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.
Continue reading June 7, 2010
