Tag: Gaza

Netanyahu Speaks with Forked Tongue


It won’t make that much difference in people’s attitudes about Israel, although it should be extremely embarrasing to official Washington, the admission or rather revelation that Benjamin Netanyahu lied in order to sabotage the Oslow Accords back during the Clinton Administration.  It’s no small foot note that Netanyahu is now the Prime Minister of Israel and  no doubt still lies; it’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks, dontcha’ know.

What’s also interesting to this observer is the revelation comes from a news outlet other than the US main stream media, that darling of Israel and any US administration that is in power.  I don’t entirely agree with the reporter’s assertion in the piece that the video which contains the damning details was shot unbeknownst to Netanyahu; I think Netanyahu and most other Israeli officials don’t give a damn whether Americans or anyone else knows what they really think or believe, because they know it will be smoothed over for them by corporate media.  Witness the rather arrogant behavior of the Israelis during Joe Biden’s recent stop in Israel where they announced new settlements at a time it was hoped they would freeze settlements.  What Netanyahu admits to is

he deceived the US president of the time, Bill Clinton, into believing he was helping implement the Oslo accords, the US-sponsored peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, by making minor withdrawals from the West Bank while actually entrenching the occupation. He boasts that he thereby destroyed the Oslo process. He dismisses the US as “easily moved to the right direction” and calls high levels of popular American support for Israel “absurd”.

He also suggests that, far from being defensive, Israel’s harsh military repression of the Palestinian uprising was designed chiefly to crush the Palestinian Authority led by Yasser Arafat so that it could be made more pliable for Israeli diktats.

Many within the Israeli leadership as well as the apparatchiks here in America were opposed to the Oslow Accords because they claimed, as usual, Israel was being asked to give up too much.  Netanyahu’s conniving position was no doubt taken so he could appear to be the more moderate and acceptable leader for Israel….a diplomatic version of good cop, bad cop, the bad cop being the bloodthirsty Ariel Sharon.  In reality Netanyahu is much worse.  The video which contains these statements by Netanyahu, which also appears below, has been circulating around in Israel for a period of time yet no one of the so called liberal Israeli public opinion, which we are told is far more open to criticism of  Israeli leadership because they get better media coverage and a more critical viewpoint  of Israeli government shenanigans; no one from this elite society of free thinkers has uttered a call for Netanyahu to resign.  No one seems the least bit concerned about the effect this news will have on Israel’s international relations.  One wouldn’t really expect them to be concerned at all; the Israelis have positioned themselves so far to an extreme nothing short of a war in which they are alone on one side facing everybody else would make them rethink positions they have come to hold so dearly today.   But it is interesting to this observer that the video appears after Netanyahu’s visit to the US just a few short days ago and is just one more ‘in your face’ statement made to belittle and demean the ‘world’s only superpower’.  Somehow, that expression- world’s only superpower,  just doesn’t have the ring to it it once did.

Perhaps this also gives people in the west, if they care to stop and reflect just once, an idea of the frustration the Palestinians have felt toward the Israeli government and people.  The leaders of Israel openly admit their signature on treaties, commitments, agreements aren’t worth the paper they are written on, and this deceit is carried out with the full knowledge and approval of Israeli citizenry.

No Such thing as Israeli transparency


Israel being transparent would result in the Goldstone report all over again, or worse something like  this

In a 116-page document, entitled I Lost Everything: Israel’s Unlawful Destruction of Property in the Gaza Conflict , the report documents the complete destruction of orchards and farms as well as 189 buildings. These included 11 factories, eight warehouses and 170 residential buildings, rendering 971 people homeless during Operation Cast Lead which began on December 27th, 2008 and ended on January 18th, 2009.

The report said that a dozen specific targetings documented in the report account for only 5 per cent of the homes, warehouses and factories destroyed during the conflict. The report stated: “These cases describe instances in which Israeli forces caused extensive destruction of homes, factories, farms and greenhouses in areas under [Israeli] control without any evident military purpose”.

The human rights group said there had been no evidence of fighting in the vicinity of these facilities at the time of the attacks and Israeli bulldozers demolished the property after fighting had ceased and Israel had taken full control.

In “many cases, the destruction was carried out during the final days of the campaign when an Israeli withdrawal was imminent”, HRW said. “Individuals responsible for committing or ordering such destruction should be prosecuted for war crimes.”

What Israel has agreed to do, in investigating itself is so weak and designed to paint the perpetrator as the victim is this

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spent the last two weeks searching for a process that would win the endorsement of the U.S. and appear credible to the international community, but not spiral out of the government’s control.

To that end, the five-member panel will have a narrow mandate. It is chiefly tasked with evaluating the legality of Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza, imposed three years ago when the Islamic militant group Hamas established full control over the coastal strip, and whether the use of force during the raid was consistent with international practices. The commission also will look into the identity and motivations of activists aboard the ship, some of whom Israel has accused of having links to terrorist groups.

So what we will see emanate from the Israeli report will be ‘the devil made me do it’ excuses for their infringement on international law. Meanwhile as if to underscore the point that the blockade is not about stemming the flow of weapons into Gaza, nor of securing the state of Israel from any threat posed by Hamas comes  this

..

in response to a lawsuit by Gisha, an Israeli human rights group, the Israeli government explained the blockade as an exercise of the right of economic warfare.”A country has the right to decide that it chooses not to engage in economic relations or to give economic assistance to the other party to the conflict, or that it wishes to operate using ‘economic warfare,'” the government said.

Sari Bashi, the director of Gisha, said the documents prove that Israel isn’t imposing its blockade for its stated reasons, but rather as collective punishment for the Palestinian population of Gaza. Gisha focuses on Palestinian rights.
Whatever findings come from the Israeli report will be purely about state interests for Israel, and that’s to be expected and even welcomed.  There is enough evidence to indict Israel for illegal activity and it’s only natural for the state of Israel to do what it can to countermand that body of evidence.  What is shameful is that they will get away with it while everything else will be ignored, forgotten, or flushed down the memory hole. The victims of Israeli rage on that morning as well as the people of Gaza deserve better than that from a 21st century world citizenry.

First Hand Account


I’m truly amazed not everyone in the Gaza Flotilla illegally interdicted by the IDF weren’t all killed.  Perhaps they didn’t have enough ammunition for that task. The second best alternative to keeping away from an enquiring public what happened would be to take all recording devices and destroy them, advance the recordings of the IDF and begin the process of discrediting eyewitnesses to the carnage.  Look for the latter to happen at any moment; however, now there is a lot that’s being said about what took place that fateful morning and none of it paints any type of picture of our friend and stalwart ally other than of murderer.

“I saw them carrying this one IDF guy down,” he recalls. “He looked terrified, like he thought he was going to be killed. But when a big Turkish guy, who had seen seriously injured passengers who had been shot by the IDF, charged over and tried to hit the commando, the Turkish aid workers pushed him off and pinned him to the wall. They protected this Israeli soldier.”

That was when he found the backpack which the soldier had dropped. “I figured I’d look inside and see what he was carrying,” Neish says. “And inside was this kind of flip-book. It was full of photos and names in English and Hebrew of who was on all the ships. The booklet also had a detailed diagram of the decks of the Mavi Marmara.”

Meanwhile, he says, more and more people were being carried down the stairs from the mayhem above—people who’d been shot, and people who were dying or people already dead. “I took detailed photos of the dead and wounded with my camera,” he says, adding, “There were several guys who had two neat bullet holes side by side on the side of their head–clearly they were executed.”

Neish smuggled his photos out of Israel to Turkey despite his arrest on the ship and imprisonment in Israel for several days. “I pulled out the memory card, tossed my camera and anything I had on me that had anything to do with electronics, and then kept moving the chip around so it wouldn’t be found,” he says. “The Israelis took all the cameras and computers. They were smashing some and keeping others. I put the chip in my mouth under my tongue, between my butt cheeks, in my sock, everywhere, to keep them from finding it,” he says. He finally handed it to a Turk who was leaving for a flight home on a Turkish airline. He says the card ended up in the hands of an organization called Free Gaza, and he has seen some of his pictures published, so he knows they made it out successfully.

Neish says that claims that the Israeli commandos were just armed with paint guns and 9 mm pistols are “Bullshit–at one point when I was in the stairwell, a commando opened a hatch above, stuck in a machine gun, and started firing. Bullets were bouncing all over the place. If the guy had gotten to look in and see where he was shooting, I’d have been dead, but two Turkish guys in the stairwell, who had short lengths of chain with them that they had taken from the access points to the lifeboats, stood to the side of the hatch and whipped them up at the barrell. I don’t know if they were trying to hit the commando or to use them to snatch away the gun, but the Israeli backed off, and they slammed and locked the hatch.”

“I never saw a single paint gun, or a sign of a fired paint ball!” he says.

He also didn’t see any guns in the hands of people who were on the ship. “In the whole time I was there on the ship, I never saw a single weapon in the hands of the crew or the aid workers,” he says. Indeed, Neish, who originally had been on a smaller 70-foot yacht called the Challenger II, had transferred to the Mavi Marmara after a stop in Cyprus, because his boat had been sabatoged by Israeli agents (a claim verified by the Israeli government), making it impossible to steer. “When we came aboard the big boat, I was frisked and my bag was inspected for weapons,” he says. “Being an engineer, I of course had a pocket knife, but they took that and tossed it into the ocean. Nobody was allowed to have any weapons on this voyage. They were very careful about that.”

What he did see during the IDF assault was severe bullet wounds. “In addition to several people I saw who were killed, I saw several dozen wounded people. There was one older guy who was just propped up against the wall with a huge hole in his chest. He died as I was taking his picture.”

Neish says he saw many of the 9 who were known to have been killed, and of the 40 who were wounded, and adds, “There were many more who were wounded, too, but less seriously. In the Israeli prison, I saw people with knife wounds and broken bones. Some were hiding their injuries so they wouldn’t be taken away from the others.” He also says, “Initially there were reports that 16 on the boat had been killed. The medical station said 16. There was a suspicion that some bodies may have been thrown overboard. But what people think now is that the the other seven who are missing, since we’re not hearing from families, may have been Israeli spies.”

Once the Israeli commandos had secured control of the Mavi Marmara, Neish says the ship’s passengers and crew were rounded up, with the men put in one area on deck, and the women put below in another area. The men were told to squat, and had their hands bound with plastic cuffs, which Neish says were pulled so tight that his wrists were cut and his hands swelled up and turned purple (he is still suffering nerve damage from the experience, which his doctor in Canada says he hopes will gradually repair on its own).

“They told us to be quiet,” he says. “But at one point this Turkish imam stood up and started singing a call to prayer. Everybody was dead quiet–even the Israelis. But after about ten seconds, this Israeli officer stomped over through the squatting people, pulled out his pistol and pointed at the guy’s head, yelling ‘Shut up!’ in English. The imam looked at him directly and just kept singing! I thought, Jesus Christ, he’s gonna kill him! Then I thought, well, this is what I’m here for, I guess, so I stood up. The officer wheeled around and pointed his gun at my head. The imam finished his song and sat down, and then I sat down.”

While the commandeered vessels were sailed to the Israeli port of Ashdot, the captives were left without food or water. “All we were given were some chocolate bars that the Israelis pilfered from the ship’s stores,” says Neish. “You had to grovel to get to go to the bathroom, and many people had to just go in their pants.”

Things didn’t get much better once the passengers were transferred to an Israeli prison. He and the other prisoners with him, who hadn’t eaten for more than half a day, were tossed a frozen block of bread and some cucumbers.

On the second day, someone from the Canadian embassy came around, calling out his name. “It turned out he’d been going to every cell looking for me,” says Neish. “My daughter had been frantically telling the Canadian government I was in the flotilla. Even though the Israelis had my name and knew where I was, they weren’t telling the Canadian embassy people. In fact the Canadians–and my daughter–thought I was dead, because people had said I’d been near the initial assault. The good thing is that as they went around calling out for me, they discovered two Arab-born Canadians that they hadn’t known were there.”

“Eventually they got to my cell and I answered them. The embassy official said, ‘You’re Kevin? You’re supposed to be dead.’”

After being held for a few days, there was a rush to move everyone to the Ben Gurion airport for a flight to Turkey. “It turned out that Israeli lawyers had brought our case to the Supreme Court, challenging the legality of our capture on international waters. There was a chance that the court would order the IDF to put us back on our ships and let us go, so the government wanted to get us out of Israel and moot the case. But two guys were hauled off, probably by Mossad (the Israeli intelligence agency). So we all said, ‘No. We don’t go unless you bring them back.’”

The two men were returned and were allowed to leave with the rest of the group.

“I honestly never thought the Israelis would board the ship,” says Neish. “I thought we’d get into Gaza. I mean, I went as part of the Free Gaza Movement, and they had made prior attempts, with some getting in, and some getting boarded or rammed, but this time it was a big flotilla. I figured we’d be stopped, and maybe searched. My boat, the Challenger II, only had dignitaries on board including three German MPs, and then Lt. Col. Ann Wright and myself.

At one point in the Israeli prison, all the violence finally got to this man who had witnessed more death and mayhem than many active duty US troops in Iraq or Afghanistan. “I broke down and started crying,” he admits. “This big Turkish guy came over and asked me, ‘What’s wrong?’ I said, ‘Sixteen people died.’”

“He said to me, ‘No, they died for a wonderful cause. They’re happy. You just go out and tell your story.’”

Look for the Israeli investigation to completely whitewash all that has been spoken by those who were there and discredit them as well.

Targetting the Victims


In a bid to reverse the reality that at least nine people were killed, murdered, by Israel in the commission of a crime, supporters of the Israeli government are now trying to turn the tables on the victims of that crime and enforce  legal ramifications against them for standing up to Israeli illegal activity.

A half-dozen elected Democrats called on the State Department to ban every flotilla participant from entering the United States.Well, only some of them called for everyone to be denied visas. Most of them just called for an “investigation” into the terrible terror ties of the activists aboard the flotilla, sponsored by a Turkish NGO called IHH that is not on any American watch list.

The organizers of this way of thought have successfully made people who were trying to provide the most basic of necessities to a people who have been marginalized and at the doors of abject poverty while under a military imprisonment into terrorists  who should be banned from entering the US.  It may very well be that none of the non-citizens of America would ever want to come to the US, but banning them from entry no doubt puts them on no fly lists that could disrupt their travel to other countries and cause them unknown inconvenience and trouble. This is in reality the goal of political zionism much like the blockade of Gaza is the goal to Palestinians, creating instability and chaos to the order of individuals, communities and societies and thereby instilling hopelessness.  It helps that the targeted are demonized and despised by everyone else too, while leaving the message that opposition to political zionism is fruitless and counterproductive.

What is disappointing is that US elected officials have gone on the bandwagon when even the most cursory attention to this issue of the Gaza blockade by even the most junior member of their staff would demonstrate  to them how the blockade itself is illegal, the cost of the blockade to the Palestinians living in Gaza is astronomically high, some of the effects being chronic mental health issues, infant mortality, a lack of proper education, high unemployment, the complete breakdown of municipal services, etc. and that aid organizers are merely trying to provide subsistence levels to a population under armed guard.  Yet, the prisoners of the prison called Gaza are the perpetrators of this misery and criminal activity, not its victims and those who are trying to come to their aid should be banned or suffer the ignominy of travel restrictions. Such is the false reality of political zionism.

This is courage


Blooded and beaten perhaps, but unbowed nor unapologetic Ken O’Keefe describes in his own words what took place and quite naturally it completely different than what the Israeli government said. My brief observations about O’Keefe’s revelations are these; he is an American patriot who embodies the spirit upon which this country was built, that of critical but principled dissent; respect for the Constitution and a courage to stand up for his convictions.  Unfortunately, the America of today finds such people a threat and will do everything to discredit them or worse.  O’Keefe also brings with him love for the dispossessed or in what might be called in today’s parlance, the underdog. I’m sure there are a lot of O’Keefe’s in the movement to bring much needed relief to the people of Gaza because they are surely needed.  I’m sure too, they realize the sacrifices they are making dealing with the wounded animal called the State of Israel which might include their deaths, but sacrifice was once a part of the fabric of America where going along to get along was not the way of doing business.  To all the O’Keefes of this movement, I salute you one and all.

I remember being asked during the TJP Human Shield Action to Iraq if I was a pacifist, I responded with a quote from Gandhi by saying I am not a passive anything. To the contrary I believe in action, and I also believe in self-defence, 100%, without reservation. I would be incapable of standing by while a tyrant murders my family, and the attack on the Mavi Marmara was like an attack on my Palestinian family. I am proud to have stood shoulder to shoulder with those who refused to let a rogue Israeli military exert their will without a fight. And yes, we fought.When I was asked, in the event of an Israeli attack on the Mavi Mamara, would I use the camera, or would I defend the ship? I enthusiastically committed to defence of the ship. Although I am also a huge supporter of non-violence, in fact I believe non-violence must always be the first option. Nonetheless I joined the defence of the Mavi Mamara understanding that violence could be used against us and that we may very well be compelled to use violence in self-defence.

I said this straight to Israeli agents, probably of Mossad or Shin Bet, and I say it again now, on the morning of the attack I was directly involved in the disarming of two Israeli Commandos. This was a forcible, non-negotiable, separation of weapons from commandos who had already murdered two brothers that I had seen that day. One brother with a bullet entering dead center in his forehead, in what appeared to be an execution. I knew the commandos were murdering when I removed a 9mm pistol from one of them. I had that gun in my hands and as an ex-US Marine with training in the use of guns it was completely within my power to use that gun on the commando who may have been the murderer of one of my brothers. But that is not what I, nor any other defender of the ship did. I took that weapon away, removed the bullets, proper lead bullets, separated them from the weapon and hid the gun. I did this in the hopes that we would repel the attack and submit this weapon as evidence in a criminal trial against Israeli authorities for mass murder.

I also helped to physically separate one commando from his assault rifle, which another brother apparently threw into the sea. I and hundreds of others know the truth that makes a mockery of the brave and moral Israeli military. We had in our full possession, three completely disarmed and helpless commandos. These boys were at our mercy, they were out of reach of their fellow murderers, inside the ship and surrounded by 100 or more men. I looked into the eyes of all three of these boys and I can tell you they had the fear of God in them. They looked at us as if we were them, and I have no doubt they did not believe there was any way they would survive that day. They looked like frightened children in the face of an abusive father.

But they did not face an enemy as ruthless as they. Instead the woman provided basic first aid, and ultimately they were released, battered and bruised for sure, but alive. Able to live another day. Able to feel the sun over head and the embrace of loved ones. Unlike those they murdered. Despite mourning the loss of our brothers, feeling rage towards these boys, we let them go. The Israeli prostitutes of propaganda can spew all of their disgusting bile all they wish, the commandos are the murders, we are the defenders, and yet we fought. We fought not just for our lives, not just for our cargo, not just for the people of Palestine, we fought in the name of justice and humanity. We were right to do so, in every way.

While in Israeli custody I, along with everyone else was subjected to endless abuse and flagrant acts of disrespect. Women and elderly were physically and mentally assaulted. Access to food and water and toilets was denied. Dogs were used against us, we ourselves were treated like dogs. We were exposed to direct sun in stress positions while hand cuffed to the point of losing circulation of blood in our hands. We were lied to incessantly, in fact I am awed at the routineness and comfort in their ability to lie, it is remarkable really. We were abused in just about every way imaginable and I myself was beaten and choked to the point of blacking out… and I was beaten again while in my cell.In all this what I saw more than anything else were cowards… and yet I also see my brothers. Because no matter how vile and wrong the Israeli agents and government are, they are still my brothers and sisters and for now I only have pity for them. Because they are relinquishing the most precious thing a human being has, their humanity.

In conclusion; I would like to challenge every endorser of Gandhi, every person who thinks they understand him, who acknowledges him as one of the great souls of our time (which is just about every western leader), I challenge you in the form of a question. Please explain how we, the defenders of the Mavi Marmara, are not the modern example of Gandhi’s essence? But first read the words of Gandhi himself.

“I do believe that, where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence…. I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honour than that she should, in a cowardly manner, become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonour.” – Gandhi

And lastly I have one more challenge. I challenge any critic of merit, publicly, to debate me on a large stage over our actions that day. I would especially love to debate with any Israeli leader who accuses us of wrongdoing, it would be my tremendous pleasure to face off with you. All I saw in Israel was cowards with guns, so I am ripe to see you in a new context. I want to debate with you on the largest stage possible. Take that as an open challenge and let us see just how brave Israeli leaders are.

Exposing the Lie


Much has been said about the murder of civilians on board the Turkish ship headed for Gaza.  The Israeli government would have you believe the brave soldiers of the IDF responded to an attack against them by violent protestors.  They were able to get away with that lie because they thought they had confiscated any and everything that could chronicle what happened on the ship.  In the void created when the IDF took all recording devices and during a time when the activists were secluded from public view, the Israeli spin machine went into high drive with tall tales of bloodthirsty activists pouncing on overwhelmed soldier who responded by killing just a view or using paintball guns that failed to stem the violent reaction to the IDF’s presence.

Of course nothing was farther from  the truth as the picture above and others found here will testify. In fact what really happened is activists disarmed some IDF soldiers and tended to their wounds.  One of the pictures even seems to show an activist directing a soldier to a triage area or defending that soldier from further attacks by enraged activists.  In any event, Israel stopped people from being able to disseminate information and then took its time and made up  scenarios completely from the sky.

The deaths of activists occurred on the Turkish ship and some of the deaths were of Turkish nationals.  Is it not apparent now, beyond the fact that Israel wantonly kills its opposition no matter who they are, that this act of murder on a Turkish ship was meant to send a signal to the Turkish government  their mediation with Brazil and Iran was not welcomed?  In order for the Israeli government to survive it must dominant the entire region and all the countries therein must abide by the Israeli meme which is to maintain unstable regimes in that part of the world. It, the massacre of activists, was a shot across the Turkish political bow to back off from trying to play any role in the Middle East or else.

The ‘Mother’ of all ironies


People all over the world are entitled to their opinion about the state of Israel but when these opinions are those of dissent to what the state is doing Israel has decided to ban such people terrorists.  With that name affixed to yours or the group to which you identify, Israel considers it a very real possibility you are a threat to their existence and liable to face preemptive action or even death.  As a result the alternative rock group Pixies had better watch out the state of Israeli might very well target them.

In what I consider the ‘mother of all ironies’, the Israeli promoter for the bands appearance, which the band cancelled in protest of the murder of people on a relief convoy to Gaza, said

“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 wrote.

“Fans cannot be punished for the deeds of their governments.”


Two things about what monsieur Shuki Weiss, the author of the above quote,  said. The most onerous is his equating a group’s right for them to choose who they want to associate with to a term that has become synonymous to death and destruction, when most likely the reason for the Pixies cancellation was to protest against death and destruction of the Jewish state. The second point to be made is Weiss’ assertion that fans, read people, shouldn’t be punished for the actions of their government is probably something everyone in the Gaza strip is saying and has been saying since the Israeli blockade of that country.
Israel has claimed for itself ‘victim’ status which means anyone who offers any opposition to the State’s policies and/or its actions is considered a terrorist in the eyes of the Israeli establishment. While the old saying ‘sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me’ used to have meaning, now the tag of terrorism means extra judicial action might be taken against such people in ways only that State can decide. To make that point clear, here is another ominous quote from the same article

“The Israeli authorities must do what they can to fight against those who are doing everything they can to prevent artists from performing in Israel,” she (Moran Paz, a spokeswoman) said, without elaborating.

If the Pixies were to join a caravan seeking to give aid to Gazans, they most likely would be singled out for targeted assassination as were the people on the Turkish convey earlier last week.

The Pixies as well as Elvis Costello are entertainers who have decided to take a courageous stand against murder and the complete disregard for the rule of law which the Israelis have embraced for quite some time. Usually there is nothing wrong with such protest; Americans have the right to associate with whomever they want as well as the right to protest and the right to free speech. Unfortunately the Israelis don’t see things that way so they heap upon such people who dissent perhaps the ugliest and most incendiary term, terrorist, they can which means absent bowing and scraping before the altar of Israeli power in any act of penitence, such people are doomed to failure or worse, death. If nothing else the events over the last week have proven that to be true. But it is extreme chutzpah for someone to self-righteously declare that people shouldn’t be held accountable for what their government does, when that is exactly what the State of Israel is doing to the people of Gaza. Monsieur Weiss’ protestation would have more impact if he at first voted for people in Israel who would end the blockade (Miscellany101 wonders if such politicians exist in that country) or joined the next aid caravan headed for the strip. Absent those two actions, Weiss’ statements are hypocritical at best and inflammatory at worse but he is as entitled to them as The Pixies are to boycotting or refusing to play in Israel because of its high crimes. In fact, The Pixies are doing the state a favor by opposing Israel’s actions because they refuse to be enablers of a country that is headed to self-destruction.  If it, Israel, takes just a minute or two to reflect on what it is that drove The Pixies to their decision, perhaps the state will change course. But who are we kidding…….Israel is inextricably headed towards international condemnation and perhaps war because of its racist policies which they seem to cling to more passionately than the religion they say is the reason for their occupation. So a hat tip to The Pixies for their telling truth to power. I wish I could shake their hands…..all of them.

Are we all Gazans now?


I think some of this is wishful thinking on the author‘s part because the Israelis are insanely manipulative and penetrate all layers of American and western societies.  There is a part of me that would like to see what Escobar writes come true, but I just watched the Glenn Greenwald interview on MSNBC where he was absolutely ambushed by Eliot Spitzer, the former NY state whore mongering governor who can’t hold a candle to Greenwald and had to enlist the help and support of pro Israeli  guests who appeared earlier and  were asked to stay on to refute what Greenwald had to say.  In any event, the author of the piece below makes a impassioned plea against the murderous actions of Israel that I think is worthwhile reading (the emphasis in red is mine)

Just imagine if these were Iranian commandos attacking a multinational, six-boat aid flotilla in international waters. The United States, the European Union and Israel would instantly make sure to shock and awe Iran to kingdom come.

Instead, it was Israeli commandos who perpetrated this bit of gunboat diplomacy – or “self-defense” – in the dark hours of the early morning, in international waters, some 130 kilometers off the coast of Gaza.

And what if they were Somali pirates? Oh no, these are Israeli pirates fighting shady, “terrorist” Muslims … It doesn’t matter that Arab, Turkish, European, developing-world public opinion and governments are fuming. So what? Israel always gets away with – as Turkey is stressing – “murder” (or “state terrorism”, according to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan).

Footage from the deck of the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara – played across the world, but not much on US networks – is unmistakable. Fully body-armored and weaponized Israeli commandos have approached the flotilla on high-speed marine dinghies, deployed stun grenades and tear gas and shot everything in sight – a military helicopter is hovering over the flotilla. At a certain point the commander of the Marmara is heard, in English: “Please stop all resistance. They are using live ammunition.”

Ah, the “resistance” … Debka, essentially an Israeli intelligence digital spin machine, described the peace flotilla occupants as armed with “firebombs, stun grenades, broken glass, slingshots, iron bars, axes and knives”. Were the commandos only carrying paintballs and pistols?

So there you have it – Monty Python once again (tragically) remixed for the 21st century. The best-trained special forces in the world just wanted to “talk” and were attacked by a bunch of knife-wielding terrorists in a Turkish boat carrying tons of aid – medicine, building materials, school equipment, food, water purifiers, toys – for the 1.5 million Gazans who have been slowly dying under an Israeli blockade for the past three years, ever since they democratically elected a government by Hamas.

Debka even laments that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) – “famous for its innovative electronic warfare capabilities” – did not bother to jam the signals and images coming from the flotilla, so the whole world wouldn’t see a thing. They also lament the attack was in international waters; “the blockade zone is 20 nautical miles deep from Gaza. An Israeli raid at that limit would have been easier to justify”. Obviously, they ignore the fact that Israel has no legal international claim to the (illegally occupied) Gaza coast.

We’re such a suffering lot
No one excels in post-Orwellian, war-is-peace newspeak as Israel. Not only the Israeli commandos are being spun as the victims; the world is being subjected to a complete Israeli-orchestrated news blackout. Nobody really knows how many civilians were killed (nine, 19,20? Mostly Turkish? Maybe two Algerians? Any Americans or Europeans?) Nobody really knows if they were carrying “weapons”. Nobody really knows at what point the commandos freaked out (eyewitnesses tell of people being killed in their sleep).

All the several hundred passengers on the flotilla – Muslims, Christians, diplomats, non-governmental organization officials, journalists – have been de facto kidnapped by Israel. Nobody knows where they are being held. Radio static rules. Only myriad Israeli “spokespeople” control the word.

Such as IDF spokeswoman Avital Liebovitch, stressing how lucky were the commandos to “have those guns” to defend themselves (they are being hailed in Israel as “brave heroes”).

So here’s how Israeli newspeak goes. Weapons-smuggling Hamas “terrorists” dupe fake international “demonstrators” into becoming human shields and start a firefight with Israeli commandos. Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon, for instance, has described the flotilla as an al-Qaeda-linked “armada of hate and violence”. Looks like Hamas and al-Qaeda are now in the business of smuggling cement, orange juice and Chinese dolls.

It doesn’t matter in all this that the World Health Organization, in a fresh report, has stressed how Gaza – because of the illegal Israeli blockade the flotilla was trying to break – is mired in absolute poverty, unemployment, lack of medicine and medical equipment, and is being literally starved to death; no less than 10% of Gazans, mostly children, are physically stunted from malnutrition. The Israeli commandos were defending the illegal Israeli blockade in Gaza.

Progressive Jews, wherever they live, are the first to admit that most of Israel nowadays is extreme right-wing, paranoid, and convinced they are victims of a global propaganda war. Thus the eternal recurrence message – conveniently enveloped by US tax dollars – to the whole world. Shut up. We are the victims – we are always the victims. If you don’t believe it, you are an anti-Semite.

The fool on the hill
Fortunately for Israel, there’s always the original land of the free, home of the brave. Only in the US large sections of the population are capable of clamoring for punishing sanctions to be imposed on Iran and North Korea while being blind to the slow-motion genocide going on in the Israeli gulag.

And only one place in the whole world is capable of buying the narrative of Israel as “victims” of a humanitarian aid flotilla: the US Congress. The US State Department, in an official note, practically condemned the humanitarians. As for US President Barack Obama, so far he has been as mute (embarrassed?) as during the first weeks of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico; the White House only expressed “deep regret”, without condemning Israel.

The White House’s Israeli-in-charge, Rahm Emanuel, had invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Washington for an amenable kiss-and-makeup get-together this Tuesday. On Monday, Netanyahu canceled the trip. Word in Washington is that Obama would pass a sponge over non-stop expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the appalling condition of the Gaza gulag as a whole in exchange for crucial extra cash from pro-Israel donors to the Democratic party, essential for winning the November legislative elections in the US. The Democrats are going to get the cash anyway – they just need to be mildly “concerned” about the ocean massacre, and that’s it.

Once again poor Obama – perhaps against his will – is left emasculated, like a mere Banana Republic satrap, while Netanyahu is allowed to merrily groan a remixed version of The Village People’s Macho, Macho Man. As the humanitarian flotilla was sailing under Turkish, Greek and Irish flags, the Israeli commandos in fact attacked a microcosm of the real, flesh-and-blood “international community” – with Netanyahu harboring no doubts he’ll once again get away with it.

So how does it feel, Mr President, to be the fool on the hill?

And how does it feel for the rest of us, the real, flesh-and-blood international community – apart from manifesting immense outrage (as did the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) plus Turkey, France and Spain)? A distinct possibility – already considered in quite a few latitudes – is to boycott all things Israeli, or impose sanctions. To really hurt their economy. To totally isolate them diplomatically. If for a majority of Israelis the whole world is their enemy – governments, organizations, non-governmental organizations, aid agencies, public opinion – why not return the compliment?

Silence!


In this day of information technology and rapid news gathering, there is still too much silence coming from the halls of government and the corporate media about the attack on the Gaza bound flotilla and the violation of international law on the part of the Israelis. So here is a response to the vacuum left by “power” and by the way the answer to the question posed by Cook is a resounding NO!

It is quite astounding that Israel has been able to create over the past 12 hours a news blackout, just as it did with its attack on Gaza 18 months ago, into which our main media organisations have willingly allowed Israeli spokespeople to step in unchallenged.

How many civilians were killed in Israel’s dawn attack on the Gaza-bound flotilla of aid? We still don’t know. How many wounded? Your guess is as good as mine. Were the aid activists armed with guns? Yes, says Israel. Were they in cahoots with al-Qaeda and Hamas? Certainly, says Israel. Did the soldiers act reasonably? Of course, they faced a lynch, says Israel.

If we needed any evidence of the degree to which Western TV journalists are simply stenographers to power, the BBC, CNN and others are amply proving it. Mark Regev, Israel’s propagandist-in-chief, has the airwaves largely to himself.

The passengers on the ships, meanwhile, have been kidnapped by Israel and are unable to provide an alternative version of events. We can guess they will remain in enforced silence until Israel is sure it has set the news agenda.

So before we get swamped by Israeli hasbara let’s reiterate a few simple facts:

* Israeli soldiers invaded these ships in international waters, breaking international law, and, in killing civilians, committed a war crime. The counter-claim by Israeli commanders that their soldiers responded to an imminent “lynch” by civilians should be dismissed with the loud contempt it deserves.

* The Israeli government approved the boarding of these aid ships by an elite unit of commandoes. They were armed with automatic weapons to pacify the civilians onboard, but not with crowd dispersal equipment in case of resistance. Whatever the circumstances of the confrontation, Israel must be held responsible for sending in soldiers and recklessly endangering the lives of all the civilians onboard, including a baby.

Israel has no right to control Gaza’s sea as its own territorial waters and to stop aid convoys arriving that way. In doing so, it proves that it is still in belligerent occupation of the enclave and its 1.5 million inhabitants. And if it is occupying Gaza, then under international law Israel is responsible for the welfare of the Strip’s inhabitants. Given that the blockade has put Palestinians there on a starvation diet for the past four years, Israel should long ago have been in the dock for committing a crime against humanity.

Today Israel chose to direct its deadly assault not only at Palestinians under occupation but at the international community itself.

Will our leaders finally be moved to act?

Israeli atrocities continue…..


The Israeli government has decided for itself the role of international pariah and no one has the intestinal fortitude to tell them that except lowly internet bloggers like Miscellany101 and others who have seen enough of the atrocities this country has inflicted on everyone it feels victimized by.   Having bought off American and European politicians and quieted an obsequious press, Israel once again gets away with murder in the deaths of the passengers of the Gaza flotilla.  In a night raid against unarmed civilians, a particularly Israel like tactic, the IDF boarded one of the ships of the flotilla that was in international waters and began shooting all those who didn’t quickly comply with their demands, leaving in their wake anywhere from 10 to 20 dead.

Of course, the Israeli government will claim they were acting in self defense and the apologists will echo that claim; governments will not issue any voices of protest or reprimand, nor make any demands on the Israelis for transparent investigations and over time, people will forget this latest act of murder like all the rest before it.  The conscientious citizen ought to know, however, that the Israelis for the moment are the merchants of death and destruction and that this rogue and lawless state has nothing to offer the international community until they are brought in line with law and order, something the Israelis are not the least bit interested in at this time.  The self-proclaimed super power is instead a super coward in the face of the petulant, lawless state, which sees no limits for its own behavior while super critical of the behavior of its opponents.  Indeed America has relegated itself to being a client state of Israel, the dog wagged by its own tail.

Israeli disinformation cannot hide the siege of Gaza.


For over four years, Israel has subjected the civilian population of Gaza to an increasingly severe blockade, resulting in a man-made humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions. Earlier this month, John Ging, the Director of Operations of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in Gaza, called upon the international community to break the siege on the Gaza Strip by sending ships loaded with humanitarian aid. This weekend, 9 civilian boats carrying 700 human rights workers from 40 countries and 10,000 tons of humanitarian aid will attempt to do just that: break through the Israel’s illegal military blockade on the Gaza Strip in non-violent direct action. In response, the Israeli government has threatened to send out ‘half’ of its Naval forces to violently stop our flotilla, and they have engaged in a deceitful campaign of misinformation regarding our mission.

Israel claims that there is no ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Every international aid organization working in Gaza has documented this crisis in stark detail. Just released earlier this week, Amnesty International’s Annual Human Rights Report stated that Israeli’s siege on Gaza has “deepened the ongoing humanitarian crisis. Mass unemployment, extreme poverty, food insecurity and food price rises caused by shortages left four out of five Gazans dependent on humanitarian aid. The scope of the blockade and statements made by Israeli officials about its purpose showed that it was being imposed as a form of collective punishment of Gazans, a flagrant violation of international law.”[1]

Israel claims that its blockade is directed simply at the Hamas government in Gaza, and is limited to so-called ’security’ items. Yet When U.S. Senator John Kerry visited Gaza last year, he was shocked to discover that the Israeli blockade included staple food items such as lentils, macaroni and tomato paste.[2] Furthermore, Gisha, the Israeli Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, has documented numerous official Israeli government statements that the blockade is intended to put ‘pressure’ on Gaza’s population, and collective punishment of civilians is an illegal act under international law.[3]

Israel claims that if we wish to send aid to Gaza, all we need do is go through ‘official channels,’ give the aid to them and they will deliver it. This statement is both ridiculous and offensive. Their blockade, their ‘official channels,’ is what is directly causing the humanitarian crisis in the first place.

According to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter: “Palestinians in Gaza are being actually ’starved to death,’ receiving fewer calories per day than people in the poorest parts of Africa. This is an atrocity that is being perpetrated as punishment on the people in Gaza. It is a crime… an abomination that this is allowed to go on. Tragically, the international community at large ignores the cries for help, while the citizens of Gaza are treated more like animals than human beings.”[4]

Israel claims that we refused to deliver a letter and package from POW Gilad Shalit’s father. This is a blatant lie. We were first contacted by lawyers representing Shalit’s family Wednesday evening, just hours before we were set to depart from Greece. Irish Senator Mark Daly (Kerry), one of 35 parliamentarians joining our flotilla, agreed to carry any letter and to attempt to deliver it to Shalit or, if that request was denied, deliver it to officials in the Hamas government. As of this writing, the lawyers have not responded to Sen. Daly, electing instead to attempt to smear us in the Israeli press.[5] We have always called for the release of all political prisoners in this conflict, including the 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners languishing in Israeli jails, among them hundreds of child prisoners.[6]

Most despicably of all, Israel claims that we are violating international law by sailing unarmed ships carrying humanitarian aid to a people desperately in need. These claims only demonstrate how degenerate the political discourse in Israel has become.

Despite its high profile pullout of illegal settlements and military presence from Gaza in August—September 2005, Israel maintains “effective control” over the Gaza Strip and therefore remains an occupying force with certain obligations.[7] Among Israel’s most fundamental obligations as an occupying power is to provide for the welfare of the Palestinian civilian population. An occupying force has a duty to ensure the food and medical supplies of the population, as well as maintain hospitals and other medical services, “to the fullest extent of the means available to it” (G IV, arts. 55, 56). This includes protecting civilian hospitals, medical personnel, and the wounded and sick. In addition, a fundamental principle of International Humanitarian Law, as well as of the domestic laws of civilized nations, is that collective punishment against a civilian population is forbidden (G IV, art. 33).

Israel has grossly abused its authority as an occupying power, not only neglecting to provide for the welfare of the Palestinian civilian population, but instituting policies designed to collectively punish the Palestinians of Gaza. From fuel and electricity cuts that hinder the proper functioning of hospitals, to the deliberate obstruction of humanitarian aid delivery through Israeli-controlled borders, Israel’s policies towards the Gaza Strip have turned Gaza into a man-made humanitarian disaster. The dire situation that currently exists in Gaza is therefore a result of deliberate policies by Israel designed to punish the people of Gaza. In order to address the calamitous conditions imposed upon the people, one must work to change the policies causing the crisis. The United Nations has referred to Israel’s near hermetic closure of Gaza as “collective punishment,”[8] strictly prohibited under Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. All nations signatory to the Convention have an obligation to ensure respect for its provisions.[9]

Given the continuing and sustained failure of the international community to enforce its own laws and protect the people of Gaza, we strongly believe that we all, as citizens of the world, have a moral obligation to directly intervene in acts of nonviolent civil resistance to uphold international principles. Israeli threats and intimidation will not deter us. We will sail to Gaza again and again and again, until this siege is forever ended and the Palestinian people have free access to the world.

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/52643