‘Israel is a Lunatic State’ – Finkelstein on Gaza Flotilla Attack
Follow latest updates at http://twitter.com/RT_com and at http://www.facebook.com/pages/RT/3266… Political scientist Norman Finkelstein has spoken to RT to give his assessment of Israel’s raid on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla.
EDITOR: The Truth Will Out!
So now starts the second stage. In the first one, Israel murdered, silences kidnapped and tortured. The second stage is about to unveil the facts, now that the Israeli propaganda has played its vile narrative, the 680 terrified activists are starting to speak, and their voice will be heard across the world. The ‘friends of Israel’ will now shut up, at last, apologists for a barbaric and murderous regime.
Gaza flotilla deaths: pressure builds on Israel for full inquiry: The Guardian
Soldiers ‘shot to kill’, claim activists in accounts that differ sharply from those of Israelis
More than 600 pro-Palestinian activists were tonight locked up in an Israeli prison as calls grew for a full, impartial and independent inquiry into the commando raid on their flotilla which left nine dead and dozens injured.
First accounts from activists on board the ships began to emerge today with some claiming the Israeli forces who stormed the largest ship in the flotilla – the Mavi Marmara – shot to kill and used electric stun guns against them.
The accounts differed sharply from those coming from Israeli politicians and military, who said the soldiers were provoked into violence. A spokesman said it had been a measure of “last resort” after its troops had found themselves in a “lynching” when they landed on the ship.
As many as 40 Britons, including a 63-year-old timber yard owner, Peter Venner, from the Isle of Wight and a 43-year-old postal worker from Edinburgh, Theresa McDermott, were among those detained in the desert city of Be’er Sheva. One British activist, Ahsan Shamruc, was being treated in hospital for his injuries and was said to be in a stable condition.
There were repeated calls today for a full international investigation into the fatal events. They were led by Turkey, whose nationals made up most of the dead. The country’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, bitterly denounced the pre-dawn storming of the flotilla on Monday as a “bloody massacre”, telling his parliament: “It is no longer possible to cover up or ignore Israel’s lawlessness.” Israel, he said, deserved “every kind of curse”.
Erdogan demanded the US government condemn the assault, but Washington blocked an attempt at the UN security council for an international inquiry, issuing a comparatively mild statement regretting the loss of life.
Egypt agreed to open the crossing at the southern end of the Gaza Strip for several days to allow the movement of aid. The move was seen as a response to increasing Arab anger at what is perceived as Egyptian complicity in the blockade.
The security council – after 10 hours of deliberation – issued a call for “a prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation conforming to international standards”.
Britain’s foreign secretary, William Hague, said: “We agree with our EU partners and other international partners that there must be a full and impartial and independent investigation or inquiry in to these events.”
Asked if Israel would co-operate with an international investigation, Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli prime minister, Binjamin Netanyahu, told reporters such calls were “simply holding Israel to a standing … that no one else in the international community is expected to abide by”.
Israel was expected to launch its own inquiry into the raid, which took place in international waters and which left seven commandos injured, some seriously. Previous investigations into military operations resulting in bloodshed have failed to satisfy critics.
The chief of general staff, Lt Gen Gabi Ashkenazi, said there would also be a military inquiry into the mission. “You operated outstandingly,” he told wounded soldiers in hospital in Haifa, adding: “There is still a need to further investigate what happened.” The inquiry would learn lessons for the future, he said.
Netanyahu, who returned to Israel after putting off a meeting with President Barack Obama, acknowledged regret for the loss of life but said troops had acted in self-defence. “We will stand firm on our policy of a naval blockade [of Gaza],” he told his security cabinet. “It’s true there is international pressure and criticism … but [the world] must understand that it’s crucial to preserving Israel’s security.”
However, there were signs of tentative dissent. The deputy prime minister and intelligence affairs minister, Dan Meridor, admitted to Israel’s Army Radio that the outcome of the operation to take over the flotilla was “very difficult”, adding that the responsibility was that of the political establishment, not the army.
Speaking for the first time since the raid, survivors claimed the battle was one-sided with Israeli commandos using stun grenades, sound bombs, teargas, rubber bullets and live rounds.
“It was like war,” said Annette Groth, a German politician who was on the Mavi Marmara, the activists’ flagship. “They had guns, Taser weapons, some type of teargas and other weaponry, compared to two-and-a-half wooden sticks we had between us. To talk of self-defence is ridiculous.”
Israeli officials said 679 activists had been arrested, of whom 50 were immediately deported. The remainder had refused to co-operate and were imprisoned before being processed through Israeli courts. All were expected to be deported within days, officials added.
Three militants were killed by an Israeli airstrike on Gaza today following the firing of rockets into southern Israel.
The price of flawed policy: Haaretz Editorial
Relations with Turkey will probably deteriorate further, and there may even be serious damage on the official level.
When a regular, well-armed, well-trained army goes to war against a “freedom flotilla” of civilian vessels laden with civilians, food and medication, the outcome is foretold – and it doesn’t matter whether the confrontation achieved its goal and prevented the flotilla from reaching Gaza. The violent confrontation, whether caused by poor military planning or poor execution, resulted from flawed policy, wars of prestige, and from a profound misunderstanding of the confrontation’s meanings and repercussions.
The grave political damage caused by the confrontation is all too clear. Relations with Turkey will probably deteriorate further, and there may even be serious damage on the official level. The proximity talks with the Palestinians, which started lamely and with low expectations, will have trouble proceeding, now that Israel has attacked a ship intended to aid Gazans languishing under a four-year siege. Hamas claimed an outstanding victory without firing a single rocket, Egypt is under redoubled pressure to undermine the siege by opening the Rafah crossing, and it’s reasonable to assume Europe and the United States will not be able to let Israel get away with a mere reprimand.
All these developments are little surprise to anyone, and shouldn’t have surprised the policy makers in Jerusalem. Nevertheless, it seemed no one could resist the temptation to show the Israel Defense Forces’ strength in a place the IDF should not have been in the first place. Because the question was not who would win the confrontation, but who would win more public opinion points. In this test, Benjamin Netanyahu’s government failed completely. Israel let its policy of maintaining the siege on Gaza become an existential matter. This policy boomeranged and cost Israel its international legitimacy.
The decision makers’ negligence is threatening the security of Israelis, and Israel’s global status. Someone must be held responsible for this disgraceful failure. There is no way to convince Israel’s citizens and its friends around the world that Israel regrets the confrontation and its results, and is learning from its errors, other than setting up a state inquiry committee to investigate the decision-making process, and to decide who should pay for this dangerous policy.
Ireland to Israel: Let new aid ship break Gaza blockade: Haaretz
More than 100 of the activists who were aboard six-ship flotilla brought Jordan border for deportation; MV Rachel Corrie set sail Monday despite Israel Navy raid.
International activists vowed on Tuesday to try to break the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip with another ship carrying humanitarian aid, a day after an Israel Navy blockade on the first six-ship convoy left nine people dead and several more wounded.
The Irish-owned MV Rachel Corrie, a converted merchant ship bought by pro-Palestinian activists and named after an American woman killed in the Gaza Strip in 2003, set off on Monday from Malta, organizers said.
Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen urged Israel to let the vessel to finish its mission. The ship was carrying 15 activists including a northern Irish Nobel Peace laureate.
“The government has formally requested the Israeli government to allow the Irish-owned ship … to be allowed to complete its journey unimpeded and discharge its humanitarian cargo in Gaza,” Cowen told parliament in Dublin.
An Israel Defense Forces officer pledged that the newest ship would also be halted, setting the stage for a fresh confrontation after Monday’s deadly clash.
“We as a unit are studying, and we will carry out professional investigations to reach conclusions,” the lieutenant said, referring to Monday’s confrontation in which his unit shot nine activists aboard a Turkish ferry.
“And we will also be ready for the Rachel Corrie,” he added
But activists said they were determined to follow through with their plan. “We are an initiative to break Israel’s blockade of 1.5 million people in Gaza. Our mission has not changed and this is not going to be the last flotilla,” Free Gaza Movement activist Greta Berlin, based in Cyprus, told Reuters.
Israel decided late Tuesday to deport all of the the activists who were aboard the six-ship flotilla. One hundred and twenty of the nearly 700 passengers were transferred Tuesday evening to the border crossing with Jordan, from where they will be returned to their home countries.
Passengers on the MV Rachel Corrie include Northern Irish Nobel peace laureate Mairead Corrigan-Maguire and Denis Halliday, an Irish former senior UN diplomat, and several other Irish citizens.
Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin told parliament he had spoken with Halliday on Tuesday afternoon.
“We will be watching this situation very closely — as indeed will the world — and it is imperative that Israel avoid any action which leads to further bloodshed,” Martin said.
Israel’s Army Radio reported that the ship would reach Gazan waters by Wednesday, but activist Berlin said it might not attempt to reach Gaza until early next week.
“We will probably not send her till (next) Monday or Tuesday,” she said of the 1,200 ton cargo ship. The Israeli navy stormed aboard a Turkish ferry leading a six-ship convoy on Monday, killing nine people in what authorities said was self-defense but sparking a world outcry, a crisis in diplomatic relations with Turkey and condemnation from the United Nations Security Council.
The Rachel Corrie was carrying medical equipment, wheelchairs, school supplies and cement, a material Israel has banned in Hamas-ruled Gaza, organizers said.
Mark Daly, a member of Ireland’s upper house of parliament who had been due to join the convoy but was refused permission to leave Cyprus, told Reuters in Dublin that the ship had fallen behind the rest of the convoy because it was slower.
Passengers aboard it had heard about the attacks but decided not to turn back, he said.
“After having a discussion among themselves about what to do, they decided to keep going,” Daly said.
Passengers recount mid-sea horror: Al Jazeera online
Activists injured during the Israeli raid were rushed to hospital, while the rest were detained and interrogated or deported to their respective countries [AFP]
Israel has started releasing some of the 700 activists it captured after it troops stormed a flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza.
Turkey has sent three planes, including two military ambulance aircraft, to bring its nationals home.
Six Greek passengers returned to Athens after being expelled from Israel, and a former US ambassador who was also on the ship was on a flight home.
Here are excerpts of what some of the freed passengers had to say:
Issam Zaatar, Al Jazeera cameraman
I was filming, and then he [an Israeli solider] ran after me with a stun gun.
He could not catch me. One of his colleagues hit my hand from behind with a stun gun. My camera fell down. He ran to crush the camera with his feet.
I told him, don’t break my camera. If you want the tapes, I will give them to you. I told him these are media equipment. They had no limits.
They used rubber bullets. They used tear gas bombs. It was an unbelievable scene.
Haneen Zubi, Palestinian member of the Knesset
We were expecting the Israeli army to stop us, to prevent us from entering but surely we didn’t expect such a war against us.
It was 14 ships which approached us, nearly at 4.30 in the morning. Fourteen ships that I could count and one helicopter. Maybe more than 10 soldiers, I couldn’t say exactly [how many] were getting out of the helicopter.
On the second floor of the ship there were just passengers who are journalists, a nurse and organisers of the flotilla who didn’t have anything in their hands.
After 20 minutes, maybe 15 minutes, there were three dead bodies.
It ended at six, when a voice from the microphone said the ship was controlled by the Israelis, ‘please enter the rooms’.
Norman Paech, former member of the German parliament
This was not an act of self-defence [by the Israeli army], but rather it was completely disproportionate – although we were counting on our ship being blocked and maybe checked.
This was a very serious offence, this was a war crime.
I personally saw two and a half wooden sticks which were used [by activists].
We had not prepared in any way to fight. We didn’t even consider it.
No violence, no resistance – because we knew very well that we would have absolutely no chance against soldiers like this.
Mihalis Grigoropoulos, Greece
I was steering the ship, we saw them [Israeli soldiers] capture another ship in front of us, which was the Turkish passenger vessel with more than 500 people on board and heard shots fired.
We did not resist at all, we couldn’t even if we had wanted to. What could we have done against the commandos who climbed aboard?
The only thing some people tried was to delay them from getting to the bridge, forming a human shield. They were fired upon with plastic bullets and were stunned with electric devices.
There was great mistreatment after our arrest. We were essentially hostages, like animals on the ground.
They wouldn’t let us use the bathroom, wouldn’t give us food or water and they took video of us despite international conventions banning this.
Nilufer Cetin, Turkey
We stayed in our cabin and played games amid the sound of gunfire.
My son has been nervous since yesterday afternoon … I did not need to protect my son.
They knew there was a baby on board. I put a gas mask and life jacket on my son.
We did not experience any other problems on board, only a water shortage.
We took walks on the deck, played games with my son. The curtains were drawn, so I did not see the raid as it was happening. I only heard the voices.
There are lightly and heavily wounded people.
There are thousands, millions of babies in Gaza. My son and I wanted to play with those babies. We planned to deliver them aid. We wanted to say: ‘Look, it’s a safe place, I came here with my baby-son.’
I saw my husband from a distance, he looked okay. The ship personnel was not wounded, because they [the soldiers] needed them to take the ship to port.
I will go again if another ship goes.
Cetin returned to Istanbul airport with her one-year-old son.
Youssef Benderbal, France
The instructions were clear. Do not provoke, remain calm and go to meet them [the commandos] saying ‘we are pacifists and not terrorists’.
Masked commandos took possession of the ship. They were aiming for the captain’s cabin.
Benderbal was not on board Mavi Marmara, the lead ship of the flotilla, but on one of the other five ships. He gave this account to Europe 1 radio after arriving at a Paris airport.
Dimitris Gielalis, Greece
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.
Gielalis was on board the ship Sfendoni.
Mutlu Tiryaki, Turkey
When we went up to the deck, they emerged from helicopters and military boats and attacked us.
They approached our vessel with military ships after issuing a warning. We told them we were unarmed. Our sole weapon was water.
Pro-Palestinian activists to make second attempt to break Gaza blockade: Telegraph
Pro-Palestinian activists said they would make a second attempt to break the blockade on Gaza despite the loss of life on Monday.
By Richard Spencer
Published: 10:00PM BST 01 Jun 2010
Supplies are loaded onto the MV Rachel Corrie in Dundalk Harbour in May Photo: PA
The MV Rachel Corrie, belonging to the Free Gaza Movement, was yesterday off the coast of Italy on its way from Malta stocked with building supplies, cement, medical and educational equipment and wheelchairs.
Among its passengers are Mairead Corrigan Maguire, the Nobel Peace laureate and founder of the Northern Ireland Peace People, Denis Halliday, a retired Irish diplomat who was once United Nations assistant secretary-general, and at least a dozen other activists.
Unlike the Mavi Marmara, the scene of the fighting on Monday, it is not being operated by the Turkish Islamist group IHH, but directly by the Free Gaza Movement which bought it for the purpose in Dundalk, Ireland, in March.
“We are an initiative to break Israel’s blockade of 1.5 million people in Gaza,” its spokesman, Greta Berlin, said. “Our mission has not changed and this is not going to be the last flotilla.”
Israeli defence spokesmen said they were expecting the Rachel Corrie, named after a 23-year-old American activist with the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement who was crushed to death by a bulldozer during a protest in Gaza in 2003, to be off the coast by Wednesday.
They pledged to maintain the blockade.”We will not let any ships reach Gaza and supply what has become a terrorist base threatening the heart of Israel,” the deputy defence minister, Matan Vilnai, said.
The Rachel Corrie was one of two ships that were due to take part in the initial six-boat flotilla but became separated, because it was slower according to one activist. Another ship is currently being repaired in Cyprus after developing engine trouble.
Ms Berlin said that the group was intending to hold up the ship’s progress, and was not intending to challenge the blockade until next Monday or Tuesday – ensuring that the publicity engendered by the flotilla will last into a second week.
Ms Maguire, speaking from the boat, insisted its purpose was purely humanitarian and that there were no arms on board. “Their port has been closed for over 40 years,” she told Irish radio. “1.5 million people, it’s like the population of Northern Ireland, totally cut off from the world by this inhumane illegal siege.”
Gaza flotilla attack: Israel’s media assumes a critical stance: The Guardian CiF
Commentators suggest military raid and subsequent PR operation were both poorly handled
Rachel Shabi in Tel Aviv
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 1 June 2010 13.39 BST
Israel’s media is more critical today than it was in the immediate aftermath of the raid on the Gaza aid flotilla, raising the question that, while justified, the Israeli military response may have been badly handled. There were also complaints that Israel bungled its international PR.
Yesterday’s coverage mostly surmised that the Israeli army had to respond as it did, in the face of a violent, premeditated and provocative assault. “They chose this way,” said Alon Ben David, defence correspondent of Israel’s Channel 10, of the activists aboard the Mavi Marmara, one of the Gaza flotilla ships on which at least nine people were killed and dozens injured. “Israeli forces had no choice but to open fire and the result was much worse than we’d wanted.”
Israeli journalists corroborated the army accounts of an attack by violent protesters bearing knives and metal bars. Ron Ben-Yishai, a veteran war correspondent aboard the Victory, an Israeli missile ship, wrote a piece headlined A Brutal Ambush at Sea, in which he suggested that those being violently ambushed were the Israeli army. He wrote that the naval forces that stormed the flotilla were unprepared for the “severe assault” that awaited them and only fired when under attack.
The incident was routinely depicted as a “lynching” of Israeli forces during the dawn raid on the aid flotilla, and reporters referred to “peace-lovers bearing sticks and knives,” as one journalist for Israel’s Channel 1 put it.
Today, many media commentators are angered that Israel did not release its version of events sooner. Writing in Yediot Aharonot, Roni Sofer holds that Israeli officials failed on PR, allowing “harsh accusations against the violent Israel” to go unchallenged for hours.
Writing in Haaretz, military correspondent Amos Harel berated the Israeli army for falling into a trap set by the aid flotilla, landing the nation in a “diplomatic mess”. He insisted, though, that the military did nothing wrong and should not have been put in that position.
This argument is repeated across the comment pages of the mass circulation dailies Ma’ariv and Yediot Aharonot today. Soldiers are praised for their actions, politicians chastised for putting the nation’s forces in a compromising situation. Yediot Aharonot’s front page splash, headlined The Trap, reports that nine civilians aboard the aid boats died because the army didn’t have enough information about the strength of resistance it would face on the flotilla. The paper’s finance editor, Sever Plocker, referred to a “provocative trap set by Hamas” and called for the defence minister, Ehud Barak, to resign.
Another of the paper’s columnists, appearing in the English edition, said that Israel should not be apologising for its actions. “It doesn’t look good and the images it produces aren’t pretty, yet the lives of Israeli citizens are more important than any scathing diplomatic protest,” wrote Yoaz Hendel.
Ma’ariv’s front page accused the government of “stuttering and shifting blame” over what happened, and criticised Israel’s “informational failure”.
Yesterday, a leftwing former minister, Yossi Beilin, noted that Israel had the worst hasbara – or spin – team possible in the current government, which includes the foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, and his deputy, Danny Ayalon. “Change the team,” he advised on Israeli TV. “First of all we should apologise over the death of civilians and then open an inquiry.”
Broadcast media focused this morning on global demonstrations in protest at Israel’s raid. Israeli army radio had a London-based reporter effectively describing yesterday’s demonstrations in the capital as an anti-Israel hate-fest.
There was some semi-serious horror at the curtailment of travel opportunities for holidaying Israelis. “Don’t go to Turkey,” warned one TV breakfast show presenter, suggesting that viewers instead visit the Israeli resort of Eilat, where “they like us”.
“We’re moving to internal tourism, big time,” a presenter on Israeli army radio said. “It’s going to be a crowded summer.”
FT: Israel is lost at sea: Financial Times Editorial
1 June 2010
With Monday’s brazen act of piracy, Israel dealt a blow to the legitimacy of its own struggle. The killing of activists aboard the captured ships sent Israel’s way of defending its security, which it was already imperative to return within the bounds of international law, hurtling into lawlessness.
Israel claims the activists had links with extremist groups and that some attacked Israeli soldiers with knives and sticks (and in some accounts the odd light firearm). Even if true, this would not justify the illegal capture of civilian ships carrying humanitarian aid in international waters, let alone the use of deadly force.
Outrageous as this behaviour was, the true outrage is the illegal blockade of Gaza that it enforced. Since the January 2009 Gaza war, which exposed Israel’s determination to destroy Hamas’s capabilities regardless of the cost to innocent Palestinians, Israel and Egypt have colluded to prevent the enclave’s reconstruction. According to the United Nations, three-quarters of the damage has not been repaired and 60 per cent of homes do not have enough food.
The ostensible goal is to weaken Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood offshoot that rules Gaza (and whose Egyptian incarnation is Hosni Mubarak’s only real opposition). But the blockade aimed at crushing it, besides the illegal collective punishment it implies, only shores up Hamas’s support. If Israel and Egypt wanted to turn Gaza into a mafia-run statelet, they could hardly do better than sever any alternatives to Hamas’s smuggling network, leaving the population even more at its mercy.
Hamas engages in terrorism and fires occasional rockets into Israel, but it is an example of that rarest of Middle Eastern species: a popularly elected government. It has also signed up to the 2002 comprehensive peace offer by the Arab League and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference. If this is a bluff, it is one Israel has yet to call. That is what this is ultimately about. Israel’s government has been pretending it is ready to negotiate for peace, but that there is no one to negotiate with on the other side. The attack on the blockade-busters lays bare the country’s slide into contempt for international law, intolerance of dissent and wilful sabotage of viable representation for Palestinians.
Israel has always known the importance of its conduct being judged legal by the world’s leading powers. Those powers – in the body of the Quartet and the UN Security Council – must now make clear it has gone too far.
Police interrogate Islamic Movement chief Sheikh Raed Salah over role in Gaza flotilla clashes: Haaretz
Israeli-Arab leaders declare general strike to protest clash, call international community to investigate flotilla’s interception.
Ashdod police interrogated Sheikh Raed Salah, the head of the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, Tuesday over his role in the clashes between pro-Palestinian activists and Israeli troops following the Israel Navy raid on the Gaza aid flotilla.
MK Hanin Zoabi (Balad), who was also arrested and interrogated over her participation in the Gaza aid flotilla, was released from police custody early Tuesday.
The other members of the Arab sector who were arrested fro their participation in the flotilla – Mohammed Zeidan, the head of the Arab Higher Monitoring Committee and Sheikh Hammad Abu Daabes, the head of the Southern Wing of the Islamic Movement in Israel – remain in police custody.
The Higher Arab Monitoring Committee declared a general strike in Israel’s Arab sector yesterday to protest the flotilla clash, an unusual step the group has tried to avoid in recent years.
The committee held an emergency meeting at its Nazareth offices, including the heads of all the country’s Arab political groups and parties.
In addition to the strike, the committee also announced that protest marches and rallies would be held in Arab communities, and called on the international community to investigate the circumstances behind the flotilla’s interception.
The Arab leadership also called on the international community to try the prime minister and the defense minister for violating international law.
The committee described the clash as “state-sponsored terrorism and piracy that requires those responsible to be tried.”
After the meeting, a procession marched through Nazareth. Hundreds of participants hoisted Palestinian and black flags, and called for the blockade on the Gaza Strip to be lifted.
Other processions and demonstrations took place yesterday in Sakhnin, Haifa, Acre, Tamra, Shfaram, Arabeh, Tira and Taibeh.
In Umm al-Fahm, dozens of youths rallied in the city square, near the entrance to the highway through Wadi Ara. A large police deployment came, and the protesters threw stones at the officers. Several protesters were arrested for throwing stones.
Police had informed city residents that protests would be allowed, but that they would not allow disturbances including blocking roads or damaging government offices.
The Arab Israeli protests began after rumors began Monday morning that the head of the Northern Wing of the Islamic Movement in Israel, Sheikh Ra’ad Salah, may have been injured. He was on the flagship of the flotilla.
Palestinian and Israeli Arab media outlets reported that the sheikh had been killed, and Islamic Movement members and Umm al-Fahm residents began making their way to his home, even though there had been no confirmation of the news.
Efforts to communicate with the delegation members failed throughout the day, increasing tension.
By noon, there were reports that Sheikh Salah had been seriously injured and had been taken to Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer. Family members rushed to hospital and the sheikh’s brother was taken into the operating room, where he acknowledged that the man being treated was not his brother.
However, this did not assuage the Islamic Movement and the group’s deputy, Sheikh Kamel Khatib, called on the security services to allow communication with Salah.
“We will not believe anyone until we have personally spoken with the sheikh, and Israel is fully responsible for his safety,” Khatib said.
When the ship Salah was on was finally brought into Ashdod port, MK Zuabi announced all members of the group’s delegation were safe, including Salah. MK Jamal Zahalka (Balad ) confirmed the report.
Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, filed a petition with the Supreme Court, asking it to order the security services to inform the families of the people who had been killed or detained. The petition was backed by other groups, including Physicians for Human Rights.
Meanwhile, due to concern that the news would spark riots in the Israeli Arab sector, as well as among right-wing and left-wing extremists, the police raised its alert to Level C.
Police are preparing for potential disturbances in East Jerusalem, in the Old City and in nearby Arab villages.
However, no restrictions have been imposed on entry into the Temple Mount complex.
“We will do everything necessary to keep the peace, but the security forces and law enforcement are ready for any situation,” said Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch.
There were sporadic disturbances in Jerusalem yesterday. Four youths were arrested after they called on East Jerusalem shop owners to shut their shops to protest the flotilla clash.
Israel the International Gangster and its Attack of the Freedom Flotilla: AIC
An act of piracy, war crime, blatant violation of international law, murder of unarmed civilians – each and every definition used by the international media over the past 30 hours is true, and all together besides the point. The murderous Israeli operation is, in fact, the expression of the new Israeli modus operandi. And as such it is frightening.
All over the world, men and women are asking: why? Why such a crime that looks completely disfunctional and even counter-productive? Why provoke a major crisis with an ally-country like Turkey? Why aggrevate the European Union that is trying to upgrade the status of Israel in the European market? Why shock and provoke the entire international community?
In order to understand such apparently irrational Israeli behavior one must go back 1.5 years ago, to Israel’s massacre of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in December 2008-January 2009. This aggression against Gaza, the bombardment and shelling of a city where a million of men, women and children are living, provoked a unanimous world-wide shock, and rendered the State of Israel, in the eyes of hundreds of millions of people, a rogue state with no respect for human life and international law.
The strategic decision of Israel was to divorce the international community and ignore international public opinion. Back to the old Golda Meir slogan: “No matter what the gentiles say, what counts is what the Jews are doing”. Two or three years later, Israel was surprised and defeated by the Arab armies, and only massive emergency aid from “the gentiles” – in that case the United States – saved Israel from what Golda Meir herself called “the destruction of the Third Temple”.
Such an isolationist strategy can work only if the United States is behind Israel, and obviously they are. But they are also very angry with Israeli leaders, who are not at all ready to adapt their policies to US global interests, in particular the refusal of Benjamin Netanyahu to freeze settlement activities in the West Bank. And now Israeli rulers are creating a crisis with the second most important asset of Washington in the eastern Mediterranean, the Turkish Republic.
Cooperation between Turkey and Israel is at the heart of NATO military deployment in our region and shaking this strategic alliance may have dramatic implications for American security policy. An act of aggression against Turkey is, in fact, an attack against US interests in western Asia. Unlike the Israeli military establishment, which is well aware of that reality, the Israeli politicians are still trapped in the neo-conservative conception of a clash of civilizations.
Although Turkey is a non-Arab secular state, the fact that it has a Muslim population made it, for the ignorant and racist Israeli leadership, part of the Arab-Muslim menace against Israel, a part of the barbarian camp that is threatening the “Judeo-Christian civilization”.
Armed with such an “analysis”, Ehud Barak – him again! – decided to teach Turkey and the whole world a lesson. As usual, Barak lost his gamble and Israel will have to pay a heavy price for its and his autistic arrogance. Part of the price is a greater dependence on the US and more receptivity to White House demands. In a sense, the Palestinians can be the winners in this Israeli fiasco, if their leadership knows how to play. Will they?
Israelis opened fire before boarding Gaza flotilla, say released activists: The Guardian
First eyewitness accounts of raid contradict version put out by Israeli officials
Demonstrators wave the flags of Turkey and Palestine in a protest against Israel in Istanbul yesterday. The banners read ‘Open sea pirate Israel’ and ‘Enough is enough’. Photograph: Murad Sezer/Reuters
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.
Britons who were on aid flotilla: The Independent
Press Association
Tuesday, 1 June 2010
The Foreign Office said that as many as 40 British nationals were taking part in the aid flotilla attacked by Israelis as it headed to Gaza.
It is believed that the bulk of them are detained in a compound in the southern Israeli city of Be’er Sheva.
Here is a list of those believed to be involved – compiled from information supplied by relatives and campaign groups:
* Gehad Sukkur, 39, from Altrincham, Cheshire;
* Parveen Yaqub, 39, from Honley, West Yorkshire;
* Denis Healey, 55, originally from Portsmouth, Hampshire, now living in Cyprus;
* Kevin Ovenden, from Newham, east London;
* Nicola Enchmarch, from Wimbledon, south west London;
* Nader Daher, from Hendon, north London;
* Alexandra Lort-Phillips, 38, from Hackney, east London;
* Sarah Colbourne, from Hackney, east London;
* Ashan Shamrak, from north London;
* Hassan Ghani, from north London;
* Sidique Hajee, from Bradford, West Yorkshire;
* Peter Venner, from the Isle of Wight;
* Mohammed Bhaiyat, from Bradford, West Yorkshire;
* Nur Choudhary, from Tower Hamlets, east London;
* Baboo Zanghar, from Bolton, Lancashire;
* Tauqir Sharif, from Chingford, Essex;
* Cliff Hanley, from Bristol;
* Sakir Yildirim, from Bristol;
* Ismail Patel, from Oadby, Leicester.
Also believed to be among the passengers are Alex Harrison and Ibrahim Musaji. No addresses for them have been given.
Four Palestinian Citizens of Israel in Extended Detention for Sailing on Freedom Flotilla: AIC
Tuesday, June 1, 2010, the Magistrates’ Court in Ashkelon held a hearing to extend the detention of four Palestinians holding Israeli passports. Those being held include: Sheikh Raed Salah, the Head of the Islamic Movement in Israel (north); Sheikh Hamad Abu Daabes, the Head of the Islamic Movement in Israel (south); Mr. Muhammed Zeidan, Chairman of the High Follow-up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel; and Ms. Lubna Masarwa of the Free Gaza Movement and Al Quds University.
The Alternative Information Center (AIC) conducted an interview with Lubna two weeks prior to the voyage of the Freedom Flotilla.
All four were arrested aboard the Mavi Marmara, part of the Freedom Flotilla aid convoy, which was attacked by the Israeli navy in the early hours of Monday morning in internationals waters off the coast of Gaza.
The extended detentions come after Adalah, The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-I) submitted a petition for habeas corpus and requested an urgent hearing with the Supreme Court of Israel on behalf of those aboard the Freedom Flotilla, Monday night.
Knesset Member Hanin Zoabi, also a passenger on the Freedom Flotilla, was released Tuesday following questioning. Technically, she could not have been imprisoned without Israel taking away her impunity as a Knesset Member. Upon release Zoabi held a press conference in which she recounted moments on the boat. She said those aboard did not have violent aims. “Our goal was to break the siege. We had no plans for a confrontation. Israel carried out a provocative military operation. Israel is used to doing as it pleases with the Palestinians. The main problem is not the ship, but the siege,” she said. “We also demand that a UN inquiry commission probe the Israeli claims. This is an international issue, because the passengers were from different nations.”
Six Greek activists have already been deported by Israel, three of their own accord, with the desire to tell the people of Greece what happened, and three were forcefully deported for refusing to cooperate with Israeli authorities. A Turkish activist and her baby have also returned to Turkey, though her husband is still in Israeli custody. The Turkish government is reported to be sending planes to pick up the remaining activists.
Activists who refused to sign the Israeli document agreeing to their deportation were brought to the prison in Beer Sheva. Tonight there will be a demonstration in front of the prison demanding their release.
MK Zoabi: Israel wanted highest number of fatalities: YNet
Arab Knesset member who participated in Gaza aid flotilla holds press conference says, ‘It was clear from size of force that boarded ship that purpose was not to stop sail, but to cause largest number of fatalities to prevent future initiatives’
Sharon Roffe-Ofir
Published: 06.01.10, 14:03 / Israel News
Knesset Member Hanin Zoabi, who was on board the Marmara ship when it was raided by Navy fighters, held a press conference in Nazareth on Tuesday, in which she accused Israel of committing crimes during its takeover of the Gaza-bound aid ship. She called for an international inquiry into the incident.
Zoabi added, “It was clear from the size of the force that boarded the ship that the purpose was not only to stop this sail, but to cause the largest possible number of fatalities in order to stop such initiatives in the future.”
She said the flotilla’s participants did not have any violent intentions: “Our goal was to break the siege. We had no plans for a confrontation. Israel carried out a provocative military operation. Israel is used to doing as it pleases with the Palestinians. The main problem is not the ship, but the siege.”
She also demanded the activists held in Beersheba be allowed visitation. “We also demand a UN inquiry commission probe the Israeli claims. This is an international issue, because the passengers were from different nations.”
Of the raid itself, she said, “I entered the captain’s room. He was asked to stop by the Israeli soldiers. He said, ‘We are a Turkish ship.’ We were 130 miles off. It was 11:30 pm. We saw four Israel vessels, they were at a distance because we were in international waters. At 4:15 am we saw the ships approaching.
“They were dinghies and choppers. At 4:30 am the forces landed quickly. I did not hear any warning from the ships, because noise was coming from the ships and the choppers. Within 10 minutes there were already three bodies. The entire operation took about an hour.”
She denied any resistance from the ship’s passengers. “There was not a single passenger who raised a club. We put on our life vests. From where I was standing, I didn’t see any clubs or anything of the sort. There were gunshots, I don’t know if they were live bullets or not. There were gunshots fired from the ships in our direction.
“A clear message was being sent to us, for us to know that our lives were in danger. We convened that we were not interested in a confrontation. What we saw was five bodies. There were only civilians and there were no weapons. There was a sense that I many not come out of it alive. Israel spoke of a provocation, but there was no provocation.”
Zoabi was released to her home Tuesday morning after being questioned. Three other Israeli Arabs who were on the sail faced a remand hearing at the Ashkelon Magistrate’s Court.
Shortly before the takeover, Zoabi said, “We are part of the Palestinian people. They are trying to break us. The ships took us by surprise and started to call out to us. For four years, no one spoke about Gaza. Only in this past week did the entire world get to the war crimes of Israel, a country that occupies and violates basic humanitarian rights.”
Israel to deport all activists seized on Gaza flotilla: Haaretz
All 680 activists will be released, including two dozen Israel had threatened to prosecute on charges of assaulting troops.
Israel will immediately deport hundreds of foreign activists seized aboard a six-ship humanitarian aid flotilla seized in an Israel Navy raid en route to the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided late Tuesday.
In the face of mounting world criticism of Monday’s assault, Israeli officials said all 680 activists held would be released, including two dozen Israel had threatened earlier to prosecute charging they had assaulted its troops.
Israeli soldiers walking in front of one of the Gaza-bound ships at the port of Ashdod June 1, 2010
“It was agreed that the detainees would be deported immediately,” Nir Hefez, a spokesman for Netanyahu, said in a written statement to reporters. Netanyahu made the decision after consultations with his top ministers.
The activists from Europe, North America, Asia and North Africa were processed in and around Israel’s port of Ashdod on Monday evening, where the six ships of the blockade-running convoy had been escorted after a raid on a Turkish-flagged vessel left nine people dead.
One hundred and twenty of the nearly 700 passengers were transferred Tuesday evening to the border crossing with Jordan, from where they will be returned to their home countries.
The Interior Ministry said 682 activists were ordered deported, and that 45 left on Tuesday, while others were jailed as they challenged the orders, or in hospital being treated for injuries.
Israel gave the following breakdown of countries and numbers of those activists ordered expelled, excluding the nine killed and the seriously wounded in Monday’s raid:
Australia 3; Azerbaijan 2; Italy 6; Indonesia 12; Ireland 9; Algeria 28; United States 11; Bulgaria 2; Bosnia 1; Bahrain 4; Belgium 5; Germany 11; South Africa 1; Holland 2; United Kingdom 31; Greece 38; Jordan 30; Kuwait 15; Lebanon 3; Mauritania 3; Malaysia 11; Egypt 3; Macedonia 3; Morocco 7; Norway 3; New Zealand 1; Syria 3; Serbia 1; Oman 1; Pakistan 3; Czech Republic 4; France 9; Kosovo 1; Canada 1; Sweden 11; Turkey 380; Yemen 4.
Israel holding three Canadians after botched raid on flotilla: AFP
OTTAWA, Canada — Three Canadians are being held by Israeli authorities following a botched raid on an aid flotilla that left nine dead, a Canadian official said Tuesday.
“Three Canadians are being detained in Israel,” Catherine Loubier, spokeswoman for Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon, told AFP.
“As soon as we learned of this, consular officials were sent to Tel Aviv and are now offering (the trio) consular assistance.”
Israel on Tuesday deported dozens of activists and held hundreds more while vowing to block other Gaza-bound ships, as world leaders demanded an investigation into Monday’s commando raid in international waters and the swift release of the detainees.
Of the 682 people from 42 countries aboard the six ships that were towed to an Israeli port, 45 agreed to be deported immediately and were flown out Monday and Tuesday, Israeli immigration police spokeswoman Sabine Haddad said.
She said more than 120 Arab nationals were issued deportation orders and handed to military police to be taken to the Jordanian border.
The hundreds still detained apparently refused a demand that they sign a document saying they entered Israel illegally even though the ships were seized in international waters.
Forty-eight activists and six soldiers were being treated in hospitals.
Flotilla organizers said the six ships carried some 10,000 tonnes of aid destined for Gaza, which has suffered a crippling blockade imposed by Israel in 2006 that Egypt has largely backed.
Global rallies continue over Israel: Al Jazeera
Protests took place in Sydney as the Australian prime minister condemned the attack [AFP]
Activists around the world are continuing to protest Israel’s deadly action against a convoy of aid ships headed to Gaza that killed at least 10 people.
Thousands of people took to the streets in several Indonesian cities on Tuesday, waving banners and flags condemning Israel for its attack on the so-called Freedom Flotilla.
In Turkey protesters launched a second day of demonstrations, with people gathering outside the Israeli embassy in Ankara, the capital.
The city of Istanbul saw angry scenes a day earlier, as 10,000 people marched on the streets over the action, which Turkish nationals are believed to have been caught up in.
Protesters also took to the streets in Malaysia and Australia, which added its voice on Tuesday to worldwide condemnation of the violence.
“The Australian government condemns any use of violence under the sorts of circumstances that we have seen,” Kevin Rudd, the Australian prime minister, said.
More protests were scheduled in Europe later on Tuesday.
Turkish anger
Turkey has called for a strong international response to Monday’s raid.
In a speech to legislators on Tuesday, the country’s prime minister said Israel should be “punished” for its “bloody massacre” on the flotilla, and warned that no one should test Turkey’s patience.
“It is no longer possible to cover up or ignore Israel’s lawlessness. The international community must from now on say ‘enough is enough’,” Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.
“Dry statements of condemnation are not enough … There should be results.”
He said the Israeli action was an attack “on international law, the conscience of humanity and world peace”.
Anita McNaught, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Istanbul, said Erdogan’s speech was “extraordinarily strong”.
She said he “mentioned the unmentionable, saying that Israel acts because it has powerful friends”.
Ergodan said he would be speaking to Barack Obama, the US president, later in the day.
Monday’s raid has dramatically escalated tensions between Turkey and Israel, with Ankara’s ruling AK Party saying ties will never be the same.
The country has recalled its ambassador to Israel and cancelled three joint military exercises with Israel and sent three planes to Israel to bring back around 20 of its nationals wounded during the violence.
Gaza assistance
Meanwhile, the UN Human Rights Council debated Israel’s raid on the flotilla, at the request of Arab and Islamic states.
A draft resolution sponsored by Pakistan and Sudan alongside the Palestinians “condemns in the strongest terms possible the outrageous attack by the Israeli forces” and says independent investigators should be sent to review possible violations of international law related to the incident.
The non-binding resolution also calls on Israel to ensure that food, fuel and medical assistance reaches the Gaza Strip.
It will be put to a vote by the council on Wednesday.
Israeli navy boards Lebanese boat trying to break Gaza blockade: Telegraph
A Lebanese boat said to be carrying humanitarian aid but which Israel claimed was carrying Hamas supporters and activists was intercepted by the Israeli navy on its way to the Gaza Strip.
Published: 1:00AM GMT 06 Feb 2009
In the first apparent attempt by a foreign ship carrying aid to reach the Palestinian coastal enclave since Israel ended its 22-day offensive in the Gaza Strip two weeks ago , the Israeli navy boarded the freighter and escorted it to the port of Ashdod, where 20 passengers were being questioned, the military said.
An Israeli official said humanitarian aid found on the ship would be transferred to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
Video footage released by the army showed boxes piled up in one corner of the ship. No weapons were found.
Israel Radio said those aboard the Tali, a cargo vessel flying the flag of the West African state of Togo, would be returned by land to Lebanon, from where the ship sailed. The military official said the ship’s 20 passengers, including 10 journalists, were being questioned.
Reuters reported that the passengers included a veteran Palestinian rights campaigner, Syrian-born Archbishop Hilarion Capucci of the Melkite Church of the Eastern Rite.
Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said the navy had initially allowed the ship to sail to Egypt, but its captain made a sudden U-turn towards Gaza’s shore after which the navy boarded the vessel and ordered it to sail to Ashdod.
Al Jazeera television quoted a correspondent aboard the vessel as saying an Israeli navy ship had fired shots and then sailors boarded the Tali and beat passengers and crew.
“They are opening fire towards the vessel…there are Israeli soldiers who have actually boarded the vessel,” said correspondent Salam Khoder. “Three of them are pointing their weapons at us…They are beating those on the vessel, they are beating and kicking us.”
Seven idiots in the cabinet: Haaretz
By Yossi Sarid
This time, it was all foreseeable. Even this newspaper warned in advance about the possibility of defeat in victory. As preparations for the big sea confrontation proceeded, it became increasingly clear that it would end badly.
After all, the troops were being prepared by seven idiots and their subordinates – people who cannot see beyond the ends of their noses.
We are periodically told that Israel has never had a forum of leading ministers so businesslike and thorough; even Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman displays insight and responsibility at meetings, says Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
And who will attest to Barak’s own talents and judgment? Perhaps those soldiers who never returned from battle? Seven ministers versus seven ships – not aircraft carriers, or even destroyers, but small boats, laden with hundreds of people. Not all are righteous, but neither are they terrorists. But suddenly, without warning, this barely seaworthy flotilla became a threatening armada.
Before the battle of Trafalgar, Admiral Horatio Nelson, like the Allied commanders before D-Day, understood that their country’s fates hung in the balance. It’s enough to make you despair when thinking about our leaders: For them, every day is D-Day. So what will happen when total war actually breaks out here?
And it’s disturbing to think about our army, which trips every time it is ordered to march. And don’t believe their promises that next time will be different. There are always plenty of excuses, but judged by the results, it’s always the same old disaster.
Elite units are supposed to know how to take over a ship without sinking the state, how to overcome passengers wielding clubs and knives without sowing death, how to keep two pistols and a rifle from being wrested from them.
But a physical confrontation should never have been allowed to develop to begin with. If this was indeed a “political/media provocation,” we should never have let ourselves become entangled in it.
Had we simply let the flotilla reach Gaza – an option that was proposed – a cry of victory would indeed have erupted from the other side, but it would have died out in a day or two. But the Israel of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Barak, of ministers Moshe Ya’alon and Benny Begin, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer and Eli Yishai and even Dan Meridor, is vying with Hamas and Hezbollah over who can produce the most resounding demonstrations of strength – which amount to nothing but humiliating evidence of weakness.
How did we so become so devoid of confidence in our ends that we instead put our trust in ways and means that dead-end on every passing ship? Had only we at least not dropped the soldiers one by one straight into the angry mob.
What ought to come next is a demand for a probe, but it seems pointless. Stupidity knows no bounds, and it is a ministerial prerogative. And what is boundless is also unfathomable.
So the septet will persist in its evil ways, endangering us more than any ship could, for madness will rule us. That gang in Jerusalem will insist on drowning us again and again, for there is no courage to change even after all the disasters.
And we will continue to fear our leaders – as if we didn’t have enough to fear in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.