Tag: Settlements

July 2, 2010

‘Israel may compensate Turkish families of Gaza flotilla raid victims’: Haaretz

Ben-Eliezer and Davutoglu discussed during their meeting acceptable version of apology and compensation, amid covert efforts to rebuild shaky ties.
A senior Israeli minister indicated during secret talks in Turkey this week that Jerusalem may be willing to compensate the families of those killed in an Israel Navy raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, the Turkish daily Hurriyet reported on Thursday.
The clandestine meeting between Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu in Brussels on Wednesday, which raised a storm both in Israel and in Turkey, was the first high-level talks between the tense allies since the May 31 raid that left nine Turkish national dead.

Thousands attended the funeral on Thursday June 3, 2010 in Istanbul for the activists killed in the IDF raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla. Photo by: AFP

“Davutoglu reminded Ben-Eliezer of Turkey’s demands from Israel, including an apology, payment of compensation to families of those killed and wounded, an international inquiry and an end to the blockade of Gaza,” a Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman told reporters.

According to Hurriyet, moves toward such compensation would be made only after Israel completed its internal investigation into the raid.

Turkish sources have reported that during the meeting the two ministers tried to hammer out an acceptable version of the apology Turkey is demanding from Israel, as well as agree on compensation for the families of those killed in Israel’s raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla. “There has to be a clear Israeli statement that is not just an expression of regret at the deaths of the victims,” one Turkish source stated.

The Turkish foreign minister had originally asked the Turkish aid organization IHH to postpone its flotilla and allow the government to reach an agreement with Israel.

Davutoglu was concerned that such aid organizations might force Turkey into a foreign policy that conflicts with its own strategic interests. However, these organizations enjoy broad public support and can impact elections.

Davutoglu also believes both that Israel’s response was disproportionate and that it is not in Turkey’s interests to create an irreparable rift between the countries. This contradicts the position of several senior members of the ruling party who – more than they want to penalize Israel – fear a boosted Davutoglu seeking party leadership if not the premiership, should Erdogan run for the presidency.

Meanwhile, a Turkish human rights organization announced that preliminary findings indicate that some of the victims were killed by gunfire from inside Israel Navy helicopters and not by soldiers who had boarded the ship.

They cite the angle of the wounds and the type of head wounds of some victims. However, because the bodies were washed before they were transferred to Turkey, it is difficult to determine if they were shot from close or long range.

“Davutoglu reminded Ben-Eliezer of Turkey’s demands from Israel, including an apology, payment of compensation to families of those killed and wounded, an international inquiry and an end to the blockade of Gaza,” a Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman told reporters.

According to Hurriyet, moves toward such compensation would be made only after Israel completed its internal investigation into the raid.
Turkish sources have reported that during the meeting the two ministers tried to hammer out an acceptable version of the apology Turkey is demanding from Israel, as well as agree on compensation for the families of those killed in Israel’s raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla. “There has to be a clear Israeli statement that is not just an expression of regret at the deaths of the victims,” one Turkish source stated.

The Turkish foreign minister had originally asked the Turkish aid organization IHH to postpone its flotilla and allow the government to reach an agreement with Israel.

Davutoglu was concerned that such aid organizations might force Turkey into a foreign policy that conflicts with its own strategic interests. However, these organizations enjoy broad public support and can impact elections.

Davutoglu also believes both that Israel’s response was disproportionate and that it is not in Turkey’s interests to create an irreparable rift between the countries. This contradicts the position of several senior members of the ruling party who – more than they want to penalize Israel – fear a boosted Davutoglu seeking party leadership if not the premiership, should Erdogan run for the presidency.

Meanwhile, a Turkish human rights organization announced that preliminary findings indicate that some of the victims were killed by gunfire from inside Israel Navy helicopters and not by soldiers who had boarded the ship.

They cite the angle of the wounds and the type of head wounds of some victims. However, because the bodies were washed before they were transferred to Turkey, it is difficult to determine if they were shot from close or long range.

Chavez denounces Israel as a ‘genocidal’ government”: The Independent

Monday, 28 June 2010
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez denounced Israel as a “genocidal” government yesterday as he hosted Syrian President Bashar Assad on his first visit to Latin America.

Chavez has drawn close to Syria and Iran, and cut ties with Israel last year to protest its military offensive in the Gaza Strip.

“We have common enemies,” Mr Chavez said, describing them as “the Yankee empire, the genocidal state of Israel.”

Mr Chavez had particularly strong words for Israel throughout Assad’s visit. He reiterated his view on Saturday that the Golan Heights – captured from Syria by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war – should one day be returned to Syria.

“Someday the genocidal state of Israel will be put in its place, in the proper place and hopefully a real democratic state will be born,” Mr Chavez said. “But it has become the murderous arm of the Yankee empire – who can doubt it? – which threatens all of us.”

Yesterday Mr Assad called Israel a state “based on crime, slaughter.”

“It’s a state without limits,” he said through an interpreter.

Mr Assad praised Mr Chavez for standing up to the US and supporting the Palestinians. Mr Chavez’s outspoken stances in favour of Iran and against Israel have given him a following in the Middle East, and Assad referred to him at one point as an “Arab leader.”

The two allies spoke to an audience of Syrian immigrants at a Caracas hotel on Sunday before Mr Assad left for Cuba, where he did not speak to reporters upon his arrival at Havana’s Jose Marti International Airport.

His regional tour will also eventually take him to Brazil and Argentina.

Before leaving Venezuela, the Syrian leader condemned Israel’s blockade of Gaza and said Syria wants peace in the Mideast but not “submission” on Israel’s terms.

Assad also sardonically suggested Venezuela and Syria could help form an “an organisation called the ‘axis of evil,’ in which good governments would participate.”

Former US President George Bush once used that term for enemies such as Iran and Syria.

Terry Crawford-Browne: To end the occupation, cripple Israeli banks: The Electronic Intifada

By Terry Crawford-Browne, 30 June 2010
The international banking sanctions campaign in New York against apartheid South Africa during the 1980s is regarded as the most effective strategy in bringing about a nonviolent end to the country’s apartheid system. The campaign culminated in President FW de Klerk’s announcement in February 1990, releasing Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners, and the beginning of constitutional negotiations towards a non-racial and democratic society.
If international civil society is serious about urgently ending Israel’s violations of Palestinian rights, including ending the occupation, then suspension of SWIFT transactions to and from Israeli banks offers an instrument to help bring about a peaceful resolution of an intractable conflict. With computerization, international banking technology has advanced dramatically in the subsequent 20 years since the South African anti-apartheid campaign.
Although access to New York banks remains essential for foreign exchange transactions because of the role of the dollar, interbank transfer instructions are conducted through the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), which is based in Belgium. So, instead of New York — as in the period when sanctions were applied on South Africa– Belgium is now the pressure point.
SWIFT links 8,740 financial institutions in 209 countries. Without access to SWIFT and its interbank payment network, countries are unable either to pay for imports or to receive payment for exports. In short, no payment — no trade. Should it come to a point where trade sanctions are imposed on Israel, it may be able to evade them. Instead of chasing trade sanctions-busters and plugging loopholes, it is both faster and much more effective to suspend the payment system.
The Israeli government may consider itself to be militarily and diplomatically invincible, given support from the United States, and other governments, but Israel’s economy is exceptionally dependent upon international trade. It is thus very vulnerable to financial retaliation. South Africa’s apartheid government had also believed itself to be immune from foreign pressure.
Without SWIFT, Israel’s access to the international banking system would be crippled. Banking is the lifeblood of any economy. Without payment for imports or exports, the Israeli economy would quickly collapse. The matter has gained additional urgency with the bill now before the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, to penalize any person who promotes the imposition of boycotts against Israel. Another important political factor is that SWIFT is not only outside American jurisdiction, it is also beyond the reach of Israeli military retaliation.
Israel has long experience in sanctions-busting since the 1948 Arab boycotts. Apartheid South Africa was also well experienced in sanctions-busting — breaking oil embargoes was almost a “national sport.” Trade sanctions are invariably full of loopholes. Profiteering opportunities abound, as illustrated by Iraq, Cuba and numerous countries against which for many years the United States unsuccessfully has applied trade sanctions. Iran conducts its trade through Dubai, which happily profits from the political impasse.
Suspension of bank payments plugs such loopholes, and also alters the balance of power so that meaningful negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians become even possible. This is because banking sanctions impact quickly upon financial elites who have the clout to pressure governments to concede political change. Trade sanctions, by contrast, impact hardest on the poor or lower-paid workers, who have virtually no political influence.
SWIFT will, however, only take action against Israeli banks if ordered to do so by a Belgian court, and then only in very exceptional circumstances. Such very exceptional circumstances are now well-documented by the UN-commissioned Goldstone report into Israel’s winter 2008-09 invasion and massacre in Gaza and by the attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla on 31 May 2010. There is also a huge body of literature from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other organizations detailing Israeli war crimes and violations of humanitarian law.
The Israeli government, like that of apartheid South Africa, has become a menace to the international community. Corruption and abuses of human rights are invariably interconnected. Israel’s long military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, for example, has corrupted almost every aspect of Israeli society, most especially its economy. The Organization For Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reported in December 2009 that the Israeli government lacks commitment in tackling international corruption and money laundering.
The international financial system is exceedingly sensitive about allegations of money laundering, but also to any associations with human rights abuses. Organized crime and money laundering are major international security threats, as illustrated by the United States subpoena after the 11 September 2001 attacks of SWIFT data to track terrorist financing. The website Who Profits? (www.whoprofits.org) lists hundreds of international and Israeli companies that illegally profiteer from the occupation.
Their operations range from construction of the “apartheid wall” and settlements to agricultural produce grown on confiscated Palestinian land. As examples, Caterpillar, Volvo and Hyundai supply bulldozing equipment to demolish Palestinian homes. British supermarkets sell fresh produce grown in the West Bank, but illegally labelled as Israeli. Ahava markets Dead Sea mud and cosmetics.
The notorious Lev Leviev claims in Dubai that Leviev diamonds are of African origin, and are cut and polished in the United States rather than Israel. They are sourced from Angola, Namibia and also allegedly Zimbabwe, and can rightly be described as “blood diamonds.” Israeli diamond exports in 2008 were worth $19.4 billion, and accounted for almost 35 percent of Israeli exports. Industrial grade diamonds are essential to Israel’s armaments industry, and its provision of surveillance equipment to the world’s most unsavory dictatorships. Such profiteering depends on foreign exchange and access to the international payments system. Hence interbank transfers are essential, and SWIFT — willingly or unwillingly — has become complicit, as were the New York banks with apartheid South Africa.
Accordingly, a credible civil society organization amongst the Palestinian diaspora should lead the SWIFT sanctions campaign against Israeli banks. And, per the South African experience, it should be led by civil society rather than rely on governments.
Each bank has an eight letter SWIFT code that identifies both the bank and its country of domicile. “IL” are the fifth and sixth letters in SWIFT codes that identify Israel. The four major Israeli banks and their SWIFT codes are Israel Discount Bank (IDBILIT), Bank Hapoalim (POALILIT), Bank Leumi (LUMIILIT) and Bank of Israel (ISRAILIJ).
Such a suspension would not affect domestic banking transactions within Israel and the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip — or international transfers to Palestinian banks that have separate “PS” identities. The campaign can be reversed as soon as the objectives have been achieved, and without long-term economic damage.
What is required is an urgent application in a Belgian court ordering SWIFT to reprogram its computers to suspend all transactions to and from Israeli banks until the Israeli government agrees to end the occupation of the West Bank including East Jerusalem, and that it will dismantle the “apartheid wall;” the Israeli government recognizes the fundamental rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and Israel recognizes, respects and promotes the rights of Palestinian refugees.
The writer is a retired banker, who advised the South African Council of Churches on the banking sanctions campaign against apartheid South Africa. He spent October 2009 to January 2010 in East Jerusalem monitoring checkpoints, house demolitions and evictions, and liaising with Israeli peace groups. He lives in Cape Town.

Continue reading July 2, 2010

June 11, 2010

Bad PR Spill, by Khalil Bendib

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…

Israel eases blockade by letting in extra food items: The Independent

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…

More Musicians Cancel Performances in Israel: The New York Times

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…

Israel plans to send bill to Palestinians over boycotts: The Independent

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”.

Continue reading June 11, 2010

June 5, 2010

Israel threatens the Rachel Corrie, by Carlos Latuff

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

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

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

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

‘Mad Dog’ Diplomacy: ICH

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Israel arrests Free Gaza chief: Ma’an News

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hamas officials given one month to leave Israel: Haaretz

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

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

Continue reading June 5, 2010

June 3, 2010

Steve Bell in the Guardian, June 2 2010

EDITOR: Meanwhile, on the farm…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

International pressure

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Self-flagellation’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here, he tells his account of what happened.

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

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

Huwaida Arraf Part 1

Huwaida Arraf Part 2

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

Continue reading June 3, 2010

June 2, 2010, Page 2

EDITOR: The Lunatic State of the Jewish State

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

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

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

Haim Bresheeth

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

Wednesday, 2 June 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Flotilla attack: full UN statement: The Guardian

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Continue reading June 2, 2010, Page 2

June 1, 2010 Page 2


Breaking News! Israel murders more than 10 Peace

Activists on the Freedom Flotilla!

EDITOR: Pirates of the Mediterranean hit again!

Now, more than 36 hours after the massacre, we still do not know anything about:

How many have been murdered, injured and what are their names?

What is going on in the detention centre where over 620 people, kidnapped on the boats, are being held illegally?

When will people be released?

and most importantly, when will the illegal and immoral Blockade on Gaza be terminated?

Israel, a pariah terrorist state of pirates and murderers, has again killed and maimed innocent people, kidnapped and arrested them, denied their human rights, and all this with perfect immunity. Do not be confused by the noises of the leaders of the western nations, please! None of this means anything. Israel has NEVER paid for any of its crimes, because our leaders have supported it, and will continue to do so. The only route to change in the Middle East is total Boycott, Divestment and Sanction, like we have pushed for successfully  in the case of South Africa! There is no more time for Mr. Nice Guy O’Bummer – good oratory is leading us nowhere, and we should say so. Trust not in the politicians – what we need is a mass civic campaign, and we can do this, and will.

Do not forget! Do not Forgive! Do not overlook War Crimes! Do not avoid the voices of Palestine and Gaza calling out, calling for an end of the decades oif nightmare called Zionism. Let the ‘friends of Israel’ defend this murder – we will fight against this vile entity until it is gone, like apartheid South Africa!

La Luta Continua!

Gideon Levy: Operation Mini Cast Lead: Haaretz

By Gideon Levy, Haaretz – 1 June 2010
Like in “Mini-Israel,” the park where there is everything, but smaller, Israel embarked yesterday on a mini Operation Cast Lead. Like its larger, losing predecessor, this operation had it all: the usual false claim that is was they who had started it – and not the landing of commandos from helicopters on a ship in open sea, away from Israeli territorial waters. There was the claim that the first act of violence came not from the soldiers, but the rioting activists on Mavi Marmara; that the blockade on Gaza is legal and that the flotilla to its shores is against the law – God knows which law.
Again came the claim of self defense, that “they lynched us” and that all the dead are on their side. Once more the use of violence and excessive and lethal force was in play and once more civilians wound up dead.
This action also featured the pathetic focus on “public relations,” as if there is something to explain, and again the sick question was asked: Why didn’t the soldiers use more force.
Again Israel will pay a heavy diplomatic price, once which had not been considered ahead of time. Again, the Israeli propaganda machine has managed to convince only brainwashed Israelis, and once more no one asked the question: What was it for? Why were our soldiers thrown into this trap of pipes and ball bearings? What did we get out of it?
If Cast Lead was a turning point in the attitude of the world toward us, this operation is the second horror film of the apparently ongoing series. Israel proved yesterday that it learned nothing from the first movie.
Yesterday’s fiasco could and should have been prevented. This flotilla should have been allowed to pass and the blockade should be brought to an end.
This should have happened a long time ago. In four years Hamas has not weakened and Gilad Shalit was not released. There was not even a sign of a gain.
And what have we instead? A country that is quickly becoming completely isolated. This is a place that turns away intellectuals, shoots peace activists, cuts off Gaza and now finds itself in an international blockade. Once more yesterday it seemed, and not for the first time, that Israel is increasingly breaking away from the mother ship, and losing touch with the world – which does not accept its actions and does not understand its motives.
Yesterday there was no one on the planet, not a newsman or analyst, except for its conscripted chorus, who could say a good word about the lethal takeover.
The Israel Defense Forces too came out looking bad again. The magic evaporated long ago, the most moral army in the world, that was once the best army in the world, failed again. More and more there is the impression that nearly everything it touches causes harm to Israel.

EDITOR: “Friends of Israel’?

Friends of Israel? Friends of murderers, pirates and fascists? Friends of those who incarcerate and starve almost two million people in Gaza, for over four years, just because they exercised their vote which displeased Israel? Friends of the apartheid wall, of the racist Jewish state? Friends of vile vice, of brutality and bloodthirsty regime? What are they friends of? Not of us, the rest of humanity!

Israel’s ‘friends’ also to blame: Al Jazeera

By Mark LeVine
Americans protest against the attack on the Gaza aid flotilla [AFP]
Perhaps now Americans will understand the true nature of the Israeli occupation.

It has never been about security. Not for one day. It has been about land and power. And this is where it has led. And we have made it possible.

Since at least the mid-1970s, only one country has had the power to force Israel to give up its dreams of permanent occupation of the West Bank: The US.

After the success against Soviet-backed Arab forces in 1967, Israel suddenly became a “strategic asset” – a useful proxy in the global great game against Communism.

For three decades the US and its political class have feigned concern, affection and even love for Israel; the reality is that Israel has always been a tool to advance US strategic goals and power, and nothing more.

All the while, thoughtful Israelis – not to mention Palestinians and the rest of the world – have begged the US to intervene, to stop the insanity before it created an abscess that threatened not just the Jewish state, but the whole region, and even global peace.

But the US goal was never to “protect” or “support” Israel.

Facilitators
The US’ goal was never to protect or support it’s ‘friend’ Israel [AFP]
We have pretended to be its friend, but we are the friend in the way your drug dealer is your friend, sitting with you late at night listening to your problems while hooking you up with your next fix – only in strange twist, the American people rather than the Israelis are paying for the habit their government and corporate elites grow richer sustaining.

We are the ultimate facilitators of this insane and immoral arrangement, which is part of our larger addiction to war that now reaches $1 trillion per year.

We cannot see Israel and the occupation for what they are, because to do so would be to look into the most uncomfortable mirror imaginable.

We are like the local arms dealer – Nicholas Cage’s character in the chilling film Lord of War, only real, and 300,000,000 strong.

We tell Israel everything is okay when it is disastrously wrong. We reinforce every bad habit while declaring its behaviour largely above reproach.

We “defend” Israel from every criticism – “No! It doesn’t have a problem!” “It’s the only democracy in the region!” “We stand with Israel!” – really, we stand beside Israel, give it some more “brown-brown” (cocaine mixed with gun powder) to snort, hand it some new weapons and send it out to kill and oppress some more, in our name.

Some friend.

Politicide
The occupation has been an act of sheer brutality for decades. What has happened in Gaza – what the US and the world community have allowed to happen, for we could always stop it with a simple phone call from the US president to the Israeli prime minister – is sheer madness.

It is politicide. It is slow starvation, of the soul and mind as much as the body. Not the kind that produces pictures of distended bellies, blank eyes and ragged clothes, but that slowly eats away at the personality, the will to fight, the ability to overcome, that produces medical problems that will haunt a million people for life.

And because the US and other so-called “great powers” would do nothing and Palestinians have little power left to effectively resist, people around the world, average people, from Palestinians to Holocaust survivors, have felt compelled to act.

They have sent ships now numerous times to break the siege of Gaza. Israel could not allow the siege to be broken because if the world saw what Gaza has become, not merely a prison but something far worse and hard to speak of, even its vaunted “hasbara” or propaganda machine, would not be able to spin it.

And the worse it gets, the more Israel’s backers, like the US, cannot afford the world to see it because we have made it happen.

Moral turpitude
Israel’s backers cannot allow the world see the result of the siege they have let happen [AFP]
And now at least 10 people are dead because of the shame, because of the inability of Israel’s best friends to look it in the eye and say: “Stop this insanity. Treat Palestinians like humans before you destroy not only them, but you.”

We cannot say that because we are guilty as well, and the US has proved singularly unable to come to grips with our own culpability in occupations from Iraq and Afghanistan to Gaza and, of course, our own original sin, which demanded millions of dead native Americans to ensure the creation of the very country that now supplies Israel with its weapons and tells it everything is going to be okay.

Some day you can let the Palestinians have casinos and they will thank you.

It is tragically fitting that this disaster should happen on Memorial Day in the US.

The martyrs of the ships are heroes, they are warriors every bit as deserving of our tears and support as the soldiers of American wars past and present.

They are, in fact, the soldiers of the future – the only ones who can help us get out of the disastrous slide to moral turpitude that we, as much as Israel, have descended as a country.

Let us hope that the deaths of the Gaza flotilla activists will not be as in vain as those of the 5,000 American soldiers who have died in our own illegal and useless wars in the last decade.

Mark LeVine is a professor of history at UC Irvine and senior visiting researcher at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University in Sweden. His most recent books are Heavy Metal Islam (Random House) and Impossible Peace: Israel/Palestine Since 1989 (Zed Books).

“Israel is Giving Piracy a Bad Name!”

Pirates of the Caribbean

Naomi Klein speaks at Gaza Freedom Flotilla protest in Toronto, Canada

rabbletv — May 31, 2010 — On May 31, 2010, Torontonians took to the streets to protest the Israeli attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla carrying aid supplies to Gaza overnight.

The rally and march ended in Dundas Square, where Naomi Klein delivered an impassioned speech about the attack which has left an estimated 20 people dead and many more injured, and about the need for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel.

Filmed by Bob Chandler, edited by Michelle Langlois for rabbletv.

“Israel is the only Piratical Jewish Democracy in the Middle East”

President and Chief War Criminal, Shimon (Smiley) Peres

Continue reading June 1, 2010 Page 2

May 31, 2010 Page 2

Israel Navy Massacres Freedom #Flotilla Passengers in International Water

EDITOR: The Voice of Peace

Only yesterday it looked like this, below. But even then, the murderous intentions were clear!


Turkey recalls envoy to Israel over Gaza flotilla deaths: Haartez

Egypt summons Israeli ambassador; Arab League urges member states to ‘reconsider dealings with Israel’; European Union condemns incident; UN chief calls for full inquiry.
Turkey announced Monday that it was recalling its ambassador to Israelafter 10 international activists were killed when the Israel Navy stormed a ship bringing aid to the Gaza Strip, while Egypt summoned Israel’s envoy in Cairo in response to the incident.
Egypt in 1979 became the first Arab state to sign a peace treaty with Israel. Turkey and Israel hold diplomatic ties, though they have been strained over the last year.
The Arab League, meanwhile, urged member states to “reconsider” their dealings with Israel.
“Israel’s attack indicates Israel is not ready for peace. Israel attacked the liberty fleet because it feels it is above the law,” Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa said in Doha.
“There is no benefit in dealing with Israel in this manner and we must re-assess our dealing with Israel,” he said.

Israeli commandos intercepted the aid flotilla on Monday. Officials said they were met with knives and staves when they boarded the ships, which included a ferry flying the Turkish flag.
Israel’s foreign ministry warned its citizens to avoid travel to Turkey and instructed those already there to keep a low profile and avoid crowded downtown areas.
Turkey denounced Israel’s killing of 10 left-wing activists as “unacceptable” and summoning Israel’s ambassador to discuss the incident – bringing already tense relations between the countries to new heights.

The ministry said that Israel had violated international law and must now carry the consequences.”[The interception on the convoy] is unacceptable … Israel will have to endure the consequences of this behavior,” it said in a statement.
Murat Mercan, a lawmaker from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling party, said: “I was expecting an intervention. I was not expecting bloodshed, the use of arms and bullets.”

“Israel is engaged in activity that will extremely hurt its image,” he said. Erdogan, meanwhile, cut short a trip abroad to deal with the incident.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas described the clashes as a “massacre.
UN chief calls for full inquiry into Gaza flotilla deaths
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for a full investigation and expressed shock at Israel’s storming of the convoy.
“It is vital that there is a full investigation to determine exactly how this bloodshed took place. I believe Israel must urgently provide a full explanation,” he said at a press conference in the Ugandan capital of Kampala.

France became the first European nation to respond to the early morning’s events. Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said he was “profoundly shocked”.
Many of the activists aboard the protest ships were European nationals and analysts have predicted a harsh diplomatic response from the European Union and its member states.

Many of the activists aboard the protest ships were European nationals and analysts have predicted a harsh diplomatic response from the European Union and its member states.
The European Union demanded an inquiry and Germany said it was “shocked”. The United Nations condemned violence against civilians in international waters.

Germany, one of Israel’s most loyal allies, expressed shock at the deadly interception and questioned whether the action by Israeli commandos was proportionate.
Two members of the Bundestag lower house of parliament were among five Germans on board the ships, the foreign ministry said.

“The German government is shocked by events in the international waters by Gaza,” government spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm told a regular news conference, adding the government was seeking further clarification about the incident.
“Every German government supports unconditionally Israel’s right to self defence,” said Wilhelm. But he added that Israeli actions should to correspond to what he described as the “basic principle” of proportionality.

“A first look does not speak in favor of this basic principle being adhered to,” he said. Berlin would await further details before judging the incident, he added.
Italy also condemned the killing of civilians during Israel’s storming of the aid flotilla as “very grave” and asked for an EU investigation to ascertain the facts.

“I deplore in the strongest terms the killing of civilians. This is certainly a grave act,” said Foreign Minister Franco Frattini.
Referring to the European Commission, he said it was “indispensable that there be an inquest to ascertain the facts, which are still not clear.”
He also said he had asked the Israeli ambassador for clarification and hoped that it would not hurt efforts on the part of Israel and Turkey to cooperate in the search for Middle East peace.

Death toll from Gaza aid attack hits 20: Press TV

Mon, 31 May 2010 05:27:14 GMT
The death toll from the Israeli navy’s takeover of a Gaza aid convoy has risen to 20 while Israel carefully censors reports on the casualties from the attack.

Gaza Freedom Flotilla came under fire early on Monday by Israeli navy forces in international waters more than 150km (90 miles) off the coast of Gaza.

The six-ship aid fleet was soon stormed by commandos descending from helicopters.
At least 20 people were killed in the takeover of the Gaza aid convoy, al-Aqsa TV channel reported, saying that more than 50 people, including leader of the Palestinian Islamic Movement Sheikh Raed Salah, were wounded in the attack.
The news trickled through the Israeli military censorship which has sought to block the reporting of any information about the casualties.

A report on the Israeli radio said the censorship was aimed at covering up the number of casualties brought to Israeli hospitals for treatment.

Meanwhile, Israeli Trade and Industry Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer expressed regret for the deaths aboard the Gaza aid ships.

“The images are certainly not pleasant. I can only voice regret at all the fatalities,” he told Israel’s Army Radio.

The comments come as the first official acknowledgement by Tel Aviv that the attack had turned fatal.

Israel had initially declined to comment on the reports of casualties from the takeover of the aid ships.

The way out of isolation: Haaretz Editorial

Israel suffered a searing diplomatic defeat at the five-year review conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that ended last weekend.
Israel suffered a searing diplomatic defeat at the five-year review conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that ended last weekend. The treaty’s 189 member states, including the United States, urged Israel to sign the NPT, which would mean ending its policy of ambiguity and dismantling its alleged nuclear capability. The conference also decided to promote the establishment of a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East, and to convene a regional conference on this issue in 2012.

The U.S. administration tried to mitigate the damage to Israel, and President Barack Obama restated his commitment to its security. This issue will be discussed tomorrow at his White House meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel will not hasten to alter its nuclear policy, and one should not expect foreign inspectors to visit the Dimona nuclear reactor anytime in the foreseeable future.
But the lameness of the review conference’s decision in practice, and even the consoling messages from Washington, do nothing to obscure the main problem: Israel has once again found itself isolated against the entire international community. The prime minister’s response – to declare that Israel will not help implement the decision – only painted it as rejectionist in the face of a global consensus. Even if Israel has no formal obligation to honor the decisions of a group to which it does not belong, its diplomatic isolation is only worsened by saying no to international decisions.

We must not ignore Obama’s message: While expressing reservations about isolating Israel, the White House also made clear that it is adhering to long-standing American policy on the peace process. Or in less diplomatic language, Israel’s stubbornness on the Palestinian issue is liable to carry a price in other areas of strategic importance. Those who want to control the territories for all eternity and expand the settlements are liable to undermine Dimona. Indeed, Israel itself is the one that created the link between nuclear capability and peace when it declared years ago that nuclear disarmament in the Middle East would be possible only once a comprehensive peace had been achieved.

At his meeting with Obama tomorrow, Netanyahu will have an opportunity to repair Israel’s relationship with its most important, and indeed only, ally. He must not waste it in yet another attempt to buy time and stymie the justified demand for an end to the occupation. For Israel to break out of its growing international isolation, Netanyahu must say yes, without reservations, to the peace process that Obama seeks to advance.

Continue reading May 31, 2010 Page 2

May 31, 2010

Bastards! by Carlos Latuff

Breaking News! Breaking News! 19 Activists were

murdered by IOF on the Freedom Flotilla

Editor: Murder and Piracy on the High Seas

Anyone still supporting Israel, are themselves criminals, aidingand abbeting a criminal apartheid regime. From now on, the war against the Israeli war criminals will not stop, until they will face their justice in international courts. Any Israelis who are not openly against their governemnt, are by definition supporting it, and should face boycott, divestment and sanctions. Even before this terrible murder of innocent civilian activists, the international community has started the anti-apartheid canmpaign, which has intensified after the Gaza massacre. This latest crime will only help to clarify that the fascist Israeli government must be faced off by the whole international community, and brought to justice.

The news about this murder is still patchy, due to the total control Israeli Occupation Army forces have enforced on the ships. All activists are under illegal arrest, another crime Israel will have to pay for. The beginning of the end of Zionism is here, in those ruthless, mindless crimes, and those usual apologists for Israeli crimes will no longer be listened to, I am sure. No doubt the BBC, CNN and other news channels under the spell of Israeli propaganda will continue to spout lies, but they will confuse no one. The countdown has started on the apartheid regime!

On all channels Israeli spokesperson are now claiming that they were attacked by the convoy… who will believe them? Do not bother reading listening to the BBC, apart from reacting to their pro-Israeli bias on all reports. The same can be said about ALL US channels. Al Jazeera is the only channel worth listrening to, if you wish to hear an objective and well informed reports.

Deaths as Israeli forces storm Gaza aid ship: BBC

Page last updated at 10:06 GMT, Monday, 31 May 2010 11:06 UK
E-mail this to a friendPrintable version
Turkish TV footage appeared to show Israeli troops on board
More than 10 people have been killed after Israeli commandos stormed a convoy of ships carrying aid to the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army says.
Armed forces boarded the largest vessel overnight, clashing with some of the 500 people on board.
It happened about 40 miles (64 km) out to sea, in international waters.
Israel says its soldiers were shot at and attacked with weapons; the activists say Israeli troops came on board shooting.
The European Union has called for an inquiry to establish what happened.

‘Guns and knives’
The six-ship flotilla, carrying 10,000 tonnes of aid, left the coast of Cyprus on Sunday and had been due to arrive in Gaza on Monday.
Israel says its soldiers boarded the lead ship in the early hours but were attacked with axes, knives, bars and at least two guns.
“Unfortunately this group were dead-set on confrontation,” Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev told the BBC.
“Live fire was used against our forces. They initiated the violence, that’s 100% clear,” he said.
Organisers of the flotilla said at least 30 people were wounded in the incident. Israel says 10 of its soldiers were injured, one seriously.
A leader of Israel’s Islamic Movement, Raed Salah, who was on board, was among those hurt.
Audrey Bomse, a spokesperson for the Free Gaza Movement, which is behind the convoy, told the BBC Israel’s actions were disproportionate.

“We were not going to pose any violent resistance. The only resistance that there might be would be passive resistance such as physically blocking the steering room, or blocking the engine room downstairs, so that they couldn’t get taken over. But that was just symbolic resistance.”
She said there was “absolutely no evidence of live fire”.
Israel is towing the boats to the port of Ashdod and says it will deport the passengers from there. It says it will deliver the ships’ aid to Gaza.

Condemnation
Turkish TV pictures taken on board the Turkish ship leading the flotilla appeared to show Israeli soldiers fighting to control passengers.
Consists of three cargo ships and three passenger ships
Casualties reported on the Mavi Marmara passenger ferry
Mavi Marmara is one of three ships provided by Insani Yardim Vakfi (IHH), a Turkish aid organisation with links to the Turkish government
Other ships are organised by the Free Gaza Movement, an international coalition of activist groups
Up to 600 mostly Turkish passengers, tonnes of cement and at least two journalists on board the Mavi Marmara
The footage showed a number of people, apparently injured, lying on the ground. A woman was seen holding a blood-stained stretcher.

Al-Jazeera TV reported from the same ship that Israeli navy forces had opened fire and boarded the vessel, wounding the captain.
The Al-Jazeera broadcast ended with a voice shouting in Hebrew, saying: “Everybody shut up!”
Israel’s deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said his country “regrets any loss of life and did everything to avoid this outcome”.
He accused the convoy of a “premeditated and outrageous provocation”, describing the flotilla as an “armada of hate”.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas condemned Israel’s actions, saying it had committed a massacre.

Most of the people on board the boats were Turkish.
Turkey accused Israel of “targeting innocent civilians”.
“We strongly denounce Israel’s inhumane interception,” it said, warning of “irreparable consequences” to the two countries’ relations.
Danny Ayalon, Israeli deputy foreign minister: “The organisers’ intent was violent.”
Turkey was Israel’s closest Muslim ally but relations have deteriorated over the past few years.
In Turkey, thousands of protesters demonstrated against Israel in Istanbul, while several countries have summoned Israeli ambassadors to seek an explanation as to what happened.
Greece has withdrawn from joint military exercises with Israel in protest at the raid on the flotilla.

Blockade
Israel had repeatedly said it would stop the boats, calling the campaign a “provocation intended to delegitimise Israel”.
Israel and Egypt tightened a blockade of Gaza after the Islamist movement Hamas took power there in 2007.
Israel says it allows about 15,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid into Gaza every week.

But the United Nations says this is less than a quarter of what is needed.
The incident comes a day before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to meet US President Barack Obama in Washington after one of the most strained periods in US-Israeli relations in years.
Do you know someone aboard these ships? What is your reaction to this story? Send us your comments, pictures and videos.

L’évolution des événements minute par minute: Le Mond

31.05.10
Inverser l’ordre de tri
13:07 – L’ambassadeur israélien à Paris convoqué au Quai d’Orsay

L’ambassadeur d’Israël en France, Daniel Shek, va être convoqué lundi après-midi au ministère des affaires étrangères, qui veut des explications sur le raid meurtrier israélien contre une flottille internationale en route vers Gaza, a annoncé un porte-parole du Quai d’Orsay.

12:56 – Le président du Parlement européen veut la levée du blocus de Gaza

Le président du Parlement européen, Jerzy Buzek, a dénoncé “invite la haute représentante de l’UE pour les affaires étrangères, Catherine Ashton, à prendre des mesures au sein du Quartette pour forcer Israël à lever le siège qui frappe la population de Gaza immédiatement et sans condition”. Catherine Ashton a déjà demandé une “enquête complète” des autorités israéliennes sur les circonstances de la prise d’assaut de la flottille, et réclamé une ouverture “immédiate” et “sans conditions” de Gaza.

12:45 – Le PS demande une réunion immédiate du Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU

Le Parti socialiste a demandé une “réunion immédiate” du Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU. Lors d’un point-presse, Benoît Hamon, porte-parole socialiste, a exprimé “l’émotion du PS et sa condamnation à l’action inacceptable et très choquante d’Israël contre la flottille humanitaire”.

“Nous sommes confrontés à une crise internationale”, a dit M. Hamon qui a demandé “des réponses sous la forme d’une réunion immédiate du Conseil de sécurité des Nations unies : d’abord pour éviter l’embrasement” et “faire baisser la tension”, et “ensuite pour espérer que les Etats-Unis, cette fois-ci, s’associent à une condamnation solennelle de l’opération” qui “oblige le gouvernement israélien à bouger”.

12:42 – La Turquie annule un exercice militaire conjoint avec Israël

La Turquie a rappelé son ambassadeur en Israël, a annoncé le vice-premier ministre turc, Bulent Arinc.
M. Arinc a annoncé aussi que des préparatifs pour des manoeuvres militaires conjointes avec Israël avaient été annulés. Il a confirmé que la Turquie avait démandé une réunion d’urgence du Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU.

12:24 – Sarkozy : “Toute la lumière doit être faite sur cette tragédie”

Nicolas Sarkozy a exprimé sa profonde émotion et demandé une enquête après l’assaut meurtrier des forces israéliennes contre une flottille humanitaire qui cherchait à atteindre Gaza. “Le président de la République exprime sa profonde émotion devant les conséquences tragiques de l’opération militaire israélienne (…). Il condamne l’usage disproportionné de la force et adresse ses condoléances aux familles des victimes”, lit-on dans un communiqué. “Toute la lumière doit être faite sur les circonstances de cette tragédie, qui souligne l’urgence d’une relance du processus de paix”, ajoute-t-il.

12:15 – Sept Français à bord de la flottille, selon “Le Parisien”

Selon les informations du Parisien, “une délégation de sept Français représentant trois associations est à bord de la flottille”. “Les responsables de la Campagne Civile Internationale pour la Protection du Peuple Palestinien ont indiqué qu’ils n’avaient plus de nouvelles de leurs ‘camarades depuis 3 heures cette nuit’, ‘peu de temps avant le raid de l’armée’.”

12:10 – Une action “inacceptable” pour la Norvège

La Norvège juge “inacceptable” l’assaut de l’armée israélienne, déclare le premier ministre Jens Stoltenberg. Il a ajouté que l’ambassadeur israélien à Oslo a été convoqué. “Le gouvernement norvégien est ébranlé par les informations selon lesquelles l’armée israélienne a donné l’assaut à des bateaux transportant de l’aide humanitaire civile”, a dit M. Stoltenberg. La flottille comptait trois Norvégiens dont le sort n’est pas encore connu, a-t-il précisé. Le chef du gouvernement norvégien a réclamé “une enquête internationale indépendante immédiate”. “Cela renforce aussi le point de vue norvégien selon lequel le blocus de Gaza doit être levé”, a-t-il ajouté.

12:06 – Rome rectifie sa position sur l’assaut israélien

Le ministre des affaires étrangères italien, Franco Frattini, a “déploré le meurtre de civils” dans l’assaut militaire israélien. Auparavant, le sous-secrétaire d’Etat aux affaires étrangères Alfredo Mantica avait estimé que la tentative de la flottille pro-palestinienne de rompre l’embargo israélien sur Gaza était de “la pure provocation”.

12:00 – Les Israéliens invités à éviter la Turquie

Le bureau israélien de lutte contre le terrorisme, qui dépend des services du premier ministre, appelle les Israéliens à reporter leurs projets de visite en Turquie de crainte de manifestations hostiles après l’assaut contre la flottille pour Gaza.

11:57 – Une ONG grecque dénonce des tirs à balles réelles

Un bateau grec de la flottille pro-palestinienne en route vers Gaza, le Sfendoni, a essuyé des tirs à “balles réelles” dans la nuit à partir d’hélicoptères et de canots gonflables israéliens, affirmée une ONG grecque engagée dans la flottille.

11:54 – Manifestations à Istanbul et Ankara

Plusieurs milliers de personnes ont manifesté lundi sur la principale place d’Istanbul pour protester contre le raid israélien. “Mort à Israël !”, “Soldats turcs, partez pour Gaza !”, ont scandé les manifestants rassemblés en fin de matinée sur la place Taksim, au coeur de la plus grande ville turque.

De nombreux autres manifestants arrivaient sur la place, où d’importants effectifs de police étaient déployés. Environ 400 manifestants avaient plus tôt dans la matinée scandé des slogans hostiles à Israël devant le consulat israélien, dans le quartier de Levent. Quelques manifestants avaient jeté des bouteilles en plastique en direction du bâtiment, avant d’être repoussés par la police. A Ankara, un peu moins de 200 personnes sont venues manifester devant la résidence de l’ambassadeur d’Israël, protégé par des forces de police. Les manifestants ont organisé une prière devant le domicile de l’ambassadeur.

11:54 – Le bilan de l’assaut revu à la hausse : 19 morts, 26 blessés

Dix-neuf passagers ont été tués et 26 autres blessés lors de l’assaut des commandos israéliens contre la flottille humanitaire, affirme la chaîne 10 de la télévision israélienne.

11:46 – José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero condamne l’intervention israélienne

Le chef du gouvernement socialiste, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, a qualifié les événements qui ont causé la mort de plus de dix passagers de la flottille de “faits graves et préoccupants”. L’ambassadeur d’Israël à Madrid “a été convoqué” pour qu’on lui demande des explications. Cet assaut est “absolument condamnable”, a jugé pour sa part le secrétaire d’Etat aux Affaires européennes, Diego Lopez Garrido.

11:45 – Inquiétude pour une délégation algérienne

Le Mouvement algérien de la société de la paix (MSP) indique qu’il est “sans nouvelles” d’une délégation algérienne de 32 membres faisant partie de la flotille prise d’assaut, “comprenant des députés, des journalistes et des médecins”.

11:40 – Le Danemark convoque l’ambassadeur israélien

La ministre des affaires étrangères danoise, Lene Espersen, convoque l’ambassadeur d’Israël à Copenhague pour entendre ses explications sur l’assaut.

At least 10 activists killed in Israel Navy clashes onboard Gaza aid flotilla: Haaretz

IDF says 10 killed, 2 commandos wounded as troops tried to board; ships towed to Ashdod port.
Confrontation took place in international waters
IDF: Passengers attacked lone commando with iron bars, opened fire
Flotilla had reportedly changed course to avoid confrontation
Israel Navy troops opened fire on pro-Palestinian activists aboard a six-ship flotilla carrying aid destined for the Gaza Strip before dawn Monday, killing at least 10 people and wounding several others, after the convoy ignored orders to turn back. The Navy later towed the ships to Ashdod port.
The Israel Defense Forces said 10 activists were killed after its troops came under fire while intercepting the convoy. Unofficial reports put the death toll at between 14 and 20.

“Our initial findings show that at least 10 convoy participants were killed,” an army spokesman said.
The military said in a statement: “Navy fighters took control of six ships that tried to violate the naval blockade (of the Gaza Strip) … During the takeover, the soldiers encountered serious physical violence by the protesters, who attacked them with live fire.”
Turkey’s NTV said over 60 were also wounded after IDF vessels stormed the flotilla in international waters.

The IDF earlier confirmed that two navy commandos had been wounded in fight, which apparently broke out after activists tried to seize their weapons.
According to the IDF, commandos who stormed the Turkish ferry Mavi Marmara, the largest vessel in the convoy, encountered violent resistance from activists armed with sticks and knives.
Activists attacked a commando with iron bars as he descended onto the ship from a helicopter, the army said. The IDF said its rules of engagement allowed troops to open fire in what it called a “life-threatening situation”.

Elite troops from Shayetet 13, a naval commando unit, boarded the protest boats at around 4:00 A.M. Earlier Monday, Al Jazeera reported that the Gaza aid flotilla had changed course to avoid a confrontation with Israeli warships.
The Israeli naval vessels reportedly made contact earlier with the six-ship flotilla, which is carrying 10,000 tons of humanitarian aid and supplies to Gaza.
Some 700 pro-Palestinian activists are on the boats, including 1976 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire of Northern Ireland, European legislators and an elderly Holocaust survivor.

The Israeli navy was operating under the assumption that the activists manning the boats would not heed their calls to turn around, and Israeli troops were prepared to board the ships and steer them away from the Gaza shores and toward the Israeli port city of Ashdod.
Huwaida Arraf, one of the flotilla organizers, said the six-ship flotilla began the journey from international waters off the coast of Cyprus on Sunday afternoon after two days of delays. According to organizers, the flotilla was expected to reach Gaza, about 400 kilometers away, on Monday afternoon, and two more ships would follow in a second wave.

The flotilla was fully prepared for the different scenarios that might arise, and organizers were hopeful that Israeli authorities would do what’s right and not stop the convoy, one of the organizers said.
“We fully intend to go to Gaza regardless of any intimidation or threats of violence against us,” Arraf said. “They are going to have to forcefully stop us.”
After nightfall, three Israeli navy missile boats left their base in Haifa, heading out to sea to confront the activists’ ships.

Two hours later, Israel Radio broadcast a recording of one of the missile boats warning the flotilla not to approach Gaza.
“If you ignore this order and enter the blockaded area, the Israeli navy will be forced to take all the necessary measures in order to enforce this blockade,” the radio message continued.
The flotilla, which includes three cargo ships and three passenger ships, is trying to draw attention to Israel’s three-year blockade of the Gaza Strip. The boats are carrying items that Israel bars from reaching Gaza, like cement and other building materials.

The activists said they also were carrying hundreds of electric-powered wheelchairs, prefabricated homes and water purifiers.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said that after a security check, permitted humanitarian aid confiscated from the boats will be transferred to Gaza through authorized channels. However, Israel would not transfer items it has banned from Gaza under its blockade rules. Palmor said that for example, cement would be allowed only if it is tied to a specific project.

This is the ninth time that the Free Gaza movement has tried to ship in humanitarian aid to Gaza since August 2008.
Israel has let ships through five times, but has blocked them from entering Gaza waters since the three-week military offensive against Gaza’s Hamas rulers in January 2009. The flotilla bound for Gaza is the largest to date.

The mission has experienced repeated delays, both due to mechanical problems and a decision by Cyprus to bar any boat from sailing from its shore to Gaza. The ban forced a group of European lawmakers to depart from the breakaway Turkish Cypriot northern part of the island late Saturday.

Israel and Egypt imposed the blockade on Gaza after Hamas militants violently seized control of the seaside territory in June 2007.
Israel says the measures are needed to prevent Hamas, which has fired thousands of rockets at Israel, from building up its arsenal. But United Nations officials and international aid groups say the blockade has been counterproductive, failing to weaken the Islamic militant group while devastating the local economy.

Israel rejects claims of a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, saying it allows more than enough food and medicine into the territory. The Israelis also point to the bustling smuggling industry along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, which has managed to bring consumer goods, gasoline and livestock into the seaside strip.
Israel has condemned the flotilla as a provocation and vowed to block it from reaching Gaza.
Israeli military officials said they hoped to resolve the situation peacefully but are prepared for all scenarios. Naval commandos have been training for days in anticipation of the standoff. Military officials, speaking on condition of anonymity under official guidelines, said the forces would likely take over the boats under the cover of darkness.

Palmor said foreigners on the ships would be sent back to their countries. Activists who did not willingly agree to be deported would be detained. A special detention facility had been set up in Ashdod.

Reaction to Gaza aid ship deaths: BBC

Page last updated at 9:27 GMT, Monday, 31 May 2010 10:27 UK
E-mail this to a friendPrintable version Angry demonstrations quickly flared at the Israeli consulate in Istanbul
A number of people have been killed as Israeli forces intercepted a convoy of ships carrying humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.

A Turkish vessel leading the flotilla was among those raided. There has been strong international reaction to the incident.

DANIEL AYALON, ISRAELI DEPUTY FOREIGN MINISTER

The armada of hate and violence in support of [the] Hamas terror organisation was a premeditated and outrageous provocation. The organisers are well known for their ties with global jihad, al-Qaeda and Hamas. They have a history of arms smuggling and deadly terror.

On board the ship, we found weapons prepared in advance and used against our forces. The organisers intent was violent, their method was violent and the results were unfortunately violent. Israel regrets any loss of life and did everything to avoid this outcome.

TURKISH FOREIGN MINISTRY

We strongly condemn these inhumane practices of Israel. This deplorable incident, which took place in open seas and constitutes a fragrant breach of international law, may lead to irreparable consequences in our bilateral relations.

GRETA BERLIN, FREE GAZA MOVEMENT SPOKESWOMAN

It’s disgusting that they have come on board and attacked civilians. We are civilians.

How could the Israeli military attack civilians like this? Do they think that because they can attack Palestinians indiscriminately they can attack anyone?

SAEB EREKAT, CHIEF PALESTINIAN NEGOTIATOR

What we have seen this morning is a war crime. These were civilian ships carrying civilians and civilian goods – medicine, wheelchairs, food, construction materials – intended for the 1.5 million Palestinians holed up under a cruel and criminal siege by Israel. And for that, many have paid with their lives. What Israel does in Gaza is appalling; no informed and decent human can say otherwise.

The unarmed civilian activists were attacked on foreign vessels while sailing in international waters. This is another incident confirming that Israel acts as a state above the law. The international community must take swift and appropriate action.

MARK REGEV, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER’S SPOKESMAN

Though our naval servicemen were instructed to exercise maximum restraint, they were attacked. They were attacked with knives, with iron clubs, and also with live fire.

We have unfortunately 10 servicemen injured, one of them very, very seriously. The violence was initiated unfortunately by these activists, and this is regrettable.

SAMI ABU ZUHRI, HAMAS SPOKESMAN

We in Hamas consider the Israeli attack on the freedom flotilla as a great crime and a huge violation of international law. In spite of the great harm suffered by the people who joined this flotilla, we consider that their message has been delivered.

Thanks to these heroes from other countries who showed their solidarity with Gaza, the Israeli siege is now an international issue and we consider that the occupiers, through this crime, are the ones under siege now.

OFFICE OF BARONESS ASHTON, EU HIGH REPRESENTATIVE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS

High Representative Catherine Ashton expresses her deep regret at the news of loss of life and violence and extends her sympathies to families of the dead and wounded. On behalf of the European Union, she demands a full enquiry about the circumstances in which this happened.

She reiterates the European Union’s position regarding Gaza – the continued policy of closure is unacceptable and politically counterproductive… She calls for an immediate, sustained and unconditional opening of the crossing for the flow of humanitarian aid, commercial goods and persons to and from Gaza.

AMR MOUSSA, ARAB LEAGUE SECRETARY-GENERAL

The Arab League’s Secretary-General has called for an urgent meeting at the level of representatives to look into this heinous crime committed by Israeli forces against unarmed civilians that left scores of dead and wounded.

The Arab League strongly condemns this terrorist act.

SENIOR UN OFFICIALS ROBERT SERRY AND FILIPPO GRANDI

We are shocked by reports of killings and injuries of people on board boats carrying supplies for Gaza, apparently in international waters. We condemn the violence and call for it to stop. The situation is still ongoing and we are awaiting confirmation of what has happened.

We wish to make clear that such tragedies are entirely avoidable if Israel heeds the repeated calls of the international community to end its counterproductive and unacceptable blockade of Gaza.

NAVI PILLAY, UN HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

To foster longer-term political reconciliation, I urge the government to ensure that an independent investigation of recent events be conducted and all those found responsible for human rights violation are held to account.

BERNARD KOUCHNER, FRENCH FOREIGN MINISTER

I am profoundly shocked by the tragic consequences of the Israeli military operation against the peace flotilla for Gaza. Nothing can justify the use of violence such as this, which we condemn.

The circumstances of this drama must be fully brought to light and we wish for a thorough inquiry to be put in place without delay.

MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD, IRANIAN PRESIDENT

The inhuman action of the Zionist regime against the Palestinian people and preventing the humanitarian aid from reaching Gazans does not show this regime’s strength, but is a sign of its weakness, and all this brings this sinister and fake regime closer than ever to its end.

Continue reading May 31, 2010