Day by day Archive

June 6, 2010

Tariq Ali speaking outside Downing Street after the attack on the aid flotilla to Gaza

EDITOR: Today, 43 years ago, started a bloody chapter in Middle East history, one which still affects us all. For the second time, Palestinians found themselves facing the Israeli armed forces, without an armed force of their own, and this time Israel has occupied the whole of Palestine, with support from the USA, and a nod and a wink from the other western nations. At that point the long and painful occupation looked neigh impossible, not just unlikely. But despite the international protest, the UN and Security Council resolution, and the unceasing Palestinian struggle for independence and for ending the occupation, here it still is, with hundreds of illegal settlements, with over 650,000 Israelis living in the Occupied Territories, and with the hundreds of check-points, the apartheid wall, and the daily brutalities of the settlers and the IOF, the Israeli Occupation Forces.

Some things have changed, though. The recent Israeli massacre of human rights activists on the Freedom Flotilla is a spark which has started fires everywhere. A new and larger Flotilla is being prepared, and each attempt will be bigger and bolder, until the illegal blockade crumbles. The great and growing BDS movement is evidence of the groundswell in public support for the Palestinian struggle for a just settlement of the conflict. Without waiting for governments to pressurise Israel into a retreat from the OPT, the international community has started acting in earnest towards that goal. This struggle, civic, economic, political and cultural, will be the deciding factor in bringing Israeli apartheid to an end.

To see how this type of apartheid id supported by Jews elsewhere, just read the first item below. The American Dream, on Land stolen from the Arabs, but Arabrein (free of Arabs, in German, similar to Judenrein, free of Jews, used by the Nazis)

Looking for the American Dream in Eretz Yisrael?:Moshavyishi

Looking for the American Dream in Eretz Yisrael?


Are you interrested in a 2 acre housing lot in an orthodox community where streets are closed on Shabbos? (2 acres = 12 tennis courts including the red area).

Do you want American neighbors and immediate access to Bet Shemesh and Ramat Bet Shemesh schools, health and community services, clubs, recreation, and social activities?

Do you appreciate living within easy walking distance of a national forest, rolling farmland, resevoirs, terrific views, and other places of natural beauty?

Would you like a private pool, tennis court, equestrian facilities, gardens, lawns, and room enough to feel genuinely relaxed on your own property?

Does an Arab-free environment sound appealing? Yishi is miles inside the green line and even further from the nearest Arab settlement.

Moshav Yishi offers a lifestyle option available nowhere else in Israel: To be one of the very lucky, very few, to enter the Promised Land… and actually get the Land! Whether you delight in hobby aggriculture and the mitzvot of Eretz Yisrael or simply want the feeling of expansiveness and freedom no city can offer, Yishi is a delightful place to be. As more and more Americans move in, as more and more of Yishi is reinvigorated and rebuilt, Yishi will become more and more delightful a community to call home. Unfortunately it’s not yet available for the whole nation, but for a fortunate few, “Yishi” will be exactly that – “my Salvation”. A place in Israel that comes as dreamed, no concessions, no compromise.

Freedom Flotilla Massacre protest | John Rees Speaking | London 31 May 2010

Breaking out of the siege: Haaretz Editorial

If Israel is to break out of the international siege and strategic catastrophe it now faces, it urgently needs a different policy.
The intelligence failure and faulty planning in last week’s operation to board the Mavi Marmara led to a crisis in Israel’s foreign relations in the blink of an eye and a low in its standing in world public opinion. The international community is demanding an investigation into the incident and is roundly criticizing the siege Israel continues to impose on the Gaza Strip’s 1.5 million residents. Friendly countries such as the United States and France are demanding that the Israeli government lift restrictions on the passage into Gaza of goods and raw materials for civilian use.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in his usual manner, rushed to raise the specter of the Iranian threat along with the adage that “the whole world is against us.” Instead of locating the source of the fire scorching the diplomatic relations we built up with such effort, Netanyahu is following in the footsteps of his ostracized foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, accusing the world of hypocritical treatment of Israel.
In an effort to evade responsibility for the crisis and escape his obligation to fundamentally change his policy, the prime minister is distorting the nature of the criticism against his government and has plied it as hatred of the Jews.

Netanyahu and Lieberman are imposing a siege on a Jewish and democratic state that has professed to be a light unto the nations, but is becoming anathema among nations. The disagreement over halting construction in West Bank settlements and East Jerusalem sorely eroded the goodwill Israel had garnered in the wake of Netanyahu’s declared support for a two-state solution. Last month’s nuclear nonproliferation conference diverted attention from the Iranian nuclear program to Israel’s nuclear capabilities. The summit of countries bordering the Mediterranean, which had been due to open today in Barcelona, was scrapped following Arab leaders’ refusal to be in the company of the Israeli foreign minister. And finally, the proximity talks with the Palestinians are being portrayed as a recipe for perpetuating the deadlock in the peace process.

Reasonable governments of democratic countries act in accordance with the interests of their citizens. Even if the world is “hypocritical,” as Netanyahu claims, he must fundamentally change his government’s aggressive and inward-looking approach; it is not within his power to change the nature of the rest of the world.

A thorough investigation of the Mavi Marmara incident and the lifting of the siege against civilians in Gaza are essential steps, but they are certainly not sufficient. If Israel is to break out of the international siege and strategic catastrophe it now faces, it urgently needs a different policy.

Press Release: JFJFP

by email
Jewish Boat to Gaza is sailing soon

In a harbour in the Mediterranean a small vessel is waiting for a special mission. She will be sailing to Gaza during the second half of July. In order to avoid sabotage, the exact date and name of the port of departure will be announced only shortly before her launch.

“Our purpose is to call an end to the siege of Gaza, to this illegal collective punishment of the whole civilian population. Our boat is small, so our donations can only be symbolic: we are taking school bags, filled with donations from German school children, musical instruments and art materials“, says Kate Leiterer, one of the organizers. „For the medical services we are taking essential medicines and small medical equipment, and for the fishermen we are taking nets and tackle. We are liaising with the medical, educational and mental health services in Gaza.“

”In attacking the Freedom Flotilla, Israel has once again demonstrated to the world a heinous brutality. But I know that there are very many Israelis who compassionately and bravely campaign for a just peace. With  broadcasting journalists from mainstream television programmes accompanying our boat, Israel will have a great chance to show the world that there is another way, a way of courage rather than fear, a way of hope rather than hate”, says Edith Lutz, organizer and passenger on the ”Jewish boat”.

The ”Jüdische Stimme” (‚Jewish Voice’ for a Just Peace in the Near East), along with her friends of EJJP (European Jews for a Just Peace in the Near East) and Jews for Justice For Palestinians (UK) are sending a call to the leaders of the world:  help Israel find her way back to reason, to a sense of humanity and a life without fear. ”Jewish Voice” expects the political leaders of Israel and the world to guarantee a safe passage for the small vessel to Gaza, thus helping to form a bridge towards peace.

Contacts:
Edith Lutz, EJJP-Germany  +15204519740
Kate Katzenstein-Leiterer, EJJP- Germany  +1629660472472
Glyn Secker, Jews for Justice For Palestinians (UK)  +7917098599

What Is Not Allowed: Irish Times

RICHARD TILLINGHAST

POEM: No tinned meat is allowed, no tomato paste,

no clothing, no shoes, no notebooks.

These will be stored in our warehouses at Kerem Shalom

until further notice.

Bananas, apples, and persimmons are allowed into Gaza,

peaches and dates, and now macaroni

(after the American Senator’s visit).

These are vital for daily sustenance.

But no apricots, no plums, no grapes, no avocados, no jam.

These are luxuries and are not allowed.

Paper for textbooks is not allowed.

The terrorists could use it to print seditious material.

And why do you need textbooks

now that your schools are rubble?

No steel is allowed, no building supplies, no plastic pipe.

These the terrorists could use to launch rockets

against us.

Pumpkins and carrots you may have,

but no delicacies,

no cherries, no pomegranates, no watermelon, no onions,

no chocolate.

We have a list of three dozen items that are allowed,

but we are not obliged to disclose its contents.

This is the decision arrived at

by Colonel Levi, Colonel Rosenzweig, and Colonel Segal.

Our motto:

‘No prosperity, no development, no humanitarian crisis.’

You may fish in the Mediterranean,

but only as far as three km from shore.

Beyond that and we open fire.

It is a great pity the waters are polluted –

twenty million gallons of raw sewage dumped into the sea every day

is the figure given.

Our rockets struck the sewage treatments plants,

and at this point spare parts to repair them are not allowed.

As long as Hamas threatens us,

no cement is allowed, no glass, no medical equipment.

We are watching you from our pilotless drones

as you cook your sparse meals over open fires

and bed down

in the ruins of houses destroyed by tank shells.

And if your children can’t sleep,

missing the ones who were killed in our incursion,

or cry out in the night, or wet their beds

in your makeshift refugee tents,

or scream, feeling pain in their amputated limbs –

that’s the price you pay for harbouring terrorists.

God gave us this land.

A land without a people for a people without a land.

Continue reading June 6, 2010

June 5, 2010, Page 3

Israel threatens the Rachel Corrie, by Carlos Latuff

Suicide state: Haaretz

By Nehemia Shtrasler
If there is one person who someone feels that our international situation is getting worse and another who thinks we are behaving like a suicide state, they should think again.

After all, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says all the criticism over the brutal raid on the Marmara is just “international hypocrisy.” Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman says that the Turks who sent the boat are responsible for the entire affair. And even Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, Sancho Pancho to Netanyahu’s Don Quixote, says that while in the short term we will indeed be blasted with criticism in the long run the world will come to understand and justify our position.
But as the economist John Maynard Keynes pointed out 70 years ago, “The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead.”

Steinitz is not affected by facts, nor by the suspension of all the infrastructure and energy projects with Turkey and the question mark now hanging over Israeli military and civilian exports to the country. He is not disturbed by the boycotts of Israel announced by various European organizations, nor by the fact that Deutsche Bank has sold its investment in Elbit Systems because of Palestinian pressure. Even Nicaragua’s severance of diplomatic relations with Israel does not bother him, nor the fact that El Al air crews have been instructed not to wear their uniforms abroad. Soon no Israeli will be able to go abroad – but that’s fine with him.

But all this is as nothing compared to the unprecedented nadir to which Israel’s status in the world has sunk – to the point of the delegitimization of the state. That is a strategic threat to Israel: The country is dependent on Western public opinion, which at the end of the day determines the governments’s actions. And if international opinion is fed up with us and sees us as a cruel occupying force that jeopardizes world peace, the road to total failure is short.

Even yesterday’s good friends consider us a burden today. Not just Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who called the flotilla raid “state terror,” but also the representatives of Brazil, Austria and Mexico who demanded that Israel lift the blockade of Gaza. And European Union Foreign Minister Catherine Ashton, and UN Secretary General Ban-ki Moon, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who criticized Israel for the “disproportionate use of force.” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did not mince words either, nor President Barack Obama, who supports a credible, transparent international investigation. He doesn’t trust Netanyahu, either.

Two days ago, Netanyahu gave a hallucinatory speech to the nation on television. It was a speech of personal defense at the lowest level. He spoke of our duty to prevent the entry of weapons into Gaza, as if that were the issue here.
The issue is how it was done, the lack of planning, the self-satisfaction, the lack of intelligence information, the poor management, the fact that the price of a brutal, deadly raid was not considered, and the real danger in which the naval commandoes were placed, without being aware of the ambush that awaited them.

Netanyahu said not one word about this colossal failure. He has continued his familiar habit of trying to terrify Israel with the “Iranian port that will be built in Gaza.”
But today it is clear that if anyone who is expediting the creation of such a port, it is Netanyahu. It is his failures that are leading to a second Goldstone committee that will investigate and reach grave conclusions that are liable to end in a demand that the blockade of Gaza, including the military one, be lifted.

Netanyahu, who has said that for him security is above everything else, is doing the greatest damage to Israel’s security. In 16 months he has managed to turn a strategic ally of Israel into a bitter enemy. He himself he threw Turkey irrevocably into the arms of Iran and Syria.

Netanyahu is also endangering our security by leading to a deep rift with the country’s Arab minority and a “one state for two people” solution, which would be the end of the Zionist dream.

It is astonishing how Netanyahu has even managed to cause damage to the issue that is closest to his heart, the Iranian nuclear threat. The international isolation into which he has thrown Israel, combined with Obama’s disgust with him make it impossible for Israel to obtain international support for tighter sanctions.

The United Nations debate on the subject was postponed once again this week. Israel received another blow recently, when 189 countries (including the United States ) called for international supervision of its nuclear facilities, something that has not happened in the last 40 years.

This dangerous nadir in Israel’s international status marks the start of the countdown for Netanyahu’s government. That’s how it was in his first term (1996-99 ), too. The downhill path that time began with his success in destroying the Oslo Accords and returning to fire and guns. That turned the Clinton administration and the states of Europe against him.

We can only hope it won’t take three years this time. The danger is too great.

Norman Finkelstein & Huwaida Arraf on Israel’s Attack: Grit TV

June 2nd, 2010
On Monday, Israeli commandos boarded ships in the “Freedom Flotilla” attempting to bring humanitarian aid to residents of still-blockaded Gaza. The aggressive response by Israel turned deadly, with at least nine activists killed. The international community has reacted with shock and outrage; protests have erupted around the world outside Israeli embassies, with protesters even teargassed in Paris. Benjamin Netanyahu has canceled a long awaited meeting surrounding peace talks with President Obama and headed back to Israel to do damage control, and Turkey, from where the flotilla departed, has recalled its ambassador and issued a travel warning to its citizens.

Huwaida Arraf was on one of the ships; she joins us via phone from Ramallah, along with Norman Finkelstein, to tell us what happened to her and offer some analysis on the situation.

Gaza flotilla attack: Autopsies reveal intensity of Israeli military force: The Guardian

• Victims found with up to six gunshot wounds
• Israel ‘about to lose a friend’ warns Turkey’s US envoy

The autopsy results reveal the extent of force used by Israeli commandos aboard the Mavi Marmara (pictured). Photograph: Reuters
The autopsy results released today by the Turkish authorities after the Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla reveal in chilling detail the intensity of the military force unleashed on the multinational convoy.

Each of the nine victims on the Mavi Marmara in international waters off the coast of Israel in the early hours of Monday morning was shot at least once and some five or six times with 9mm rounds.
The results also reveal how close the fighting was. Dr Haluk Ince, chair of Turkey’s council of forensic medicine (ATK), said: “Approximately 20cm away was the closest. In only one case was there only one entrance wound. The other eight have multiple entrance wounds. [The man killed by a single shot] was shot just in the middle of the forehead with a distant shot.”

The details emerged as Turkey warned that it may reconsider its diplomatic ties with Israel unless it receives an apology.

The deputy prime minister, Bulent Arinc, warned: “We may plan to reduce our relations with Israel to a minimum.”
Namid Tan, the ambassador to Washington, warned that Israel was “about to lose [a] friend”. He repeated calls for an independent investigation of the raid and end its blockade against Gaza.
Asked if Turkey might break off relations, he said: “We don’t want this to go to that point.” But he added: “The government might be forced to take such an action.”

Speaking at the funeral of the youngest activist, prime minister Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel of betraying its religion. “You killed 19-year-old Furkan Dogan brutally. Which faith, which holy book can be an excuse for killing him?” he asked.
According to the scientists at the ATK, Dogan, who held US and Turkish citizenship was shot five times – from close range in the right side of his nose, in the back of the head, in the back and twice in the left leg.

The oldest victim was 60-year-old Ibrahim Bilgen, a Turkish politician, engineer and activist who was married with six children. He had been shot once in the right temple, once in the right side of his chest, once in the back and once in the hip.
Cetin Topcuotlu, a 54-year old former Taekwondo champion who worked as a coach for the Turkish national team, was shot three times – once in the back of his head, once in his hip and once in his belly. His wife, Cigden, who was with him on the Mavi Marmara said at his funeral on Thursday she would take part in further flotillas to Gaza with her son.

The detail of the wounds came as yet more survivors returned to the UK and gave their account of the attacks.
In a hastily arranged press conference in central Londonshortly after his Turkish airlines plane touched down at Heathrow, Ismail Patel, the 47-year-old chairman of the Friends of al-Aqsa, condemned what he called “the cold-blooded murder and killing of our colleagues”. He said: “These deaths were avoidable and I lay the blame squarely with the Israelis.”

Israel has previously said its troops had been left with no choice after they came under attack from activists armed with knives and iron bars when they were dropped by helicopter on to the ship.

Patel claimed that as soon as the Israeli Defence Force helicopter appeared above the Mavi Marmara, “it started using immediately live ammunition” without any warning being issued.
After the first victim fell the white flag was raised, he said, but Israeli forces continued firing. “I think the Israeli soldiers were shooting to kill because most of the people who died were shot in the top part of their bodies,” he said. He believed that later victims were injured in their legs after a “tactical move” by the commandos to wound rather then kill.

Alex Harrison, a Free Gaza activist who was on the smaller Challenger yacht, which was crewed mainly by women, said the Israelis used rubber bullets, sound bombs and tasers against them.
“Two women were hooded, they had their eyes taped,” she said, describing how the yacht was quickly overwhelmed. “We stood and tried to obstruct the armed, masked men and maintained no other defence and still they used violence.”

Harrison, 32, from Islington, north London, also witnessed the Mavi Marmara being stormed from above by helicopter and said the Israelis started firing before their troops touched down on the boat.
“I have seen some selective footage that the Israelis have chosen to put out suggesting that we responded with violence,” she said. “You must remember that these are unarmed civilians on their own boat in the middle of the Mediterranean. People picked up what they could to defend themselves against armed, masked commandos who were shooting.”

The violence was “initiated by the Israelis on a massive scale,” she said, adding she was pleased her colleagues on the Rachel Corrie, an Irish vessel, were continuing to Gaza this weekend.
“I am thrilled they are going,” she said. “They know exactly what risks they face. They are doing what our government’s haven’t and I thank them.”

Both Harrison and Patel criticised the British authorities for failing to provide sufficient consular assistance while the activists were detained in an Israeli prison in Beersheva.
Patel said he was not visited by anyone from the British mission and Harrison said the consul told her that Israeli officials had prevented him visiting captured Britons.

“I did see the British consul,” Harrison said. “He told me that he had sitting outside the prison all day … asking for access and not been given it. I see that as an insult from Israel to the British, that they were denying the British consul the right that citizens have. I also see it as a sign that the British don’t have the strength to stand up to Israel.”
Foreign Secretary William Hague confirmed that a total of 34 of the activists on the aid flotilla were British, with all but two of them having been sent to Turkey by the Israeli authorities.

In Gaza City, the de facto Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, told crowds of worshippers at Friday prayers that Israel’s blockade was in its final stages.
“Now not only Gazans speak of the blockade, but also the [UN] security council and the international community. Everyone is demanding the siege be lifted.”

June 5, 2010, Page 2

ISRAELI MILITARY FORCIBLY STOPS AID BOAT TO GAZA – AGAIN : Free Gaza

WRITTEN BY GRETA BERLIN     |     05 JUNE 2010

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For More Information, please contact:

Free Gaza Cyprus: Greta Berlin or Mary Hughes

tel: +357 99 187275 or +357 96 383 809, < friends@freegaza.org >

Free Gaza Ireland: Niamh Moloughney

tel: +353 (0)85 7747257 or +353 (0)91 472279, < freegazaireland@gmail.com >

Perdana Global Peace Organisation, Malaysia: Ram Karthigasu

tel: +60 1222 70159, < ramkarthigasu@gmail.com >

(Off the Gaza coast, 5 JUNE) – Just before 9am GMT this morning, the Israeli military forcibly siezed the Irish-owned humanitarian relief ship, the MV Rachel Corrie, from delivering over 1000 tons of medical and construction supplies to besieged Gaza. For the second time in less then a week, Israeli naval commandos stormed an unarmed aid ship, brutally taking its passengers hostage and towing the ship toward Ashdod port in Southern Israel.  It is not yet known whether any of the Rachel Corrie’s passengers were killed or injured during the attack, but they are believed to be unharmed.

The Corrie carried 11 passengers and 9 crew from 5 different countires, mostly Ireland and Malaysia. The passengers included Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Maguire, Parit Member of the Malaysian Parliament Mohd Nizar Zakaria, and former UN Assistant Secretary General, Denis Halliday.  Nine international human rights workers were killed on Monday when Israeli commandos violently stormed the Turkish aid ship, Mavi Marmara and five other unarmed boats taking supplies to Gaza. Prior to being taken hostage by Israeli forces, Derek Graham, an Irish coordinator with the Free Gaza Movement, stated that: “Despite what happened on the Mavi Marmara earlier this week, we are not afraid.

The 1200-ton cargo ship was purchased through a special fund set up by former Malaysian Prime Minister and Perdana Global Peace Organisation (PGPO) chairman Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad. The ship was named after an American human rights worker, killed in 2003 when she was crushed by an Israeli military bulldozer in the Gaza Strip. Its cargo included hundreds of tons of medical equipment and cement, as well as paper from the people of Norway, donated to UN-run schools in Gaza.

According to Denis Halliday: “We are the only Gaza-bound aid ship left out here. We’re determined to deliver our cargo.” The Rachel Corrie had been part of the Freedom Flotilla, a 40-nation effort to break through Israel’s illegal blockade, before being forced to drop off late last week due to suspicious mechanical problems.

The attack on the Rachel Corrie may spell trouble for Israel’s relationship with Ireland. The Irish government had formally requested Israel allow the ship to reach Gaza. On 1 June, the Irish parliament also passed an all-party motion condemning Israel’s use of military force against civilian aid ships, and demanding “an end to the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza.”

Nobel Laureate Mairead Maguire summed up the hopes of this joint Irish-Malaysian effort to overcome Israel’s cruel blockade by saying: “We are inspired by the people of Gaza whose courage, love and joy in welcoming us, even in the midst of such suffering gives us all hope. They represent the very best of humanity, and we are all privileged to be given the opportunity to support them in their nonviolent struggle for human dignity, and freedom. This trip will again highlight Israel’s criminal blockade and illegal occupation. In a demonstration of the power of global citizen action, we hope to awaken the conscience of all.”

—

Passengers aboard the Rachel Corrie include:

Ahmed Faizal bin Azumu, human rights worker, Malaysia

Matthias Chang, attorney, author & human rights worker, Malaysia

Derek Graham, Free Gaza Ireland

Jenny Graham, Free Gaza Ireland

Denis Halliday, former UN Assistant Secretary General, Ireland

Mohd Jufri Bin Mohd Judin, journalist, Malaysia

Shamsul Akmar Musa Kamal, PGPO representative, Malaysia

Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Ireland

Abdul Halim Bin Mohamed, journalist, Malaysia

Fiona Thompson, film-maker, Ireland

The Hon. Mohd Nizar Zakaria, Parit Member of Parliament, Malaysia

Erdogan to Netanyahu: You shall not kill ! Lo Tir’tsach !

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan says to Netanyahu: you shall not kill in 3 languages: Turkish, English and Hebrew.

You shall not kill ! Lo Tir’tsach ! Öldürmeyeceksin !

Erdogan to Netanyahu: You shall not kill ! Lo Tir’tsach ! Hamas is not a terror organisation

Gaza flotilla attack: Israeli ambassador to Madrid tries to play down deaths: The Guardian

Consul intimates Spain should focus more on domestic road traffic fatalities, and aligns activists with Madrid train bombers
Thermal imaging footage of the Israeli raid on the Gaza aid flotilla ship, in which nine people died. The Israeli ambassador to Madrid suggests Spain should be more worried about domestic road traffic fatalities. Photograph: guardian.co.uk
Israel’s ambassador in Madrid provoked outrage this morning by suggesting Spaniards should worry more about the number of people dying on the roads every weekend and less about the nine people killed in his country’s raid on the Gaza flotilla.

“Yes, nine people have died. But 155 died in a terrorist attack in India last week. Who cares about that? Have you heard anything about it? Twenty-three Spaniards died on the roads this weekend,” Raphael Schutz told El Periódico newspaper.

Pro-Palestinian protesters denounce Israel's raid of the Gaza flotilla, in India on June 2, 2010 Photo by: Reuters

An embassy spokesman, Lior Haiat, said comments had been taken out of context and the ambassador had been referring to Spanish media coverage. “Of course we care about any deaths,” said Haiat, who claimed the flotilla carried 100 Turkish mercenaries. “Even when they are mercenaries and terrorists.”

In an interview published in Spanish, Schutz compared the Gaza flotilla activists to the radical Islamist train bombers who killed 191 people on Madrid commuter trains in 2004.

“We are talking about people on board [the flotilla] who are connected to al-Qaida,” he said when El Periódico’s interviewer pointed out that the Madrid attacks had been carried out by al-Qaida-inspired terrorists. “Fifty of the people who left Turkey are known for their connections with Hamas, with al-Qaida. Are these people pacifists?”. They hide behind a few Europeans.”

Bible stories retold, by Martin Rowson, Guardian June 5, 2010

Israeli PR machine won Gaza flotilla media battle: The Guardian CiF

Reporting by mainstream media on the Gaza flotilla attack was unbalanced and dominated by Israel’s edited version of events
The provenance of photographs of weapons supposedly found on the boats has been questioned in the blogosphere. Photograph: AP
From the moment that the Israeli naval commandos launched their attack on the flotilla aiming to break the siege of Gaza by carrying humanitarian aid to the territory, the struggle by both sides to dominate how the media covered the events – a struggle that began days in advance of the 4am attack on Monday – entered a completely new phase.

Soon after the commandos landed on the Mavi Marmara, the Turkish ship carrying more than 600 of the activists, the live satellite broadcasts from the vessel were cut. From that point on, the Israeli authorities seized almost complete control of how evidence of what was taking place could be made public. Video of the last footage broadcast by the journalists on board was immediately available from sources such as al-Jazeera and the IHH (the Turkish Foundation for Freedoms and Human Rights and Humanitarian Relief), but it showed a very confusing picture: there were badly injured passengers, yet it was impossible to know how they had been injured.

What the world has been watching since then is either edited video shot by the Israelis or other video shot by activists, confiscated by the Israelis and subsequently edited and made available through Israeli sources.

In an operation reminiscent of the first week or so of the Israeli offensive against Gaza in winter 2008-2009, the Israeli PR machine succeeded in getting the major news outlets to focus on its version of events and to use the Israeli authorities’ discourse for a crucial 48 hours. (One example of how this was being done is a leaked, sophisticated briefing paper with key talking points, compiled using official government sources and pro-government Israeli media, issued through the World Zionist Organisation on 1 June.)

This time, however, commentators in the Israeli media, on the left and the right, were immediately slamming the commando attack as a failure. The repeated screening of the video, taken from an Israeli assault craft, of the commandos abseiling down ropes onto the Mavi Marmara and then being set upon by the activists waiting for them on the deck, became the defining image of the capture of the boats. Posted by the IDF on YouTube, by Wednesday it had attracted more than 600,000 views.

The activists’ actions were described by Israeli spokespersons as a premeditated terrorist attack by al-Qaida sympathisers, using clubs, knives and guns, carried out with the intention of “lynching” the commandos who were carrying out an entirely legal and peacefully executed operation.

This Israeli version of events was very often given an uncritical airing. The fact that the video was a selected and edited segment, that the activists who witnessed what happened were being held incommunicado, that every bit of recorded evidence they may have had in their possession was being confiscated – this context was rarely highlighted, with BBC online and radio coverage particularly weak in this respect.

Of course, the media were not responsible for the Israeli clampdown – which continued even after the activists began to be seen in public being taken into detention at the Israeli port of Ashdod and when they were being deported – but there could certainly have been more attention drawn to the imbalance in the sources from which the media were obtaining their information. Even after first-hand accounts started to be broadcast, there seemed to be a belittling of their validity by describing eye-witnesses simply as “activists” or “pro-Palestinians” when some were writers, members of parliament and journalists.

By late Tuesday afternoon, Israel had still not provided a list of names or locations of the injured; there was no official number or list of the deceased; no official count of the numbers of the detainees and their locations; no report on the legal status of the wounded at the IPS medical facility and at hospitals across the country and extremely limited access to the wounded. And those arrested, detained or in hospital were still being denied unrestricted access to lawyers, relatives and consular representatives.

But once the testimony of the activists became available and the blogosphere got its teeth into the visual evidence, from whatever source, an alternative picture quickly emerged and the mainstream media struggled to keep up.

Prior to the landing of the commandos, the boats were probably softened up with rubber bullets, smoke bombs, tear gas; the provenance is in question of pictures of weapons supposedly found on the boats and posted on Flickr by the Israeli ministry of foreign affairs; the Americans appeared to confirm that there was no evidence to suggest that IHH was a terrorist organisation with links to al-Qaida. And the Israeli army all but admitted that the activists did not have guns of their own before the raid.

The truth is, however, that after five days, the mainstream media have moved on (the attack on the Gaza flotilla is no longer featured as a top story in the news box on the BBC’s front page). The news imbalance may have been partly redressed, but the Israeli version of the events and the presentation of legal arguments to justify Israel’s actions by friendly commentators continues to occupy significant media space. And given the fact that virtually all the visual evidence is now in Israeli hands, it’s almost inconceivable that we will ever know precisely what happened. At this stage, it seems fanciful to believe that any Israeli-based investigation will make available all the raw footage Israel has in its possession.

I suspect that the government of Binyamin Netanyahu and those responsible for the relentless effort invested in media management will judge their PR onslaught as a success, in spite of the fact that many Israelis and Israel’s supporters will rail at the media for being biased. That this is so only further confirms how blinkered and foolish the Israeli government has become.

Far from generating much sympathy for Israel’s action, the video images of the assault on the commandos only deepens the impression of an Israeli military as weak, unprepared and pathetic. It confirms that the decision to undertake such a disastrous action showed “hubris, poor intelligence work, and determined inability to learn from experience”.

And the fact that so much attention is paid in Israel to the PR and media implications, with even some critical commentators there viewing the action as right and only the PR result a disaster, is surely deeply troubling evidence, albeit not exactly new, of the lack of a moral compass among the country’s leadership.

Continue reading June 5, 2010, Page 2

June 5, 2010

Israel threatens the Rachel Corrie, by Carlos Latuff

EDITOR: The flood of responses to Israel’s latest brutality

First, apologies to those of you who were trying to access the website yesterday. It was sabotaged and brought down, and you don’t need to be genius to know who has done it. Nonetheless, here it is again, and here it will remain.

The caricature above is by Carlos Latuff of Brazil, one of the leading cartoonists working today, and the most prolific. He has supported Palestine’s struggle for freedom for years, since the beginning of his career, and has sometimes frawn two cartoons a day on this topic. Please send as widely as possible, as his drawings are possibly the best means of ralying the relaties to people – they opearte beyond any specific language.

It has become impossible to follow the huge amount of responses, analyses and witness evidence now flooding the webways on this topic. I the interest of future research, I am trying my best to include the most important examples, but even that effort is fraught with difficulty, as many excellent pieces do not get a look in. The number of new website has also escalated; this is the clearest evidence that millions of people across the globe are now communicating every day about Israel’s iniquitous regime and its war crimes, and that the stage of isolation and pariahzation is now taking place.

‘Mad Dog’ Diplomacy: ICH

A cornered Israel is baring its teeth
By Jonathan Cook in Nazareth

June 04, 2010 “Information Clearing House” — Moshe Dayan, Israel’s most celebrated general, famously outlined the strategy he believed would keep Israel’s enemies at bay: “Israel must be a like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.”

Until now, most observers had assumed Dayan was referring to Israeli military or possibly nuclear strategy, an expression in his typically blunt fashion of the country’s familiar doctrine of deterrence.

But the Israeli commando attack on Monday on the Gaza-bound flotilla, in which nine activists have so far been confirmed killed and dozens were wounded as they tried to break Israel’s blockade of the enclave, proves beyond doubt that this is now a diplomatic strategy too. Israel is feeling cornered on every front it considers important – and like Dayan’s “mad dog”, it is likely to strike out in unpredictable ways.

Domestically, Israeli human rights activists have regrouped after the Zionist left’s dissolution in the wake of the outbreak of the second intfada. Now they are presenting clear-eyed – and extremely ugly – assessments of the occupation that are grabbing headlines around the world.

That move has been supported by the leadership of Israel’s large Palestinian minority, which has additionally started questioning the legitimacy of a Jewish state in ways that would have been unthinkable only a few years ago.

Regionally, Hizbullah has progressively eroded Israel’s deterrence doctrine. It forced the Israeli army to exit south Lebanon in 2000 after a two-decade occupation; it stood firm in the face of both aerial bombardment and a ground invasion during the 2006 war; and now it is reported to have accumulated an even larger arsenal of rockets than it had four years ago.

Iran, too, has refused to be intimidated and is leaving Israel with an uncomfortable choice between conceding to Tehran the room to develop a nuclear bomb, thereby ending Israel’s regional nuclear monopoly, and launching an attack that could unleash a global conflagration.

And internationally, nearly 18 months on from its attack on Gaza, Israel’s standing is at an all-time low. Boycott campaigns are gaining traction, reluctant support for Israel from European governments has set them in opposition to home-grown sentiment, and even traditional allies such as Turkey cannot hide their anger.

In the US, Israel’s most resolute ally, young American Jews are starting to question their unthinking loyalty to the Jewish state. Blogs and new kinds of Jewish groups are bypassing their elders and the American media to widen the scope of debate about Israel.

Israel has responded by characterising these “threats” all as falling within its ever-expanding definition of “support for terrorism”.

It was therefore hardly suprising that the first reaction from the Israeli government to the fact that its commandoes had opened fire on civilians in the flotilla of aid ships was to accuse the solidarity activists of being armed.

Similarly, Danny Ayalon, the deputy foreign minister, accused the organisers of having “connections to international terrorism”, including al-Qaeda. Turkey, which assisted the flotilla, is widely being accused in Israel of supporting Hamas and trying to topple Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

Palestinians are familiar with such tactics. Gaza’s entire population of 1.5 million is now regularly presented in the Israeli media in collective terms, as supporters of terror – for having voted in Hamas – and therefore legitimate targets for Israeli “retaliation”. Even the largely docile Palestinian Authority in the West Bank has rapidly been tarred with the same brush for its belated campaign to boycott the settlements and their products.

The leaders of Israel’s Palestinian citizens too are being cast in the role of abettors of terror. The minority is still reeling from the latest assault: the arrest and torture of two community leaders charged with spying for Hizbullah. In its wake, new laws are being drafted to require that Palestinian citizens prove their “loyalty” or have their citizenship revoked.

When false rumours briefly circulated on Monday that Sheikh Raed Salah, a leader of Israel’s Islamic Movement who was in the flotilla, had been gravely wounded, Israeli officials offered a depressingly predictable, and unfounded, response: commandoes had shot him after they came under fire from his cabin.

Israel’s Jewish human rights community is also under attack to a degree never before seen. Their leaders are now presented as traitors, and new legislation is designed to make their work much harder.

The few brave souls in the Israeli media who try to hold the system to account have been given a warning shot with the exile of Haaretz’s investigative journalist Uri Blau, who is threatened with trial on spying charges if he returns.

Finally, Israel’s treatment of those onboard the flotilla has demonstrated that the net against human rights activism is being cast much wider, to encompass the international community.

Foreigners, even high-profile figures such as Noam Chomsky, are now routinely refused entry to Israel and the occupied territories. Many foreign human rights workers face severe restrictions on their movement and efforts to deport them or ban their organisations. The Israeli government is agreed that Europe should be banned from “interfering” in the region by supporting local human rights organisations.

The epitome of this process was Israel’s reception of the UN report last year into the attack on Gaza by Richard Goldstone, a respected judge and international law expert who suggested Israel had committed many war crimes during its three-week operation. Goldstone has faced savage personal attacks ever since.

But more significantly, Israel’s supporters have characterised the Goldstone report and the related legal campaigns against Israel as examples of “lawfare”, implying that those who uphold international law are waging a new kind of war of attrition on behalf of terror groups like Hamas and Hizbullah.

These trends are likely only to deepen in the coming months and years, making Israel an ever greater paraiah in the eyes of much of the world. The mad dog is baring his teeth, and it is high time the international community decided how to deal with him.

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.

Israel arrests Free Gaza chief: Ma’an News

Published yesterday (updated) 05/06/2010 11:20
Bethlehem – Ma’an – Israeli forces arrested the chairwoman of the Gaza-bound Freedom Flotilla at Friday’s demonstration in Bil’in, near the West Bank city of Ramallah, supporters said.

EDITOR: As the MV Rachel Corrie is approaching Gaza, the daily brutalities are continued with special venom…

Bil’in Protest In Solidarity Protest With The Gaza Flotilla 04-06-2010 By Haitham Al Katib

Huwaida Arraf, a Palestinian-American from Michigan, is a human rights activist who was on board the aid flotilla that came under attack Monday, in a raid that left nine dead.
Activists said two anti-wall protesters were also detained, one Palestinian and one Israeli.
An Israeli police spokesman said three foreign nationals were detained at the rally.

EDITOR: In between the massacres, other crimes are getting lost

For no crime at all, apart from the Orwellian Thought Crime, Israel is illegally deporting four of its own citizens, Palestinian Members of the national assembly, and not for the first time. Is there enough paper in the world to have the full list of Israel’s iniquities? One may think that this better than being killed, but actually it is all a matrix of evil and lawlessness, synchronised to harm the Palestinians beyond repair.

Hamas officials given one month to leave Israel: Haaretz

By Liel Kyzer, Haaretz – 4 June 2010
Jerusalem police confiscated the Israeli identity cards of four Hamas legislators overnight on Thursday and gave them until July to leave the country.
Mohammed Abu Tir, Mohammed Totach, Khaled Abu Arafa, and Ahmed Atoun are all Hamas legislators who refuse to give up their duties within the Hamas Legislative Council.
Detectives from the Jerusalem District Police Central Unit took their identity cards after The High Court of Justice ruled that they would not prevent the men’s expulsion from Jerusalem.

Hamas’ Mohammed Abu Tir at his East Jerusalem home after his release from an Israeli jail on Thursday, May 20, 2010
The four men were, in the past, warned by Israel that they must renounce their membership in Hamas or risk losing their residency rights in East Jerusalem.
Abu Tir was released from Israeli prison last month, after being jailed for the last four years, since his arrest along with 65 other senior Hamas men in response to the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2006.
After his release, Abu Tir was prohibited from entering Jerusalem. Israel has so far released nine of the Hamas officials who were jailed after Shalit’s abduction convicted of belonging to an illegal organization. Israeli defense officials said those ministers had just completed their prison terms and their release was not connected to a prisoner swap deal for Shalit’s release.
Hamas won control of the Palestinian parliament in 2006 elections and then seized the Gaza Strip in 2007, leading to rival governments in the West Bank and Gaza.

Continue reading June 5, 2010

June 4, 2010

Netanyahu - Bloodthirsty Pirate, by Carlos Latuff

EDITOR: The Evidence Was Highjacked With the Survivors…

On kidnapping the Mavi Marmara and other passengers to Israel, not only were a large number of laws broken, as is usual with all Israeli behaviour, but the evidence collected by the survivors about the massacre was itself illegally confiscated and removed by the Israeli authorities. How useful is the law, international and even the Israeli law, when Israel’s behaviour is concereed? Lawyers will argue, justifiably, that we must use what law we have, to bring criminals to justice; in this case, however, the criminal government is breaking its own laws all the time, and refuses to carry out its own Supreme Court decisions, so the use of law as an efficient vehicle of bringing justice to bear must be extremely limited, especially as other governments, and especially those of the US and UK, thremselves involved in war crimes, are supporting and abetting the Israeli regime.

Below, Daniel Machover, of Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights, is proving that not only the murders were illegal, but that the whole operation broke a number of laws, and so did the treatment of the survivors. Let us hope that this helps to persuade some in government that thir continued unprincipled support of mass murder should come to an abrupt end…

Freedom Flotilla attack – Daniel Machover of Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights

Full video of Daniel Machover from press conference organised by Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Also appearing was Sarah Colborne who was on the ship stormed by Israeli commandos.

Turkey is not an enemy: Haaretz Editorial

Compared to Egypt, Turkey has for years maintained close and cordial ties with Israel at all levels. Israelis have considered it a sister nation, trade with Turkey has expanded, and military cooperation has been perceived as a given.

Of all Israel’s ties with Muslim countries, those with Turkey are the oldest. Until recently, in terms of strategy, that country was considered no less important than Egypt. The affair of the Gaza aid flotilla and the harsh and excessive comments by Turkey’s prime minister against Israel have dramatically shaken the stability of these ties. Israelis now perceive Turkey as an enemy that should be denounced, or at least boycotted.

But it should be pointed out that compared to Egypt, Turkey has for years maintained close and cordial ties with Israel at all levels. Israelis have considered it a sister nation, trade with Turkey has expanded, and military cooperation has been perceived as a given. Visits by the leaders of both countries have also become a standard part of our political lives. Turkey’s involvement in the indirect talks between Syria and Israel helped forge understandings between Damascus and Jerusalem, and normalization was not a subject Turkey and Israel disagreed on. Normalization actually preceded official ties between the two countries.

The change did not happen because of the victory of the Justice and Development Party and the election of Recep Tayyip Erdogan as prime minister. That party has been in power since 2002, and despite the dark prophecies that accompanied its rise to power, relations between the two countries continued normally. Turkey’s anger exploded when its prime minister felt betrayed by former prime minister Ehud Olmert, who allowed Turkey to try to mediate between Israel and Hamas on the eve of Operation Cast Lead. Turkey realized then that Israel considers it a given; that it has to agree with all of Israel’s whims.

Erdogan’s criticism of Israel is not different in substance than the criticism by other friends of Israel in Europe and the United States. But his style is more blatant and direct. Erdogan does not agree with Israel on continuing the blockade of the Gaza Strip, and he is finding hard to understand, like many Israelis, the logic behind the blockade after four years in which it has not achieved Israel’s goals. Erdogan’s backing of the flotilla was just a continuation of the view that the blockade cannot go on.

Israel can ignore Turkey’s serious arguments, slander its prime minister and describe the flotilla’s activists as terrorists. This will not be enough to remove the stain of the operation that dragged Israel’s image − not Turkey’s, eight of whose citizens were killed − into the mud internationally.

Israel, which is now struggling to save its good name, considers public relations the sole means for achieving its goals. But without wise policy, public relations will prove empty of substance. The first step is to rehabilitate relations with Turkey, especially with its prime minister.

For this, political courage is necessary, which will lift the blockade on Gaza Strip and bring Turkey closer to the region’s political process. Without all this, Israel can only continue being pleased with itself under the political blockade imposed on it.

The Gaza Flotilla and Israel’s Many, Many Right: Takimag

by Charles Glass,  June 03, 2010

Anybody can support Israel when times are good and The Timeses in London and New York write about Israeli entrepreneurs in Herzliya, Nobel prizes for physicians, and the blooming desert. That’s easy. How about now, though, when Israeli forces have blasted a humanitarian convoy at sea and killed nine people bringing food, medicine, baby clothes, and building supplies? When the going gets tough, only a few get going. God bless Les Gelb, Alan Dershowitz and the other singular champions of Israelism for standing up now, when nine Turkish citizens lie dead and Israel’s reputation is once again, for a moment, in tatters. Gelb bravely asserted on The Daily Beast, “Israel had every right under international law to stop and board ships bound for the Gaza war zone late Sunday.”
Even if no international law, and certainly no Law of the Sea, actually permits armed soldiers to board unarmed merchant ships in international waters, it is good that Gelb had the guts to say there’s one. Israel can rely as well on Dershowitz, the Harvard Law professor who years ago proposed that Israel destroy Palestinian villages in retaliation for suicide bombings—his own “Lidice” solution for which the Nazis who destroyed the Czech village of Lidice in retaliation for the murder of Rheinhard Heydrich were hanged. His counsel on the Huffington Post will soon have the Israeli army storming Gaza, devastating Lebanon, nuking Iran, and sinking cruise liners. When push came to the shove of ethnically cleansing the entire West Bank of its Arab population, Les and Al would be there to tell us all that it was right and, of course, legal. That’s what lawyers, I mean real friends, are for.
I now list the rights that Israel is entitled to exercise now and forever with the full support of its true friends, mainly in America, but wherever else they may be found. Perhaps not, at the moment, in Turkey.
Israel has the right to kill anyone, anytime, for any reason it chooses. This includes those it designates as terrorists or terrorist supporters in Israel itself, in the occupied territories, in Dubai, on airplanes, in cars and on ships. No other state is entitled to this right for reasons that I now forget, but which I am sure Al and Les can remind us about.
Israel is entitled to at least $5 billion a year from the American taxpayer, however hard-pressed he or she may be, during the good times as well as in the midst of financial crises. Israel’s government may spend the money as it sees fit, without oversight or audit by the US Treasury, the Government Accounting Office or the Congress. If a few million bucks go astray or pay for allegedly illegal activities, like displacing Palestinians from their homes and building Israeli settlements on them, that is nobody’s business. If Congress doesn’t like it, it can go to the White House and ask for more.
Israel may use the weapons the United States gives it in any way it chooses, whenever it chooses, and wherever it chooses. US-Israeli treaties limiting their use to defense and prohibiting the deployment of cluster bombs on civilians may be ignored as having no legal force. I defer to the experts at the Harvard School of Law for an exact exegesis of this proposition, but it should be self-evident to all who truly support Israel and not just the whining ninnies who only support it when it is not breaking the law—which, as I said, it is never really breaking anyway.
Israel has the right to spy on and attack American institutions and military installations. The precedents for this obvious assertion are many—Israel’s bombing of American cultural centers in Egypt in the 1950s, its attack on the American naval ship Liberty in 1967 with thirty-two American sailors killed and another 17 wounded, and the many instances when agents like Jonathan Pollard steal American defense secrets and Israeli intelligence passes the information onto America’s enemies. (Read my old colleague James Bamford’s Body of Secrets for the details. You’ll need Les and Al to help you finish the book without having a certain patriotic fury at some of Israel’s breaches of American security.) Bombing American cinemas in Egypt and an American communications ship may seem illegal (and certainly hostile) to the people Les Gelb courageously calls “knee-jerk left-wingers and the usual legion of poseurs around the world.” To the rest of us, the illegal is obviously legal when done by Israel.
“Stand by Israel now. Stand by the real Israel and not those cry babies who defame the state from within. If you don’t, you lousy left-wing, knee-jerk poseur, you’re nothing but an anti-Semite.”

United Nations resolutions do not apply to Israel. The UN should pass a resolution immediately to make this clear. Israel has been in contravention, at least on paper, of more UN resolutions than any other member state. It has consistently refused to adhere to Security Council and General Assembly resolutions on the refugees who fled or were expelled by its forces in 1948 and 1967, on its occupation of territories seized in 1967, on its seizure of land in those territories, on its transfer of its own civilians into occupied territories, on the construction of settlements in the same territories and on its treatment of indigenous civilians in those territories. Let’s get this straight. The UN can say whatever it likes, but it cannot expect its resolutions to apply to Israel—except, of course, the one that recognized Israel as a state in 1948. Non-compliance with UN resolutions may be used as a justification for invading Iraq, but they cannot possibly justify criticism of Israel in the knee-jerk, left-wing press or among the blogs of the Legion of Poseurs. (Perhaps there really is an organization called the Legion of Poseurs. If there is, I am sure Les will let us know about it.)
Israel can bomb and invade Lebanon whenever it wants, but we all know that.
Israel can discriminate between its Jewish citizens and non-Jewish citizens, as well as between its settlers and those stateless souls in the occupied lands. Jews can own land in Israel, and (except for about eight per cent of it) Arabs may not. Israel can make the distinction between Jewish and non-Jewish people without knee-jerk left-wingers and legionary poseurs calling it apartheid. Apartheid was what the South African whites did, which was to discriminate between white and non-white people. There is a big difference between dividing society into whites and non-whites as opposed to dividing it between Jews and non-Jews. I am sure Harvard Law has published many papers to clarify the distinction.
Israel can put Gaza under siege whenever it likes. If the Palestinians in Gaza don’t like it, they can go home. Well, actually, the ninety per cent of them who are refugees can’t go home, because Israel won’t let them. And that too is Israel’s right. Do not forget it is always legal for Israel to prevent shipments of food, medicine, children’s toys, light bulbs and anything else it likes from entering Gaza, even though international law says that collective punishment and deprivation of life’s necessities are illegal.
Israel may stop any ship bound for Gaza (or anywhere else) whenever it wants. Les Gelb found a precedent for this: the Allied blockade of Germany. Germany was at war with the British, and German U-boats were as effective at besieging the British as the Royal Navy was at blockading Germany. Israel cannot be in a legal state of war with territory it occupies. If it were, it would be obliged to treat Palestinian anti-occupation fighters in its custody as prisoners of war with rights under the Geneva Conventions. And we all know how likely that is and what Israel thinks of the Geneva Conventions. You guessed it, right up there with treaties and UN resolutions. The German-British siege is about as good a precedent for the siege of Gaza Les is likely to give us, even if he is free to reject its other implications. Thus, on the high seas, Israel can ram aid ships like it did last year or drop armed commandos on them as it did last week. And those bloody Turkish civilians have no right to take away the Israeli soldiers’ pistols. That is pure aggression. Les concedes that, while Israel can board ships in international or, presumably, Gazan waters, it cannot do the same in the territorial waters of another state. He writes, “Thus, for example, if the Israelis stopped the ships in Egyptian waters, that would have been a violation.” Frankly, Les, that’s trimming. Of course, it can stop ships in Egyptian or Lebanese (which it does all the time) or American waters. And I’ll bet ten to one that, whenever it does stop a ship in Egyptian waters, you’ll change your mind.
Israel can demand that Hamas and every other Palestinian group recognize Israel and its “right to exist” (even though, in any other context, the concept “right to exist” has no existence in law), while Israel refuses to recognize the state of Palestine within the 1947 borders set by the United Nations or the 1949 ceasefire lines that became the first, albeit temporary, borders of Israel. Not only does Israel not have to recognize such a state, it may physically prevent it from coming into being (as it has done since 1967). Let me repeat: Israel has the right to recognition without giving recognition in return. No other two states in the world have relations on that basis, but those states are not Israel. Professor Dershowitz can no doubt have one of his students (at least one who wants a job when he graduates) prepare a thesis giving the rationale behind what knee-jerk left wingers and poseurs contend is an extremely odd state of affairs.
There you have it. Stand by Israel now. Stand by the real Israel and not those cry babies who defame the state from within. If you don’t, you lousy left-wing, knee-jerk poseur, you’re nothing but an anti-Semite. Al and Les can explain why anyone and everyone, even Jews, critical of any Israeli action should be called anti-Semitic. I used to know why, but I’ve forgotten.

Attorney Tsemel brings Testimonies of Gaza Freedom Flotilla Detainees

Continue reading June 4, 2010

June 3, 2010

Steve Bell in the Guardian, June 2 2010

EDITOR: Meanwhile, on the farm…

Yes, while we all watched the flotilla, daily oppression and brutality continues, as it has done for years. Read below about one of hundreds of the incidents which took place during the buildup to the massacre on Mavi Marmara. Being American does not protect you from Israel’s barbarity.

Amidst Furor Over Gaza, Israel Shoots Out the Eye of Protester: The Only Democracy?

June 1st, 2010 | by Jesse Bacon | Add a Comment
From the International Solidarity Movement
US citizen Emily Henochowicz was shot directly in the face with a tear gas canister as she non-violently demonstrated against the Flotilla massacre
31 May 2010: An 21-year old American solidarity activist was shot in the face with a tear gas canister during a demonstration in Qalandiya, today. Emily Henochowicz is currently in Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem undergoing surgery to remove her left eye, following the demonstration that was held in protest to Israel’s murder of at least 10 civilians aboard the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in international waters this morning.
Henochowicz was hit in the face with a tear gas projectile fired directly at her by an Israeli soldier during the demonstration at Qalandiya checkpoint today. Israeli occupation forces fired volleys of tear gas at unarmed Palestinian and international protesters, causing mass panic amongst the demonstrators and those queuing at the largest checkpoint separating the West Bank and Israel.
“They clearly saw us,” said Sören Johanssen, a Swedish ISM volunteer standing with Henochowicz. “They clearly saw that we were internationals and it really looked as though they were trying to hit us. They fired many canisters at us in rapid succession. One landed on either side of Emily, then the third one hit her in the face.”
Henochowicz is an art student at the prestigious Cooper Union, located in East Village, Manhattan.
The demonstration was one of many that took place across the West Bank today in outrage over the Israeli military’s attack on the Gaza freedom flotilla and blatant violation of international law. Demonstrations also took place in inside Israel, Gaza and Jerusalem, with clashes occuring in East Jerusalem and Palestinian shopkeepers in the occupied Old City closing their businesses for the day in protest.

Tear gas canisters are commonly used against demonstrators in the occupied West Bank. In May 2009, the Israeli State Attorney’s Office ordered Israeli Police to review its guidelines for dispersing demonstrators, following the death of a demonstrator, Bassem Abu Rahmah from Bil’in village, caused by a high velocity tear-gas projectile. Tear-gas canisters are meant to be used as a means of crowd dispersal, to be shot indirectly at demonstrators and from a distance. However, Israeli forces frequently shoot canisters directly at protesters and are not bound by a particular distance from which they can shoot.

EDITOR: No Need to Worry, Uncle O’Bummer Will Come in to Protect You…

So afetr all the anger rage and shock, Obama comes in like a messenger from hell, making sure the murderers ‘inquire’ into their own brutality. Justice the American Zionist way. Wait for no more from this supporter of murder and piracy. The good news – Israel will not even accept this arrangement…

Obama: Let Israel probe Gaza flotilla raid with U.S. observer: Haaretz

Political sources: Netanyahu in no rush to accept U.S. proposal, in part because Defense Minister Ehud Barak is opposed to it.
The United States has proposed a possible way for Israel to avoid an international probe of the events surrounding the Gaza flotilla, but at this point Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is leaning against it, in part because Defense Minister Ehud Barak is opposed to it.

The Americans have proposed that Netanyahu announce that an independent Israeli commission of inquiry will look into the events of the flotilla clashes and accept the participation of an American observer.
On Monday and Tuesday, advisers of Prime Minister Netanyahu, Yitzhak Molcho and Uzi Arad, traveled to Washington. On Tuesday they were at the White House with Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, and met National Security Adviser James Jones, and President Barack Obama’s adviser on the Middle East, Denis Ross, as well as Dan Shapiro, who holds the Middle East portfolio at the National Security Council.

One of the main issues discussed was the American demand that Israel investigate the events surrounding the handling of the flotilla.
A senior U.S. official delivered an American proposal to the two senior Israeli advisers, which would both assuage the international community and also would not be too hard a blow for Israel’s wish to undertake its own investigation without massive foreign involvement.

The American proposal, which calls for an independent commission of inquiry here, with an American representative as an observer, is believed to offer the idea of bolstering international confidence in the probe’s conclusions.
Molcho returned to Israel Wednesday and met with the prime minister to update him on the details of the American proposal.

Political sources in Israel say that Netanyahu is in no rush, at this stage, to accept the American offer. The possibility was not discussed at length during the cabinet meeting on Wednesday. Sources in the prime minister’s bureau said it was still too early to talk of a committee of inquiry.
However, several ministers from the “group of seven” who meet to discuss the most sensitive political-military issues and others from the security-political cabinet, said there is urgency for such a probe.

“If we do not do this now at our own initiative, it will be forced upon us by the world,” one of the ministers said.
Another minister added that “we must make a decision on this quickly.”

International pressure

While there is still uncertainty here about the need for an investigation, the international community is moving ahead. The United Nations Human Rights Council decided Wednesday to dispatch an international committee of inquiry to the region to look into the events of the Gaza flotilla. A total of 32 countries voted in favor of the committee of inquiry, nine abstained and three – the U.S., the Netherlands and Italy – voted against.

The decision is similar to the one that established the Goldstone Committee, which looked into Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip and whose published report accused Israel and Hamas of having committed war crimes.
The Arab states asked the council to condemn Israel for violating international law because it had taken over the flotilla’s ships in international waters.

The council’s resolution calls on Israel to lift the blockade on the Gaza Strip and to provide its residents with food, fuel and medicines.
The resolution’s final article states that the council will send an independent, international group to investigate the facts of the incident and any violations of international law as a result of “the Israeli attack against a convoy of ships carrying humanitarian aid.”

After Wednesday’s cabinet meeting, Netanyahu did not comment on the possibility of an Israeli inquiry, but accused the international community of hypocrisy and warned against what he said would lead to transforming the Gaza Strip into an Iranian missile base.

It was Israel’s obligation to prevent the import of weapons into the Strip that would be directed against Israel, the prime minister said.
“Iran continues to smuggle weapons to the Gaza Strip that are aimed at Israel,” Netanyahu said, and called for the blockade to stay in place.
If ships are allowed to enter Gaza port freely, “the implication would be that there would be an Iranian port in the Gaza Strip, close to Tel Aviv, and this is a genuine threat to Israel’s security. I say to you, and to the countries criticizing us, that an Iranian port in Gaza is also a threat to European states.”

Senior political sources told Haaretz they see no justification for an external probe. They said the Israel Defense Forces needs to evaluate itself and at most someone from outside the chain of command should be included in the process.

‘Self-flagellation’

Calls in Israel for a commission of inquiry were also described by government sources as “exaggerated responses,” and they warned against “self-flagellation.”

Sources in the political leadership and in the General Staff reject the idea that the operation against the flotilla was a failure and argue it achieved its aim because it stopped the ships from reaching the Gaza Strip.
Another aid ship, the Irish-flagged Rachel Corrie, named after the American peace activist killed by an army bulldozer, is also planning on reaching the Gaza Strip.

The ship is known to be carrying some 15, mostly European and Malaysian, peace activists. The assumption is there will be no violent resistance if the ship is boarded.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi plan to recommend that if necessary, violence be used to stop the ship but lessons learned from the incident Monday will be adopted to prevent bloodshed.
Meanwhile, Israel is trying to calm the tensions with Turkey, and all those arrested in the flotilla incident will be expelled.

In an unusual turn of events, six unidentified bodies of those killed in the incident Monday were sent to Turkey, along with three identified corpses. Usually, only the dead who have been identified are released.

Interview with Al Jazeera’s Jamal ElShayyal: One of the passengers on the Mavi Marmara

AlJazeeraEnglish — June 03, 2010 — Al Jazeera’s Jamal Elshayyal has been released by Israeli authorities following Monday’s deadly raid on the Mavi Marmara aid ship that was destined for Gaza.

Our producer, who reported from the ship as Israel launched the raid, was on the top deck when the ship was attacked.

Here, he tells his account of what happened.

part 1 of exclusive interview with Huwaida Arraf of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla: Live from The Only Democracy?:

June 2nd, 2010, by Jesse Bacon
By Jesse Bacon
I had the privilege of speaking with Huwaida Arraf of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla direct from Ramallah today. I will write up a transcript later of the talk, but for now here’s the interview audio, which takes a few seconds to begin in both clips.
I will speak to her again tomorrow and be asking her more about what happened on May 31 itself.

Huwaida Arraf Part 1

Huwaida Arraf Part 2

Huwaida Arraf is a pro-Palestinian activist and co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). The stated mission of the ISM is to “resist the Israeli occupation of the West Bank using nonviolent tactics”.
Arraf is the daughter of a Palestinian mother and father. Her father has Israeli citizenship. Arraf majored in Arabic and Judaic studies and political science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She also spent a year at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and studied Hebrew on a kibbutz.  Arraf later earned a J.D. at American University’s Washington College of Law. Her focus was on International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, with a particular interest in war crimes prosecution.
Arraf was aboard the Challenger 1, the largest ship of a humanitarian flotilla to Gaza, when the flotilla was attacked by the Israeli military. She is the chairperson for the Free Gaza Movement, the organization behind the flotilla.

Continue reading June 3, 2010

June 2, Page 3

EDITOR: And Now for the Hollywood movie of the IDF vs Al Qaida on the High Seas…

Israeli propaganda  has now moved into overdrive. The scripts have been written, the narratives have been prapared for those in the west who need to believe in fiction, and deny reality. Israeli academics were sent a kit of Propaganda materials, and asked to do the job abroad and with the media. You can read parts of this bizarre kit below. The dailies, and especially Yediot Aharonot, the most-read evening paper, is blue for all the flag waving on its pages. Interviews with the soldiers who ‘saved Israel’ from an attack of of Al Qaida opertaives are covering every page, are carpeting radio and television in Israel.

Of course, this is the result of the ‘fiasco’ as some of its critics in the Israeli media called it. In order to cover up murder and lunacy and to counter the survivors’ stories, they have to crank up the lie machine to full volume. And who is going top believe them? The gullibles in the Jewish community, the BBC, and Obama, who, while being too intleligentfor this stuff, is still going to support them to the hilt, if his silence and the US vote against an inquiry are evidence of the ‘thinking’ in Washington. For those good people who still expected something from this smoke-and-mirrors man, this last twist should clarify the picture. Gone is the new politics, the Cairo speech, the New World of Change, and instead we have the black president with a ‘White Man’s burden’… Sad, indeed, but far from surprising. Put your pennies on any horse, but not on this one. It will go nowhere fast, and bring nothing by prevarication, denial of rights and justice in the Middle East and elsewhere, and the coninuation of imperialist wars. Watch this space.

3 flotilla fatalities ‘dreamt of martyrdom’: YNet

Before boarding the Marmara, Ali Khaider Benginin told his family he dreamt of becoming a shahid. Turkish press reports two other slain flotilla participants expressed similar wish. A Dutch activist arrested on flotilla suspected of ties with Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood
Aviel Magnezi
Published:     06.02.10, 16:27
The Gaza flotilla organizers insist that all activists killed on board the Marmara ship were innocent peace activists. However, new reports reveal a completely different picture.

Media reports in Ankara on Wednesday revealed that three out of the four Turkish citizens that were killed during the raid declared their wishes to become shahids (martyrs). Another Dutch report claimed a Dutch activist, who was arrested by the IDF is suspected of being a senior Hamas operative.
In an interview with Turkish newspaper Haber, the family members of Ali Khaider Benginin (39), resident of east Turkey’s Kurdistan region, revealed their relative’s true intentions.

“I am going to be a shahid; I dreamt I will become a shahid – I saw in a dream that I will be killed,” Benginin told his family before leaving for the sail.
According to the report, beniginin, who graduated from al-Azhar University in Cairo, served for the past two years as the chairman of a foundation for rights and freedom in education and culture. His family noted that he had spoken in the past about his dream to become a shahid in Gaza.
Another Turkish citizen killed during the raid, Ali Akhbar Iritilmis (55), a father of four from Ankara, was active in the IHH organization, which led the naval convoy to Gaza. “He was devoted to this activity, and always dreamt about becoming a shahid,” said his close friend Mehmet Faruq Cheber.
Anadolu News Agency reported that the third activist killed on boards the Marmara, Ibrahim Bilgen (61), an engineer and father of six, was active in the Islamic party in southern Turkey. “He was a role model to all of us; a true philanthropist. Therefore, it suited him to die a shahid’s death. Allah gave him the death he wanted,” said Ibrahim’s brother, Nuri Mergen.

The fourth slain activist, Muharram Kuchak, was also a volunteer with the IHH.

The three Turkish “shahids,” as it turns out, were not alone. Holland-based Teltarif newspaper reported Wednesday morning that Amin Abou Rashed, 43, and Anne de Jong, 29, are probably the only two Dutch citizens that were arrested among the flotilla participants.
The newspaper’s investigation revealed incriminating details from Abou Rashed’s past; intelligence sources claimed he is the local Hamas leader, while the Muslim Brotherhood’s website identified him as one of the organizers of the naval convoy.
According to Teltarif’s report, Dutch intelligence services have been following Abou Rashed’s activities for a long time. He worked, among other places, with al- Aqsa Foundation, suspected of acting under the guise of a charity, while funneling its donations to Hamas.

An Email from an Israeli university professor:

Various Israeli official bodies, including the ministry for Hasbara [i.e. propaganda] have sent messages to Israeli citizens urging them to take an active part in the “propaganda war”. They are told not to ask questions but rather to spread the official messages in every possible way in the virtual world: talkbacks, forums, Facebook etc.. I have the material which is mostly in Hebrew. Although every citizen was asked to use the languages he knows. The attached file is in English. It would be nice if some of you can publish it on the net in order to unveil this coordinated campaign.

To read propaganda file use link

EDITOR: The voice of truth

Former US Ambassador Edward Peck, serving as a diplomat under eight US presidents, who was on the boat where the murders happened, speaks for an hour about the brutality and and madness of the operation. His critique of the US position and of President Obama is clear, searing and very fair. view and distribute link widely.

Former US Ambassador Edward Peck: Democracy Now

Israel’s Explanation for Deadly Gaza Aid Attack “Full of Holes as a Window Screen”–Former US Ambassador Edward Peck
Former US Ambassador Edward Peck was on the Gaza aid flotilla that came under attack by Israeli forces. At least nine people were killed and dozens wounded. Peck says Israel’s explanation for the attack is “twisting the truth” and is “as full of holes as a window screen.” [includes rush transcript]

US and the Middle East: Holed below the water line: The Guardian Editorial

Work has to finally start on rebuilding a peace process worthy of the name
Day two of the aftermath of Operation Sea Breeze, and it was anything but. The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, flew back from the US, postponing a kiss-and-make-up session with Barack Obama to discuss the Israeli premier’s pet subject, Iran. Egypt opened its border with Gaza, as much to give vent to domestic anger as to provide temporary relief to its hapless neighbours. The UN huffed and puffed, as the first eyewitness accounts of what happened on the high seas on Monday morning began to emerge. “There was a plan, and they went according to the plan,” concluded Annette Groth, a German politician on board the Mavi Marmara. “They created terror and were shooting without warning. They wanted to demonstrate their power and demonstrate if you want to go to Gaza, don’t even try it.” An Israeli cabinet meeting demanded a probe into a decision which seven of its most senior members took. Don’t hold your breath.

None of this matters. The real question is: will anything change? Or will the deaths of those on board the convoy pass loudly but swiftly into history, as the killings of Rachel Corrie, Tom Hurndall and James Miller have before them? The few clues around yesterday were all depressing ones. Opening the Egyptian border temporarily to humanitarian aid is gesture politics. What Gaza wants is what was in those ships – concrete, steel, building materials with which to repair the damage inflicted by Israel’s punishment raid last year. But as an Egyptian security source told Reuters, those are the last things that will be let through the Rafah crossing. “Hard materials” will still have to go through Israel. No change there.

Nor was there any discernible movement in the UN security council debate. Turkey, whose citizens had been killed by Israeli naval commandos, proposed a statement condemning Israel for violating international law, demanding a UN investigation and the prosecution of those responsible. What did the administration of the man who promised a new approach to the Middle East do? It went back to the old approach. The US watered down Turkey’s just demands, so the shootings became “acts”, and blame was neatly apportioned to both sides. Alejandro Wolff, the deputy permanent representative of the US on the council, said the direct delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza by sea was neither appropriate nor responsible. Forget the signals that words like these send to Gazans. They are used to them. The next time Barack Obama appeals to the Muslim world it will be to deaf ears, and for this his administration has only got itself to blame.

As Robert Malley, director of the International Crisis Group’s Middle East programme, said yesterday, the international community has been complicit in a policy of isolating Gaza and weakening Hamas – a policy that he called both morally appalling and politically self-defeating. Yesterday there was scant sign of Washington abandoning an approach which has repeatedly failed.

The reason is that so many other failing US policies depend on it: the support for a beleaguered Palestinian Authority as the sole representative of Palestinians; the attempt to talk up the work of one man without a party, the prime minister Salam Fayyad, as transformative; and proximity talks which will never be able to bridge the gap between the maximum Mr Netanyahu can give and the minimum even a weakened Palestinian leader like Mahmoud Abbas can accept. One error of judgment reinforces another, and another, and another. Meanwhile the settlements keep on growing.

As the edifice underpinning these misjudgments starts to fall apart, work has to finally start on rebuilding a peace process worthy of the name: one based on dealing with both wings of the Palestinian national movement without preconditions. That is the only realistic way out of this morass.

Turkey and Israel: a deepening chill: The Guardian CiF

The power of public opinion – and the internet – will be a major factor in how the flotilla disaster shapes Istanbul’s diplomacy
by Fadi Hakura
Turkey has traditionally enjoyed a close – albeit quiet – relationship with Israel since diplomatic ties were established in 1949. Mirroring the general climate in the Middle East, relations between the two countries experienced a trough after the 1967 war, peaked following the 1990s Middle East peace process and deteriorated since Israel’s 2008 military operations in Gaza. Coming soon after the diplomatic spat over the treatment of Turkey’s ambassador to Israel, the tragic loss of Turkish lives when Israeli commandos stormed the flotilla en route to Gaza, has sent a deepening chill over those once-strategic ties. While barriers between Turkey and Israel are proliferating, they are tumbling down with neighbouring Syria, Iran and the Gulf Arab region. In recent years, Turkey has lifted visa restrictions with Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, signed countless agreements with Arab countries, and launched a strategic dialogue with Arab governments.

The emergence of Turkey in the Middle East has been marked by a palpable shift to the Arab world and Iran for a variety of reasons. One is economic interests: Turkey’s annual trade with Israel stands at $2.5bn compared with over $30bn with Iran and the Arab countries. At the same time, Turkey imports almost a fifth of its natural gas consumption from Iran.

The power of graphic, real-time media images streaming from Israel’s 2006 and 2008 wars in Lebanon and Gaza respectively, or from the raid on the flotilla, has clearly inflamed Turkish popular reactions.

Yet the key reason for the shift is the continuing democratisation of Turkish society. It was previously the norm for the Turkish state establishment to ignore, or downgrade, the influence of public opinion on foreign policy. That is no longer the case. Today, as Turkey proceeds along the path of greater democracy and civilian rule, public opinion is becoming a crucially important ingredient in foreign policy choices.

As far as it is decipherable from surveys, Turkish public opinion is quite hostile to Israel and the United States. It seems that Turks have a deep distrust of both countries, feelings that will be bolstered by the loss of Turkish lives. Conversely, however, it would be premature to assume that Turks necessarily desire overtly warm ties with Iran and the Arab world. They normally cite Europe, and particularly Germany, as the region that they most trust in international affairs, despite repeated obstacles bedevilling Turkey’s EU accession process.

These survey results, therefore, point to an intriguing and realistic understanding by the Turkish public on the future of Turkey in the Middle East. They appear to want closer relations with Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia without sacrificing integration efforts with Europe, nor getting overly entangled in the Middle East. In fact, that understanding matches two important lessons drawn from recent events. Prime among such lessons is that Turkey is not the only major player in the Middle East. There are multiple players – ranging from the US and Israel to Iran, Egypt and Saudi Arabia – with sometimes converging interests, and on other occasions competing goals. That’s why not only the US, but also some Gulf Arab states, did not exhibit any enthusiasm for the Turkish-Brazilian deal with Iran to swap 1,200kg of low-enriched uranium for higher-grade uranium.

Similarly, Turkey has thus far resorted to diplomatic protests against Israel – from withdrawing its ambassador and releasing robust and muscular statements to securing a vague condemnation from the UN security council. In other words, Turkey has not threatened any military retaliation. Nor has Turkey opted for a complete breakdown of relations with Israel, which is a real possibility, though not a forgone conclusion.

Another important lesson is that Turkey’s capacity does not always match its foreign policy ambitions. Turkey is still a maturing democracy with a developing economy, which places strict limitations on its abilities to project power in the Middle East. Consequently, the complications of the Middle East require a delicate balancing of capacity and ambitions as well as carefully defining priorities. Nuance is the one word most relevant to Turkey’s foreign policy.

Continue reading June 2, Page 3

June 2, 2010, Page 2

EDITOR: The Lunatic State of the Jewish State

In Israel, as well as abroad, the full lunacy and vileness of this latest Israeli war crime is becoming clear to all who can read. Israeli propaganda has worked overtime, based on the kidnapping of the activists, isolating them from the whole world, confiscating all their material evidence, on top of the brutalities of maiming and murdering many of them. This meant that for the last few days, only the the voice of Israeli propaganda was available to the international media. Fictional narratives, more complex than most Hollywood scripts, were woven and reinforced by what must be the largest propaganda machine anywhere.

Of course, this matter little now. The facts are now coming out, and many inquiries will be conducted and will establish the full horror of this murderous piracy. The world will not be fooled by this anymore. In Israel, however, the public, and the elites are fully behind this latest crime, as they always were behind the ones committed before. They no longer matter, of course. Anyone waiting for internal transformation must be seriously delusional; there shall be no such change ever – the change will come from outside, from the outraged millions, who watch disbelievingly as their own governments, yet again, do nothing to stop mayhem, murder and lawlessness by the Israeli regime. It is interesting to note that the public support of the Israelis for the war crimes committed in their names everywhere – in Beirut, in Gaza, in the rest of Palestine, in Dubai, and now on the high seas, not for the first time – is much higher than that enjoyed by the apartheid regime in its heyday! Israel is a Jewish military democracy, for Jews only, and as such, all its Jewish citizens are responsible for what is done in their name, unless they act against the crimes. Because of this continued unstinting support, there is no hope for change in Israel, and we should not expect it or try to bring it about. It is a waste of time and effort – Israelis are living in a parallel universe, where normal legalities do not exist, and morality is absent, where racism and apartheid are still ruling the day.

The change will come from us, from the enraged and caring millions, angry with the duplicity of their own governments and their collusion with Israeli crimes; the international community is now realising it is up to all of us to do what many did during the apartheid days – to isolate and ostracise and isolate this pariah military and piratical regime, this State of Lunacy and lawlessness. We will all need to stop any relationship with this entity of crime: no products to be purchased, no touring in Israel, no conferences there, no invites and collaboration with Israeli academics and institutions who do not declare their unequivocal opposition to the occupation and its iniquities. The resolution of this conflict will only be reached by the annulling Zionism and its racism, its military and ‘civil’ racist machineries, the total removal of all settler communities, and the return of Palestinian refugees, as well as the payment of full compensation to all those who were hurt by the Zionist enterprise over the last few decades.
The way to achieve this is by the careful and thoughtful but total BDS – Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, that will lead to a Just peace and a stable and long-lasting political order in Palestine. Anything else will just lead to more murder, and to a likely destabilizing of the region, and towards exporting militant radicalism and possibly terrorism to all parts of the globe, as a result of an obvious failure of the west to deal with this colonial and imperialist abscess.

Haim Bresheeth

Patrick Cockburn: PR dangerously distorts the Israeli sense of reality: The Independent

Wednesday, 2 June 2010

An old Israeli saying describing various less-than-esteemed military leaders says: “He was so stupid that even the other generals noticed.” The same derisive remark could be applied almost without exception to the present generation of Israeli politicians.

Such healthy scepticism among Israelis about the abilities of their military and political leaders has unfortunately ebbed in recent decades. As a result, Israelis are left perplexed as to why their wars, military interventions and armed actions have so often ended in failure since the 1973 war, despite the superiority of their armed forces.

The latest example of this is the assault on the Gaza aid convoy by naval commandos, a confrontation initiated by Israel which thereby ensured that the convoy’s organisers achieved their objectives to a degree beyond their wildest dreams. By using assault troops in a police action against civilians with predictably bloody results Israel managed to focus international attention on its blockade of Gaza, which the world had hitherto largely ignored. The Israeli action infuriated Turkey, once its strongest ally in the region, and strengthened the claim of Hamas to Palestinian leadership.

The capacity of Israel to shoot itself in the foot needs explanation. From the beginning the operation was idiotic, since Israel was always likely to look bad after any confrontation between élite troops and civilian protesters. Even more ludicrous is the Israeli explanation that their élite and heavily armed soldiers were at risk of their lives because they had to use thick gloves to protect their hands when sliding down cables from a helicopter and therefore could not use their weapons.

The nature of the fiasco should cause little surprise because such botched Israeli military actions have been the norm for years. The 1982 invasion of Lebanon was discredited by the massacre of Palestinians in Sabra and Shatila refugee camps by Christian militias loosed on them by Israeli army commanders. Syria, not Israel, became the predominant power in Lebanon. In south Lebanon, the Israeli army fought a long and unsuccessful guerrilla war against Hizbollah. The bombardments of Lebanon in 1996 and 2006 left Hizbollah stronger, and a similar attack on Gaza in 2008 failed to weaken Hamas.

The problem is that nobody believes Israeli propaganda as much as Israelis. Pro-Palestinian activists often lament the fluency and mendacity of Israeli spokesmen on the airwaves and the pervasive influence of Israel’s supporters abroad. But, in reality, these PR campaigns are Israel’s greatest weakness, because they distort Israelis’ sense of reality. Defeats and failures are portrayed as victories and successes.

The slaughter of civilians is justified as a military necessity or somehow the fault of the other side. Opponents are demonised as bloodthirsty terrorists. Comforted by such benign accounts of their activities, Israeli leaders are consumed by arrogance because they come to believe they have never made a mistake. Denial that errors have occurred makes it extremely difficult to sack generals or ministers, however gross their incompetence or record of failure.

Many Israelis privately take their own propaganda with a pinch of salt, though the number is diminishing. But abroad, the most third-rate Israeli politicians strut before fawning audiences as heroic defenders of the state. Not surprisingly they return home with a dangerously inflated idea of their own abilities and in a perilously self-important mood.

The Israeli propaganda machine, official and private, has been running full throttle in the last few days justifying the assault on the aid convoy to Gaza. Probably spokesmen feel they are performing well given the weakness of their case. In fact, they do nothing but harm to Israel. The greater their success in denying gross and culpable mistakes, the more likely it is that the perpetrators will hold their jobs – and the more likely it is that the mistakes will be endlessly repeated.

Gaza flotilla activists deported to Jordan claim Israeli mistreatment: The Guardian

Israel deports 124 pro-Palestinian activists to Jordan and transfers 200 more to Tel Aviv airport amid increasing calls for independent inquiry into deadly assault
Wednesday 2 June 2010 09.15 BST
Israel today started deporting all the detained activists seized during its botched raid on an aid shipment to Gaza, as some of the first to be freed spoke of their mistreatment at the hands of the Israelis.
A group of 124 pro-Palestinian activists from 12 Muslim nations crossed the border in five Jordanian buses. Another 200 activists have been transferred from a holding centre to Israel’s airport near Tel Aviv, a prison service spokesman said. The remaining activists will be released throughout the day, the spokesman said.

Yesterday Israel had indicated it might prosecute some of the activists.
The decision to free the detainees came as more accounts from those on the ships began to emerge.
One Briton who was on one of the boats heading towards Gaza arrived back in Britain last night.
IT professional Hasan Nowarah, from Glasgow, described the moment the aid flotilla was stormed by Israeli troops.
He told Sky News that the Mavi Marmara ship was surrounded by helicopters and Zodiac assault craft.

“All you could see was screaming and bullets. Out of the blue as I looked around our ship, all I could see were hundreds of Zodiacs. Hundreds of Zodiacs full of soldiers, and big ships, lots of ships, and I believe as well submarines in the sea.”
The assault left nine dead and dozens wounded and has led to criticism of Israel and increasing calls for an independent, impartial inquiry.
One of the group deported to Jordan today, Walid al-Tabtabai, a Kuwaiti politician who was on board one of the ships with other activists from Muslim countries, said: “The Israelis roughed up and humiliated all of us, women, men and children.

“They were brutal and arrogant, but our message reached every corner of the world that the blockade on Gaza is unfair and should be lifted immediately.”
Like many passengers on the flotilla he insisted there were no weapons on any of the ships.
Algerian Izzeddine Zahrour said Israeli authorities “deprived us of food, water and sleep and we weren’t allowed to use the toilet”.
“It was an ugly kidnapping and subsequently bad treatment in Israeli jail,” he said. “They handcuffed us, pushed us around and humiliated us.”

Mauritanian Mohammed Gholam said Israel “wanted us to sign documents saying that we entered Israel illegally”.
An Algerian activist, who only gave her first name as Sabrina, accused Israeli commandos of taking a one-year-old child hostage.
“They point a gun to his head in front of his Turkish parents to force the captain of our ship to stop sailing,” she said.

A Jordanian government spokesman said there were 30 Jordanians in the group. Jordan is one of two Arab nations with a signed peace treaty with Israel. Kuwaiti ambassador Sheik Faisal Al Sabah said the group included 16 Kuwaitis. He said the other activists came from Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, Yemen, Oman and Bahrain.

Turkey has led criticism of the raid, accusing Israel of committing a “massacre”, and the UN security council demanded an impartial investigation. There were reports in the Israeli media today that Israel had ordered the families of its diplomats in Turkey to leave that country because of Turkish anger at the raid.
Washington blocked an attempt at the UN security council for an international inquiry yesterday, issuing a mild statement regretting the loss of life. Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, later called the situation in Gaza “unsustainable”.

“Israel’s legitimate security needs must be met, just as the Palestinians’ legitimate needs for sustained humanitarian assistance and regular access to reconstruction materials must also be assured,” she said.
Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, said this morning that Israel’s blockade of Gaza was “an absolute humanitarian catastrophe” that was “not in Israel’s own long-term self-interest”.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning that Israel had “every right” to protect its people from terrorist threat, but said: “What I ask my Israeli friends and Israeli politicians and officials I meet is: what’s the strategy, where do you go next, how are you going to secure in the long term, not just day to day, the security which you rightly crave?”
Last night, the foreign secretary, William Hague, said 31 British nationals and a further 11 with dual nationality were known to have been detained after the seizure of the vessels as they attempted to breach the Israeli blockade of the territory.

The Foreign Office confirmed that 29 of the Britons had received a visit – with no complaints about their treatment.
Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, said that the detainees were being treated in line with international practice.

“We are not charging them with anything, we have detained them and we will help them leave our country,” he told the BBC.
There was concern among friends and relatives in the UK who complained that they were unable to establish contact with the detainees.

Rachel Bridgeland, whose partner, Peter Venner, 63, from Ryde, Isle of Wight, was on the Mavi Marmara, said that the government should be putting more pressure on Israel.
“It’s absolutely terrible not knowing what has happened to him and it’s terrible that the British government hasn’t done more, but they don’t want to fall out with Israel,” she said.

Flotilla attack: full UN statement: The Guardian

UN security council calls for impartial investigation into Israel’s assault on a flotilla carrying aid supplies to the Gaza Strip

Members of the UN security council meet in the wake of the Israeli raid on the Gaza aid flotilla. Photograph: Louis Lanzano/AP

The full text of a formal presidential statement adopted today by the United Nations security council on Israel’s action against an aid flotilla heading for Gaza:
The security council deeply regrets the loss of life and injuries resulting from the use of force during the Israeli military operation in international waters against the convoy sailing to Gaza. The council, in this context, condemns those acts which resulted in the loss of at least 10 civilians and many wounded, and expresses its condolences to their families.

The security council requests the immediate release of the ships as well as the civilians held by Israel. The council urges Israel to permit full consular access, to allow the countries concerned to retrieve their deceased and wounded immediately, and to ensure the delivery of humanitarian assistance from the convoy to its destination.

The security council takes note of the statement of the UN secretary-general on the need to have a full investigation into the matter and it calls for a prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation conforming to international standards.

The security council stresses that the situation in Gaza is not sustainable. The council re-emphasises the importance of the full implementation of Resolutions 1850 and 1860. In that context, it reiterates its grave concern at the humanitarian situation in Gaza and stresses the need for sustained and regular flow of goods and people to Gaza as well as unimpeded provision and distribution of humanitarian assistance throughout Gaza.

The security council underscores that the only viable solution to Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an agreement negotiated between the parties and re-emphasises that only a two-state solution, with an independent and viable Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel and its other neighbours, could bring peace to the region.

The security council expresses support for the proximity talks and voices concern that this incident took place while the proximity talks are under way and urges the parties to act with restraint, avoiding any unilateral and provocative actions, and all international partners to promote an atmosphere of cooperation between the parties and throughout the region.

Continue reading June 2, 2010, Page 2