12/06/10
Uri Avneri
If a real Commission of Inquiry had been set up (instead of the pathetic excuse for a commission), here are some of the questions it should have addressed:
What is the real aim of the Gaza Strip blockade?
If the aim is to prevent the flow of arms into the Strip, why are only 100 products allowed in (as compared to the more than 12 thousand products in an average Israeli supermarket)?
Why is it forbidden to bring in chocolate, toys, writing material, many kinds of fruits and vegetables (and why cinnamon but not coriander)?
What is the connection between the decision to forbid the import of construction materials for the replacement or repair of the thousands of buildings destroyed or damaged during the Cast Lead operation and the argument that they may serve Hamas for building bunkers – when more than enough materials for this purpose are brought into the Strip through the tunnels?
Is the real aim of the blockade to turn the lives of the 1.5 million human beings in the Strip into hell, in the hope of inducing them to overthrow the Hamas regime?
Since this has not happened, but – on the contrary – Hamas has become stronger during the three years of the blockade, did the government ever entertain second thoughts on this matter?
Has the blockade been imposed in the hope of freeing the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit?
If so, has the blockade contributed anything to the realization of this aim, or has it been counter-productive?
Why does the Israeli government refuse to exchange Shalit for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, when Hamas agrees to such a deal?
Is it true that the US government has imposed a veto on the exchange of prisoners, on the grounds that it would strengthen Hamas?
Has there been any discussion in our government about fulfilling its undertaking in the Oslo agreement – to enable and encourage the development of the Gaza port – in a way that would prevent the passage of arms?
Why does the Israeli government declare again and again that the territorial waters of the Gaza strip are part of Israel’s own territorial waters, and that ships entering them “infringe on Israeli sovereignty”, contrary to the fact that the Gaza Strip was never annexed to Israel and that Israel officially announced in 2006 that it had “separated” itself from it?
Why has the Attorney General’s office declared that the peace activists captured on the high seas, who had no intention whatsoever of entering Israel, had “tried to enter Israel illegally”, and brought them before a judge for the extension of their arrest under the law that concerns “illegal entry into Israel”?
Who is responsible for these contradictory legal claims, when the Israeli government argues one minute that Israel has “separated itself from the Gaza Strip” and that the “occupation there has come to an end” – and the next minute claims sovereignty over the coastal waters of the Strip?
Questions concerning the decision to attack the flotilla: When did the preparation for this flotilla become known to the Israeli intelligence services? (Evidence on this may be heard in camera.)
When was this brought to the attention of the Prime Minister, the Minister of Defense, the Cabinet, the Committee of Seven (in charge of security matters) and the IDF Chief of Staff? (ditto)
What were the deliberations of these officials and institutions? (ditto)
What intelligence was submitted to each of them? (ditto)
When, by whom and how was the decision taken to stop the flotilla by force?
Is it true that the secretary of the cabinet, Tzvi Hauser, warned of the severe consequences of such action and advised letting the flotilla sail to Gaza?
Were there others who also advised doing so?
Was the Foreign Ministry a full partner in all the discussions?
If so, did the Foreign Ministry warn of the impact of such an action on our relations with Turkey and other countries?
In light of the fact that, prior to the incident, the Turkish government informed the Israeli Foreign Ministry that the flotilla was organized by a private organization which is not under the control of the government and does not violate any Turkish law – did the Foreign Ministry consider approaching the organization in order to try to reach an agreement to avoid violence?
Was due consideration given to the alternative of stopping the flotilla in territorial waters, inspecting the cargo for arms and letting it sail on?
Was the impact of the action on international public opinion considered?
Was the impact of the action on our relations with the US considered?
Was it taken into consideration that the action may actually strengthen Hamas?
Was it taken into consideration that the action may make the continuation of the blockade more difficult?
Questions concerning the planning of the action: What intelligence was at the disposal of the planners? (Evidence may be heard in camera.)
Was it considered that the composition of the group of activists in this flotilla was different from that in earlier protest ships, because of the addition of the Turkish component?
Was it taken into consideration that contrary to the European peace activists, who believe in passive resistance, the Turkish activists may adopt a policy of active resistance to soldiers invading a Turkish ship?
Were alternative courses of action considered, such as blocking the progress of the flotilla with navy boats?
If so, what were the alternatives considered, and why were they rejected?
Who was responsible for the actual planning of the operation – the IDF Chief of Staff or the Commander of the Navy?
If it was the Navy Commander who decided on the method employed, was the decision approved by the Chief of Staff, the Minister of Defense and the Prime Minister?
How were the responsibilities for planning divided between these?
Why was the action undertaken outside of the territorial waters of Israel and the Gaza Strip?
Why was it executed in darkness?
Did anyone in the navy object to the idea of soldiers descending from helicopters onto the deck of the ship “Mavi Marmara”?
During the deliberations, did anyone bring up the similarity between the planned operation and the British action against the ship “Exodus 1947”, which ended in a political disaster for the British?
Questions concerning the action itself: Why was the flotilla cut off from any contact with the world throughout the operation, if there was nothing to hide?
Did anyone protest that the soldiers were actually being sent into a trap?
Was it taken into consideration that the plan adopted would place the soldiers for several critical minutes in a dangerously inferior position?
When exactly did the soldiers start to shoot live ammunition?
Which of the soldiers was the first to fire?
Was the shooting – all or part of it – justified?
Is it true that the soldiers started firing even before descending onto the deck, as asserted by the passengers?
Is it true that the fire continued even after the captain of the ship and the activists announced several times over loudspeakers that the ship had surrendered, and after they had actually hoisted white flags?
Is it true that five of the nine people killed were shot in the back, indicating that they were trying to get away from the soldiers and thus could not be endangering their lives?
Why was the killed man Ibrahim Bilgen, 61 years old and father of six and a candidate for mayor in his home town, described as a terrorist?
Why was the killed man Cetin Topcoglu, 54 years old, trainer of the Turkish national taekwondo (Korean martial arts) team, whose wife was also on the ship, described as a terrorist?
Why was the killed man Cevdet Kiliclar, a 38 year old journalist, described as a terrorist?
Why was the killed man Ali Haydar Bengi, father of four, graduate of the al-Azhar school for literature in Cairo, described as a terrorist?
Why were the killed men Necdet Yaldirim, 32 years old, father of a daughter; Fahri Yaldiz, 43 years old, father of four; Cengiz Songur, 47 years old, father of seven; and Cengiz Akyuz, 41 years old, father of three, described as terrorists?
Is it a lie that the activists took a pistol from a soldier and shot him with it, as described by the IDF, or is it true that the activists did in fact throw the pistol into the sea without using it?
Is it true, as stated by Jamal Elshayyal, a British subject, that the soldiers prevented treatment for the Turkish wounded for three hours, during which time several of them died?
Is it true, as stated by this journalist, that he was handcuffed behind his back and forced to kneel for three hours in the blazing sun, that he was not allowed to go and urinate and told to “piss in his pants”, that he remained handcuffed for 24 hours without water, that his British passport was taken from him and not returned; that his laptop computer, three cellular telephones and 1500 dollars in cash were taken from him and not returned?
Did the IDF cut off the passengers from the world for 48 hours and confiscate all the cameras, films and cell phones of the journalists on board in order to suppress any information that did not conform to the IDF story?
Is it a standing procedure to keep the Prime Minister (or his acting deputy, Moshe Yaalon in this case) in the picture during an operation, was this procedure implemented, and was it implemented in previous cases, such as the Entebbe operation or the boarding of the ship “Karin A”?
Questions concerning the behavior of the IDF Spokesman: IS it true that the IDF Spokesman spread a series of fabrications during the first few hours, in order to justify the action in the eyes of both the Israeli and the international public?
Are the few minutes of film which have been shown hundreds of times on Israeli TV, from the first day on until now, a carefully edited clip, so that it is not seen what happened just before and just after?
What is the truth of the assertion that the soldiers who were taken by the activists into the interior of the ship were about to be “lynched”, when the photos clearly show that they were surrounded for a considerable time by dozens of activists without being harmed, and that a doctor or medic from among the activists even treated them?
What evidence is there for the assertion that the Turkish NGO called IHH has connections with al-Qaeda?
On what grounds was it stated again and again that it was a “terrorist organization”, though no evidence for this claim was offered?
Why was it asserted that the association was acting under the orders of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, when in fact it is close to an opposition party?
If it was in fact a terrorist organization known to the Israeli intelligence services, why was this not taken into account during the planning of the operation?
Why did the Israeli government not announce this before the attack on the flotilla?
Why were the words of one of the activists, who declared on his return that he wanted to be a “shahid”, translated by official propaganda in a manifestly dishonest manner, as if he had said that he wanted “to kill and be killed” (“shahid” means a person who sacrifices his life in order to testify to his belief in God, much like a Christian martyr)?
What is the source of the lie that the Turks called out “Go back to Auschwitz”?
Why were the Israeli doctors not called to inform the public at once about the character of the wounds of the injured soldiers, after it was announced that at least one of them was shot?
Who invented the story that there were arms on the ship, and that they had been thrown into the sea?
Who invented the story that the activists had brought with them deadly weapons – when the exhibition organized by the IDF Spokesman himself showed nothing but tools found on any ship, including binoculars, a blood infusion instrument, knives and axes, as well as decorative Arab daggers and kitchen knives that are to be found on every ship, even one not equipped for 1000 passengers?
Do all these items – coupled with the endless repetition of the word “terrorists” and the blocking of any contrary information – not constitute brainwashing?
Questions concerning the inquiry: Why does the Israeli government refuse to take part in an international board of inquiry, composed of neutral personalities acceptable to them?
Why have the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense announced that they are ready to testify – but not to answer questions?
Where does the argument come from that soldiers must not be called to testify – when in all previous investigations senior officers, junior officers and enlisted men were indeed subjected to questioning?
Why does the government refuse to appoint a State Commission of Inquiry under the Israeli law that was enacted by the Knesset in 1966 for this very purpose, especially in view of the fact that such commissions were appointed after the Yom Kippur war, after the Sabra and Shatila massacre, after the podium of the al-Aqsa Mosque was set on fire by an insane Australian, as well as to investigate corruption in sport and the murder of the Zionist leader Chaim Arlosoroff (some fifty years after it occurred!)?
Does the government have something to fear from such a commission, whose members are appointed by the President of the Supreme Court, and which is empowered to summon witnesses and cross-examine them, demand the production of documents and determine the personal responsibility for mistakes and crimes?
Why was it decided in the end to appoint a pathetic committee, devoid of any legal powers, which will lack all credibility both in Israel and abroad?
And, finally, the question of questions:
What is our political and military leadership trying to hide?
A committee whose makeup and authority are perceived as predetermined will be unable to satisfy international leaders and their constituencies abroad who demanded the inquiry in the first place.
The government yesterday authorized the creation of an independent committee to examine the events surrounding the raid on the Gaza-bound flotilla last month. Unfortunately, neither the committee’s membership nor its authority is suited to meet the challenges posed by the affair.
The committee should have been asked to examine the facts and hold responsible those who caused the incident to end as it it did, thereby allowing Israelis and their government to implement the lessons that need to be learned. Instead, the cabinet created a panel aimed at appeasing the world, in particular the United States. Its authority is too limited to conduct a real investigation, and its makeup raises the suspicion that it is designed more as a public-relations tool than to properly examine the events and reveal the responsible parties.
A panel that is not a state commission of inquiry will be unable to bring justice to bear on those found responsible for the operation’s failings. And no matter how esteemed the committee members may be, all have for decades been away from events in both the military and government, and will thus not be able to reach the necessary conclusions. Committee chairman Jacob Turkel’s observation ahead of his appointment that certain people must not be found at fault raises a question mark over whether he was selected precisely because of that remark.
Stopping the flotilla has already caused Israel immense political damage. Stopping a real investigation by appointing a committee with such limited powers is liable to lead to further damage not only to Israel’s image abroad, but also to its capacity to avoid similar imbroglios in the future. It is hard to believe that the newly appointed committee, even though it includes two international observers, will convince the world that Israel is seriously investigating the raid’s operational failures.
The government had an opportunity to try to control the damage it brought on itself by conducting an audacious and comprehensive investigation. Yesterday the government missed that opportunity. The strange hybrid that emerged instead – both its puzzling membership and weak mandate – bodes ill for Israel. A committee whose makeup and authority are perceived as predetermined will be unable to satisfy international leaders and their constituencies abroad who demanded the inquiry in the first place. It would therefore have been better if the Turkel committee had never been born, sparing us the deceptive appearance of a real investigation.
Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak canceled an official visit to Paris on Sunday (13 June), announcing he would stay in Israel while the government establishes an investigative committee to explore Israel’s deadly naval attack on the Freedom Flotilla.
The announcement comes after French activists who were aboard the Gaza bound aid convoy threatened to bring charges against Barak over the raid that killed nine. The suit would be filed under the principle of universal jurisdiction, a principle that allows the prosecution of suspected war criminals in countries that have no direct connection with the events, in France and in the International Criminal Court in The Hague, according to the Associated Press. Three members of French parliament have also joined the effort.
“We must stop this bloody Israeli escalation and the only way is international judiciary. We want to stop Israel through punishing its leaders who partook in the operation. We will mainly target the leaders who gave the orders and those who executed them,” said Lilian Jalok, who represents the French activists.
Barak was set to dedicate a new Israeli booth at the Eurosatory arms fair, which opens in Paris this week.
“We believe it is unacceptable and unjust that the French government hosts Ehud Barak honoring him with official ceremonies after he claimed responsibility for the attack on our flotilla and the bloodshed,” said Tomas Hud, one of the Freedom Flotilla activists.
A small French cinema chain also took action to protest the Freedom Flotilla attack. The Utopia art cinemas canceled screenings of the Israeli comedy “Five Hours from Paris” and replaced them with the documentary “Rachel,” about an American student crushed to death by a bulldozer in 2003 while protesting Israeli house demolitions in Gaza.
“It was a protest of our whole company,” Anne-Marie Faucon, the co-founder of Utopia, said in an interview. “We show many Israeli films, we organize a lot of debates on what happens in the world, but this time we reacted very strongly and in a very emotional way.”
“Rachel” is a documentary made by Simone Bitton, a Moroccan-born, French-Israeli director who emigrated to Israel with her family as a child, served in the Israeli army, became a pacifist and mostly lives in France, wrote the New York Times. Bitton is also the director of “Wall,” a 2004 documentary about the Israeli Separation Wall that is dividing Palestinian communities and carving up land.
After Israeli-Dutch director Ludi Boeken told the Utopia he planned to withdraw his film, “Saviors in the Night,” from the cinemas “in solidarity with the censored,” and Culture Minister of France, Frédéric Mitterrand, contacted Ms. Faucon voicing his “incomprehension” and “disapproval,” the cinemas relented.
It “was a symbolic and limited gesture” Ms. Faucon said, stating that Utopia had planned to eventually release the Israeli comedy. She called “Rachel” “a film that corresponds perfectly to this mission of participating in democratic debate.”
EDITOR: War Criminal Blair rises from his deep slumber
As a prize for his war crimes on behalf of the House of Bush II, Mr. Blair got this cushy job in Jerusalem, which also allowed him to collect $1million from Israel through the Tel Aviv University. He has spent the last few years in hibernation, seldom arising from his lair. He has managed to keep his silence through thick and thin, and now appears set to collect some coupons for the coming end of the blockade, when in reality he was one of the main supporters of the blockade. You can see what he said a week ago in the item below, speaking to the Jewish Chronicle.
By Geoff Meade, Press Association
Monday, 14 June 2010
The world must give “hope, help and prospects” to the people of Gaza, Tony Blair insisted today.
Emerging from talks with EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg, he repeated his belief that the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip will be eased within days.
The key, he said, was an agreement to change from a situation in which Israel operates a limited list of permitted goods allowed through border crossings into Gaza, to a prohibited list of goods – weapons and “combat material” – which are not.
“After my talks (with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu), there is now in principle a commitment by Israel to move to such a list,” he said.
That would mean Israel maintaining the existing blockade to keep out arms while allowing in building materials and foodstuffs essential to normal daily life, Mr Blair said.
The change would simplify access for non-military goods, “rather than people struggling to get household items and foodstuffs in, rather than them having to fight over almost every bit of construction material”.
The former UK prime minister and current Middle East envoy added: “Most of all we must give the people of Gaza some hope, some help and some prospects.
“I believe and hope that we can reach a situation where we get a policy with regard to Gaza which is right regarding security, and regarding the people of Gaza and which gives the people of Gaza eventually the prospects of joining a two-state solution.”
Baroness Ashton, European High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, said EU governments were ready to send monitors to help police border crossings as part of any Israeli decision to ease access.
She gave a cautious welcome to Israel’s decision to launch an inquiry into how nine people aboard a flotilla of humanitarian aid ships attempting to breach the blockade were killed by Israeli fire when troops halted the convoy.
A spokesman for Baroness Ashton described the inquiry as “a constructive step” while Mr Blair said: “The issue of the inquiry continues to be an issue of strong political debate … it is a step forward.”
But some EU Governments, notably the Dutch and Swedes, want to see a full international investigation.
That view was included in a statement at the end of today’s talks in which EU foreign ministers expressed deep regret for the loss of life during “the Israeli military operation in international waters” and condemned the use of violence.
The statement declared that “an immediate, full and impartial inquiry into these events and the circumstances surrounding them is essential”.
It went on: “To command the confidence of the international community this should include credible international participation.”
The statement also called for “an immediate, sustained and unconditional opening of crossings for the flow of humanitarian aid, commercial goods and persons to and from Gaza including goods from the West Bank”.
It said the EU stood ready to contribute to the reconstruction of Gaza and its economic revival, adding: “To this end, full and regular access via land crossings, and possibly by sea, on the basis of a list of prohibited goods, should be the prime aim, while at the same time providing strict control over the destination of imported merchandise.”
Oxfam warned that the Gazan economy would continue to “unravel” unless the blockade was completely and immediately lifted.
Jeremy Hobbs, executive director of Oxfam International, said: “The blockade has unleashed a tragic chain reaction that has affected many of Gaza’s one and a half million residents. When a factory is forced to shut down because it can’t import or export, it doesn’t just affect the employees who lose their jobs – entire families relying on that salary also lose out, becoming dependent on humanitarian aid.”
He said that in recent months, Israel had allowed in an increasing number of food items, such as coriander, jam, biscuits and other sweets:
“While this is certainly welcomed, what Gaza needs most are jobs, raw materials for reconstruction and for industry, and the ability to export – not just short-term aid and consumer products like jam that, without a job, they can’t afford to buy.
“The civilian population has been kept just above the bar of a humanitarian crisis. It is trapped in a crisis of dignity that the international community must help resolve.”
Oxfam said Israel currently allows about 100 types of items into Gaza, compared with more than 4,000 before the blockade.
Meanwhile, a ban on political delegations entering Gaza angered Euro-MPs in Brussels today.
The Israeli embassy in Brussels has advised the European Parliament that Israel will no longer “facilitate the entry of political delegations to Gaza”.
The same ban applies to British MPs.
The Israeli letter to all MEPs said the accumulation of political visits “not only undermines Israel’s security but also undermines the efforts of the Palestinian Authority to lead the Palestinian people to peace”.
UK Liberal Democrat MEP Chris Davies, who has been to Gaza four times, said: “I’m not surprised that Israel wants to keep politicians away from Gaza: every time one visits they return horrified at the results of policies that leave more than a million people undergoing collective punishment.”
Mr Davies, a member of the European Parliament’s Palestine Delegation, urged the British Government to open direct talks with Hamas – described in the Israeli letter as a “brutal terrorist organisation which openly calls for Israel’s destruction and appears on the EU’s list of terrorist organisations”.
Mr Davies responded: “I don’t agree with the policies of Hamas but the organisation cannot be ignored. The new British Government should follow the recent lead of the Russian president and meet with their representatives face to face.
“You cannot make peace without talking to your enemies.”
June 9, 2010
Tony Blair said Israel has his full support
Tony Blair has said in an interview that Israel has the right to check supplies that are sent into Gaza.
Speaking on Israeli television, the former British prime minister and Middle East Quartet envoy said the Gaza blockade should be lifted but “when it comes to security, I am one hundred per cent on Israel’s side.”
Mr Blair added: “There’s no question that there are rockets fired from Gaza and that there are people in Gaza who want to kill innocent Israelis.
“Israel has the right to inspect what goes into Gaza.”
He also said that any probe into the clashes between pro-Palestinian activists and the Israel navy should be “full and impartial”.
Mr Blair reiterated concerns about Iran gaining nuclear weapons. “That is not something we should contemplate or allow,” he said.
Poland to rule within month on extraditing alleged Mossad man suspected of obtaining forged passport for January assassination of Hamas leader.
Tags: Israel news Israel Mossad Dubai assassination
Polish prosecutors will ask a Warsaw court to heed Germany’s request to extradite an Israeli man wanted there in connection with the Dubai assassination of a top Hamas official, a prosecutor spokesman said Monday.
The spokesman said prosecutors were not taking politics into consideration, but were acting in accordance with procedures, according to the Polish Press Agency.
An Israeli citizen using the name Uri Brodksy was arrested in Poland over the weekend on suspicion of fraudulently obtaining a German passport believed to have been used by a member of the hit squad that killed Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel room in January.
A spokesman for the Polish court said earlier Monday that justices were to rule within a month whether to extradite the suspected Mossad agent in connection with the assassination.
Dubai has accused Israel of being behind the killing and provided the names of more than two dozen alleged members of a team it says tracked and killed the Palestinian, using fraudulent British, Irish, French, German and Australian passports.
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied any role in the assassination, prompting international indignation.
“The man sought by Germany was detained a week ago. He will be held for up to 40 days and during this time the court will have to rule whether to extradite him,” said Wojciech Malek, a spokesman for the Warsaw district court.
A spokesman in the Polish foreign ministry said there had been no formal request from Israel that its citizen be allowed to return home.
A spokesman for the German justice ministry declined to comment on the case, but said EU rules mandated that extraditions take place within 40 days of an arrest.
Mabhouh, born in the Gaza Strip, had lived in Syria since 1989 and Israeli and Palestinian sources have said he played a key role in smuggling Iranian-funded arms to militants in Gaza.
Australia and Britain have both ordered the expulsion of some Israeli diplomats over the use of fake passports in the assassination.
German Activists File War Crimes Complaints
By John Goetz
Left Party parliamentarians Annette Groth (l.) and Inge Höger (r.) together with human rights activist Norman Paech (c.).
Left Party parliamentarians Annette Groth (l.) and Inge Höger (r.) together with human rights activist Norman Paech (c.).
Public prosecutors in Germany are looking into a war crimes complaint filed against Israel by two members of parliament with the far-left Left Party and a human rights activist who were on board the Mavi Marmara when Israeli troops stormed it 11 days ago.
Eleven days ago, the Israeli military stormed the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, part of a flotilla carrying pro-Palestinian activists toward the Gaza Strip in an attempt to break the Israeli blockade. Now, it has become a case for German prosecutors.
Human rights activist Norman Paech and two German parliamentarians from the far-left Left Party, Annette Groth and Inge Höger, have filed criminal complaints for “numerous potential offences, including war crimes against individuals and command responsibility … as well as false imprisonment.”
At 5:10 a.m. on May 31, the complaint reads, Höger, Groth and Paech heard from the captain of the Mavi Marmara via the ship’s loudspeaker that the Israeli soldiers who had boarded the ship as part of the commando operation were taking over control of the ship. An hour later, Israeli soldiers ordered the Germans on deck, where their backpacks and other belongings were searched. Their hands were temporarily bound.
German Jurisdiction?
It wasn’t until 9:10 p.m. that parliamentarian Annette Groth was given the possibility of contacting the German Embassy. At 2 a.m. on June 1, the Germans were brought to the airport in a prisoner transport vehicle for their flight back home.
According to international criminal law expert Florian Jessberger of Berlin’s Humboldt University, “there is cause to believe that false imprisonment was perpetrated as understood by German law.” He says that German criminal law would have jurisdiction “irrespective of the fact that the act was perpetrated on the high seas.”
German public prosecutors told SPIEGEL ONLINE that they were currently investigating whether there was enough evidence to warrant pursuing the case further.
‘Barbaric’
The Israeli raid of the Mavi Marmara, which resulted in the deaths of nine activists onboard the ship, unleashed a storm of criticism against Israel and its ongoing blockade of the Gaza Strip. It has also severely damaged Israel’s relations with Turkey.
The blockade began in 2007 after the Islamist militants from Hamas took over power in Gaza. Israel claims that many of those traveling with the flotilla had ties to Hamas or other terrorist groups, but the activists deny the charge.
Upon returning home to Germany, Höger told reporters that “we felt like we were in a war, like we had been kidnapped.” Her colleague Groth spoke of a “barbaric act.”
That’s the banner this bus driver decided to adorn his bus with.
Speaking of signs and the commandos, I’ve seen quite a few large banners along the highway that read: “Commando Soldiers, Israel is proud of you!”
Public rage against opposing views has reached a boiling point. Last week on my way to a demonstration protesting Israeli action against the flotilla I walked by
a crowd of right wing protestors screaming “Kill the Lefties, Kills the Lefties” at the top of their lungs. I was glad to see police near by.
That’s the quick Israel report for today.
The three-year Israeli embargo on goods going into Gaza is ‘unacceptable and counterproductive’, says a report by the Quartet.
By Donald Macintyre, Sunday, 13 June 2010
Israel’s cabinet meets today under the heaviest international pressure yet – in the aftermath of its lethal naval commando assault on a pro-Palestinian flotilla a fortnight ago – to relax the three-year economic embargo on Gaza.
Western diplomats are hoping that Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, will give the first indication this morning of a major rethink of Gaza policy, under which a wide range of civilian goods would be admitted to start reviving the paralysed commercial life of the besieged territory. The international Middle East envoy, Tony Blair, met Mr Netanyahu for the third time in eight days on Friday to press him to end the heavily restrictive list of “allowed” civilian goods and produce one for those that are to be banned instead, as a first step towards reviving commerce and allowing postwar reconstruction.
The seemingly technical change would have potentially far-reaching consequences since it would require Mr Netanyahu to agree the general authorisation of civilian imports to Gaza – including raw materials needed for manufacturing and subsequent exports – other than those agreed to pose a clear threat to Israel’s security.
Today’s Israeli cabinet meeting comes 24 hours ahead of a meeting in Brussels of EU foreign ministers, three of whom, France’s Bernard Kouchner, Italy’s Franco Frattini, and Miguel Moratinos of Spain, also called publicly last week for a relaxation of the naval embargo and the reopening of the main cargo crossing between Gaza and Israel at Karni.
The embargo, imposed after Hamas seized full control of Gaza by force when its coalition with Fatah collapsed in June 2007, has precipitated the virtual collapse of Gaza’s once productive private-sector manufacturing industry, decimated agricultural exports, confined the formerly vital fishing industry within a one-mile limit, left 80 per cent of Gazans dependent on food aid, and rendered pointless the vast bulk of the $7.5bn pledged by donor countries for reconstruction after Israel’s 2008-2009 military offensive in the territory.
An insight into the plans being worked on by the Quartet (the UN, US, EU and Russia) – which has specifically mandated Mr Blair to conduct the negotiations with Mr Netanyahu – is contained in a draft of the paper authorised for circulation by the British Foreign Secretary, William Hague, in the wake of the flotilla attack, and which describes the three-year-old blockade as “unacceptable and counterproductive”. It adds that the blockade “hurts the people of Gaza, holds their future hostage, and undermines work to drive reconstruction, development and economic empowerment. At the same time, the blockade empowers Hamas through the tunnel economy and damages Israel’s long-term security through its corrosive impact on a generation of young Palestinians.”
The British draft, which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday, stresses that the new approach is “not about rewarding Hamas”; that the Quartet needs to restate its “wider position on Hamas and its concern about Hamas’s role in Gaza” and repeats calls for the unconditional release of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier captured by Hamas and other Gaza militants four years ago.
But although the working paper was drafted for last week’s Quartet meeting, it summarises what it says was “already broad agreement” on a package of measures needed to ease the blockade, “including through earlier work by the UN and the Quartet representative [Mr Blair]”. These include:
* Urgent UN-led reconstruction. It says the blockade has prevented implementation of the UN’s “comprehensive” plan for the most urgently needed building of schools, hospitals, sewerage water and other infrastructure;
* Switching from the list of “allowed” to one of “permitted goods” – which it says is “the right way to protect both valid security measures and vital economic activity”;
* “Robust monitoring” of potential dual-use materials such as cement and piping, with the international community playing an important potential role;
* The reopening of Karni, “the only crossing suited to the large volume of goods that need to start flowing”, with a possible EU monitoring role such as that undertaken at Rafah before June 2007;
* Starting seaborne delivery “via [the Israeli port of] Ashdod” to help kickstart both imports and exports;
* A boost in funding for the UN refugee agency UNRWA, which is responsible for the education and health of almost 1 million of Gaza’s 1.5m residents.
The negotiations on the embargo have overlapped with those – especially between Israel and the US – over what form of inquiry should be conducted into the commando raid which halted the flotilla and cost the lives of nine Turks in the fighting aboard the biggest of the boats, the passenger ferry Mavi Marmara. Israel, whose military chief of staff, Gabi Ashekenazi, has appointed Giora Eiland, a reserve general and former head of the national security agency, to head an internal inquiry into the naval operation, has indicated that it will also appoint a former high court judge to head a civilian inquiry. It is not expected that such an inquiry will take testimony from naval special forces personnel who took part in the raid.
While Western governments and Israel have denied any direct linkage between the two issues, diplomats have acknowledged that any expectation that Israel was prepared for a significant relaxation of the Gaza embargo would lessen pressure for a full international inquiry, of the sort proposed by the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon.
The switch from an “allowed” to a “banned” list would be a major policy shift, since the latter would presumably only include goods deemed to put Israel’s security at risk. That would reflect a change of purpose at the time of the original imposition of the embargo – reinforced by the Israeli cabinet’s declaration of Gaza as a “hostile entity” – which had the much wider goal of crippling its economy.
Documents produced by the Israeli authorities at the time in the face of court challenges to the blockade specifically cited international conventions permitting “economic warfare” under certain circumstances. Mr Netanyahu, not then in office, could thus plausibly argue that he had no responsibility for the original decision.
When Israel relaxed the embargo last week to allow in a range of additional foods – from the previously banned coriander, jam, packaged hummus and biscuits – Gisha, the Israeli human rights organisation, pointed out that Israel was still not letting in raw materials like margarine and glucose that could be used for processed food manufacture in Gaza itself.
The same is true of a much wider range of raw materials – such as textile fabrics that up to 2007 were imported in large quantities by hundreds of small clothing firms. It is well nigh impossible to justify a ban on importing rolls of cloth on security grounds.
The switch from a “permitted” to a “banned” list is reportedly envisaged by Mr Blair as the first of three principles for a relaxation of the embargo. The second is that international aid agencies, in consultation with Israel, would have oversight for “dual use” goods which Israel fears could be seized by Hamas for military purposes. The model is the severely limited increase of building materials for sewage, hospital and housing projects in Gaza in the past few weeks, in which the UN has successfully acted as guarantor that the imports will not so be used, and which it wants expanded.
While some Europeans have been suggesting that the naval blockade could be lifted to allow ships to go to Gaza after international and/or Israeli inspection, Israel has so far been resistant to any transfer to Gaza other than by land.
The third is the reopening of land crossings – most notably the big cargo terminal at Karni – in which EU officials, and possibly in the longer term, units of President Mahmoud Abbas’s presidential guard would assume responsibility for monitoring goods entering Gaza.
Israeli blockade has dangerous ramifications for children of Gaza Strip
Amr Moussa, the Arab League secretary-general, has called for an end to Israel’s siege on the Gaza Strip.
“This blockade…must be lifted and must be broken and the Arab League decision is very clear in this regard,” he said on Sunday.
Moussa’s comments came immediately after he arrived in the Gaza Strip, his first visit to the territory since Israel’s imposition of a crippling blockade in 2006.
He told reporters at the Rafah crossing point that Arab governments should help in implementing the Arab League resolution that seeks to end the siege.
Moussa reached the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing shortly before 10:00am (0700 GMT) where he was welcomed by members of Gaza’s ruling Hamas movement, as well as representatives of various Palestinian groups.
He crossed into the enclave from Egypt, two weeks after Israel’s deadly interception of a Gaza aid flotilla that was intended to deliver humanitarian aid to the territory.
Palestinian reconciliation
At a joint news conference with Moussa shortly after his arrival, Basim Naeem, the Hamas health minister, said the visit indicated that “the boycott between Gaza and the Arab nation was broken”.
Egypt had kept its border with Gaza largely closed, bolstering Israel’s embargo, since Hamas seized control of the Strip from Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah forces in 2007.
But Cairo eased restrictions at its Rafah crossing with the territory after Israeli marines killed nine pro-Palestinian Turkish activists during violent confrontations on the Turkish-flagged aid convoy on May 31.
Palestinian and Arab League officials said Moussa’s visit was also aimed at giving momentum to reconciliation talks between Hamas and Fatah. Egypt has sponsored the talks but they have failed to bridge deep mistrust between the two rivals.
Moussa, however, said he had not come to Gaza to give support to any political faction, but to meet the Palestinian people of the territory.
Ismail Haniya, Hamas’s leader in Gaza, said he hoped that Moussa’s visit would result in practical measures to end the siege on Gaza.
EDITOR: Denial as proof…
The more this deal below is fervently denied, the more persuasive this news seems… again, the Anglo-Americans are out to save Israel from itself. Let us hope Israel prevails and goes on destrying its own foundation…
Britain denies report in the Daily Telegraph that in exchange for decreased world pressure for an international probe into Gaza flotilla events, Israel is expected to ease the Gaza siege.
By Natasha Mozgovaya and Barak Ravid
Tags: Gaza flotilla Benjamin Netanyahu
Britain has denied a report in The Daily Telegraph of a British plan wherein Israel will ease the Gaza siege in exchange for decreased world pressure for an international probe into the events of the Gaza flotilla, the British Embassy in Tel Aviv said in a statement on Wednesday.
“We don’t know where the idea of a quid pro quo came from… the Foreign Secretary has made clear that the current restrictions on Gaza must be lifted in line with UNSCR 1860,” the statement read.
“In this context, we are of course giving some thought to how this might be done, and discussing with our partners, including Israel. Other partners are doing the same, and we hope that all such discussions will lead to rapid progress on this issue,” the statement continued.
The Daily Telegraph reported on Tuesday that Israel is expected to agree to a British proposal in which it will ease the Gaza blockade in exchange for international acceptance of Israel’s internal investigation into the events that led up to the deaths of nine Turkish activists aboard a Gaza-bound flotilla last week.
According to the report in the conservative British daily, Britain has taken upon itself a central role in mediating the crisis that has erupted following the Gaza flotilla events and has drawn up a confidential document proposing ways of easing the blockade on Gaza.
Israeli officials said that in light of growing international criticism over Gaza’s humanitarian situation, they would agree to permit a substantial amount of aid to pass through Israel’s land crossing into the Gaza Strip, the paper reported.
According to the Telegraph, Israeli officials denied any direct link between their readiness to cooperate over the blockade and the decrease in international support for the UN-led proposal for an international probe. However a Western source involved in the discussions with Israel said that there are talks of a mutually beneficial deal.
“A quid pro quo deal is in the offing,” said the Western source.
Moreover, British Foreign Secretary William Hague also hinted that pressure for a UN investigation was easing after he said that a probe with simply international presence may also be acceptable.
U.S.: International probe into Gaza flotilla raid is ‘essential’
Echoing countless calls on Israel to subject itself to an international investigation of the events that led up to the deaths of nine Turkish activists aboard a Gaza-bound aid ship last week, the U.S. on Tuesday demanded that some international body be involved in the probe of the events.
This, after a senior official said earlier Tuesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has nearly completed a draft of guidelines for the establishment of a commission of inquiry comprised of Israeli jurists.
The future commission would investigate the clash between Israeli navy commandos who were rappelled onto a Turkish ship, participating in a flotilla attempting to break Israel’s three-year blockade on the Gaza Strip and deliver aid, and Turkish activists aboard the ship.
The incident sparked harsh criticism against Israel and international calls for an independent investigation. Israel has so far rejected any external investigation, insisting that any investigation by an external body would be biased against Israel.
“International participation in investigating these matters will be important to the credibility that everybody wants to see,” said U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley on Tuesday. “We are discussing with Israel and others the prospective nature of international participation in the investigation. And we’re sharing different ideas on how to best accomplish that.”
“We want to see an impartial, credible, prompt, thorough investigation. We recognize that international participation, which lends itself to countries and entities being able to vouch for the results of the investigation – will be an essential element to putting this tragedy behind us,” he went on to say.
Meanwhile Tuesday, Netanyahu demanded that he and his forum of seven senior ministers be allowed to testify before the investigation committee that will be established, comprised of Israeli jurists, and said that he and his top ministers would supply any future committee with all the required information.
In drafting the guidelines for the future investigation, Netanyahu insisted that Israel Defense Forces soldiers will not be personally interrogated, and asked that the investigation committee use instead the findings of internal military investigations already conducted. Netanyahu added that IDF Chief of Staff would testify.
According to the senior official, the guidelines for the panel of investigation have been almost finalized by the forum of seven during a meeting they held Monday morning. However, the forum is expected to convene an additional meeting on the topic on Wednesday. The draft of the guidelines has been approved unanimously by the forum ministers, who supported Netanyahu’s demands.
The Prime Minister’s Bureau has neither made the draft public nor the names of the individuals who will serve on the committee. The reason, according to the official, is the fact that the cabinet has yet to complete coordinating the investigation with the U.S. administration and other Western countries in order to ensure their support. The aim, he said, is that these countries will send observers to oversee the investigation. In addition, the official added, conflicts of interest must be examined in regard to the possible members of the investigation panel.
The Prime Minister’s Bureau approached several top litigators to inquire whether they would be interested in taking part in the work of the committee. Several of the candidates are former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Meir Rosen, former legal adviser to Israel’s Foreign Ministry Alan Baker, and Bar-Ilan University professor Yaffa Zilbershatz, who is also a candidate to become Israel’s next ambassador to the United Nations.
The government’s efforts to avoid a thorough and credible investigation of the flotilla affair seem more and more like a farce.
The government’s efforts to avoid a thorough and credible investigation of the flotilla affair seem more and more like a farce. The conclusions of an ostensible probe are intended to justify retroactively the decision to blockade Gaza, to forcibly stop the Turkish aid flotilla in international waters and to use deadly force on the deck of the Mavi Marmara.
To make the costume seem credible, the Prime Minister’s Bureau asked a retired Supreme Court justice, Yaakov Tirkel, to chair the committee. Alongside him will sit foreign observers in order to legitimize the conclusions in international public opinion. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even pledged to testify before the committee, together with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, other ministers and the chief of staff, so “the truth will come out.”
The truth that Netanyahu wishes to bring out involves the identity of the flotilla’s organizers, its sources of funding and the knives and rods that were brought aboard. He does not intend to probe the decision-making process that preceded the takeover of the ship and the shortcomings that were uncovered. As far as Netanyahu is concerned, it will be enough for television channels to broadcast footage of dark-suited jurists, and politicians addressing them, to present the semblance of an “examination.”
But Netanyahu’s panel will have no powers, not even those of a government probe, and its proposed chairman does not believe in such a panel. In an interview to Army Radio, Tirkel said there is no choice but to establish a state committee of inquiry. He opposed bringing in foreign observers and made clear that he is not a devotee of drawing conclusions about individuals and dismissing those responsible for failures. When a Haaretz reporter confronted Tirkel about these remarks, the former justice evaded the question saying, “I don’t remember what I said.”
The disagreements that erupted at the week’s end between Netanyahu and his deputy, Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon, over the question of whether Ya’alon was updated in time about the action underscored the suspicion of serious faults in the decision-making process with regard to the flotilla. Instead of being part of the whitewash, Tirkel, whose dodging of his earlier statements does him no honor, should return his mandate to the prime minister and demand that Netanyahu establish a government committee of inquiry with real powers. The public, as Netanyahu said, has a right to know the truth.
After coordinating trip with Palestinian president, Amr Moussa slated to meet with Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh to discuss internal reconciliation, ways to lift blockade following flotilla raid
Published: 06.13.10, 10:45
Arab League chief Amr Moussa on Sunday arrived in Gaza following the league’s decision to break the siege on the Strip due to the recent Israeli raid on the Gaza-bound flotilla.
Moussa, who arrived in the Strip via Rafah crossing accompanied by Egyptian security officers, is slated to meet with Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, as well as with representatives of other Palestinian organizations in the Strip.
The main issues to be discussed are the need for internal Palestinian reconciliation and ways to end the blockade on the Strip.
The Arab League chief said, “The siege on the Strip must be broken immediately, and the Palestinian organizations must reconcile at once.”
At a press conference held at Rafah crossing, Moussa said the efforts for internal Palestinian reconciliation must not fail, and that the Arab League is determined to proceed and demand the blockade be lifted.
“The Palestinians deserver that the world, and not just the Arab world, stand by them in the face of the siege and in the face of what is happening in the occupied territories and Jerusalem.”
Moussa said he was in Gaza to show his support of the Palestinians, “in hopes that the Palestinians do not act as pawns in the hands of one source or another.”
He said he had visited Gaza before, during Yasser Arafat’s rule.
Moussa was welcomed by Hamas Interior Minister Bassem Naim, Fatah Central Committee member Zakaria al-Agha and other parliament members.
‘Arab recognition of Hamas’
While the visit was coordinated in advance with the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas elements consider the vist official Arab recognition of their control over the Strip.
The movement has gone to great lengths to ensure that the visit is a success and leads to cooperation with the Arab League.
However, sources in the Strip are still skeptical that Moussa’s visit will help lift the siege, and are hanging most of their hopes on international pressure, and in particular, pressure from the United States and Europe.
After the crossing between Gaza and Sinai has been closed for three years, save for isolated incidents, Egypt formally announced last week that the crossing, which was opened at the start of the month following the takeover of the Gaza aid sail, is to remain open indefinitely.
On Tuesday, nine Egyptian parliament members crossed Rafah crossing into Gaza. Two of them, Mohammed al-Baltaji and Hazem Farouq, took part in the sail to Gaza.
The delegation visited the Strip in a show of “identification with Gaza’s residents”. The members met with Hamas officials, including some of the movement’s parliament members.
Tourism minister suggests Israel use relations with Poland to fight Uri Brodsky’s extradition to Germany, meanwhile Mabhouh’s brother reiterates desire for extradition to Dubai, says arrest is another Mossad ’embarrassment’
Published: 06.13.10, 12:06
Government ministers on Sunday objected to the extradition to Germany of an additional suspect in the assassination of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, Uri Brodsky, who was arrested in Poland.
Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov called on the government to utilize its relationship with Poland in order to convince the latter to allow Brodsky to be tried in Israel, despite Israeli assessments that his extradition to Germany is as good as a done deal.
“I don’t believe the arrest of an Israeli citizen in Warsaw will amount to a crisis with Germany. They need to prove that he did indeed commit the acts he is suspected of. Because he is our citizen, we are obligated to bring him back to Israel,” Misezhnikov told Ynet.
“We should make use of our great friendship (with Poland), which has shown endless support of Israel recently. Poland must tell Germany that this is an Israeli citizen who must be legally handled in his country. Our legal system is known throughout the world and can handle this issue,” he said.
Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz added that “Israel must object to the extradition of an Israeli citizen to another country, regardless of the reason for his arrest”.
But Mabhouh’s brother Hussein said Brodsky’s arrest was just another embarrassment for the Mossad.
The brother said he and the rest of the family had not received any official updates on the ongoing affair, and were mainly using the media to update themselves.
“We hope the man who was arrested will be extradited to Dubai so the authorities there can question him, but we have received no promises or guarantees that this will happen,” he said.
According to reports Saturday, the German probe conducted in recent months revealed that Brodsky’s role was to assist Mossad men in acquiring German passports.
This would mean that Brodsky was responsible for the logistical operation in Germany in respect to the Mabhouh killing, where the hit team apparently used a real German passport issued to a “Michael Bodenheimer.”
Polish officials confirmed that the Israeli suspect was detained in connection with the Dubai assassination.
Prime minister says he expects US agreement on inquiry committee’s composition, rights shortly
Published: 06.13.10, 11:21
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed Sunday at a Likud ministers meeting that the Israeli investigation on the IDF flotilla raid will be headed by retired Supreme Court Justice Yaakov Tirkel.
Netanyahu added that negotiations with the US over the establishment of an investigation committee, its composition, and the rights afforded it were held until late Saturday night, and that he expects an agreement on the matter shortly.
Regarding the blockade on the Gaza Strip Netanyahu said, “There are others in the region concerned over this matter aside from Israel. There is real concern in the Islamic Republic, if indeed Iran can be called a ‘republic’. There are also those in Europe and the Middle East who oppose a naval port in Gaza.”
Netanyahu also spoke of the Gaza blockade at his opening speech in the weekly Cabinet meeting. “Even before the flotilla we held discussions in different forums on the continuation of our policy in Gaza,” he said.
“The debates continued last week. Our policy is clear: We must prevent weapons and combat support equipment from entering the Strip while allowing civilian humanitarian aid to enter. These discussions will continue.”
Government ministers justified the delay in announcing the establishment of the inquiry committee. Minister Isaac Herzog, of the Labor Party, rejected speculations that Israel had postponed the announcement until the World Cup began in order to soften international pressure.
“It’s a nice illusion,” he said. “We need to cooperate with our allies in the international arena and shake off the image of the siege from Israel. This issue will actually come up during a meeting of the foreign ministers of the European Union.”
On Friday the White House denied a Weekly Standard report that the US administration intends to support the appointment of a UN commission to investigate the flotilla raid.
White House Spokesman Tommy Vietor said the United States continues to back the swift, credible, independent and transparent probe that Israel plans to launch.
Earlier Friday, Washington sources told Ynet that the US administration was disappointed with Israel’s proposed solution for an investigation into the flotilla raid.
According to the sources, time is working against Israel, and the delays are only pushing the US into a corner and decreasing the chances it may promote a solution that is favorable for Israel.
Yaakov Tirkel is to head the Israeli investigative committee that will look into the IDF’s takeover of Gaza-bound flotilla, which resulted in nine deaths.
Former Supreme Court Justice Yaakov Tirkel is to head the Israeli investigative committee that will look into the events surrounding the takeover of the Gaza-bound aid flotilla nearly two weeks ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday.
Netanyahu added that he had personally updated U.S. President Barack Obama as to the move, as well as to the developing nature of the commission.
Also Sunday, Defense Minister Ehud Barak canceled a planned trip to a Paris arms show, over what his office described was his desire to be present in the discussion over the formation of the Gaza flotilla probe committee.
It is estimated that Barak wants to avoid a situation in which Netanyahu would fold in the face of international pressure and agree to make, what the defense minister would see as, unacceptable changes to the committee’s charter.
Referring to the blockade on Gaza at the opening the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said that discussions on the decision to blockade the Strip had taken place “even before the Gaza-bound flotilla.”
“These discussions continued last week, inter alia, in the meetings I held on the subject with Quartet envoy Tony Blair,” Netanyahu said, adding that the “principle guiding our policy is clear – to prevent the entry of war materiel from entering Gaza and to allow the entry of humanitarian aid and non-contraband goods into the Gaza Strip.”
Netanyahu did not, however, announce the creation of a committee of inquiry into the naval commando raid on the Gaza Strip flotilla, and the matter will not be brought before the cabinet for a vote in Sunday’s meeting.
The Prime Minister’s Bureau said yesterday evening that the conditions have not matured for such an announcement “due to political reasons.”
Talks have been held with the U.S. administration and several European countries to rally support for the mandate of the committee of inquiry and approval of its makeup. The Americans have rejected – a number of times – Israel’s proposals and asked that a retired Supreme Court justice head the probe. The issue was resolved when Justice Yaakov Tirkel was proposed for the post.
Gaza blockade not ending yet: Egypt prevents hundreds of activists carrying Palestinian flags, trucks carrying humanitarian aid from entering Strip via Rafah Crossing; meanwhile, Hamas says no Red Cross visits for Shalit
Published: 06.12.10, 22:42
Egypt banned hundreds of activists from Gaza, igniting protests at the Rafah border that is the only non-Israeli entry into the Palestinian enclave, a security official said on Saturday.
Hundreds of Egyptian activists headed to the Rafah border crossing on Friday but were denied entry into the Gaza Strip, the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
“They spent the night in front of the crossing asking to be let in and continued protesting on Saturday,” the official said.
Carrying Palestinian flags, they chanted “Palestine is Arab,” “Open the border,” and “Lift the blockade,” witnesses told AFP.
By Saturday afternoon, most of the activists had started making their way back to Cairo, the official said.
Authorities also denied entry to two trucks carrying humanitarian aid sent by the people of the Egyptian province of Daqahliya.
“Authorities forced the truck drivers to head back to the (north Sinai) town of El-Arish saying that the Rafah crossing was only for the passage of people not goods,” one of the organizers, MP Mohsen Radi, said.
Blockade relief?
Amid the international outcry over an Israeli commando operation against a Gaza-bound aid flotilla which killed nine Turkish activists in international waters on June 1, Egypt announced it was opening its Rafah border crossing.
The surprise move has allowed some additional aid into Gaza but only some Palestinians, such as those seeking treatment or study abroad, are permitted to cross.
The Egyptian opposition has long campaigned against the government’s refusal to fully open the Gaza border, even at the height of the deadly offensive which Israel launched against the territory in December 2008.
Opposition parties have accused the authorities of being complicit in the Israeli blockade through their construction of an underground barrier intended to prevent smugglers tunneling under the border.
Meanwhile, Hamas’ Political Bureau Chief Khaled Mashaal said Saturday that the Gaza blockade should not be linked to the Gilad Shalit issue. The Hamas leader said that Shalit is just like the Palestinian prisoners held by Israel and rejected any possibility that a Red Cross delegation would be allowed to visit him.
Mashaal spoke at a Khartoum press conference, where a Hamas delegation is visiting at this time.
OPINION: Future historians will puzzle over the western media’s portrayal of the flotilla activists as humanitarians, ignoring evidence of motive
AN IMPARTIAL historian analysing, 20 years hence, the events of last week surrounding Israel’s interception of the Gaza “Freedom Flotilla”, will be perplexed by several aspects of the media coverage of the episode. One would expect that, by then, the salient facts will be available to all and agreed upon by those who share a commitment to the truth.
The first and most obvious of these facts is the difference in outcome between six of the flotilla ships, including the Rachel Corrie, and the remaining one, the Mavi Marmara, on which the regrettable loss of life occurred. On the former, only passive resistance was offered to Israeli personnel and the ships were peacefully escorted to the port of Ashdod. Our historian will wonder at media headlines that portrayed Israeli commandos as opening fire, unprovoked, on unarmed men and women trying only to bring aid materials to the “besieged” inhabitants of Gaza. If this had been the case, why the offer to unload the aid cargos at Ashdod in Israel? And why no violence on six of the seven ships?
Regarding the seventh ship, the facts now emerging will tell a very different story from the western media’s rushed judgment of the affair. Already in the public arena was the Al Aqsa TV interview of May 30th and the Guardian newspaper report of June 3rd in which members of the IHH “charity”, a jihadist organisation with proven links to Al Qaeda and Hamas, spoke of their wish to “die as martyrs”.
There was also the video footage (now available on YouTube) showing the Mavi Marmara passengers leaving port chanting “Khaybar, Khaybar, ya Yahoud, jaish Muhammad sa yaoud” (“.. O Jews, the army of Muhammad will return”) a reference to a seventh-century slaughter of Arabian Jews that has become a modern jihadist battle-cry.
Lastly, there was the footage of the answer sent to the Israeli ship that warned the Mavi Marmara it was approaching the blockade: “Shut up, go back to Auschwitz . . . don’t forget 9/11”. Our historian will puzzle over the media’s ignoring of this evidence of motive, and its portrayal of such self-styled warriors as “humanitarians”.
Interviews with the detained passengers of the Mavi Marmara are now confirming that the violence met by the Israeli commandos as they boarded the ship was not spontaneous but an organised, premeditated action carried out by a hardcore of approximately 40 IHH operatives, recruited specially for the mission. This group boarded at Istanbul without undergoing security checks, while the other 500 or so passengers boarded at Antalya after a full check. (It is also emerging that the Mavi Marmara, the biggest ship in the flotilla, carried no humanitarian aid at all; only personal possessions and extremely large sums of money were found on board).
The hardcore took over the upper deck and set up a communications room. They took control of the ship using walkie-talkies and restricted the movements of the other passengers and crew. As they approached the blockade, they sent ordinary passengers below, donned ceramic vests and gas masks, and armed themselves with weapons such as knives, axes, hammers, slingshots, wooden clubs and steel rods cut in advance from the ship’s railings using angle grinders. This latter action appears to have been carried out contrary to the captain’s orders.
The IHH operatives were instructed not to allow the Israeli soldiers to board. They successfully repelled the attempts to board the ship from corvettes using grappling hooks. When Israeli commandos landed one by one by rope from a helicopter, they were surrounded by these IHH operatives and beaten severely with the weapons already prepared. Once again, these facts are corroborated by video footage. Initially under strict orders not to open fire, the Israeli commandos had anticipated at worst a riot-control situation, not a violent ambush. Only when several of them had been beaten, shot and stabbed and it was clear that they were fighting for their lives did they open fire.
Our historian of the future will find it curious that, in an age of instant video documentation, the Irish media showed so little interest in revisiting their initial hasty judgments of the whole episode. (S)he will also remark on the very different portrayals of the Israeli soldiers and the IHH activists given in the western media and those of the Islamic world. While the former paint the Israelis as brutal, shoot-first aggressors and the IHH as weak victims, the Turkish paper Hurriyet proudly showed photographs, taken with the cameras of the jihadist-humanitarians, of Israelis as bloodied prisoners humiliated by the ‘warriors of Islam’.
Another aspect of the affair that will perplex our historian will be the media’s focus on Israel’s interception as taking place in international waters, and their characterisation of Israel’s Gaza blockade as ‘illegal’, as if no historical precedents or legal justification existed for either.
Under the San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea, 12 June 1994, maritime blockades are a legitimate measure that may be implemented as part of an armed conflict, and are included as such in the naval handbooks of several western countries. A blockade may be enforced in international waters so long as it does not bar access to the ports and coasts of neutral states.
A state of armed conflict exists between Israel and Hamas, which forms part of the Iranian strategy aimed at encircling Israel with hostile forces in furtherance of its declared goal of “wiping it off the map”. Many of the 1,350 rockets fired into southern Israel by Hamas in 2008 alone were of the sophisticated Grad 2 type smuggled into Gaza from Iran. It is worth remembering that Israel has intercepted two ships sent by Iran, the Francop destined for Hizbullah in 2009, the Karine A destined for Hamas in 2002, each carrying large supplies of weapons and war material.
In the case of the Gaza flotilla, Israel acted perfectly legally in (i) warning the boats of the existence of the blockade and providing them with its precise co-ordinates through the accepted maritime channels, (ii) asking them to change course and to take their cargo to the port of Ashdod, (iii) when these notices were rejected, warning them that they faced being boarded and commandeered by its navy. Finally, our future historian, while aware that Israel restricted the entry of certain items into Gaza, will read with amazement of the woman in a Gaza market who told Danish journalist Steffen Jensen in 2010: “We have nothing. We need everything! Food, drinks . . . everything!” The woman spoke of this doomsday scenario while standing, according to Jensen, between ‘mountains of vegetables, fruit, eggs, poultry and fish . . .’ The historian will be able to see visual corroboration of this in the pictures published in Gaza newspapers and on Palestinian websites in 2009-10 that show Gaza food stalls laden with supplies.
While aware that life in Gaza was difficult, (s)he will wonder all the more at the persistence of the claim of the ‘humanitarian crisis’, and the gullibility of well-intentioned westerners in accepting the Hamas propaganda of victimhood.
Having calmly analysed the staged made-for-media event of the 2010 “Freedom Flotilla”, she or he will see it for what it is: merely the latest phase in an ongoing war to undermine the state of Israel. The enemies of the Jewish state, having failed over 62 years to defeat it either in open frontal attack or by terror and rocket campaigns, had resorted to a different tactic: the delegitimisation of its right to defend itself.
Uri Brodsky arrested in Warsaw for allegedly obtaining forged German passport involved in Hamas strongman hit, AFP reports; Foreign ministry confirms Israeli citizen arrested in Poland.
An alleged Mossad spy from Israel wanted in connection with the hit-squad slaying of a Hamas agent in Dubai has been arrested in Poland, officials said Saturday.
The man, using the name Uri Brodsky, is suspected of working for Mossad in Germany and helping to issue a fake German passport to a member of the Mossad operation that allegedly killed Hamas agent Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in January, a spokesman for the German federal prosecutor’s office told The Associated Press.
Brodsky was arrested in early June upon his arrival in Poland because of a European arrest warrant issued by Germany which is now seeking his extradition, the spokesman said, declining to be named in line with department policy.
The spokesman had no estimate of how long it could take for Brodsky to be extradited from Poland to Germany, saying the matter is now in the hands of the Polish authorities. “If Brodsky agrees, the extradition could take a few days, but that isn’t likely,” the spokesman said.
In Warsaw, Monika Lewandowska, a spokeswoman for Polish prosecutors, confirmed that the suspect, identified only as Uri B., was arrested at the city’s international airport on June 4. She told the AP that the arrest warrant was made in connection with the murder of a Hamas member in Dubai.
“The suspect appeared before a Polish court on June 6, and was ordered to remain in temporary arrest for up to 40 days,” she said. Lewandowska had no information on his possible extradition.
In Israel, the Foreign Ministry said without elaborating that it was aware of the man’s fate. “At the moment, we’re looking into that like any other Israeli who has been arrested, and he’s getting consular treatment,” spokesman Andy David said.
Police in the United Arab Emirates said the elaborate hit squad linked to the Jan. 19 slaying in Dubai of al-Mabhouh – one of the founders of Hamas’ military wing – involved some 25 suspects, most of them carrying fake passports from European nations.
Dubai’s police chief, Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim, has said he is nearly 100 percent certain that Mossad, Israel’s spy agency, masterminded the killing.
The brazen assault in a luxury hotel and its alleged perpetrators were widely captured by security cameras. Some footage, released by Dubai’s police, showed alleged members of the hit squad disguised as tourists, wearing baggy shorts, sneakers and baseball caps, and carrying tennis rackets.
At the time, Israel said it didn’t know who was responsible for the killing but welcomed it, claiming al-Mabhouh was a key link in smuggling weapons to Gaza and a possible middleman with Israel’s archenemy, Iran.
The German news weekly Der Spiegel reported that the arrest in Poland already has led to some diplomatic friction. The Israeli Embassy has urged Polish authorities not to extradite Brodsky, the magazine reports in its issue to be published Monday.
Germany’s Foreign Ministry had no comment on the case and referred to an ongoing judicial investigation by the federal prosecutor’s office. The country’s top investigating unit deals with all cases affecting internal or external security, including terrorism or espionage.
After a German passport was used by a person linked to the Dubai slaying, the prosecutor’s office in February started investigating a possible connection to a foreign intelligence agency.
Authorities in the western city of Cologne had issued a passport to a man named Michael Bodenheimer. “A man using that name was among the assassins who killed the Hamas operative,” according to Dubai police.
In February, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle urged a thorough investigation and said German authorities would do everything possible to support their counterparts in the U.A.E.
If Brodsky’s extradition goes through, however, it could put the government in Berlin – a staunch Israeli ally – in a difficult diplomatic position.
Page last updated at 15:02 GMT, Saturday, 12 June 2010 16:02 UK
E-mail this to a friendPrintable version Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was killed in his hotel room in Dubai on 19 January
Polish authorities have reportedly arrested a suspected Israeli agent in connection with the murder of a Hamas operative in Dubai in January.
German prosecutors say the agent was arrested in early June. Media reports named him as Uri Brodsky.
Germany is seeking his extradition over a forged German passport used by one of the killers, the prosecutors say.
Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, one of the founders of Hamas’s military wing, was found dead in a Dubai hotel on 20 January.
Dubai police have said they are 99% sure Israeli agents were involved, but Israel says there is no proof.
On Saturday, German prosecutors said the agent had been arrested on a warrant issued by Germany, as he arrived in Poland.
“It’s now up to the Poles to decide if they are going to hand him over,” a spokesman for the federal German prosecutor’s office told AP news agency.
There have been no comments so far from the Polish or Israeli authorities.
Forged passports from Britain, the Irish Republic, France, Australia, and Germany were used in the Dubai operation, leading to diplomatic rows between those countries and Israel.
The UK and Australia have expelled Israeli nationals over the forgeries.
Israel gave itself a nice present to celebrate the 43rd anniversary of losing its borders. The raid on the Gaza flotilla in international waters is like the first Lebanon War – as if in a nightmarish experiment, we seem to be examining the question: What happens when a country has no borders?
By Sefi Rachlevsky
Israel gave itself a nice present to celebrate the 43rd anniversary of losing its borders. The raid on the Gaza flotilla in international waters is like the first Lebanon War – as if in a nightmarish experiment, we seem to be examining the question: What happens when a country has no borders?
Israel’s maritime attack did not happen by chance. A border is one of the fundamental factors that defines a country. Decades without one have distorted Israel’s thinking.
It is self-evident that, just as a person cannot build in an area that he does not own, a country cannot build settlements outside of its borders. And yet Israel has settled hundreds of thousands of its citizens in areas that, according to its laws, are not part of the State of Israel.
It is self-evident that any couple can marry “without regard to religion, race or gender.” And yet in Israel a Jewish man and a non-Jewish woman cannot legally marry. It’s self-evident that there is no arbitrary discrimination, and yet it’s enough to use the magic words “I’m a religious woman” or “I’m an ultra-Orthodox man” and the obligation to serve in the military evaporates.
It’s self-evident that the education provided to children be based on democracy and equality. And yet in Israel, 52 percent of first-graders defined as Jews study in various religious school systems that teach students things like “You are considered a human being and the other nations of the world are not considered human beings.”
They are taught that a non-Jew is not a human being, and that anyone who kills a non-Jew is not supposed to be killed by human hands; that women are inferior, and it is an obligation that males and females be separated; and that secular people, or anyone with secular family members, cannot enter these schools.
It is self-evident that racist education cannot be funded by the government and is illegal. And yet most of the country’s first-graders receive such “compulsory education” from their government.
The results of this nightmarish experiment are self-evident. In the most recent elections, 35 percent of voters defined as Jews cast their ballots for avowedly racist parties – Yisrael Beitenu, Shas, National Union and their friends.
Critics in the Israeli media wake up only when mistakes are made. That is why – after initially cheering the declaration that “the flotilla will not pass” – they changed their tune following the imbroglio, turning into advocates of the twisted logic “be smart, not right.” But what justice is there in an attack on civilians by soldiers on the open seas?
Like the territories, international waters are not Israel; they are outside its borders. A Turkish ship on the open sea is, in effect, a floating Turkish island. An Israeli attack on such an island is not all that different from sending the Israel Defense Forces to take on demonstrators at the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. There, too, unpleasant people who are not friends of Israel can sometimes be found.
Turkey, which is a member of NATO, was not in a state of war with Israel before the attack. Attacking its citizens on territory that is by definition Turkish is another expression of the Israeli lunacy that lacks any kind of boundaries.
An attack beyond the border must be reserved for extreme cases involving a military target that represents an entity fighting against the country and when citizens are in danger. But civilian ships, that are not carrying weapons, but are bringing civilian aid to a population that is denied chocolate, toys and notebooks, are not nuclear reactors in Iraq, Syria or Iran.
A person who grows up without external borders tends to create distorted internal borders. That is the reason for the attack on Arab MK Hanin Zuabi and her colleagues. While there were certain Arab public figures who went too far in their statements, joining a civilian aid flotilla is one of those legitimate acts which are supposed to be self-evident.
And yet, what was self-evident became betrayal. And citizenship, one of the unconditional foundations of existence, has turned into something that can be revoked – in this case on the basis of ethnicity, a tactic used in fascist regimes. The street has returned to the atmosphere that prevailed under “responsible” opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu and led to the assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin – and the next murder is in the air.
The Israeli deed at sea is liable to reach The Hague. The problem is that Israel has genuine enemies who want to destroy it. A country that does not do everything in its power to accumulate legitimacy, along with turning Iran into an entity that is losing legitimacy and can therefore become a target of activities to undermine it, is a country losing its basic survival instinct. Without borders, it turns out, you lose even that.
Young Israelis who have grown up without borders are now dancing and singing “In blood and fire we will expel Turkey” and “Mohammed is dead.” If this keeps up, Israel will not make it to The Hague. The entity gradually replacing the State of Israel is liable not to exist long enough to get there.
AP Delegates walk after posing for a group picture inside the Ottoman-era Giragan Palace, the venue of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia in Istanbul, Turkey. Photo: AP
As this rain-soaked city hosted the third summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA), it was clear that Israel, at the receiving end of global condemnation for last week’s attack on an aid ship trying to sail to the Gaza Strip, faced further isolation for its “brazen act” that killed nine peace activists.
While the Gaza attack dominated the conference that concluded on Wednesday, challenges and threats such as terrorism, organised crime, elimination of weapons of mass destruction and curbing of drug trafficking and trans-boundary crimes also figured in the speeches of leaders and Ministers from 20 countries that attended the three-day summit.
As Turkey took over the CICA chairmanship from Kazakhastan, the grouping welcomed into its fold Vietnam and Iraq and granted the observer status to Bangladesh. The CICA also provides a platform for the nations in the high-tension regions of Asia that have become “hotspots” — be it Korea, Afghanistan, Israel or Iran.
There was an unforgiving mood towards Israel at the summit for its act of brazen aggression. The attack on the aid ship “cannot be forgotten” by his country, Turkish President Abdullah Gul said at the end of the summit, which brought together Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
A final declaration of the grouping, however, omitted any reference to Israel, which as a fellow member objected to it. But a separate declaration said: “All member-states, except one, expressed their great concern for and condemnation of the actions undertaken by the Israeli defence forces against an international civilian flotilla transporting humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.” The leaders also stressed the immediate need for lifting the four-year-old blockade.
As pointed out by Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, the tragedy of Gaza should remind the international community of the need for highlighting the plight of the people due to the lack of food, electricity and freshwater. “Like Afghanistan, Gaza is a test case before us,” he told the conference on the opening day.
Iran’s nuclear programme and the Iran-Turkey-Brazil deal on the proposed exchange of Iran’s low-enriched uranium with nuclear fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor were also discussed. “Given the already volatile situation in the region, there is no other viable and lasting solution, but a diplomatic one. We have intensified our efforts to promote a negotiated solution through diplomacy,” Mr. Davutoglu said.
Almost all the leaders agreed that most challenges to global security were emanating from Asia, and the top issues were the situation in the Middle East, Iraq and Afghanistan. They also agreed that they had a stake in a sovereign, democratic and stable Afghanistan.
Acknowledging the tough task ahead for the international community in rooting out terrorism, India pointed out that terrorists adapted themselves to countering the cooperative efforts of the States at tackling terrorism. “Distinctions among the terrorist organisations have become blurred, given the ease with which they blend together, both operationally and ideologically,” said Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma, who attended the conference as the Prime Minister’s special envoy. India has been a CICA member since the grouping came into being in 1992.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi called for an international cooperative approach to tackling terrorism through real-time intelligence sharing and addressing its root causes that were being exploited by terrorists to radicalise the youth.
Though CICA has so far been a low-key platform, the Istanbul summit, which came after the Gaza attack, saw the multi-national forum becoming a global talking point. It also provided Turkey with a greater role and profile in hosting it and forging solidarity among the CICA members in denouncing Israel.
The CICA members are Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Palestine, the Republic of Korea, Russia, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan.
The observers are the United Nations, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the League of Arab States.
Lebanese newspaper reports Ankara may supervise Gaza crossings as part of a deal to repair ties between Israel and Turkey.
The Palestinians would support any move that would lift the Gaza blockade, including Turkey’s possible involvement, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said Saturday.
Fayyad’s comments came after the Lebanese Ad-Diyar newspaper quoted an Arab diplomatic source earlier Saturday, saying that Turkey could be given a central role in supervising the border crossings with the Gaza Strip as part of a deal to repair ties between Israel and Turkey.
The relationship between Israel and Turkey has deteriorated dramatically since the IDF raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla on May 31 in which nine people, including eight Turks and one Turkish-American, were killed.
“The Palestinian Authority welcomes any mediation that would lift the siege off Gaza,” Fayyad told reporters, saying that alleviating the Strip’s condition was “a general Palestinian interest, and doesn’t strengthen this or that faction.”
The Palestinian PM also said that according to “international agreements, all of Gaza’s border crossings should be opened, and not just the Rafah crossing,” thus referring to the temporary opening of Gaza’s southernmost border crossing announced by Egypt in the wake of the flotilla raid.
According to the Ad-Diyar report, a new deal could see Turkey supervising all humanitarian aid entering Gaza, as well as committing to the blocking of weapons and money destined for Hamas.
In this position, Turkey would play a meaningful role in lifting the blockade of Gaza and a central figure in the Middle East which will enable the Islamic country to mediate between Israel and the Arab world in the future, as Turkey has sought in the past.
The report has not yet been validated by Turkish or Israeli officials.
In his talk with reporters, Fayyad also expressed his hopes that the proximity peace talks with Israel would lead to direct negotiations which would, eventually, lead to the declaration of an independent Palestinian state.
The top PA official responded to criticism over the PA’s boycott of settlement goods, saying that it was not an attempt to hurt Israel but a confiscation of goods produced in the settlements, who he said were considered an obstacle to peace.
On Friday Turkish President Abdullah Gul told the French daily Le Monde that Israel must make amends to be forgiven for a commando assault on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, including apologizing for the attack and paying compensation.
Gul added that if Israel made no move to heal the rift, then Turkey could even decide to break diplomatic relations.
In an interview published on Friday, Gul said the Israeli attack at the end of May, which killed nine activists, was a “crime” which might have been carried out by the likes of al-Qaida rather than a sovereign state.
“It seems impossible to me to forgive or forget, unless there are some initiatives which could change the situation,”Gul was quoted as saying by Le Monde.
Asked what these might be, he said: “Firstly, to ask pardon and to establish some sort of compensation.” He added that he also wanted to see an independent inquiry into the botched raid and a discussion on lifting Israel’s blockade of Gaza.
Asked if Turkey might break relations with Israel if they did nothing, Gul said: “Anything is possible.”
Activists dressed as Israeli pirates protest 43 years of Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Tel Aviv, 5 June 2010. (Oren Ziv/ActiveStills)
Is it possible to be shocked and yet not be surprised? Israel’s stupidity and disregard for human life is nothing new. It is a recurring theme in the life of the Jewish state from its very inception. Surely as the destruction in Gaza remains untouched 18 months after the murderous attacks that began on 27 December 2008 there can be no surprise at Israeli brutality. Yet as the news unfolded and the images of the Israeli assault on the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza began to unravel a sense of shock was expressed everywhere.
Israel too is shock stricken. Not by the sheer brutality of its forces, or by the injustice of the siege on Gaza but by the public relations blunder and fact that this “military mission” was a failure. Once again Israeli commandos are shown to be weak and helpless. How could the decision-makers not see that this would damage Israel’s image in the eyes of world and even worse, in the eyes of Israel’s enemies?
Israeli foreign ministry officials claim that Europe and the rest of the world have increased their diplomatic assault on Israel. They claim the world is emboldened by the fact that the American stand in support of Israel has weakened. This they will say is the fault of US President Barack Obama, a president Israelis never cared for anyway. The notion that the world is coming to a point where it is unable to bear the racism and brutality of Israel as a state never enters the conversation. Israeli talking heads will not apologize, will not stray from the official line: we, Israelis are right and they, everyone else are wrong; we are good and they are evil; we are victims of age-old anti-Semitism and they are hateful, violent Muslims intending to kill innocent Jews.
Lives were lost due to a cowardly reaction of trained assassins who were sent to a mission for which they were clearly unprepared, so in a way one can claim that the killers themselves are not to blame, those who sent them are. In the murky relations between the military and the civilian government in Israel it is quite common to fault the lowest person on the totem poll and more often than not it is the military. In this case the mission was an act of piracy aimed at a very determined group of activists who had no intention of backing down. The fact that this particular group of activists took on this difficult and dangerous mission should have in itself been a warning to the Israeli officials that they would not back down and would put up a fight.
There can be no argument as to the courage displayed by the activists aboard the ships as armed pirates with an overwhelming military power attacked them. The pirates, trained Israeli commandos who are known for their brutality and total lack of regard for human life, were armed to the teeth and had the support of the Israeli navy, air force and ground forces. Yet as they boarded the ships they were met with a justifiably angry and clearly determined crowd who were not willing to let go of their boats and cargo. Tragically some of them paid for this determination with their lives.
Will this tragedy bring any change? Clearly the only thing that can bring change is a strategic decision by President Obama to divorce the United States from the dysfunctional relationship with Israel. When the president decides that it is time to end the Israeli war on Palestinians he will engage in a head-on collision with Israel and its American bully, the influential pro-Israel lobby group, AIPAC. It is no secret that advisers with Zionist prejudice surround the president and naturally one is forced to wonder if a strategic shift of such magnitude is possible. Still, if one judges by the fear expressed in Israel perhaps there is some change, some outrage among the president’s men.
It is not unlikely that when Americans get tired of paying $10 million per day of their hard-earned money to the State of Israel that the president will act. The question is how many innocent Palestinian lives will be lost until that happens.
Miko Peled is a writer and Israeli peace activist living in San Diego. His father was the late General Matti Peled, his grandfather Avraham Katsnelson signed the Israeli declaration of independence and his niece Smadar was killed in a suicide attack in Jerusalem. He is the co founder of the Elbanna-Peled Foundtion. For more information or to respond, go to mikopeled.wordpress.com
Saudis practiced standing down anti-aircraft systems to allow Israeli warplanes passage for attack on Iranian nuclear sites, the London Times reports.
Saudi Arabia has practiced standing down its anti-aircraft systems to allow Israeli warplanes passage on their way to attack Iran’s nuclear installations, a British newspaper reported on Saturday.
The Saudis have allocated a narrow corridor of airspace in the north of the country that would cut flying time from Israel to Iran, the London Times reported.
“The Saudis have given their permission for the Israelis to pass over and they will look the other way,” the Times quoted an unnamed U.S. defense source in the area as saying. “They have already done tests to make sure their own jets aren’t scrambled and no one gets shot down. This has all been done with the agreement of the [U.S.] State Department.”
Once the Israelis had passed, the kingdom’s air defenses would return to full alert, the Times said.
Despite tensions between them, Israel and Saudi Arabia share a mutual hostility to Iran.
“We all know this. We will let them [the Israelis] through and see nothing,” the Times quoted a Saudi government source as saying.
According to the report, the four main targets for an Israeli raid on Iran would be uranium enrichment facilities at Natanz and Qom, a gas storage development at Isfahan and a heavy-water reactor at Arak.
Secondary targets may include a Russian-built light water reactor at Bushehr, which could produce weapons-grade plutonium when complete.
Even with midair refueling, the targets would be as the far edge of Israeli bombers’ range at a distance of some 2,250km. An attack would likely involve several waves of aircraft, possibly crossing Jordan, northern Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
Aircraft attacking Bushehr, on the Gulf coast, could swing beneath Kuwait to strike from the southwest, the Times said.
Passing over Iraq would require at least tacit consent to the raid from the United States, whose troops are occupying the country. So far, the Obama Administration has refused this.
On Wednesday the United Nations passed a fourth round of sanctions against Iran in an attempt to force it to stop enriching uranium. But immediately after the UN vote, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed the nuclear program would continue.
Israel hailed the vote – but said sanctions were not enough and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to rule out a raid.
Netanyahu’s predecessor, Ehud Olmert, is believed to have held secret meetings with high-ranking Saudi officials over Iran.
President threatens Israel’s security with his statements, acts, and silence Yiron Festinger
Published: 06.12.10, 12:27
While tens of thousands of Turkish protestors chant anti-Semitic Nazi-style battle cries, on top of Prime Minister Erdogan’s wild incitement (which even outdid Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric,) and while all Muslim world radicals join forces in a venomous, unprecedented anti-Israel campaign, the deafening silence of the Obama-led United States is especially conspicuous.
This is the same US Administration that only months ago raised a hue and cry over the “grave insult to America” as result of the declaration of Ramat Shlomo construction, a neighborhood in no-man’s land that is not even located in east Jerusalem, turning the affair into a direct, hypocritical, deliberate, and ugly confrontation with the Israeli government.
Islamic Terror
Yet as it turns out, the calls for Israel’s destruction in the wake of the Turkish incitement campaign do not constitute an “insult” for America. They are merely a great “success” for Obama’s policy of currying favor with radical Islam; in the president’s view, as long as the protestors burn Israeli flags rather than American flags, his “success” is proven beyond any reasonable doubt.
Ever since he emerged from the radical margins of the American Left and managed to win the presidency on the strength of his rhetorical talents, Obama had been acting methodically in order to undermine America’s status as the world’s lone superpower. He has been doing it by neutralizing the use of force, utilizing international institutions, over-legalization, endless chatter about human rights, and so on and so forth. This delusional liberal policy views the US as the reason and cause for the globe’s problems, rather than as the most successful enterprise in human history, as historian Paul Johnson noted.
A side observer could examine the madness that has overcome America’s leadership with curious consternation, yet we Israelis do not have the privilege to play the role of side observers. Every Obama move has a significant effect for us and undermines our very existence. This ranges from statements defining terror as a manmade disaster, to the observation that there is no such thing as radical Islam and that it has no connection to attempted attacks in the US, as declared by Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder.
Meanwhile, the president’s counter-terrorism advisor argued that Jihad is a “legitimate tenet of Islam” and that terrorists are “victims of political, economic and social forces.”
On top of this, we see the US Administration’s denial and the turning of a blind eye to actual terror acts. This happened in respect to the doctor who murdered 13 US soldiers and wounded dozens of others, while shouting “allahu akbar”; officials claimed he is no terrorist, even though he maintained ties with al-Qaeda, and that the attack was motivated by rage; if that’s the case, Israel’s prisons are full of enraged people who aren’t terrorists.
Most hostile president in US history
Then there is the desire to bring to justice CIA investigators for using harsh interrogation techniques against the masterminds of the Twin Towers attacks – that is, ticking time bombs who revealed further conspiracies of that sort during their interrogation. Where does this leave our Shin Bet investigators then, and who will be finding themselves in the International Court of Justice in The Hague first?
In the pathetic, miserable speech delivered by Obama in Cairo, where he embarrassed the Egyptian government by demanding that the Muslim Brothers – the spiritual father figures of al-Qaeda – also be invited to hear him wax poetic, the president in adopted fact Ahmadinejad’s thesis: The Jews suffered in the Holocaust and the Palestinians have been suffering ever since then. Israel was established because of the Shoah.
The only thing left shrouded in fog is the conclusion that stems from this distorted view, expressed by Ahmadinejad and accepted by European Union leaders behind closed doors: Israel’s establishment was a historical mistake, and it is not too late yet to turn back the wheel.
All of the above was further supplemented by the weak policy vis-à-vis Iran’s nuclearization effort, to the point where even Syrian President Assad dared say that America no longer exists in the Middle East, and is being replaced by Turkey, Iran, and Syria. Meanwhile, the US Administration allowed repeated UN votes against Israel, as well as the calls for the Jewish State’s nuclear disarmament.
Prime Minister Netanyahu should not be envied over the challenge posed by the most hostile president in US history; a president who makes the anti-Semite Jimmy Carter look like a Righteous Gentile. However, we should be calling a spade a spade and informing the public of the truth, even if this truth is disturbing, painful, and bitter.
We must make it clear to our many supporters in the US that this president, by viewing America and its ally Israel as the reason for all the world’s problems, threatens our very existence here. We should not be surprised to see the anti-Semitic franticness and ecstasy that has taken hold in the Muslim world, to the point where even moderate Arab states headed by Egypt feel threatened by America’s policy, prompting Vice President Biden to arrive for a reassuring visit.
Top Bush Administration official Elliott Abrams argued that another Islamist attack on US soil may change Obama’s policy somewhat. Yet the only change we can expect in such case would be blaming Israel as the direct cause for the “justified Muslim rage” against the US,” thereby only radicalizing the hostile policy of the serving president.
Israel has tens of millions of mostly non-Jewish supporters in the US, Abrams said. It would be good to make the grave results of his actions clear to them immediately, as well as the kinds of grave dangers that threaten our very existence because of his policy.
EDITOR: The masters of the blockade allow in canned fruit!
What a great victory… Palestinians now are allowed humus in tins, as well as canned peaches. One does not quite know if we should laugh or cry. After all, even Israel, crazy as it is, cannot quite claim that canned peaches were banned for over three years because of security reasons. This was done in order to make the life of Gazans a real misery, on the daily level, and to leave them on a mere subsistence level, which should weaken and dispirit them, and designed to make them rebel against Hamas. Olmert, the war criminal who is also an everyday criminal, having been caught and tried over corruption charges, has called this “putting Gaza ona diet”. Jewish humour is not what ir was, it seems. From the black humour of the oppressed, it turned into the gallows humour of the exectioners. This announcement now is useful in derailing the ongoing debate about the flotilla massacre, and putting a ‘good news’ item on the media agenda. Westerners are fickle, as we know, and anyway, are now mainly into following the world cup, so it is good time to bury bad news.
That did not happen, like so many other things that Israel planned; The Gazans did not rebel against Hamas. Instead, they rose against their real oppressor, Israel. So why this change now? A simple throwaway to Obama, so he can show some ‘achievment’ for his time in office. It is also the first time a US president can count on canned fruit as a ‘real achievement’. For Gazan, however, this might be welcome, as a brief repreieve from their imposed starvation. Most of them, having no income or work, would not even be able to enjoy this change…
By Donald Macintyre
Thursday, 10 June 2010
Israel has eased its regime for food imports to Gaza, allowing foods like a range of herbs, biscuits, jam, potato crisps, packaged hummus and canned fruits which had been banned from entering the territory from Israel for three years.
But the relaxation – which also allows in razors – fell far short of the much wider lifting of the economic blockade which has been increasingly urged by the international community since last week’s lethal naval commando raid on a pro-Palestinian aid flotilla.
The British Government among others has been urging Israel to consider a substantially new approach to policy, which would spur post-war reconstruction and revive Gaza’s private sector economy, paralysed when Israel imposes its blockade after Hamas’s seizure of full control in the Strip in June 2007.
The Israeli human rights agency Gisha said yesterday that it was “pleased to learn that coriander no longer presents a threat to Israeli security” but added that Israel continued to prevent the transfer of “purely civilian goods” like fabrics, fishing rods, food wrappers, and raw materials for manufacturing including industrial margarine and glucose.
These were being barred “as part of what Israel calls ‘economic warfare'” and so “denies 1.5 million human beings the right to engage in productive, dignified work.”
The foodstuffs relaxation came to light ahead of a visit by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President, to the White House. After the meeting Barack Obama, the US President, said the blockade of Gaza was “unsustainable” and a better approach was needed.
A British paper sent by the Foreign Secretary William Hague to the International Quartet (the EU, US, UN and Russia) is understood to propose the opening of the main Karni cargo crossing; an easing of the naval blockade under which officially sanctioned ships, subject to strict prior checking at an Israeli port, could be used for exports and imports in Gaza; and the substitute of a “white list” of permitted goods for a “black list” of banned ones.
Tony Blair, the Quartet’s envoy, has already held two meetings with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, within a week to urge an easing of the blockade. Some other Western diplomats have suggested to Israel that it would be easier to relax pressure for a full-scale international enquiry into last week’s commando raid if Israel were more amenable to lifting the embargo.
A senior Israeli official said yesterday he was “sceptical” about any relaxation of the maritime embargo but that discussions were ongoing about importing more civilian goods, which did not allow Hamas to build up its military infrastructure.
Israel contests an assertion by Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary General, that recent limited and strictly controlled imports of materials for international infrastructure and medical projects are a “drop in the bucket”.
EDITOR: Trust the New York Times…
Here you can learn that the real victims in the Middle East are the Israelis…
By DAVE ITZKOFF
A music promoter in Israel said that the country was being subjected to “cultural terrorism” as more artists canceled planned performances there, Agence France-Presse reported.
Over the weekend the alternative-rock band the Pixies withdrew from what would have been its first-ever show in Israel, as part of the Pic.Nic music festival scheduled in Tel Aviv this week. “We’d like to extend our deepest apologies to the fans, but events beyond all our control have conspired against us,” the group said in a statement. The bands Gorillaz and the Klaxons have also withdrawn from the festival, after a raid by Israeli commandos on a Gaza-bound flotilla. Last month, Elvis Costello canceled two concerts he was to perform in Israel this summer, citing the complexities of the continuing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
After the announcement of the Pixies’ cancellation, Shuki Weiss, the promoter of the Pic.Nic festival, said in a statement, “I am full of both sorrow and pain in light of the fact that our repeated attempts to present quality acts and festivals in Israel have increasingly been falling victim to what I can only describe as a form of cultural terrorism which is targeting Israel and the arts worldwide.”
He added: “These ‘sudden’ decisions affect thousands of Israeli music lovers turning them into victims and robbing them of a handful of hours of joy, adrenalin and culture, in the name of suffering they have neither caused nor wish for.”
Israel Refuses to Lift Blockade, by Carlos Latuff
EDITOR: As BDS bites in, Israel gets even more aggressive
This is real evidence for the success of the Palestinian and international boycott, which Israel and its supporters have argued will never make any difference. If it did make no difference, why all this illegal legislation? It does make a great difference, and it will be a crucial element in breaking Israeli apartheid; this is exactly why Israel has turned even nastier, and demands that Palestine will continue to finance the occupation by being forced to buy its products. While this will not work, it will make things so much more difficult and bloody, no doubt. It is also designed to frighten off Israeli and international activists. It will also fail there, I am sure.
It is also interesting to see how supine ‘Israeli liberals’ have become, with the so-called left-winger supporting this illegal and immoral mesure. Let it not be said that anyone in the Israeli political elite was moral enough to oppose this! It is also good to know that Margaret Atwood, in the past my favourite feminist writer, prefers murder and occupation to the civil struggle against them. Well, a million dollars do not grow on trees…
By Catrina Stewart in Jerusalem
Friday, 11 June 2010 What do The Pixies, Elvis Costello, and Salam Fayyad, Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, have in common? A cursory glance might suggest not much yet all have deeply irked Israel.
Singer Damon Albarn and guitarist Paul Simonon of 'Gorillaz' are one of the acts to have withdrawn from concerts in Israel
When Mr Fayyad first embarked on a door-to-door campaign to persuade Palestinians to shun all products made by Jewish settlers, the Israeli public simply shrugged. But when veteran crooner Costello peered into his conscience and pulled a scheduled appearance in Tel Aviv, Israelis sat up and took notice.
Embattled and increasingly isolated, a group of politicians are now proposing a bill that would outlaw boycotts against the Jewish State, both homegrown and international.
The Land of Israel, a right-wing parliamentary lobby group committed to Jewish settlement of the West Bank, submitted the bill with the support of 25 politicians from right wing and centrist parties. If approved, it could theoretically force the Palestinian Authority (PA) to pay thousands of dollars in compensation to Jewish businesses affected by the Fayyad-led boycott campaign, a scenario that would likely spark furious reaction from Palestinians.
The move comes amid a growing global backlash against Israeli policies, which has intensified since Israel launched its bloody raid on a Turkish-led humanitarian convoy trying to breach the blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Even before the flotilla affair, a campaign to persuade artists and authors to protest what they describe as an illegal and oppressive military occupation of the Palestinian territories was gaining ground. “Merely having your name added to a concert may be interpreted as a political act… and it may be assumed that one has no mind for the suffering of the innocent,” Costello said in a statement prior to the raid.
After last week’s deadly raid on the flotilla, US rock band The Pixies cancelled their gig. Several other bands have followed suit, prompting Israeli music promoter Shuki Weiss to complain that performers are waging a form of “cultural terrorism”.
Human rights activists, meanwhile, decried efforts by politicians to alienate those critical of Israel with new legislation. “We have wild right-wing politicians presenting wild demagogic bills … which create a very nasty public atmosphere,” said Adam Keller, spokesman for Gush Shalom, an Israeli NGO that has joined calls for a boycott of settler-made goods. “If this is passed into law, it would mean a total breakdown between Israel and the PA.”
Israel has condemned Mr Fayyad’s boycott campaign as harmful to the fragile peace process, and Israeli settler leaders have urged the government to respond with harsh retaliatory measures.
Should the proposal gain traction in its current form, it would force boycotters to pay compensation to settlers who claim their business had suffered. It would also affect foreign citizens calling for a boycott of Israel, potentially barring them from Israel for 10 years.
But activists said attempts to muzzle peace activists would make the movement stronger. “No Knesset laws can stop this tide of non-violent, morally consistent struggle for justice, self determination, equality and freedom,” political activist Omar Barghouti said in a statement.
Mr Fayyad, an economist by training, has provided the boycott campaign with fresh impetus in recent weeks, putting it at the heart of a peaceful resistance movement aimed at winning over international support. The boycott calls for Palestinians to shun all products made in the Jewish settlements, most of which sit on expropriated Palestinian farmland and are regarded as illegal under international law.
The PA has also barred Palestinians from working in the settlements as of the end of this year, an unpopular move only slightly eased by the promise of a $50m “dignity” fund designed to help workers make the transition. The PA has threatened those who fail to comply with fines.
The Jewish settlements, which sit atop the West Bank hills, have long been a thorn in the side of the peace process. Palestinians have maintained that as long as Jews are grabbing Palestinian land in the West Bank, Israel cannot be committed to a two-state solution.
“If I… were a Palestinian, I would certainly join the boycott that is being imposed on the settlements and their products,” wrote Yossi Sarid, a commentator in liberal Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz. “After all, it would not be human to expect me to buy my tombstone from people who were determined to bury my hopes for a good life and independence.”
Israeli Minister of Minority Affairs, Avishay Braverman, who is responsible for Israel’s Arab population, said the boycott was a diversion from the pressing need for direct peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians. US-sponsored efforts have brought both sides back to talks, but not in the same room.
“This boycott will have no real impact on Israel, but will harm Palestinian workers,” said Mr Braverman, a former World Bank economist. What it will do “is create a more general boycott on Israel that will harm relations between Israel and the Palestinians”.
And not everyone is moved, Rod Stewart, Elton John and Diana Krall, who is married to Costello, are still scheduled to perform in Israel later this year.
Meanwhile, authors Margaret Atwood and Amitav Ghosh, the joint recipients of an Israeli literary award, have bristled at calls from activists to refuse the prize, with Atwood describing cultural boycotts as “a form of censorship”.
EXCLUSIVE: New Video Smuggled Out from Mavi Marmara of Israel’s Deadly Assault on Gaza Aid Flotilla
In a Democracy Now! exclusive, we bring you a sneak preview of previously unseen raw footage from the Mavi Marmara that will be formally released at a press conference at the United Nations later in the day. The footage shows the mood and the activities onboard the Mavi Marmara in the time leading up to the attack, and the immediate reaction of the passengers during the attack. We are joined by filmmaker and activist Iara Lee, one of the few Americans on the Mavi Marmara ship. Her equipment was confiscated, but she managed to smuggle out an hour’s worth of footage. [includes rush transcript]. This includes very disturbing images, and is another prooof, if proof was needed, of the brutality of Israel and its armed forces.
State Department spokesman: It will be up to Turkey and Brazil to explain rationale for voting against 4th round of UN sanctions.
Sources close to the American administration told Haaretz on Thursday that the U.S. viewed Turkey’s vote against United Nations Iran sanctions as a slap in the face, in light of the efforts put forth by U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration to enlist global support for the sanctions.
Israel and the United States on Wednesday hailed a UN Security Council vote to impose a fourth round of sanctions on a defiant Iran, which immediately vowed to continue with its nuclear program. Turkey and Brazil were the only votes against the sanctions, while Lebanon abstained.
The 15-nation council passed a resolution that was the product of five months of talks between the United States, Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia. With 12 votes in favor, it received the least support of the four Iran sanctions resolutions adopted since 2006.
U.S. State Department Spokesman Philip Crowley said Wednesday following the vote that “we think coming out of the UN Security Council today is a very strong statement. It was not unanimous. Obviously, it will be up to Turkey and Brazil to explain their votes and their rationale.”
“Clearly, we’ve had disagreements over specific tactics, but we will continue to work with Turkey, Brazil and other countries as we go through implementation of 1929,” Crowley added, referring to Security Council resolution 1929 which increases the cost to Iran’s leadership of their continued defiance of the international community, and aims to persuade Iran that it is in its interest to peacefully resolve concerns about its nuclear program.
Page last updated at 18:49 GMT, Thursday, 10 June 2010 19:49 UK
Mr Abbas is holding talks with senior US figures during his visit
Lack of progress in the Mid-East peace process is “beginning to erode” faith that a two-state solution is possible, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said.
Mr Abbas also told a Washington think-tank that the Palestinians’ main demand was to end the blockade of Gaza.
Israel is under strong international pressure following a deadly raid on ships trying to break the blockade.
Mr Abbas has been on a visit to Washington which has included talks with President Barack Obama.
“I would like to express some concern that the situation is extremely difficult,” Mr Abbas told the Brookings Institution.
“The hope for a two-state solution, Palestine… living side-by-side in peace with the state of Israel, this concept is starting to erode and I fear that the world is starting to distrust that we are able to reach this solution.”
‘End blockade’
Mr Abbas described Israel’s “attack” on the aid convoy in international waters as “unlawful, unacceptable”.
“Our main demand is how to end the blockade on Gaza and I believe the entire world stands with us,” he said.
The Israeli raid has sparked wordwide protests
Mr Abbas is due to hold more talks with senior US officials on Thursday, including White House National Security Adviser James Jones.
On Friday he is due to meet US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton before returning to the Middle East.
After Wednesday’s meeting at the White House, Mr Obama said the situation in Gaza was “unsustainable” and promised $400m (£274m) in new aid for the territory.
But he urged both Israel and the Palestinians to make concessions and return to stalled peace talks.
“Not only is the status quo with respect to Gaza unsustainable, but the status quo with respect to the Middle East is unsustainable,” he said.
“It is time for us to go ahead, move forward on a two-state solution.”
Israel says its blockade of Gaza is needed to deter attacks by militants from the Hamas movement, which runs the territory.
Nine activists died when Israeli commandos stormed a Turkish passenger ship which was part of an aid flotilla heading for Gaza on 31 May.
In another development on Thursday, the Palestinian Authority postponed local elections due to be held in the West Bank next month.
No reason was given for the decision, made during a cabinet meeting in Ramallah.
Hamas had already said it would boycott the vote.
EU scrambles for policy response after international outrage over Mavi Marmara
Spain is drawing up new proposals for lifting Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip as the EU scrambles to forge an effective policy following international outrage over the killing of nine pro-Palestinian Turkish activists in a “freedom flotilla”.
Miguel Moratinos, the Spanish foreign minister, is to present Madrid’s ideas to EU colleagues next Monday amid signs of disagreement between member states and demands for tougher action.
The US, Britain and the EU have all called the blockade “unsustainable”. But Britain is warning of exaggerated expectations of what can be achieved. “I don’t think the British government is talking about lifting the blockade,” said the Foreign Office minister for the Middle East, Alistair Burt. “Everything is done with relatively small incremental steps. Almost any change is potentially a change for the better.”
British officials stress the importance of Israel improving access conditions for 1.5m Palestinians by publishing a blacklist of banned goods and not simply stating which ones are permitted. “That would be a fundamental shift which would enormously benefit Gaza,” said one.
Israel has rejected a French idea that EU forces would check the cargoes of ships heading for Gaza to ensure they are not carrying goods Israel would consider a security risk. Bernard Kouchner, France’s foreign minister, called the response from Jerusalem “rather negative”. Spain, chairing the EU’s rotating presidency, will be expected to work with Lady Ashton, the union’s foreign policy chief, diplomats said. Another idea is the revival of the EU Border Assistance Mission at the Rafah crossing point into Egypt. Its operations were suspended in 2007 after the takeover of Gaza by the Islamist movement Hamas, shunned by Israel and the west.
“We are seeing a sense of disarray with several voices speaking at the same time,” said Clara O’Donnell of the Centre for European Reform. “But even if the EU is keen to help, the Israelis do not consider it reliable enough. There is not much Europe can do until the Americans move.”
But Lord Patten, Britain’s former EU external affairs commissioner, today urges the EU to demand an immediate end to the blockade, open dialogue with Hamas, and not let the US monopolise policy.
“Today’s miserable and brutal stand-off in the Middle East requires new political initiatives,” he writes in the Guardian. “The EU is Israel’s biggest trade partner and the largest provider of development assistance to Palestine yet it has been content to play a largely very quiet third fiddle to the US. It is true that the US has the primary external role in the region, and that any peace settlement will require Israel’s willing agreement. But none of this justifies the EU’s present nervous self-effacement. This policy gives Israel carte blanche. It makes Europe complicit in outrageous and illegal acts.” Patten calls for the UN to be tasked with preventing weapons entering Gaza while the EU should take the initiative with Turkey and the Arab League to re-establish a national unity government of Fatah and Hamas for the West Bank and Gaza. Britain says it has no plans to end its ban, backed by the Quartet, on contact with Hamas.
EDITOR: Even lying needs to be done professionally…
You would have thought that Israel would be the world expert in lying and creative fictions. It seems, however, that like the rest of their operations in the last decade, the lying operations have also got less and less professional. It will be impossible to enumerate here all the lies spouted by the Creative Writing dept. of the IOF, but one by one, the chickens come home to roost. One of the more disgusting fictions was the cooking of the Mavi Marmara recording, to include the line “Go back to Auschwitz”. That someone thought that this was either acceptable to lie like that, or that it would be accepted, id in itself a mark of the moral and social degradation of this criminalised and militarised society, and its deeply psychotic behaviour.
Israel is adept at inventing antisemitism in situation where it is not on offer freely. This time, it exceeded itself – Israel is actually acting to produce antisemitism the world over, not just by its continuing and escalating war-crimes, but also by the ‘efficient’ Habara – the lie machine; by exposing more and more of the lies and false accusations, Israel is producing an atmosphere in which Jews will automatically be identified with those crimes and their coverup by foul means. This poses grave danger to Jewish communities everywhere, a danger they are not yet fully cognisant of, or prefer to ignore for the time being.
For Israel, this emerging anti-Israel sentiment, which can easily become antisemitic if used by right wing elements, is most welcome. After all, Zionism is based on the single premise that Jews cannot, and should not, live amongst non-Jews. No doubt some Zionist leaders in Israel are looking forward to the increase in immigration to Israel as a result of the rise in antisemitism. Antisemitism has always been the Recruiting Sergeant for Zionism.
Israeli government press office distributed video link featuring Arabs and activists singing
The Israeli government has been forced to apologise for circulating a spoof video mocking activists aboard the Gaza flotilla, nine of who were shot dead by Israeli forces last week.
The YouTube clip, set to the tune of the 1985 charity single We Are the World, features Israelis dressed as Arabs and activists, waving weapons while singing: “We con the world, we con the people. We’ll make them all believe the IDF (Israel Defence Force) is Jack the Ripper.”
It continues: “There’s no people dying, so the best that we can do is create the biggest bluff of all.”
The Israeli government press office distributed the video link to foreign journalists at the weekend, but within hours emailed them an apology, saying it had been an error. Press office director Danny Seaman said the video did not reflect official state opinion, but in his personal capacity he thought it was “fantastic”.
Government spokesman Mark Regev said the video reflected how Israelis felt about the incident. “I called my kids in to watch it because I thought it was funny,” he said. “It is what Israelis feel. But the government has nothing to do with it.”
The clip features a group led by the Jerusalem Post’s deputy managing editor Caroline Glick, wearing keffiyehs and calling themselves the Flotilla Choir. The footage is interspersed with clips from the recent Israeli raid on the Gaza-bound aid ship, the Mavi Marmara.
The clip has been praised in Israel, where the mass-circulation daily Yediot Aharonot said the singers “defended Israel better than any of the experts”.
But Didi Remez, an Israeli who runs the liberal-left news analysis blog Coteret, said the clip was “repulsive” and reflected how out of touch Israeli opinion was with the rest of the world. “It shows a complete lack of understanding of how the incident is being perceived abroad,” he said. Award-winning Israeli journalist Meron Rapoport said the clip demonstrated prejudice against Muslims. “It’s roughly done, not very sophisticated, anti-Muslim – and childish for the government to be behind such a clip,” he said.
A similar press office email was sent to foreign journalists two weeks ago, recommending a gourmet restaurant and Olympic-sized swimming pool in Gaza to highlight Israel’s claim there is no humanitarian crisis there. Journalists who complained the email was in poor taste were told they had “no sense of humour”.
Last week, the Israel Defence Force had to issue a retraction over an audio clip it had claimed was a conversation between Israeli naval officials and people on the Mavi Marmara, in which an activist told soldiers to “go back to Auschwitz”. The clip was carried by Israeli and international press, but today the army released a “clarification/correction”, explaining that it had edited the footage and that it was not clear who had made the comment.
The Israeli army also backed down last week from an earlier claim that soldiers were attacked by al-Qaida “mercenaries” aboard the Gaza flotilla. An article appearing on the IDF spokesperson’s website with the headline: “Attackers of the IDF soldiers found to be al-Qaida mercenaries”, was later changed to “Attackers of the IDF Soldiers found without identification papers,” with the information about al-Qaida removed from the main article. An army spokesperson told the Guardian there was no evidence proving such a link to the terror organisation.
While the debate over accounts of the flotilla raid continues, Israel is facing more boycotting. In the past week, three international acts, including the US rock band the Pixies, have cancelled concerts in Tel Aviv.
Best-settling authors Alice Walker and Iain Banks have backed the boycott campaign, with Banks announcing his books won’t be translated into Hebrew. Dockworker unions in Sweden and South Africa have refused to handle Israeli ships, while the UK’s Unite union just passed a motion to boycott Israeli companies.
• This article was amended on 7 June 2010. The original referred to Didi Remez as a female. This has been corrected.
Israel’s defiant reaction to the raid on the Gaza aid convoy is almost as appalling as the attack itself
When sovereign states make mistakes, they promise impartial inquiries, they express remorse to the families of the bereaved, they apologise. Not Binyamin Netanyahu’s government. Almost as appalling as the commando raid itself, in which nine pro-Palestinian activists were killed on an aid convoy bound for Gaza, has been Israel’s official reaction to it. The policy was to shoot first and discredit the victims later. On a video posted online by the Jerusalem Post, Mr Netanyahu said: “This wasn’t a love boat. This was a hate boat. These weren’t pacifists, they weren’t peace activists, these were violent supporters of terrorism.” The government press office emailed foreign journalists a satirical clip entitled “Flotilla Choir presents: We Con the World”, before withdrawing it and saying the film’s content did not reflect the official stance of Israel. To cap it all, the Israeli prime minister yesterday rejected calls for an international inquiry.
The format of the inquiry proposed by the UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon would have favoured Israel, because Israeli and US representatives would have sat alongside Turkish ones, whose nationals were the commando raid’s principal victims. The proposed chairman of the inquiry would have been the former prime minister of New Zealand, Geoffrey Palmer, an expert on maritime law. No Richard Goldstone he. But even this proposal was too much for Mr Netanyahu, who along with his defence minister Ehud Barak, refused point blank to allow any foreigner to interrogate Israeli officers and soldiers.
As the Winograd commission showed in its investigation into the 2006 Lebanese war, Israeli judges are more than capable of bringing their politicians and military to book. But this is not an internal Israeli matter. The commando raid was carried out in international waters, 77 miles off the coast of Gaza, where Israel has no legal entitlement. Its fatal victims were eight Turkish and one US national, and 30 other nationalities were involved as well.
There are real questions to answer, such as testimony that shots were fired before the commandos hit the deck of the Mavi Marmara, that the victims had multiple gunshot wounds to the head, apparently contradicting the claim that commandos only fired in self-defence. There is also testimony that backs the claim that soldiers were seized and stripped of their weapons before others stormed aboard. This evidence is unlikely to be tested by an Israeli inquiry and the rest of the world, particularly the Muslim one, will conclude that it is because Israeli commanders have something to hide.
Turkey is unlikely to take the shooting of its citizens lying down. Even less so, now that the Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman has branded the Turkish prime minister Reccep Erdogan an Islamic extremist. This week Istanbul will host a Eurasian security summit, attended by eight presidents, which will rapidly turn into an international forum for condemning Israel and its illegal siege of Gaza. Alienating not only 72 million Turks, but the only Muslim member of Nato, will have repercussions for Israel that spread far and wide. Day by day, Israel is isolating itself both from international law and world opinion.
The cost of underwriting the self-destructive behaviour of its strategic partner in the Middle East is starting to mount exponentially in Washington. Both Barack Obama and General David Petraeus have adversely linked the Arab-Israeli conflict to America’s own security interests. First came Mr Netanyahu’s refusal to stop construction in Arab East Jerusalem; now Israel has picked a fight with a key Muslim ally. Israel’s refusal to accept an international inquiry will only add weight to the view that it has become a strategic liability to the interests of the country that guarantees its survival. Mr Netanyahu would be foolish to assume that Mr Obama is not drawing the same conclusion.
UN-proposed commission into flotilla raid is dismissed as global pressure grows for Israel to ease its blockade of Gaza
Israeli soldiers stand behind a Turkish flag, held by activists during a protest against the Israeli naval commando raid on a flotilla attempting to break the blockade on Gaza. Photograph: Abed Al Hashlamoun/EPA
Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, today dismissed a UN proposal for an international commission to investigate last week’s assault on a flotilla of aid ships.
Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, proposed a commission of inquiry headed by the former New Zealand prime minister Geoffrey Palmer, who is an expert in maritime law. The commission would include representatives of Israel, the US and Turkey. All nine activists killed in the operation were Turkish; one held joint US citizenship.
Ban discussed the plan with Netanyahu, who later briefed party colleagues on the call, saying: “We need to consider the issue carefully and level-headedly while monitoring Israel’s national interests.”
Israel would not react or take decisions under the pressure of events, an official who was present at the meeting said.
Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, was more explicit: “We are rejecting an international commission. We are discussing with the Obama administration a way in which our inquiry will take place,” he said.
Despite global condemnation of last week’s raid and demands for a thorough and impartial investigation and an easing of Israel’s blockade on Gaza, there was no discussion of the issues at today’s cabinet meeting.
Important decisions relating to security issues are usually taken by a smaller security council, rather than full Israeli cabinet. However, according to the official, there are no firm plans for the smaller group to meet.
Israel is also pursuing compromise measures to deflect growing pressure to relax the blockade. Significantly, the US has added its voice to calls for a new policy, with the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, describing the current siege as “unsustainable”.
Signs of divergent views within the cabinet came from Israel’s welfare minister, Isaac Herzog, who called for the siege policy to be reconsidered. “The time has come to do away with the blockade, ease the restrictions on the inhabitants and find another alternative,” he said.
The government claims it has indicated a willingness for greater flexibility in the amount and type of aid it allows into Gaza through land crossings, but insists it will maintain its naval blockade for security reasons.
“The policy was not static. It was moving anyway [before the flotilla] and we will continue to move,” an official said.
Aid agencies say any relaxation of the blockade has been minimal and the current situation is totally inadequate to meet the needs of the 80% of Gazans dependent on international aid.
Britain’s shadow foreign secretary, David Miliband, described the isolation of Gaza as “a stain on policy right across the Middle East”. “I think there have been a series of deadly and self-defeating actions by successive Israeli governments in respect of Gaza,” he told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.
The UK today announced a £19m donation of aid to Gaza.
Israel’s hard line on future shipping aid convoys could be as tested as early as this week after two organisations pledged to send boats carrying aid to Gaza in the next few days. Reporters Without Borders was attempting to assemble 25 European activists and 50 journalists for a boat leaving Beirut. The Free Palestine Movement was planning a similar operation.
The Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan – who was the subject of fresh vitriol in the Israeli media today – had raised the idea of personally joining an aid ship to Gaza, according to Lebanese media reports. Turkey last week recalled its ambassador to Israel.
Israel’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, today insisted that “it is inconceivable that we should apologise to the Turkish government”. He hinted that Turkey was heading in the same direction as Iran, saying Iran had been a “good friend” to Israel in the 1970s. This was echoed by his deputy, Danny Ayalon, who said: “If they sever relations, it is clear they are switching sides in the direction of extremist Islam.”
The 19 passengers and crew who were on board the aid ship the Rachel Corrie when it was forcibly diverted to the Israeli port of Ashdod are due to arrive in Ireland tomorrow after being deported from Israel.
The Israeli government, still battling for the dominance of its version of events surrounding the flotilla assault, attempted to draw a distinction between the Rachel Corrie and the Mavi Marmara, the Turkish vessel that was the scene of last week’s bloodshed. “The entire world saw the difference between a humanitarian flotilla and a hate flotilla by violent, terrorism supporting extremists,” Netanyahu told party colleagues.
The US rock band Pixies cancelled a concert in Tel Aviv in protest at last week’s bloodshed. The decision followed similar moves by Klaxons and Gorillaz. Authors Alice Walker and Iain Banks have backed the boycott, with Banks saying his books will not be translated into Hebrew.
Dockworker unions in Sweden and South Africa have refused to handle Israeli ships, while the UK’s Unite union passed a motion to boycott Israeli companies.
EDITOR: A voice in the wilderness…
The editorials in Haaretz have become more and more desperate, and more radical than ever. Unfortunately, this exception proves the rule – the Israeli media is, on the whole, servile and unprofessional, and accepts the IDF’s pronouncements as facts, when most of the time those are crude fabrications. In time, this attitude of the Israeli media, like that of the rest of the social elites, will bring about its decomposition and breakdown. For now, the flag-waving is going on.
Arab citizens may be the direct victims of government policy and the atmosphere in the Knesset, but all of society will pay the price of the devastation that will result.
Of all the damage done by the botched takeover of the Mavi Marmara, one aspect is particularly serious: the further erosion of the relationship between the State of Israel and its Arab citizens, and between Jews and Arabs in Israel in general.
While decisions were made concerning the flotilla to Gaza, the prime minister, his ministers and his spokesmen knew that on board the Mavi Marmara were a number of Arab Israeli public figures, including a Knesset member and a political-religious leader. However, they took no particular precautions. Apparently, no voice of reason was heard, asking that MK Hanin Zuabi and Sheikh Ra’ad Salah not be turned into heroes. But the intimidation and incitement against them were even more egregious.
Even sworn opponents of Zuabi and her political path should be deeply concerned by Interior Minister Eli Yishai’s proposal to revoke her citizenship and by the formulation of a bill demanding her expulsion from the legislature. The very wording of the bill – calling for “ousting a sitting Knesset member if the member was involved in the action of an enemy country or in incitement against the State of Israel” – shows ignorance with regard to the limits of protest in a democracy (Turkey is not an enemy country; political critique is not incitement ) and, at worst, reflects a trend aimed specifically at silencing Arabs.
This trend is surfacing in most of the parties in the Knesset, with the enthusiastic encouragement of most ministers, above all Yishai, who continually lashes out against Arabs. Some of the unrestrained statements by lawmakers on the right and the center and their distorted initiatives – such as the attempt to deny pensions to Arab MKs who are seen as “betraying the state,” even if they were not tried – are enough to persuade one that the flotilla debacle served those people as a pretext to ratchet up the delegitimization of Israel’s Arab citizens and brand them as traitors.
Avigdor Lieberman is not alone: His work, of inciting against Israel’s Arab community, is now being done by many of the MKs who signed the “Zuabi bill.” In addition to the dubious loyalty legislation that has been proposed, this instance of incitement brings Israel to an unprecedented low. Arab citizens may be the direct victims of government policy and the atmosphere in the Knesset, but all of society will pay the price of the devastation that will result.
Well, if the navy officers themselves are demanding this, then Netanyahu has a real problem… To say that this is unprecedented is not even starting to explain how amazing this is! So while Netanyahu claims that no inquiry is necessary, and Obama wants the Israeli Navy to check into its own murder, here are some high-ranking officers (the Hebrew title is Ship-Captains, rather officers) saying quite clearly that the Israeli government and its military commanders are responsible for the murder on the boats, condemning the spin against the activists. So now Netanyahu and Obama are on their own, it seems. This will run and run.
Officers denounce operation as ‘military and diplomatic failure’, slam government for placing blame on the activists.
A group of top Israel Navy reserves officers on Sunday publicly called on Israel to allow an external probe into its commando raid of a Gaza-bound humanitarian aid flotilla last week, which left nine people dead and several more wounded.
In a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, the Navy officers denounced the commando raid as having “ended in tragedy both at the military and diplomatic levels.”
“We disagree with the widespread claims that this was the result of an intelligence rift,” said the officers. “In addition, we do not accept claims that this was a ‘public relations failure’ and we think that the plan was doomed to failure from the beginning.”
“First and foremost, we protest the fact that responsibility for the tragic results was immediately thrust onto the organizers of the flotilla,” wrote the officers. “This demonstrates contempt for the responsibility that belongs principally to the hierarchy of commanders and those who approved the mission. This shows contempt for the values of professionalism, the purity of weapons and for human lives.”
The Navy officers’ letter came as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was convening his top ministers to deliberate a United Nations proposal to create a joint international committee alongside Turkey and the United States to investigate the circumstances of the deadly raid.
The cabinet was also to discuss the creation of an internal committee to look into the incident. Netanyahu earlier Sunday rejected the idea of an international panel, and reiterated that Israel had the right to conduct its own investigation.
Netanyahu discussed the proposal for a multinational panel with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in a telephone call on Saturday but told cabinet ministers fon Sunday that Israel was exploring other options, political sources said.
“I told [Ban] that the investigation of the facts must be carried out responsibly and objectively,” Netanyahu told ministers. “We need to consider the issue carefully and level-headedly, while maintaining Israel’s national interests as well as those of the Israel Defense Forces.”
Letter sent by 10 Navy reserve commanders to prime minister, defense minister demands independent inquiry commission into commando raid, urges higher security ranks to take responsibility for blunders
A group of 10 Navy reserve officers who served as patrol boat commanders sent a harsh letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Sunday in which they urge the establishment of an independent inquiry commission into the flotilla raid events.
“We believe the operation ended in a military and political disaster,” the letter noted. The officers said they disagreed with claims of an intelligence or a PR failure as they believe the whole operation was doomed from the beginning.
“Most of all, we protest the fact that the responsibility for the disaster was immediately placed on the sail’s organizers,” the letter noted, suggesting that the commanding ranks and decision makers were the ones primarily responsible for the debacle. “We regard this as contempt for professionalism, battle morals and human life.”
The officers demanded the establishment of an independent inquiry commission which would hold a thorough examination of the raid. “We believe this is the best way to restore trust in the Navy command and decision makers,” the letter stated.
The officers were bewildered at the level of risk the Navy fighters were put under. “We were dumbfounded at the dismal outcome of civilians’ deaths and injuries. There is no shred of doubt in our minds that had a less trained and disciplined force been sent, the number of casualties would have been much greater, and therefore wish to express our appreciation of the combat forces.
“Nevertheless, we feel serious tactical mistakes in judgment and the use of force were made, primarily the inability to aptly characterize the mission while bearing in mind a civil vessel was being targeted.”
The officers stated that based on their experience as vessel commanders other ways could have been employed to stop the flotilla. “The MO which was exercised included a high level of friction which we feel was unnecessary, regardless of the type of resistance discovered upon the raid.”
‘Not endorsing disobedience’
One of the officers, Major Nir Barak told Ynet, “We have a lot of experience in this field. The letter was thought up out of a feelings of discomfort, mainly at the subsequent events and the defense minister and Navy command’s failure to take responsibility.
“We believe mistakes were made by the security establishment’s higher echelons which need to be addressed. We are not endorsing disobedience or draft-dodging but think one can show support for the forces and demand an examination at the same time.”
Major Barak stressed that the criticism is not directed at the soldiers but at the higher echelons which initiated and led the operation. “We think that the Navy command could have better prepared itself for this operation. The event was a military failure and there are questions which need to be answered.”
By NADIA HIJAB
Israel is stuck. For decades, it has used the same strategy to achieve its objectives and to rout all challengers: overwhelming force. When it meets violence with violence — even when it uses disproportionate force as in Beirut in 1982 and 2006 and Gaza in 2008 — Israel claims self-defense and usually manages to spin the facts its way. And, as it has not yet been held to account in any meaningful way, it has seen no reason to change its strategy.
But when it meets non-violence with violence, the strategy backfires. Israel is pitching the self-defense line to try to shield itself from criticism of its attack on the Freedom Flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza convoy — but it’s not working.
You cannot claim self-defense when you have decided to send a thousand or so well-armed forces to board boats in international waters — vessels that were carefully searched before the voyage to make sure there were no arms. Or when you have killed up to 20 civilians and injured 54 others, while suffering no deaths yourself. If the situation were not so tragic, Israel’s spinning would be the stuff of comedy.
The visible crushing of peaceful activists usually has a powerful effect on world public opinion and this time it has pushed governments to take action to hold Israel accountable in a way that armed force has not. This is perhaps the most important contribution that those brave humanitarians have made to the Palestinian quest for justice.
And things will continue to unravel for Israel because it only knows how to use force to try to get its way. Ironically, Israel’s overkill has made the use of force so costly for those who favor armed resistance that the stage has been left clear for those who believe it is more effective to use civil resistance against a vastly superior armed force. It should be noted that Palestinian civil resistance is not new although it has recently been “discovered” by the mainstream media.
The first Palestinian uprising (Intifada) of 1987-1991 was almost completely non-violent and imposed itself on the world consciousness, making a powerful case for Palestinian rights. Unfortunately, the Palestinian leadership did not know how to translate the power it generated into diplomatic gains. And that uprising was just one of a series of major acts of civil resistance stretching back a century.
Today, acts of peaceful resistance are underway throughout Israel, the occupied Palestinian territories, and the rest of the world. And another outcome of Israel’s massacre on the Freedom Flotilla is that it will inexorably draw attention to the violent tactics Israel use to counter these non-violent acts.
For example, many Palestinians and their international supporters have lost their lives and been injured in protests against the illegal Wall Israel has been building in the occupied territory since 2002. The most recent victim was May 31: 21-year-old Emily Henochowicz, a student at New York’s Cooper Union, had her eye knocked out by one of the tear gas canisters Israel’s armed force routinely fire at unarmed demonstrators. She and a group of Palestinians and internationals were demonstrating in the occupied West Bank against Israel’s assault on the Flotilla. An Israeli tear gas canister killed the peaceful anti-Wall activist Bassem Abu Rahme in April 2009 as he demonstrated against his village Bil’in’s loss of 60% of its land to Israel’s Wall and settlements — and critically injured American citizen Tristan Anderson just a few weeks previously.
Israel’s international standing is also further eroded by the violence it is using against its own Palestinian citizens as they pursue their non-violent quest for equality, most recently in its draconian arrest of community leaders Ameer Makhoul and Omar Saeed. Having incarcerated both for weeks without access to legal counsel and subject to such torture as stress positions and sleep deprivation, Israel now claims to have evidence through both men’s “confessions” of collaboration with Israel’s enemies — confessions they have since retracted as obtained under duress.
Israel’s word against Ameer Makhoul’s? When it weighs the word of a known user of indiscriminate force and terror against that of a prominent civil society leader, the world will know whom to believe.
The real dilemma for Israel is that all of the force it brings to bear is aimed at achieving the unachievable: Keeping the territories it occupied in 1967, illegal under international law; privileging Jews over non-Jews within Israel, in violation of the United Nations Charter and international conventions; and denying Palestinian refugees their right of return. There are only two alternatives for Israel: to make its peace with justice and equality, or to experience growing and costly isolation.
Nadia Hijab is a senior fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies.
German Jewish group prepares flotilla to protest Israel’s blockade on Gaza. ‘Activists frightened, but not by Hamas,’ member of organization says
The German-Jewish organization Jewish Voice for Peace in the Middle East is preparing a Jewish flotilla to the Gaza Strip. “We intend to leave around July,” a member of the organization, Kate Leitrer, said to Ynet. “We have one small craft so far, in which there will be between 12 and 16 people, mostly Jews.”
Leitrer, herself Jewish, said there was great interest in joining. “Getting another boat means more expenses, and we’re discussing this possibility,” she said. “Because of limited space, there will be school equipment, candy, and mainly musical equipment, and there’ll be musicians aboard who’ll teach the children of Gaza. They need to see that Jews are not what how they are drawn in their eyes.”
Leitrer also claimed that Israel acted criminally in its lethal raid on the Gaza flotilla last Monday.
“The head of UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration) appealed to the world to send ships due to the shortage of important supplies in Gaza,” she said. “By stopping the flotilla, Israel acted criminally. Israel must not act like pirates.”
The activists are frightened, she said, but not by Hamas.
“Jews have been to Gaza in the past, and they were treated in a friendly manner,” Leitrer continued. “We have also talked with them recently, and they are very keen for us to come. We are frightened by what happened on the Marmara, but if you are committed to do good things, you have to act. People were also killed in the fight against fascism.”
She rejected Israel’s fears that weapons would be smuggled into Gaza on the aid boats.
“We haven’t heard there were weapons on the last flotilla, and people were shot and killed there,” she said. “We have contacted Israel figures and told them they are welcome to carry out searches on the boats, but we ask to be allowed to continue to Gaza. These are Gazan waters, and Israel must not control them.”
‘Open a window to Gaza’
Edith Lutz, a German Jewish member of the organization, said to Ynet the vessel is already anchored in Mediterranean waters, and that the organization had received many requests from Jews and non-Jews to take part in the flotilla.
“We began in Germany,” she said, “but many have called us from England, Sweden and the US. There may also be another boat accompanying us, mainly carrying reporters.”
Lutz explained that the Jewish flotilla aims to convey a message: Lift the siege.
“Our vessel can open a window between Israel and Gaza residents,” she said. “Two years ago I took part in the Free Gaza flotilla and wore a Magen David (Star of David), and the kids said, ‘Look, she’s Jewish,’ and they all accepted me very well. When we met (Hamas leader) Ismail Haniyeh and they told him about me, he turned to me and said they have nothing against Jews or Israel, only against the occupation.”
End Israeli Apartheid Now!
