Footage of Mavi Marmara Passengers Attacking IDF Soldiers (With Sound)

Quote:

Israeli captain in Gaza flotilla op
Captain wounded in mission says mob of activists pounced on the troops, approaching them with knives and batons.
By Fadi Eyadat
The Israel Navy commandos who on Monday raided a flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip with humanitarian aid had no choice but to defend themselves against the violent activists, a captain of the elite marines unit who carried out the operation said Tuesday.
"We knew there would be resistance, but not at such an enormous scale," said Captain R., who led one of the teams and was wounded in the mission. "Every [activist] that approached us wanted to kill us."
Captain R. was the second commando to be dropped from a military helicopter onto the Turkish-flagged ship. During the mission, a large mob of the activists hurled him from the upper to lower deck of the ship.
From the Rambam Hospital in Haifa, Captain R. said that every commando who entered the ship was met by a number of activists who charged at the soldiers and attacked them. At least 75 percent of the activists took part in what the soldiers later described as a "lynch."
"I was the second to be lowered in by rope," said Captain R. "My comrade who had already been dropped in was surrounded by a bunch of people. It started off as a one-on-one fight, but then more and more people started jumping us. I had to fight against quite a few terrorists who were armed with knives and batons."
The captain said that he was first forced to cock his gun and shoot once when one of the activists came toward him with a knife.
"At that point, another twenty people starting coming at me from every direction," said Captain R. "They jumped at me and hurled me to the deck below the bridge. Then I felt a stabbing in my stomach – it was a knife. I pulled it our and somehow managed to get to the lower level. There, was another mob of people."
The unit had seized control of the ship by that point, save for the lower-most level. "Another soldier and I managed to get out of there and jump into the water."
The commandos had been well-prepared for the mission, said the captain, and had taken into account that the activists might respond with violence. "We thought it would be passive resistance, maybe verbal, but not at such strength," he said.
Despite the tragic results, the captain said he felt his soldiers had operated in a justified fashion. "We worked in an outstanding way, with the values that were instilled in us," he said. "We only turned our weapons against those who put us in danger."

An couple interesting comment from this story above:

Quote:

WHAT A SHAM... PEACE ADVOCATES ACTING PIRATES, LIKE WILD IMMATURE CHILDREN THAT WANT IT THEIR WAY OR NOTHING. LOGIC SAYS... YOU WANT TO BRING AID TO GAZA? GO THROUGH ASHDOD. BRAIN WASHED, SO CALLED PEACE ACTIVISTS, FIND THE MOST PROVOCATIVE WAY TO GET HELP TO GAZA, WHICH AFTER THIS STUNT, WILL PROBABLY NOT GET TO GAZA AT ALL... OR ANYTIME SOON. THE WORLD IS ON CRAZY PILLS. ANYTHING TO DISTORT REALITY. IF ARAFAT SAID YES TO PEACE BACK IN 2000, WE WOULD NOT BE HERE. INSTEAD ARAFAT SAID NO, HE THEN WENT BACK HOME AND STARTED A BLOODY INTIFADA. WHICH ISRAEL HAD TO DEFEND ITSELF EVERYDAY. BEFORE THE INTIFADA, THERE WAS NO DIVIDING WALL, ARABS WERE WORKING IN ISRAEL, BLOCKADES WERE MINIMAL AND GAZA WAS RELATIVELY QUIET. AFTER THE INTIFADA, UNTIL ISRAEL MANAGED TO BUILD A WALL, WE HAD COWARDLY, BRAIN WASHED TERRORISTS ENTERING ISRAEL EVERY DAY... SUICIDE BOMBINGS. LET US NOT FORGET... THE MENTALLY DISABLED 12 YEAR OLD BOY THAT WAS SENT BY HAMAS TO BLOW HIMSELF UP AT AN ISRAELI CHECKPOINT. THE BOY GOT THERE, AND DIDN'T WANT TO DIE. IT SHOWS HOW UNBELIEVABLY INHUMAN, HEARTLESS AND BARBARIC HAMAS IS... NOT ISRAEL. WHERE IS THE COMMON SENSE, WHERE IS THE LOGIC? IT IS JUST BLIND HATRED AND RESENTMENT TOWARD JEWS AND ISRAEL. ARIEL SHARON REALIZED THAT IT WAS TIME FOR PEACE.... THAT AFTER YEARS OF BLOODSHED, IT WAS TIME TO TAKE A POSITIVE STEP TOWARDS PEACE. HE STARTED BY LEADING THE WAY TO ENDING THE OCCUPATION IN GAZA... AND IT WAS UNDER ENORMOUS PRESSURE FROM WITHIN ISRAEL, THE GOV'T, THE PEOPLE AND THE SETTLERS... BOTTOM LINE: WE LEFT GAZA. HAMAS STOLE THE GAZA STRIP FROM THE PALESTINIANS... THEY STARTED OFF BY DESTROYING EVERYTHING. THEN BUILT ROCKETS AND STARTED LAUNCHING THEM INTO ISRAELI TOWNS - EVERY SINGLE DAY. DOZENS OF ROCKETS... EVERYDAY. THAT PUSHED ISRAEL IN TO RESPONDING... WHICH MADE THEIR MASTERFUL CUNNING PLOY TO GAIN WORLD SYMPATHY, LOOK GOOD, WHILE ISRAEL LOOKS BAD. THEN CAST LEAD HAPPENED, OUT OF NECESSITY AND DEFENSE. RIGHT OR WRONG, IT WAS NECESSARY. IT'S LIKE MEXICAN TERRORIST GROUP LAUNCHING DOZENS OF ROCKETS INTO ARIZONA TOWNS, EVERY DAY. I DON'T THINK AMERICA WOULD SIT BACK AND TAKE IT. I WONDER WHAT RESPONSE AMERICA WOULD TAKE, IF EVEN 1 ROCKET HITS AMERICAN LAND. PEOPLE IN THIS WORLD ARE BEING CONNED... GIVE SYMPATHY TO A PROBLEM THAT SHOULD NOT EVEN BE HERE. BRING HUMANITARIAN AID IN THROUGH THE PROPER CHANNELS, UNDER YOUR WATCH AND YOUR INSPECTION. BOTTOM LINE, THIS DOESN'T HELP ANYONE... ESPECIALLY THE GAZAN'S THAT THE ACTIVISTS SAY NEED THE HELP AND SUPPLIES SO DESPERATELY. YOU CANT JUST FLOAT INTO MIAMI SAYING YOU WANT TO BRING HUMANITARIAN AID TO CUBAN REFUGEES... CRAZY PILLS I TELL YOU... CRAZY PILLS. by élan

Quote:

In a normal country, when an enemy threatens a soldier, then the soldier responds using overwhelming force, often lethal, in order to eliminate the threat. Even when an enemy combatant surrounds himself with women and children hostages, which is characteristic of Islamic "fighters", the soldier is obligated to eliminate the threat. It was only by the Grace of God that no Jewish soldiers were murdered in this incident. They foolishly prided themselves as they shouted to their comrades to avoid shooting into the lynch mob. Their foolish commanders sent them into the battle with paint ball rifles! Hamas and Hizbollah systematically fire missiles at Israeli civilian population centers from within their own civilian population centers. These same foolish soldiers and their government feel it is immoral to take out the missile launchers. Rather according to their skewed moral calculus, it is preferable that the missiles should murder innocent Jewish civilians. Rashi, the famous medieval Torah commentator, said that one who shows mercy to the cruel will be cruel to the innocent. Thus the same moral soldiers and their moral government have no qualms about destroying the homes of the Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria for the sake of a fake peace that has left thousands of Jews murdered, maimed, widowed and orphaned. Avraham Bernstein

They were just kindly activists, right? They were told to turn around, they were told not to do this, they insisted to continue, they were the provokers also. There are other ways of delivering aid to gaza, they did this intentionally to provoke Israel and then to provoke the soldiers and finally to draw the attention of the world while attempting to demonize Israel. Do we no longer talk of the 500+ citizens and innocents killed in the past few months by terrorist (hamas, al-qaeda, hezbollah, et.al.) suicide bombers, bull shit. These were no activists, they were hate filled animals.

dlish · 06-01-2010, 12:41 PM

sorry idyllic, but you dont know that. Youre making an emoptive assumption based on the defensive actions of a ship that is threatened in international waters and iilegally taken over by israel.

wait, do i hear you calling for israel to be charged with piracy?

please name one person, or one shred of evidence to show that these activists were alqaida, hamas or hezbollah. sources please.

roachboy · 06-01-2010, 12:48 PM

this is the spot of fundamental disagreement, idyllic.
i see no comparison at all between israel--a regional military superpower--and the people of gaza. the siege--and it's nothing short of that--is barbaric to my mind. and i've done ALOT of research on this, have worked out alot of about what's happening on the ground there.
and i have no problem with any and all international pressure that could bring an end to that siege.

i also knew that when netanyahu was elected with a small enough majority that he had to form a coalition with the extreme right that things would not go well for palestinians in general and for the people of gaza in particular. and they haven't---working out a deal with egypt on the principle of the enemy of my enemy is my friend, so based on mutual distrust of hamas, resulted in the shutting down of the tunnel systems that made life bearable under israeli occuption.

and don't forget about the consequences of the israeli massacre in gaza of last winter.
and the fact that israel has prevented rebuilding.
the **whole** of which was predicated on some harebrained idea that hamas could be undermined the way the plo was undermined, by a colonialism that made it almost impossible to deliver basic services. that's the strategy.

and you have to swallow alot of nonsense to get around that basic reality.
one spigot of nonsense is the old frame-switch. the usual likud-y settler-party story about poor persecuted israel and those nasty rockets. which i am not condoning btw--but let's be real. hamas launches most of its rockets into fields. they don't do anything like the damage the israelis do to gazans.
factor in last year's massacre and you'll get the picture.

the flotilla was designed to create a pr problem for the israeli siege.
the netanyahu government's bungled attempt to manage that resulted in a success beyond the activitist's wildest expectation.
it is a p.r. fiasco for israel.
and there's no unanimity about this action inside israel at all. at. all. where there's a sense of unanimity is amongst conservative american commentators who rarely let reality get in the way when it comes to israel.

personally, i think they should have let the ship land and allowed the media rituals to happen. one of netanyahu's 7 idiot cabinet ministers made this argument. that woulda been the smart way to deal with it. let it happen, let the attention come and blow over. people forget.

but instead, the idf fucked up. a big big big mistake. i havent any idea what the consequences will be, but i think it'd sure be nice for the rightwing government that's responsible for this to fall, don't you?

dippin · 06-01-2010, 12:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Idyllic

YouTube - Close-Up Footage of Mavi Marmara Passengers Attacking IDF Soldiers (With Sound)

An couple interesting comment from this story above:

They were just kindly activists, right? They were told to turn around, they were told not to do this, they insisted to continue, they were the provokers also. There are other ways of delivering aid to gaza, they did this intentionally to provoke Israel and then to provoke the soldiers and finally to draw the attention of the world while attempting to demonize Israel. Do we no longer talk of the 500+ citizens and innocents killed in the past few months by terrorist (hamas, al-qaeda, hezbollah, et.al.) suicide bombers, bull shit. These were no activists, they were hate filled animals.

Let me second Dlish's request for any source that shows that those aboard the ships were hamas, al qaeda or hezbollah.

Considering there are people in this thread with friends on those ships, I would imagine that backing up allegations like that before calling anyone "hate filled animals" is just basic decency.

And considering the ship was in international waters, the law is crystal clear: the people on the ships had a right to defend themselves, not the Israelis.

05-31-2010, 07:47 AM	#2 (permalink)
Seaver Junkie Location: Fort Worth, TX	I think we'll have to see what happens as more information comes to light. I'm not doubting Israel's ability to come down with a hammer.... but they are generally pretty reserved in dealing with protests and something sounds fishy. I have to admit, my first thought was the flotilla was likely smuggling in weapons... __________________ "Smite the rocks with the rod of knowledge, and fountains of unstinted wealth will gush forth." - Ashbel Smith as he laid the first cornerstone of the University of Texas

05-31-2010, 10:42 AM	#4 (permalink)
dlish Currently sour but formerly Dlishs Super Moderator Location: Australia/UAE	i have a friend of mine whos a reporter here in the UAE who was on board that ship that got attacked. we had no news of him until a few moments ago. he just called his brother to say he is fine and is in israel and that there are 15 dead and 16 wounded. the line cut out after that. will give more info as it comes to hand. from what ive been reading and seeing, some members used sticks or batons against the israeli commandos as they were being raided. seems somewhat of an overkill to be killing people for that. im waiting for more info. gulfnews for the other side of the news __________________ An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay? - Filthy

05-31-2010, 11:15 AM	#6 (permalink)
dlish Currently sour but formerly Dlishs Super Moderator Location: Australia/UAE	i dont usually go to cnn, but if i wanted the israeli viewpoint, usually i go there. anyways, from what ive read there, the commandos are saying they were fired on by people below deck. i cant say that its impossible to get weapons on there, but this was a well documented and popular story that's been covered in all the papers in news in the past few weeks. the last thing these guys wanted was a weapon on board. __________________ An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay? - Filthy

05-31-2010, 11:45 AM	#7 (permalink)
Strange Famous follower of the child's crusade?	One of those funny terms. I am an activist You are a gun runner But it is a PR disaster for Israel obviously, and they are going to have to appease Turkey. But people shouldnt be so quick to hate Israel all the time. Their reality is having missiles shot at them every week from Gaza. This informs and influances how they behave and react. Setting up an illegal prisoner of war camp and holding people without charge and in contravention of the Geneva convention isnt that great either, but America did it. (just as the illegal internment without charhe of Irish Nationalists by the UK isnt that great) __________________ "Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate, for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain without being uncovered." The Gospel of Thomas

05-31-2010, 12:01 PM	#8 (permalink)
dlish Currently sour but formerly Dlishs Super Moderator Location: Australia/UAE	are you suggesting that they were running guns into the country? i see this as highly unlikely because of the media exposure over the preceeding weeks leading up to this event. It was front page news here before it even made front page news worldwide. i dont see the relevance of your last paragraph nor how those instances can be used to justify what the israelis did today. __________________ An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay? - Filthy

05-31-2010, 11:10 AM	#5 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	Just FYI, Turkish governmental officials searched the flotilla very carefully for any kind of weapons before they were allowed to leave port. The last think Turkey wants is to be accused of arming Hamas. I'm afraid the evidence in this matter would suggest the flotilla was not armed as IDF claims. Do we have any conclusive information about the legality of boarding aid boats in international waters? It was my understanding (layman) that no government has a right to do that.

05-31-2010, 12:14 PM	#9 (permalink)
Strange Famous follower of the child's crusade?	I am just saying that Israel are not the only country who break international law in what they perceive to be their interests I dont know if these boats were running guns or not. The Israeli forces obviously suspected or feared that they were, the people on the boat either didnt trust the Israeli's to search the cargo, or had something to hide - at the moment we cant say which. And then someone fires a gun, or throws a rock, or hits someone with a club - and all this happens. Israel have come out of this looking very bad certainly. __________________ "Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate, for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain without being uncovered." The Gospel of Thomas

05-31-2010, 12:25 PM	#10 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	i dont see any plausible scenario in which this group of ships could be taken for running guns. what seems a whole lot more plausible is that the (rightwing) israeli government saw the flotilla as an embarrassment---which they should but one that follows from the continued blockade of gaza---and decided to do a bit dick-waving---you know, to prevent the ships from docking and bringing evil bad publicity and medical supplies, both of which fly in the face of israel's apparent sovereign right to brutalize the population of gaza without drawing unseemly attention. i think that was a huge mistake in principle and the material world because when you play that game there's the possibility of things getting very chaotic very quickly and people ending up dead or wounded. a remarkably bad idea of the sort that netanyahu is famous for. but gun running? that's nonsense. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

05-31-2010, 03:40 PM	#16 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	well, the rocket thing is wildly exaggerated, both in terms of the number of attacks and in particular their effects. this is not to say "yay rockets!" or anything like that. rather it is to say that everything about these attacks have been inflated and manipulated to justify continued brutality visited upon the population of gaza. second, it's a matter of record that the reason for the blockade is regime change---the israelis made what turned out to be a stupid and brutal tactical choice when hamas won elections in 2006 (i think) & israel decided to undermine hamas by choking the civilian population. so the blockade has been outrageous illegal and brutal from the start--but it's never been about these rocket attacks. it's about trying to starve the population of gaza into no longer supporting hamas politically. third, if the arms smuggling is a problem that would be a reason to clamp down on the tunnels into sinai that enable gaza to survive at all. and over the past few months egypt has been doing exactly that. i'm not sure of the status of that (they were basically building an underground metal barrier through the tunnel area) but if it's completed or close that would really increase the pressure on the civilian population of gaza. which may well be a motivation behind the flotilla. but the idea that the flotilla itself would have arms is patently absurd. the ships are chock-a-block with well-known political figures including egyptian members of parliament, novelists, peace activists, etc. so i don't think any of these justifications holds any water. but even if they did this raid is still a remarkably bad idea. consider for example the implications for relations with egypt. it might be that some of this goes back to a quite famous exchange between the turkish prime minister and olmert (i'm not sure...it mighta been perez) during the gaza atrocity...um...incursion. i can see maybe some sense of fuck you from israeli conservatives aimed at turkey for that. so it's possible that the raid is more about the prominent role of turkish organizations and interests in organizing it than any nonsense about weapons. just a thought. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

05-31-2010, 05:15 PM	#18 (permalink)
Pearl Trade Addict Location: Houston, Texas	I read somewhere that the Israeli's had paintball guns and a side-arm, and were only allowed to use the side-arm if something bad started to happen, which obviously did. Anyone else hear anything about that? In the video Baraka put up you can clearly see a soldier holding a paintball gun, as other soldiers around him are being attacked. It's around the 1:02 minute mark in the video. Boarding the ships in international waters isn't the best idea, they should have waited until they were legally allowed to board them. Why did the people on the ship attack the soldiers? Their intent was to kill, seeing as how they threw them overboard and attacked the soldiers with pipes. I find it hard to believe that specially trained soldiers like this would start killing people without being provoked by a life threatening force. __________________ Our revenge will be the laughter of our children. Give me convenience or give me death!

05-31-2010, 05:49 PM	#19 (permalink)
timalkin Addict Location: watching from the treeline	.. __________________ Trinity: "What do you need?" Neo: "Guns. Lots of guns." -The Matrix Last edited by timalkin; 12-19-2010 at 11:29 AM..

05-31-2010, 05:57 PM	#20 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	right because it's ok for a regional military superpower to lay a 3 year seige to a half million civilians because that regional military superpower didn't like the way an election turned out. poor israel. yeah. o and by the way there's a wide range of political viewpoints in israel and alot---ALOT--of israelis don't think the barbaric tactics preferred by the right are ok. why you'd have to watch tv in the united states to imagine there was anything like unanimity around the policies of likud and the whackjob rightwing organizations that represent those fine settler interests. so this is about a remarkably stupid action that has ALOT of israelis aghast (read some of the israeli press and stop watching fox) undertaken on the watch of a rightwing government that's made up of ultra-rightwing parties as part of the coalition that alot of israelis do not support. it's nothing like "poor israel, they're always wrong." except maybe in the world of sean hannity. but who takes hannity et al seriously? __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

06-01-2010, 04:59 AM	#22 (permalink)
Baraka_Guru warrior bodhisattva Super Moderator Location: East-central Canada	It ain't over, apparently. Activists to take another run at Gaza blockade - thestar.com __________________ Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing? —Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön Humankind cannot bear very much reality. —From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

06-01-2010, 05:20 AM	#23 (permalink)
Lucifer Husband of Seamaiden Location: Nova Scotia	Does anyone find this ironic? 70 years ago, ships were trying to get into Palestine loaded with aid, guns and Jewish refugees, and being boarded, attacked and turned back by British ships and commandos. Now ships are trying to get into Palestinian territory loaded with aid and being boarded and attacked by Israeli commandos. __________________ I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls. - Job 30:29 1123, 6536, 5321

06-01-2010, 07:27 AM	#25 (permalink)
Xazy People in masks cannot be trusted Location: NYC	Sorry I believe in the right to defense of a country, and I cannot imagine how the US would reply if it was their troops. Israel offered to deliver the goods if they allowed them to inspect them, Israel warned them repeatedly.

06-01-2010, 08:10 AM	#29 (permalink)
Cimarron29414 Still Free Location: comfortably perched at the top of the bell curve!	If Israel truly wanted to enforce a blockade, it should have waited for the ships to get into Israeli waters, searched them for contraband, and then turned the ships back. This raid was a terrible call by some suit in some position in the Israeli government. The soldiers were forced to obey the order, illegally board a boat, get attacked by deadly weapons and use deadly force to defend themselves. There is no self-defense justification because the deadly force was used during the commission of a seemingly illegal act. So, the soldiers committed what seem to be illegal actions but may have had no choice. In the US, a soldier can refuse an order which he believes violates his oath or that he believes is illegal. I don't know if Israeli soldiers can do the same. Does anyone know? Obviously, Israeli commandos are thoroughly indoctrinated and perhaps they don't rise out of the haze of devout nationalism long enough to evaluate if this is "the right thing to do." Regardless, I can't see how one could support the Israeli position here. In every case, I'd rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6, but I really don't want my country to abuse my service and put me in such a lose-lose decision. This whole thing sucks all the way around. __________________ Gives a man a halo, does mead. "Here lies The_Jazz: Killed by an ambitious, sparkly, pink butterfly."

06-01-2010, 09:34 AM	#32 (permalink)
dippin Crazy, indeed Location: the ether	Idyllic, And which, of all these actions you outline, were committed by the people on those boats? And which international treaty or law allows a nation to board a ship in international waters? The fact that in order to defend this action people must change the subject to organizations and people not associated or on the boat is telling.

06-01-2010, 09:57 AM	#34 (permalink)
dippin Crazy, indeed Location: the ether	Oh yeah, and as a general FYI, the blockade of Gaza has a lot more to do with securing a market for Israeli goods than actual security.

06-01-2010, 12:21 PM	#35 (permalink)
dlish Currently sour but formerly Dlishs Super Moderator Location: Australia/UAE	my reporter friend is fine, but is still in israel under some sort of arrest. he's due out tomorrow so ill hear his story first hand if any of you guys are interested. no ones' been able to glean any further info because his phone calls are monitored and he hasnt been able to speak. the truth will prevail. idyllic - i have no idea what sort of tangent you've gone on, but that antimuslim dribble doesnt really belong here in this thread. it's irrelevant. i'd be happy to discuss turkeys' islamic connection with hamas because it pertinant to this whole story. __________________ An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay? - Filthy Last edited by dlish; 06-01-2010 at 12:24 PM..

06-01-2010, 12:41 PM	#38 (permalink)
dlish Currently sour but formerly Dlishs Super Moderator Location: Australia/UAE	sorry idyllic, but you dont know that. Youre making an emoptive assumption based on the defensive actions of a ship that is threatened in international waters and iilegally taken over by israel. wait, do i hear you calling for israel to be charged with piracy? please name one person, or one shred of evidence to show that these activists were alqaida, hamas or hezbollah. sources please. __________________ An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay? - Filthy

06-01-2010, 12:48 PM	#39 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	this is the spot of fundamental disagreement, idyllic. i see no comparison at all between israel--a regional military superpower--and the people of gaza. the siege--and it's nothing short of that--is barbaric to my mind. and i've done ALOT of research on this, have worked out alot of about what's happening on the ground there. and i have no problem with any and all international pressure that could bring an end to that siege. i also knew that when netanyahu was elected with a small enough majority that he had to form a coalition with the extreme right that things would not go well for palestinians in general and for the people of gaza in particular. and they haven't---working out a deal with egypt on the principle of the enemy of my enemy is my friend, so based on mutual distrust of hamas, resulted in the shutting down of the tunnel systems that made life bearable under israeli occuption. and don't forget about the consequences of the israeli massacre in gaza of last winter. and the fact that israel has prevented rebuilding. the whole of which was predicated on some harebrained idea that hamas could be undermined the way the plo was undermined, by a colonialism that made it almost impossible to deliver basic services. that's the strategy. and you have to swallow alot of nonsense to get around that basic reality. one spigot of nonsense is the old frame-switch. the usual likud-y settler-party story about poor persecuted israel and those nasty rockets. which i am not condoning btw--but let's be real. hamas launches most of its rockets into fields. they don't do anything like the damage the israelis do to gazans. factor in last year's massacre and you'll get the picture. the flotilla was designed to create a pr problem for the israeli siege. the netanyahu government's bungled attempt to manage that resulted in a success beyond the activitist's wildest expectation. it is a p.r. fiasco for israel. and there's no unanimity about this action inside israel at all. at. all. where there's a sense of unanimity is amongst conservative american commentators who rarely let reality get in the way when it comes to israel. personally, i think they should have let the ship land and allowed the media rituals to happen. one of netanyahu's 7 idiot cabinet ministers made this argument. that woulda been the smart way to deal with it. let it happen, let the attention come and blow over. people forget. but instead, the idf fucked up. a big big big mistake. i havent any idea what the consequences will be, but i think it'd sure be nice for the rightwing government that's responsible for this to fall, don't you? __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite