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Israel, Zionism and the Media

Tag: gaza flotilla

Flotilla II – The Audacity of Hype

28/06/2011 / / 0 Comments

Remember the Flotilla that set sail for Gaza one year ago?

Remember the Mavi Marmara?

Remember the worldwide outrage when the IDF killed 9 IHH members on board?

Israel was accused of piracy on the high-seas and murder.

I wrote about it here here and here.

Well, the flotillaniks are at it again.

So what’s it all about? What are the real objectives of the “Peace Flotilla”?

StandWIthUs have put together extensive information.

First there are Ten Quick Facts

This is elaborated here.

The US State Department issued a statement you can see here.

So what’s my blog title about?

Well, one of the US ships has been named ‘The Audacity of Hope’ mocking President Obama’s book of that name. This venture was trailed as a massive new Flotilla and the Israelis would have problems stopping it this time by sheer weight of numbers.

Yet we find to day that the number of participants will be approximately 300. There were 600 on the Mavi Marmara alone.

So the whole purpose of the flotilla is not humanitarian aid; that lie can easily be countered by the fact that both Egypt and Israel have offered ports where cargo can be checked and aid sent through to Gaza. In any case, Gaza does not need this aid.

The purpose of the Flotilla is to embarrass Israel. It is a blatant provocation.  The organisers are Hamas supporters. They know that if they can break the blockade then it is invalidated and weapons from Iran can pass freely to Hamas. If there is a confrontation, they hope to further their aim to delegitimise the State of Israel and isolate it internationally.

The flotillaniks say that they carry no weapons, yet a report today that is going the rounds of the Twittersphere is that extremists on the flotilla have chemicals aboard and want to kill IDF soldiers.

Here is what the Jerusalem Post reported:

While the organizers of the Gaza-bound flotilla said in Athens Monday that the passengers are taking to sea “without weapons,” government sources said Israel had information that some of the passengers had hid chemicals, such as sulfur, on theboats to be used against IDF soldiers.

This is what Reuters said:

An Israeli military source said Israel had information that some activists were planning to attack soldiers with acid and lethal chemical agents if they boarded the ships.

Dror Feiler, an Israeli participant in the flotilla, denied the allegation in an interview with Israeli Army Radio and said all of the passengers had signed a pledge of non-violence.

And Ha’aretz:

Senior officials in Jerusalem said Monday that Israel has received information that organizers of the Gaza flotilla may be bringing chemical substances on the ships to use against Israeli soldiers to prevent them from boarding the ships.

The senior officials also said that Israel had been notified that several extremists among the Gaza flotilla participants had recently claimed that they intend on “shedding the blood of IDF soldiers.”

Moreover, despite earlier reports, it seems that activists from the Turkish organization IHH, which was involved in the deadly IDF raid on the Mavi Marmara in last year’s Gaza flotilla, will be joining several of the ships sailing for Gaza as part of the flotilla.

Israeli officials claim that two activists participating in the flotilla have connections to Hamas. They named the first one as Amin Abu Rashad, who they claim is one of the head Dutch organizers for the Gaza flotilla and had served in the past as the head of the Hamas’ Charitable Foundation in Holland. The foundation closed down following Dutch authorities’ probe into its involvement in funding terror activities.

The second activist is Mohammed Ahmed Hanon, which Israel claims is a Hamas activist who stands at the head of the ABSPP, which is involved in transferring funds to terrorists.

It remains to be seen whether these reports are well-founded. If they are, then any veneer of peace activism is blown out of the water.

You might also like to see this post from the Elder of Zion about the organisers of this new Love Boat.

There is also a fine article by Ruth Dudley Edwards in the Irish Independent:

Let us be clear. Whether they know it or not, that gaggle of posturing, ignorant Irish clowns who are setting sail towards Gaza on the MV Saoirse are driven by anti-Semitism. Otherwise they would be protesting against — for instance — the Islamist killings and bombings that are forcing tens of thousands of Christians to flee the Middle East, the ethnic cleansing in the Sudan, the ill-treatment of servants and women in Saudi Arabia, the hanging of gays from cranes in Iran, the massacres of protesters in Libya and Syria, the torture of Irish-trained doctors in Bahrain for tending to injured demonstrators and the vicious anti-Jewish propaganda that teaches Arab children to hate.

I also refer you to the Howard Jacobson post I wrote recently.

Meanwhile, we find that in the a UN draft report into last year’s Mavi Marmara incident found that the Israeli maritime blockade was not illegal and they were within their rights to stop the flotilla.

A draft of the report, due to be released within two weeks, was given to Israel and Turkey about six weeks ago. The committee determined that Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza is in keeping with international law, and therefore its actions to stop the flotilla were also legal.

This same report states that Israel’s actions were “disproportionate” – that word again. Yes, it’s really disproportionate to make sure you kill someone who is fanatically committed to killing you or to die. But maybe that merits another post at another time. No doubt we’ll soon be looking at second UN Report and another attempted hatchet job on Israel in the coming days.

For the legal aspects also, read this by the Elder which refers to a Zeit Online article.

There has been some interesting attempts on the Israeli side to use lawfare against the ‘Peace Flotilla’ (great name for those who believe language is just another weapon of war – it’s called propaganda, usually).

First marine insurance companies were warned off insuring the boats because if it could be shown they were breaching international law, then they would in effect be liable to be sued by victims of Hamas terrorism:

A human rights group has warned insurance companies that they could be aiding terrorism if they insure ships that break the blockade of Gaza.

Israeli organisation Shurut Hadin has written to almost all major insurance companies worldwide, including Lloyd’s of London, the biggest in the world.

It warns them that they could be liable for massive damages if the ships they insure break Israel’s blockade around Hamas-controlled Gaza.

Lawyer Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, the founder of the group, explained: “We sent these letters to the largest insurance companies in the world, including Turkish companies, which represent over 99 per cent of the maritime insurance business worldwide. We warned them that, if they insure these ships, they could be sued by victims of Hamas attacks.”

Jewish Chronicle May 19 2011

Then a US citizen invoked a 220 year old law to try to try to seize the US boats intending to take part.

Dr. Alan Bauer, who along with his son Jonathan was seriously wounded in Palestinian Authority Arab suicide bombing attack in Jerusalem in 2002, filed the suit in a federal court in Manhattan. He is represented by Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, director of the Israeli-based Shurat HaDin (Israel Law Center) and New York attorney Robert J. Tolchin.

Bauer’s suit seeks to confiscate 14 ships outfitted with funds “unlawfully raised in the United States by anti-Israel groups, including the Free Gaza Movement.” The lawsuit contends that furnishing and outfitting the ships, which are being used for hostilities against a U.S. ally, violates American law.

A Canadian citizen who is a resident of Sderot has taken out a lawsuit against the Flotilla organisers:

Sderot resident and Canadian citizen Cherna Rosenberg has filed a million dollar law suit against two Canadian organizations raising money to sponsor a ship – The Canadian Boat to Gaza – to join the international flotilla to Gaza.

The suit, presented by Toronto barrister and law professor Ed Morgan and New York attorney and former AIPAC executive director Neal Sher to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on Monday, argues that the groups, Turtle Island Humanitarian Aid and Alternatives International, both based in Montreal, are part of a chain of conduct that “ultimately leads to the rocket attacks that have traumatized the plaintiff and caused her much suffering and loss.”

The Greeks have waded in with their own attempt to derail the flotilla sailing from Athens:

Ynet has learned that six ships that were meant to take part in the Gaza-bound flotilla are being detained by the port authority and the coast guard in Greece. Senior officials in Jerusalem have confirmed the report.

While the organizers of the maritime convoy claim that more than 1,500 activists are set to take part in the initiative, it now appears that not more than seven ships, carrying 200-500 passengers, will participate in the flotilla.

YNETnews.com 27 Jun 2011 also see the Elder again here about Shurat HaDin’s efforts to scuttle the flotilla..

Of course, the Hamas-huggers are whingeing about all these efforts because they are getting a taste of their own medicine. Too bad!

So, the Peace Flotilla, replete, allegedly, with its chemical weapons and who knows what else, sets off for Gaza, not to build a nation, Palestine, but destroy another, Israel.

How sad. How tragic. How much longer will Palestinians allow themselves to be used as the pawns of Green-Red political posturing?

How much longer will they allow themselves to be sacrificed on the altar of anti-Zionist, Jew-hatred and far Left ideological fantasising.

Audacity of Hope? Or the Morality of the Cesspit?

You decide.

 

UPDATE:

Chas Newkey-Burden (OyVaGoy) has pointed me to his own blog post on this issue.

http://www.oyvagoy.com/2011/06/28/we-want-to-bring-the-soldiers-home-safely/

FURTHER UPDATE:

http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2011/06/brilliant-lawsuit-to-stop-flotilla.html

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: disaster for Israel, victory for Hamas

31/05/2010 / / 3 Comments

This morning I awoke to the worst possible headlines and yet another depressing chapter in Israel’s history of PR disasters. My belief that Israel had the ‘perfect answer’ was wrong.

They messed up badly.

We don’t yet know how many died or will die, but  one thing is certain: Israel will be blamed and vilified and this will be another martyrdom to be added to litany of hate against Israel. All we know is that Israeli commandos intercepted and boarded the flotilla that was sailing from Turkey to break the maritime blockade and deliver aid to Gaza. On one of the boats, it appears, that an ‘activist’ grabbed a weapon from an Israeli commando and shot him in the stomach. Bearing in mind this is at night amid chaos it appears that other commandos opened fire and several were killed. It also appears that this was a planned attack and the activists who had previously claimed that they would not resort to violence did just that.

The Jerusalem Post got it right:

For the international media and its consumers, the reasons behind Israel’s decision do not make much of a difference, since what Israel is doing fits the way it is already widely perceived – as a violent aggressor abusing a weak and poor Palestinian people.

The article then goes on to state that the flotilla of aid was unnecessary because thousands of tons a week enter Gaza via the Keren Shalom crossing and in an attempt to improve its PR image the Israeli government invited journalists to witness this. What hasn’t been reported widely is that:

the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH), the Turkish organization that is behind the flotilla, described as a “radical Islamic organization” that was outlawed by Israel in 2008 for allegedly serving as a major component in Hamas’s global fund-raising machine

In other words, under the cover of an aid convey, the real intention was to provoke Israel to some precipitate action.

And as far as the hostile world is concerned, this is exactly what happened. On BBC News this morning Mark Regev, the Israel spokesperson, was asked if there were any illegal arms on board, to which he, of course, answered that he had no such intelligence.

And so the waters are immediately muddied: why did the Israelis have to stop the flotilla? If they had let it through there would have been no deaths. In other words Israel is the provocateur, not the IHH. The deaths are Israel’s fault and caused by the blockade, not by an activist who recklessly grabbed a weapon and actually used it.

As I have said in previous posts, this was a win/win for Hamas and a lose/lose for Israel. If the flotilla were allowed through, as the JP also points out and as Danny Ayalon, Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister described here and in his press conference this morning, the floodgates would be open and Iran would succeed in delivering missiles to Gaza that would be used against Israeli towns and cities.

This is why there is a maritime blockade and why all ships which wish to deliver anything to Gaza have to pass through an Israeli port for inspection .

The Israeli Foreign Ministry has now published this account.

1. Numerous warning were given to head for Ashdod where the aid would be delivered after inspection

2. This was refused

3. The Israeli commandos boarded the ships and on one ship they were, apparently, fired on by weapons already on board (2 pistols)  which had been taken but one of which was then grabbed back.In addition the activists had knives and clubs. This is despite prior protestations that they would not use violence.

4. This seemed to be a planned ambush by a section of the activists. So it is clear.

The aid flotilla was a sham. Its intention was to provoke violence and it succeeded. If it was just and aid convoy it could have docked at Ashdod. The organisers are a Turkish NGO (IHH) which has connections with terrorist organisations including Hamas But none of this will matter. The forces of terror have had a clear victory. The Palestinian Authority has already declared 3 days of mourning and Hamas call it a ‘massacre’.

Could Israel have handled it better? I’m sorry to say the answer has to be ‘yes’.

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