Ray Cook - As I See It

Israel, Zionism and the Media

Category: Israel and Gaza (Page 8 of 14)

The flotilla, Operation Cast Lead, Bloody Sunday and double standards

14/06/2010 / / 1 Comment
DERRY, NORTHERN IRELAND - MARCH 15: Some of the victims of the Bloody Sunday shootings are remembered on a mural in the Catholic Bogside area of Derry on March 15, 2010 in Northern Ireland. The Bloody Sunday Inquiry chaired by Lord Saville was established in 1998 to look at the shooting dead of 14 civil rights marchers by the British Army in Derry, Northern Ireland on January 30, 1972. Lord Saville and his fellow judges have spoken to 921 witnesses during the longest legal proceedings in British and Irish history. Their report is due to be sent to the Government by the end of March 2010. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

January 30th 1972 is ingrained in my memory. It was my birthday. I was still a schoolboy. There was a big fuss, but after a while, back in England, the memory faded.

In case you are unaware, 13 people, all Catholics, were shot dead in Bogside, (London)Derry by British paratroopers. The incident was soon named Bloody Sunday.

For 38 years the families of unarmed protesters have sought justice.

The army claims that some were armed, that there were bombers amongst them. The families, and history, seems to suggest that the army ran amok, shooting indiscriminately.

So why a comparison with Operation Cast Lead when the Israeli army and air force attacked Gaza in December 2008 to January 2009 killing over 1000 people and destroying hundreds of homes , buildings and infrastructure? The Israelis said it was necessary to stop rocket attacks from Hamas which had rained down on Southern Israel for seven years and to cripple Hamas’s military capabilities. Opponents called it a massacre, genocide and the usual hyperbolic language reserved only for Israel on the international scene.

The UN were lightning fast to react, the world was quick to condemn.  Within weeks the Goldstone Report found Israel and Hamas guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Israel did not co-operate but have made there own investigations and have rebutted almost every accusation in the Report and explained reasons for mistakes made in very difficult conditions. It should be noted that the UN, the UN Security Council the UN Human Rights Council, the EU, NGO’s and every tin-pot dictator in the Middle-East and beyond was also quick to condemn, in most cases BEFORE any formal investigation.

Recently, the Israelis intercepted a flotilla of Humanitarian Aid bound to break its maritime blockade of Gaza. On boarding the lead ship, the Mavi Marmara, with 600 people on board, mainly Turkish, the Israelis were attacked and then shot dead 9 ‘activists’ and wounded several others after rapelling from a helicopter carrying paintball guns. The opposing narrative says the members of the terrorist-linked IHH, who had taken over the ship, were defending themselves. Again, the world was quick to condemn, to cry ‘illegal blockade’, ‘piracy’, ‘murder’ before the facts were really known.

Now look at the case of the British Army shooting dead 13 of its own citizens at a time when (London)Derry was the centre of IRA activity which sought, by violence, to force the British government to secede Ulster (Northern Ireland) to the Irish Republic.

Just Google ‘Bloody Sunday UN’, ‘Bloody Sunday UNHRC’, ‘Bloody Sunday Security Council’. Nothing. At no time in 38 years have the UN or most of the NGO’s accused Britain of disproportionate force, murder, a crime against humanity, or war crimes. The British were left, quite rightly, to investigate themselves. And they have failed miserably in that time under successive governments, to deliver the truth, or any truly reliable definitive report until Saville, which is about to be unleashed.

In all that time successive British governments have either kicked the incident into the long grass or have exercised incredible secrecy about the ongoing investigation. The first report by Lord Widgery was considered a ‘whitewash’ of the army by none other than Tony Blair who commissioned Lord Saville in 1998. It still took 12 years in the making with 5000 pages of testimony and analysis.

Yet within weeks or days of Israel taking sovereign action against an EXTERNAL aggressor the whole world not only condemns without the facts but then demands international enquiries and sanctions. The full panoply of UN organisations and NGO’s inside and outside Israel immediately jump on Israel demanding independent enquiries with international panels.

Israel appears to be the only Western democracy deemed unable to investigate itself. There have been three Iraq war enquiries in the UK with no international members. Senate Committees in the US with no international members.

Let me repeat: 38 years after the event and 10 years after its commission, after millions of pounds spent, the events of a few hours in 1972 are about to be brought to light. 38 years. The events of weeks in Gaza take a few hundred pages and a few weeks for Goldstone to produce.

Israel has agreed to Lord Trimble, (ironically a prominent former First Minister of Northern Ireland), A Nobel Peace Prize winner and a barrister, to be one of the international observers. The other is Ken Watkin, former Judge Advocate of the Canadian Forces.

Surely, in the light of such international hostility, it is prudent for Israel to allow some form of international observation and confirmation that the procedures have been transparent. Israel will try to demonstrate that its actions were legal and necessary.

This could be a positive outcome for Israel. If Trimble and Watkin find the Israeli procedures to be transparent and Israel’s actions to be justified, albeit with a flawed tactical plan, then the true story about the flotilla and how it was hijacked by extremists will no longer just be a claim to be denied by Israel bashers.

Hamas, Israel and the Flotilla Aid

10/06/2010 / / 2 Comments

Whilst the world rushes to judgement on Israel’s interception of the Freedom Flotilla and the deaths of 9 Turkish nationals, the actual humanitarian aid languishes in Israel.

Why?

MissingPeace have just issued a report after they inspected the aid along with members of the media at the Tzifrin army base.

Their report is vital in understanding the true intentions of the Turkish organisers and also the disgusting way that the IHH hijacked the cause of the real humanitarians in the convoy.

Journalists including international news media were taken to Tzifrin on June 7th.  Only the cargo of one of the  ships was at the stage where it had been processed and unloaded and awaiting delivery.  Other ships’ cargoes had already gone through this process and 45 trucks of aid had been loaded ready to be sent, but not delivered, of which more later.

Most of the unloading of other ships was completed.

The ship in question was the Defne Y.

So you are thinking, ‘ three ships? But there were six ‘ (Rachel Corrie arrived later).  So here goes:

A breakdown of the cargo found on the ships shows that of the six ships of the flotilla only three had humanitarian aid aboard:

Gaza ship: building materials, cement, iron – The ship has not been fully unloaded.

Sofi ship:  building materials, iron

Defne Y ship: clothing, humanitarian aid (roughly 40 trucks worth), and games, building materials, wheelchairs.

The “Marmara”: carried only passengers and their personal belongings. Many passengers carried large sums of money on their body. There was no Humanitarian aid on this ship.

The other two ships did not carry humanitarian aid as well.

There were 600 people on board the Mavi Marmara, mainly Turkish, but no aid. What then, was their purpose? This was the largest boat by far. Why fill it with hundreds of people and their belongings but no aid? Why was the aid, the real aid from the Free Gaza Movement, on the small ships only? No aid whatsoever on the largest, Turkish boat. It could have taken hundreds of tonnes. Nothing. Why? Because it was never an aid ship, it was a blockade-breaking ship. It was an IHH propaganda weapon. It was a political demonstration. Well that’s fine if that is your purpose.

But this ground, the intention of the ‘activists’ [read: terrorists] who had taken over the Mavi Marmara in Istanbul and the subsequent lethal confrontation, is now the subject of an enquiry and has already been covered ad nauseam.

Let’s look at the fate of the cargo.

The humanitarian aid on all the ships was not packaged and not placed on the ship in an organized way, as one would expect from an organized humanitarian aid cargo. Everything was in individual units thrown on to a pile on the ships. This was not only unsafe, but it also caused a lot of damage to the objects, since the weight crushed a lot of things and since a lot of the things were just thrown on board.

So even where there was aid, no great care was taken. No-one thought to make use of an experienced aid agency to advise on loading. Hundreds of people gave money and aid items which were carelessly loaded. Does this tell us anything about the real priority of those involved?

And now what rogue/terrorist/racist/apartheid Israel does:

To deal with the cargo on the ships, here are the stages that it must undergo by Israel:

  1. Israel scans all the cargo and sifts out the humanitarian aid. The aid is then placed on trucks.
  2. The aid goes through x-ray machines to see that everything is indeed safe.
  3. Since nothing was packaged and organized, Israel did this.

This entire procedure costs a lot of time and a lot of money.

They actually package it up!

When asked how many tons of aid was on all the ships, the spokesman said they don’t know yet, since the only way one can weigh something is, if it’s packaged, compressed and sealed. He showed a stack of wood boxes with labels and said that this was done by Israel …

But Hamas still try to smear Israel, accusing them of taking batteries out of the electric wheelchairs (part of their excuse, no doubt for not letting the aid through).

The spokesman said that first of all, Hamas can’t know what Israel is doing because they are not allowing the aid into the Strip. Secondly, one needs to take out the batteries from the wheel chairs because if they are stored for a long time in the heat with the batteries, the batteries get ruined. He then took the journalists to the inside storage space, which is kept cool. There all the batteries were neatly placed in boxes all lined up. He said that the minute they will get a green light from Gaza, Israel can transfer everything into the Strip. Then the batteries will be transferred together with the chairs.

The batteries for the electric wheel chairs are gel batteries. Hamas says that Israel does not allow the entry of batteries into the Gaza Strip. Asked what the problem is with batteries the spokesman said the problem is not with gel but with liquid batteries.  This is because 1 liter of this battery liquid can produce 50 kilos of nitroglycerin which is an active ingredient in the manufacture of explosives, specifically dynamite.

One can’t avoid the conclusion that Hamas invented a serious need for wheelchairs specifically because they wanted the liquid batteries to make explosives and if Israel didn’t allow them in they can accuse them of callousness. But this time Hamas weren’t quite clever enough. They should have been more specific when they asked for wheelchairs.

For me the story of the wheelchairs shows exactly why there is a blockade and exactly why even items that look innocent, such as wheelchairs, have to be checked and why Israel insisted that the ships dock at Ashdod.

Some of the cargo was expired medicine and worn goods. Only 1 per cent of the goods by weight was medicine.

A Japanese reporter who visits Gaza regularly, said that what is needed in Gaza is hospital/medical equipment and medicine. He said that if the flotilla would have been really concerned about what is needed in Gaza, they would have made sure to send more medical things.

Indeed. But even these expired medicines were being stored by Israel in a cool indoor space.

And finally a complete fiasco as to what to do with the aid because Hamas refuses to accept it. Hamas says the aid is tainted by passage through Israel even though hundreds of tonnes come through via Israel every day. The other reason is that they are waiting for Turkey to decide what to do with it.

The Japanese reporter was trying to unravel the reasons for the delay in delivering this so-called vital aid.

He spoke with the PA civil-committee about this issue. They said that it is the responsibility of UNRWA. Then he called UNRWA and he was told that they are not in contact with Israel and that it is not in their power to decide, but that it is the responsibility of UNSCO.

UNRWA also said that they received a message from Hamas telling them that they should not allow any humanitarian aid from the flotilla to enter the Gaza Strip.  UNSCO also said that they are not in charge of the flotilla aid. They said that UNRWA deals with it, when confronted with the UNRWA reference to them, the man on the phone laughed and said this is not the case.

Next was COGAT, they first refused to give specific names and said “you can imagine who these international authorities are”. When pressed they said they are in touch with UNRWA, the Red Cross and “other powerful players such as the USA”, The COGAT official did not want to get more specific because he did not want to blame any particular organization until things are sorted out.  The International Red Cross in Gaza told that they have their own projects and bring in their own aid.

They said they have nothing to do with the flotilla. When asked if they have met with Hamas about the flotilla, IRC said that they have had discussions with Hamas who told them not to accept any of the aid…

… [The Japanese journalist]  said that if there is a real need for humanitarian aid in Gaza then everyone would work quickly to allow the entry of the aid into the Strip. Furthermore he said that if in Africa they need food, no one waits to deliver it.

Yet these very same international relief agencies are the first to accuse Israel of causing a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

This is beyond belief.

Update: *See also the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs report  http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Communiques/2010/Equipment_aid_Gaza_flotilla_7-Jun-2010.htm

‘Collective punishment’ of Gaza versus Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel: what’s the difference?

08/06/2010 / / 1 Comment

How often do we hear that Israel’s maritime blockade and overland embargo of certain materials and foodstuffs is a ‘collective punishment of the people of Gaza?

The argument goes like this: Gazans are not responsible for the actions of Hamas, who govern the Gaza Strip; the rockets and suicide bombings and kidnappings are not the fault of the ordinary citizen. Therefore Israel, in reducing the quantity and variety of foodstuffs and embargoing building materials, is collectively punishing Gazans.

This is a strange argument, especially as Hamas were elected by these same innocent citizens. When South Africa suffered under Apartheid there was no separation of government from people; sanctions were applied internationally to those who had not elected anyone. No-one would argue that the German people should not have been bombed in case they did not vote for or support the Nazi regime.

In fact, the idea of collective punishment originates in the American Civil War and General Sherman’s Special Field Order 120, article V:

To army corps commanders alone is entrusted the power to destroy mills, houses, cotton-gins, etc…, and for them this general principle is laid down: In districts and neighborhoods where the army is unmolested, no destruction of such property should be permitted; but should guerrillas or bushwhackers molest our march, or should the inhabitants burn bridges, obstruct roads, or otherwise manifest local hostility, then army commanders should order and enforce a devastation more or less relentless according to the measure of such hostility.

In more recent times Sherman’s measured proportionality, which would be universally condemned today by every Human Rights organisation and NGO, was given a bad name by the forces of Nazi Germany who would destroy whole villages and massacre all the inhabitants because one German had been assassinated. The most famous incident being that of the Czech town of Lidice which was wiped off the face of the earth after partisans assassinated Heydrich, a leading Nazi.

Indeed, the provisions of the Versailles Treaty after the end of World War I could be viewed as a collective punishment of the German people which was a major cause of World War II, as was the forced ethnic cleansing of Germans from Poland after territory had been ceded after World War II.

In light of the hundreds of trucks and thousands of tonnes of humanitarian aid passing through checkpoints between Israel and Gaza every week, by any standard Israel’s treatment of Gazans, who live in a state of belligerence with Israel, is somewhat generous.

Those who accuse Israel of collective punishment often couple this with a call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) of the Jewish state. If Israel’s treatment of Gazans is collective punishment and morally wrong, why is the proposed collective punishment of Israelis for the policies of their government not morally reprehensible. After all, the BDS brigade wants to hurt Israel economically, including, of course, its Arab citizens. By their own judgment, are the BDS supporters not proposing the same morally reprehensible action of which they accuse Israel? If collective punishment of Israel is acceptable why carp about the plight of Gaza?

I suspect the answer is that BDS is, for many of its supporters, not simply a tool to pressure Israel into a more humanitarian approach but fundamentally to undermine the State of Israel, to soften it up for the coup de grâce, and ultimately destroy it.

Israel is under attack on many fronts: militarily (Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran by proxy via the both of the former),  politically (UN Security Council, UN Human Rights Council, antipathy in Europe, South America and the Muslim world), legally (Goldstone Report, challenges to Occupation, security wall, blockade etc.), academically (academic boycotts, disinvitations etc.) and finally by fanatical Islamism (calling for Israel’s destruction and a new genocide of the Jewish People by Hamas, by historical revisionism denying Jewish connection with the Land, blood libels, brain-washing of children to hate and revile Jews by, inter alia, the Palestinian Authority).

And so this demonization continues, which seems to be the main focus and raison d’être of so many radical Muslims and their fellow travelers of various stripes.

The United States is not innocent in the application of its own BDS with regard Cuba. Where are the calls in the UN for sanctions against the USA for the collective punishment of Cubans? Why is the Security Council not in a constant state of outrage against Russia’s treatment of Chechens or Ossetians, Turkey’s treatment of Kurds, China of Tibetans? What is being done about the starving millions of North Korea? Only Israel can cause the UN Security Council to convene and condemn it within hours every time Israel has the temerity to defend itself.

Israel is not perfect. Gazans are suffering, but this fixation with one conflict which so monopolizes the UN and world politics is symptomatic of a pathology which leads to moral blindness, bullying and demonisation.

And now we have the disgusting spectacle of a unanimous decision by the Unite union in the UK to pursue BDS against Israel.

Even the Palestinian Authority doesn’t go this far as reported by YNetNews:

The Palestinian finance minister stressed Sunday that the boycott on Israeli products pertains only to goods produced in settlements, and that the Palestinian Authority desires to maintain ties with the Israeli market.

“We have excellent ties with the Israeli market and we want to continue this cooperation and even expand it,” Dr. Hasan Abu-Libdeh said at a conference held at the Peres Center for Peace in Tel Aviv.

Do I hear the distant echo of the 1930’s?

Flotilla farce: Hamas refuses to allow in ‘humanitarian aid’ (2)

07/06/2010 / / 0 Comments

As I write, most of the aid from the Freedom Flotilla and the Rachel Corrie that Israel has sent through to its crossings with Gaza is not being allowed in by Hamas.

Can you believe that? Its people are in such dire need but Hamas  will not allow in this ‘vital’ aid.

Where are the protests from the Free Gaza Movement about Hamas’s inhuman blockade? Why are the IHH not slammimg Hamas. Why is Turkish prime minster Erdogan not taking Hamas to task? Where is Ban Ki Moon? John Ging (UNWRA) anyone? Amnesty International? Save the Children? Human Rights Watch? All silent. Desmond Tutu? Shtum.

I see. It’s only when Israel blocks anything that it’s wrong. Now I see. Thank you so much you irrational bunch of hypocrites. At last I am enlightened.

What the hell is going on when no-one says anything about this!

Flotilla: what we know and Israel’s choices

07/06/2010 / / 0 Comments

To anyone that has half an unbiased brain to think and at least one unclouded eye to see, the evidence supporting Israel’s account is mounting.

Sadly, there is now a long history of Israel’s many accounts of its actions not being accepted.

The unrelenting propaganda as well as Israel’s often lamentable ability to make its case or explain its actions mean that Israel has to change. The government must find a different way to defend Israel and one that shows up its enemies to be what they are. Israel must engage with those who claim to be its friend and let them put there actions where their mouth is.

But first, even before any investigation, internal or otherwise, is cobbled together to appease world opinion, this is my version of what happened garnered from a growing body of evidence:

Whether you like it or not and whether you think it legal or not, Israel has imposed a maritime blockade on the Gaza Strip. The single most important reason for the maritime blockade is fear of arms smuggling from Iran. Israel has repeatedly said that it will not allow Iran to have a port a few tens of kilometres from Tel Aviv. This article about the Francop shows you the size and extent of such arms smuggling. This would be considered an act of war by many countries. Note that the ship was flying the Antiguan flag. This is not an isolated case. Iran supplies Hamas through Somalia and Egypt and Hizbollah, a Hamas clone, in Lebanon via Syria.

The Free Gaza Movement and the Turkish-based IHH (both ostensibly and evidentially aid organisations) organised a flotilla, loaded it with aid and set out with the expressed intention of ‘breaking the blockade’. The delivery of aid was secondary and here’s why:

There is an impression given that Gazans are starving, but they are not. The UN claims that only between one quarter and one fifth of goods previously entering before the blockade gets through Israel’s and Egypt’s border checkpoints.

It should be noted that Egypt also imposed a ‘blockade’ and has built a 30ft deep steel barrier across its border with Gaza.

Whilst there is no doubt that Gazan’s are suffering economically, it is in the interests of Israel’s enemies to use overblown and inflammatory claims. Sometimes, the truth does get out. May I refer you to this article in the Daily Telegraph: Dispatch: Just how hungry is Gaza?

“There is no starvation in Gaza,” said Khalil Hamada, a senior official at Hamas’s ministry of justice. “No-one has died of hunger.

But it is, however, true that there is hardship. This cannot and should not be denied. What is often lacking is context and moderate language. The moral issues at stake here, and your view of them, depend on your particular bias or understanding of the conflict. You may simply hate Israel and be prepared to do anything to destroy it or to blacken its name internationally. You may support Israel and be blinkered to, or underplay, Palestinian suffering.

Given the difficulties of the Gazan people, aid organisations which support Palestinians and Gazans in particular, and reject Israel’s security concerns, have sought to make political capital by attempting to run the blockade with the express intention of breaking it. At the same time they load up their ships with aid, including food and building materials. Their mission, they believe,  is a moral one and they are motivated by their sense of outrage to pursue their goal.

Such activists have a right to protest. They can even try to break the blockade, but they know they will not be allowed to do so. They know, however, that this will be a propaganda victory. They know that the aid will still get through.

But their main motivation, as expressed many times in the recent Freedom Flotilla disaster is to break the blockade. One pebble cannot break a wall but eventually you will chip away enough to get through. It must also be said that these same people would never attempt to run a blockade by Iran or North Korea because they know they would be risking their lives. They know, if they are honest with themselves, that Israel may use force, but it will not be lethal. So why did it become lethal?

It is now becoming clear that at some point the flotilla was infiltrated by activists with links to terror and who had planned confrontation with Israeli forces. They brought on a board an assortment of knives, clubs and slingshots. They may have brought firearms, although there is no conclusive evidence. They were filmed by reporters on the boat chanting there intention to kill the Jews. They gave interviews stating it was Gaza or martyrdom. They did not care that they were about to risk the lives of hundreds of people including women and children (why would you bring children!)

Israel spent 6 hours trying to negotiate that the ships divert to Ashdod for inspection. The flotilla leaders refused. 6 hours! If they had real murderous intent they would have just sunk the ships.

Israeli commandos, include females, successfully boarded 5 of the 6 flotilla boats without encountering any resistance. There may have been some rough handling, but no-one on either side was injured. When Israel commandeered the 7th, delayed boat, the Rachel Corrie, yesterday, there was no resistance and no-one was injured.

But when the Mavi Marmara, the large lead ship, was boarded something went wrong.

Israel botched the Mavi Marmara assault. They used the wrong kind of troops and the wrong tactics. However, it is also clear, if you open your eyes even to what may be unpalatable to your viewpoint, the commandos came on board with a paintball gun and a Glock pistol. As each commando landed on the top deck wielding their paintball gun they were assaulted extremely violently with metal bars and knives. The ‘activists’ even had stun grenades, apparently.

The activists took two pistols from the Israelis and shot them. One was hit in the stomach. Another soldier was thrown over a guard rail and suffered serious head injuries. Three soldiers were taken hostage and moved below decks.

As his comrades lay on the deck injured, an Israeli Staff Sergeant dragged them to the side, stood in front of them to protect them, and took out his semi-automatic pistol.  Given the Turkish autopsy evidence, 9 ‘activists’ were then shot and killed by 30 bullets suffering shots to the legs, lower body and lethal shots to the head, including the back and side of the head. Several others were injured.

Those looking for atrocity stories and who don’t understand how lethal force is applied will see this as disproportionate. Just think. You are that Israeli. You have seen your comrades beaten unconscious and shot. There is a mob advancing on you with clubs and knives and maybe guns. Your life is in danger. You try to disable your assailant by shooting him in the leg, it’s dark and you are on a heaving ship. Some leg shots may hit the lower abdomen. He keeps coming. He is about to stab you or shoot you or beat you. You are in fear of your life. You have asked for and been given permission to use your firearm. Your training tells you you have to shoot twice in the head. You keep doing this until they stop coming. You have been joined by a comrade who is doing the same thing. 9 men are dead and your assailants stop coming at you. At last there are enough of you to take charge of the boat.

They have their victory. Israel has committed another ‘atrocity’. The IHH infiltrators, with links to terrorism have won. They have provoked the tiger. Now the lies and distortions that an all too willing world wants to hear can begin.

Claims that the Israelis opened the firing from deck or even from the helicopters do not make sense. Why fire live rounds them come down a rope with a pop-gun? If the activists were unarmed surely live rounds would have cowered them? Maybe they fired stun grenades or even tear gas, who knows. We do not even know where the dead fell and whether all casualties were on deck.

The non-Turkish flotilla leaders have not acknowledged this infiltration. They either refuse to accept the evidence either because there is some form of cognitive dissonance going on, or they are deliberately ignoring it because it doesn’t play to their political preconceptions. They have already demonised Israel and nothing Israel does in national self-defence or individual self-defence will make them tell it otherwise.

Israel must recognise that it has lost the battle for world opinion long ago. A combination of its poorly thought out strategies and its opponents successful manipulation of public opinion has turned the only redoubt of democracy in the Middle East to a pariah state with a lower standing than genocidal Iran. Israel was once surrounded by neighbouring enemies who wanted to destroy it. Now most of the world is either its enemy or wants it to give in to those who would destroy it.

Israel must now stop trying to fight battles as if it were still the 1970’s. In this century of mass communication and instant sound bites, so-called human rights and NGO’s, Israel has to be more humble and a lot cleverer; it has to be less defensive diplomatically and fight back not with weapons but with diplomacy and legal instruments. It must make the same use of international courts and UN bodies as its enemies. It has to show the world more forcefully what it is up against.

What Israel must not do is lift the maritime blockade. It should get together with its ‘friends’ and the UN and ask a simple question: how do we stop Iran arming our enemy and rebuilding its capability whilst, at the same time enabling Gazans to rebuild their broken homes and lives? How will you help us? How long will Gilad Shalit rot in some hole in Gaza (if that’s where he still is?) What pressure will the UN bring on Hamas to allow the Red Cross or the Red Crescent visit him? Where are the pro-Israel NGO’s fighting to tell Israel’s story?

Israel has to agree to some form of international enquiry not because it should but because it is diplomatically the right thing to do. This should be the start of a new strategy for Israel and its fight back in the propaganda war that could destroy it. If it stops acting as the victor and starts acting a bit more like the victim the tide could turn.

Here are links to material which support the article above.

Jerusalem Post 06/06/2010 Mercenaries aboard Gaza ship

Jerusalem Post 06/06/2010 At least 5 Mavi Marmura passengers have terror links

Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs 06/06/2010 Hamas refuses to allow flotilla aid into Gaza Strip

San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea, 12 June 1994

For some videos see my post https://www.raymondcook.net/blog/index.php/2010/06/03/col-kemp-israel-and-double-standards/

All news and videos about the flotilla see http://www.jta.org/bigstory

My letter to the London Evening Standard

06/06/2010 / / 0 Comments

Last week I was approached by the London Evening Standard to write a letter about the Israeli interception and boarding of the Freedom Flotilla and its aftermath.

This is what was published:

THE deaths on the Freedom Flotilla and the international outcry resulting from Israel’s interception and boarding are the result of a carefully calculated plan by the convoy’s organisers.

If they were allowed through they would have scored a victory; if they were stopped, the Israelis would undoubtedly be vilified for preventing “humanitarian aid” entering Gaza. This was a win-win situation for the organisers, the Turkish-based IHH charity which is also a covert supporter of Hamas and international terrorism.

The refusal to dock at Ashdod for inspection and the expressed intention to head for Gaza was deliberately confrontational. Israel was unaware that an ambush awaited its commandos as they landed on the lead ship.

The commandos had paintball guns and pistols and had orders only to use their weapons in extremis. Israeli video clearly shows they were attacked, beaten, stabbed, thrown over a deck rail and fired at. They were in danger of their lives.

But it is now the default position internationally to blame Israel first and let the facts be buried. Israel can no longer take any action to defend its citizens against a murderous neighbour and its fanatical supporters without international condemnation.*

*Letters to the London Evening Standard June 1st 2010

I wish I wasn’t in the middle of my day job when the request came in as the letter would have been a little diffrent, but it’s nice to be approached for your opinion.

Gaza flotilla: Israeli commando gives his account

04/06/2010 / / 0 Comments

It has taken a while but what really happened on board the Mavi Marmara is now coming to light and it is being verified by unlikely sources.

The Jerusalem Post has an interview with a Staff Sergeant who killed 6 of the 9 ‘activists’ on board the ship  and his account reveals that this was a very well rehearsed ambush by men trained in advance. The Staff Sergeant saved his own life and that of his colleagues from a baying mob of murderous terrorists who had no interest in humanitarian aid, no interest in the plight of Gazans but only a desire to kill or be killed.

You can read the full article here.

Here are the highlights:

As St-Sgt S rapelled onto the deck of the Mavi Marmara:

Looking to his side, he saw three of his commanders lying wounded – one with a gunshot wound to the stomach and another with a gunshot wound to the knee. A third was lying unconscious; his skull was fractured by a devastating blow with a metal bar.

Then:

He pushed the wounded soldiers up against the wall of the upper deck and created a perimeter of soldiers around them to begin treating their wounds, he said. He then arranged his men to form a second perimeter, and pulled out his 9 mm. Glock pistol to stave off the charging attackers and to protect his wounded comrades.

The attackers had already seized two pistols from the commandos, and fired repeatedly at them. Facing more than a dozen of the mercenaries, and convinced their lives were in danger, he and his colleagues opened fire, he said. S. singlehandedly killed six men. His colleagues killed another three.

Any enquiry must try to understand if it was necessary to kill 9 people to quell the mob. Remember this was at night on a heaving deck; the commandos had no idea how many had what weapons and subsequent revelations show that were more than justified in their actions.

… the IDF said on Thursday that the commandos were attacked by a well-trained group of mercenaries, most of whom were found without IDs but with thousands of dollars in their pockets.

The group was well trained and was split into a number of squads of about 20 mercenaries each distributed throughout the upper deck… All of the mercenaries wore gas masks and ceramic bulletproof vests and were armed with either bats, slingshots, metal bars, knives or stun grenades.

The IDF’s understanding is that the mercenaries mainly chose dual-purpose items of this sort rather than guns, since opening fire would have made it blatantly clear that they were terrorists and not so-called peace activists.

However:

…the IDF suspects that the group did have some guns of its own. Israeli forensic experts who examined the ship found casings belonging to a weapon that was not used by the commandos, and the Turkish captain of the ship later told the IDF that the “mercenaries” threw their weapons overboard after the commandos took control of the vessel. (my emphasis)

And:

Investigators found gun-sights and cartridge-magazines not fitting IDF weapons in a search of the ship, Israel Radio quoted IDF sources saying Friday morning.

There were stories from the activists that the commandos rapelled onto the ship already shooting from above. Physically impossible. But the IDF did say this, which might explain the stories of people all to ready to blame the Israelis for the violence:

In contrast to earlier reports, the commandos said that they began using their weapons within a minute and a half after boarding the ship, due to the extreme violence they faced. One of the reasons S. pulled out his gun right after landing on the ship was because one of the mercenaries was pointing a pistol, snatched from one of the commandos, at another commando’s head.

And, somewhat surprisingly, none other than an Al-Jazeera cameraman has supported the IDF evidence:

Andre Abu Khalil, a Lebanese cameraman for Al Jazeera TV, who was aboard the Mavi Marmara told Reuters some 20 Turkish men tried by force to prevent the boarding commandos from reaching the wheelhouse and commandeering the ship.

Using slingshots, metal pipes and wooden rods they initially succeeded in wounding and overpowering four Israeli soldiers and dragging them below decks, he told Reuters.

After a 10-minute standoff the Israelis opened fire, according to the cameraman.

The international community including the UK government conflates the fact of the interception of the flotilla with the deaths occurring on it. The Israelis may have blundered with poor intelligence but it is equally clear that they did not have any intent at violence and that the organisers of the flotilla were intent on just that. Though the deaths are regrettable, had these people not used disproportionate force , murderous intent and a wish for martydom they would be alive today.

And as for the guy who jumped to conclusions in the image above? Yeah, right.

Flotilla farce: Hamas refuses to allow in ‘humanitarian aid’

02/06/2010 / / 0 Comments

The ‘Freedom Flotilla’ organised by the Free Gaza Movement was bringing vital aid, right?

Nine people were tragically killed trying to deliver it, right?

Israel has been embroiled in an international incident.  Angry mobs have attacked Israeli targets all over the world and demonstrated in Turkey.

But when the aid does finally arrive in 20 trucks (Israel delivered over 30,000 truckloads in 2009, that’s about 100 a day by the way) they have been stopped at the Rafah checkpoint by Hamas as the IDF blog reports:

As of right now, the State of Israel has loaded 20 trucks with various types of aid found onboard the flotilla. Expired medication, clothing, blankets, some medical equipment and toys were among the aid found on the ships.

Unfortunately, the Hamas terror organization is unwilling to accept the cargo and the trucks filled with humanitarian aid have not been allowed to enter the Gaza Strip. It appears that Hamas is in fact stopping the transfer of the humanitarian aid.

CNN has a little more on this:

Palestinian sources confirmed that trucks that arrived from Israel at the Rafah terminal at the Israel-Gaza border were barred from delivering the aid.

Ra’ed Fatooh, in charge of the crossings, and Jamal Khudari, head of a committee against the Gaza blockade, said Israel must release all flotilla detainees and that it will be accepted in the territory only by the Free Gaza Movement people who organized the flotilla.

So first of all the sum total of aid (I believe 8 trucks had already been delivered yesterday) was about one quarter of what is delivered daily through Israel and the organisers bleat:

Those held illegally by the Israeli government have committed no crime, they have simply attempted to avert a humanitarian disaster by bringing much-needed medical supplies into Gaza. (Betty Hunter, general secretary of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign)

Much-needed out of date medication which could do more harm than good. But the way the ships were carelessly and chaotically laden bears witness that the aid was just a front; a front for confrontation. As the Jerusalem Post reported yesterday:

In a statement to reporters at the port on Tuesday, Colonel Moshe Levi, commander of the IDF’s Gaza Strip Coordination and Liaison Administration (CLA), said that none of the equipment found on board the three cargo ships was in shortage in Gaza.

“We have been working non-stop for the last twenty-four hours examining the cargo holds of the three large cargo ships and I can say with great assurance, that none of the equipment on board is needed in Gaza. The equipment that we found is all equipment that we have regularly allowed into the strip over the past year,” said Levi. “This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the whole premise of the voyage was for propaganda and provocation and not for humanitarian purposes.”…..

Gidi Gofer, head of the Defense Ministry’s international transport division, said that the equipment that arrived in the cargo ships did not have proper transport manifests or any of the paperwork required to legally ship cargo by sea. “The cargo did not meet international safety or operational standards,” said Gofer.

Many in the flotilla who thought that they were on a genuine humanitarian mission were duped by the IHH who were behind the attempted lynching of the Israeli commandos; the real purpose of the flotilla for them was to cause an incident, kill some Israelis or become martyrs (see my post here).

So Hamas think so little of these 20 trucks that they are holding their own people to ransom in order to win some pathetic battle to release people they know will be released anyway. These are the people the poor misguided humanitarian organisations are really supporting. Their people are so deprived of medicine and a bit of food that they can afford to use them as bargaining chips in some obscene political game.

If this doesn’t tell us the true nature of Hamas or the the true intent of the ‘Freedom Flotilla’ then what will.

Channel 4 and some truth about Israel’s flotilla interception

02/06/2010 / / 2 Comments

I am grateful to a friend who alerted me to this Channel 4 news item where Jon Snow interviews a British Naval analyst, Peter Cook, whose dispassionate description of the Israeli video material shows that, despite what the liars on board are now saying, the Israelis went in armed with paintball guns and holstered pistols and were met with murderous assault.

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