Interesting article on Arutz Sheva website a few days ago.
Israeli medicine is second to none. We saw their magnificent response to the Haiti earthquake.
In her article Maayana Miskin tells us that in the Ichilov hospital in Tel Aviv in the heart of the Zionist entity, 100 patients a month from Gaza are treated.
Yes, you read that correctly, 100 per month. One hospital.
But that’s not all. It also treats foreign Arabs from countries that don’t even recognise Israel.
But that’s not all. The relatives of these Arabs are provided with free food (presumably Halal) and a place to stay.
But that’s not all. It’s just one of several hospitals that do this.
And as a Druze Knesset minister, Ayoub Kara, points out, Hamas gives nothing in return for this. Well he’s wrong about that. They send hundreds of missile towards amongst other things, hospitals in Sderot and Ashkelon.
And Gilad Shalit still remains a prisoner for four years with no Red cross/Crescent visits.
This is Israel’s version of Humanitarian Aid. It doesn’t arrive with metal bars and knives, just the odd scalpel.
What sort of mentality is this that so demonises the Jews yet accepts their medical care?
Yes, Israel is not perfect, but who else treats its enemies like this in the Middle East?
There seems to be a new trend that I wasn’t aware of before where a group of people (call it a flash mob if you will) pre-arranges to perform in a public space having secreted itself amongst the general public.
Such an event happened in the Dizengoff Mall in Tel Aviv.
Israeli culture looks to the West and also to the East with its mixture of Ashkenazi and Mizrachi Jews. This time it’s very much European culture being celebrated.
Watch this event on this YouTube video.
In 1996 a Hamas suicide bomber tried to enter Dizengoff. The security was so tight that he decided to detonate outside on public crosswalk/pedestrian crossing. It was the eve of Purim, a festival notorious with the Nazis who liked to hang Jews in revenge for the hanging of Haman and his sons. Hamas are aware of this connection which is not just orthographic.
13 people were killed including several children.
The gap between normal life and sudden death can be a very small one in Israel.
Israelis have a culture of life, Hamas a culture of death.
Yesterday, the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that disciplinary action had been taken against a number of army officers and soldiers for their conduct during Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip between December 2008 and January 2009.
Following Israel’s campaign to severely reduce the power and potential of the Hamas regime to attack targets in Israel using daily rocket fire, the United Nations condemned Israel and then launched a fact finding mission headed by South African judge, Richard Goldstone.
Israel refused to assist with the Goldstone enquiry on the grounds that it was quite capable of conducting its own investigations. Members of the team that put together the report had announced their view that Israel had committed war crimes even before they began their investigation.
The report found Israel and Hamas probably guilty of war crimes and insisted that both Israel and Hamas conduct their own investigations. Nevertheless, the UN seemed intent on indicting Israel and tainting the Israeli government of the time and the Israeli Army with accusations of war crimes.
Israel rejected the Goldstone report on the grounds that it was factually inaccurate, one-sided, did not take full account of the asymmetric nature of the conflict or the gross violations of the rules of armed conflict, the Geneva Convention and just about every international and civilised code of conduct by Hamas.
Notwithstanding Israel’s rejection of the report and the UN’s singling out, yet again, of Israel for condemnation when countries such as Sri Lanka do not merit any similar international condemnation or investigation despite strong evidence of state sanctioned war crimes, Israel had already begun its own internal investigation of its own conduct, and this has now led to both a change in its rules of engagement in the West Bank and the indictment of a number of its soldiers.
Some of the incidents reported by Goldstone and investigated by the IDF have led to indictments but the Ministry report stresses:
the report of the United Nations fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict (i.e. the Goldstone Report) was published in September 2009, presenting 30 specific incidents related to the IDF, most of which were already familiar to the IDF and were in various stages of examination prior to the report’s publication.
It is interesting to note that the Goldstone Report took mere weeks whilst the IDF has taken over a year. This is comparable to any similar investigation carried out by the United States or Great Britain, for example.
When the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal broke in April 2004, convictions took place in January 2005 of Charles Graner and Lyndie England when the documentary evidence was a lot more clear cut and had taken place outside of any military conflict. It was not until March 2006 that the investigations and convictions were concluded. It should be noted that there was no call for a UN enquiry.
The UK launched a second major enquiry into the Iraq war in June 2009. One year later, this is still ongoing and it will be 2011 until it is completed.
The Goldstone Report effectively began in April 2009 and delivered by September. The IDF has understandably taken a little longer than the rush to judgement required by the UN and delivered by Goldstone. Apparently its investigations are ongoing.
The specific of the indictments of IDF soldiers are as follows:
1. Complaint by Majdi Abed-Rabo:
An investigation into a claim that a Palestinian man was used as a “human shield” was opened by the Military Police Criminal Investigations Division, in accordance with the investigative policies of the IDF, which require that a criminal investigation be opened regarding claims of this kind. (my emphasis)
However, when you look at what actually happened, it is doubtful that any other army in the world would indict:
The investigation found that a battalion commander authorized the sending of a Palestinian man into a house (adjacent to his own) sheltering terrorists, in order to convince them to exit the house. The battalion commander, not present on the scene, authorized the order following reports that the Palestinian man asked the soldiers if he could do this so as to prevent the destruction of his house if a battle were to transpire.
The Military Advocate General indicted the battalion commander because he deviated from authorized and appropriate IDF behavior, and the Israeli Supreme Court jurisdiction regarding the use of civilians during operational activity, when he authorized the Palestinian’s request to enter the house.
2. Complaint by the Hajaj Family:
The original investigation into the incident was based on a claim, which also appeared in the Goldstone Report, that fire killed two women on January 4, 2009, in the neighborhood of Juhar Al-Dik. It was claimed that the women were part of a group of civilians, some of whom were carrying white flags.
This was one of the most notorious incidents until now only reported from the Palestinian side. There was enormous scepticism amongst supporters of Israel who could not believe such a thing could happen.
After reviewing the evidence, the Military Advocate General ordered that an IDF Staff Sergeant be indicted on charges of manslaughter by a military court. This decision is based on evidence that the soldier, who was serving as a designated marksman, deliberately targeted an individual walking with a group of people waving a white flag without being ordered or authorized to do so.
Well, apparently it did. You shoudl note the last sentence where the report says that the soldier was indicted for firing on individuals with a white flag without being ordered to do so.
This may seem an indictment in itself; why should any officer ever require that his men would shoot at someone carrying a white flag? The answer is simple and damns Hamas as much, or even more than it dams the IDF soldier responsible. The reason is that there were documented incidents recorded by the IDF of Hamas operatives forcing civilians to leave houses carrying a white flag whilst they hid amongst or behind them. One such video can be seen here, for example:
This explains the last sentence quoted in the report above and why an IDF soldier might have to shoot at someone with or behind a white flag. However, thi scannot condone the actions and hence the indictment.
3. Ibrahim Al-Makadma Mosque
The report explains that initial investigations could show no air strike on this mosque. Several independent reports insisted that the mosque had been hit and this provoked further enquiry. The air strike was in fact near to the mosque where a a Hamas operative was firing rockets. As a result of the air strike shrapnel penetrated the mosque injuring people inside. It should be noted that the operative himself was not concerned that he was operating near a place of worship where people were gathered.
Again, look at NATO reacting to one of its strikes that went wrong.
But Israel acts thus:
The investigation also showed that the officer who ordered the attack had failed to exercise appropriate judgment. Therefore, the Chief of the General Staff ordered that disciplinary actions be taken against the officer, and that he would not serve in similar positions of command in the future. The officer also stood trial for negligence before the Commander of the Ground Forces Training Center, Brig. Gen. Avi Ashkenazi, who rebuked him for his actions.
But
The Military Advocate General decided that the attack did not violate international laws of warfare because the attack did not target the mosque, rather it targeted a terror operative, and when the attack was authorized, no possibility of harming civilians was identified. According to this assessment, the Military Advocate General decided that legal measures were not necessary.
Finally, the report reminds us:
It should be noted that the IDF conducted the operation after eight years in which Hamas fired thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians living in the southern communities surrounding the Gaza Strip. Despite the fire and the injuries suffered by Israel, Israel practiced a policy of restraint for a long period of time. Since Hamas’ takeover of the Gaza Strip, the terrorist organization has implanted its military system and terrorist infrastructure in the heart of urban areas while using the population as human shields. Operation Cast Lead was limited in the scope of fire and forces used. IDF soldiers operated in crowded urban areas while Hamas made deliberate and cynical use of the Palestinian population, creating a complex security situation. Hamas operated from within civilian homes, schools, kindergartens, mosques, hospitals and UN facilities while the population in the Gaza Strip was made hostage.
Israel has acted and continues to act no differently and perhaps to even more stringent rules than most western democracies in similar circumstances.
Two articles today, the first in the Jerusalem Post and the second on the BBC website cast an interesting light on the way UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) and its chief in Gaza, John Ging, are beginning to speak out against Hamas and its affect on Gaza, rather than Israel’s embargo and maritime blockade. Or are they?
During Operation Cast, Ging was scathing of Israel and its putative attacks on UN compounds and its general tactics. The term ‘War Crimes’ was bandied about and there was a decided lack of interest in the tactics being employed by Hamas.
But now Ging has criticised ‘Palestinian infighting’. Why?
“It is such a tragedy that, on top of all the other crises that we have in the Gaza Strip, we now have a crisis of electricity,” John Ging, director of UNRWA in Gaza, was quoted by AFP as saying.
“It’s an unbearable situation here at the moment, and it needs to be solved very quickly. It’s a Palestinian problem, made by Palestinians, and causing Palestinian suffering. So let’s have a Palestinian solution,” he added.
Strong words indeed. Or are they? ‘Unbearable situation’ if he believes the Palestinians inflict it on their own people, ‘Humanitarian Crisis’ if he believes it’s the Israelis.
The single power plant in Gaza, which normally generates 25 percent of the electricity used in the Strip, was shut down over the weekend due to a payment dispute between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.
Do you know where the other 75% comes from? yeah, you guessed it – Israel.
A couple of weeks ago I was reading an article in the JC written by a Palestinian journalist who described the wretched conditions. He said no-one was starving but electricity was unreliable and so was water. He blames neither Hamas (he would be hanged, no doubt) or Israel (his voice may not be heard).
Most people would have concluded that this situation is 100% attributable to the Israeli maritime blockade and embargo (since eased, somewhat).
But if Hamas cares so much for its people’s suffering, then how can it allow electricity to be cut in this way? And who is ultimately responsible responsible for the stoppage of fuel required to power the plant? The Palestinian Authority. And where is the world outrage? Where are the flotillas? Where are the emergency sessions in the UN?
The BBC reports that for the second time a children’s camp, arranged and funded by UNRWA, has been burned down by ‘extremist militants’. Hamas condemned the first attack but even the BBC has to admit that nothing happens in Gaza without the say-so of the Hamas.
And what does Mr Ging say?:
“This is another example of the growing levels of extremism in Gaza and further evidence, if that were needed, of the urgency to change the circumstances on the ground,” John Ging said.
What does he mean ‘change the circumstances on the ground’?
Does he mean that Israel is to blame for this? Israel, because of the blockade and the embargo? Has he too fallen into the causal quagmire? Does he really think that Islamist extremism is caused by Israel’s blockade and embargo rather than the blockade and embargo being a result of Islamist extremism?
Hamas, having gained possession of Gaza, having seen every last Israeli leave, decided to destroy millions of dollars of agricultural equipment left gratis by Israel and then begin a campaign of launching thousands of rockets into Israel.
And what about the ‘Freedom Flotilla’ aid which was held up for days by Hamas. Does the world expect a ruthless, genocidal, Islamist, terrorist group to care more about its people than Israel?
Or does Ging mean that Hamas and the extremists need to be defeated? Does he ‘get it’ or not?
Gilad Shalit, kidnapped four years ago and held since by Hamas without access to the Red Cross, Red Crescent, his family. Held incommunicado in contravention of international law and human rights.
Remember Gilad Shalit and the unbearable suffering of his family.
Remember Gilad Shalit and the unnecessary wasting of his young life.
The world now knows that Helen Thomas, doyenne of the White House press corps was interviewed earlier this month (see full video below).
Thomas, of Lebanese extraction, said that the Jews should ‘get the hell out of Palestine’. When asked where they should go, she said they should go back to Germany, Poland, America and elsewhere. She was subsequently sacked from Hearst newspapers for her remarks.
Now, Helen Thomas is quite entitled to object to the Israeli presence in the West Bank and to settlements. What she appeared to be guilty of was saying that Jews should leave Palestine (and it is not clear what she meant by ‘Palestine’) and return to two countries which were largely responsible for the deaths of 6 million during the Holocaust.
This is insensitivity to put it mildly. If she were implying that Jews as settlers should leave Palestine/the West Bank, then why did she not say they should settle in Israel rather than ‘get the hell out’. There was a clear implication that she did not believe Jews have the right to settle even in Israel and that they are ALL settlers from Europe, America and elsewhere.
Helen Thomas’s remarks were echoed by a fellow Lebanese, as reported in the Jerusalem Post in an article about the Lebanese all woman flotilla which now, apparently, is not going to sail after all (see here).
In an interview with Hizbullah’s al-Manar television station,
Yasser Kashlak, a Syrian businessman of Palestinian descent who heads the “Free Palestine Organization” and is funding this boat, as well as another that is to carry journalists and parliamentarians, said …. that he was more and more optimistic that one day these same boats would take “Europe’s refuse [the Jews] that came to my homeland back to their homelands.
“Gilad Schalit should go back to Paris and those murderers go back to Poland, and after that we will chase them until the ends of the earth to bring them to justice for their acts of slaughter from Deir Yassin until today.
So the Jewish people are ‘Europe’s refuse’ and should somehow go back, presumably even those who have lived in Israel/Palestine uninterrupted for hundreds of years.
But Mr Kashlak, like Helen Thomas, conveniently failed to mention that in 1948 and subsequently as many as 900,000 Jews from Arab states were expelled or forced to leave due to persecution, and stripped of their property, businesses and money simply for being Jews. Approximately half of all Israelis are of Mizrahi Arab descent.
Many of them, naturally, fled to Israel. So does Mr Kashlak expect these Jews and their descendants to return to Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Syria? Does he think these countries would accept hundreds of thousand of Jews? If not, where would he like them to go? But he is going to chase them to the ends of the Earth anyway, which seems a bit silly. Why expel them and then chase them, why not just murder them in their homes in Israel.
He wants Gilad Shalit to go back to Paris. I’m sure Gilad Shalit would be happy to go anywhere at the moment, but he can’t as he is being held as a prisoner of war by Hamas without access to the Red Cross in direct transgression of the international laws that Hamas and Hizbullah are so keen to accuse Israel of breaking.
So for those who would deny the Jews their rights to self-determination in their ancestral homeland the choice is clear: exile or extermination. And if you chose the former, we’ll come after you anyway. This should not be surprising when Hizbullah, like Hamas, is dedicated to the destruction of Israel and all Jews.
You can find the Hizbullah ‘charter’ here. But here’s a taste of it:
Therefore our struggle will end only when this entity is obliterated. We recognize no treaty with it, no cease fire, and no peace agreements, whether separate or consolidated.
We vigorously condemn all plans for negotiation with Israel, and regard all negotiators as enemies, for the reason that such negotiation is nothing but the recognition of the legitimacy of the Zionist occupation of Palestine. Therefore we oppose and reject the Camp David Agreements, the proposals of King Fahd, the Fez and Reagan plan, Brezhnev’s and the French-Egyptian proposals, and all other programs that include the recognition (even the implied recognition) of the Zionist entity.
Sounds a tad uncompromising to me. Oh well, maybe Hamas can do better:
“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).
“The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. “
“There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.”
“After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying.”
…
“The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.” (related by al-Bukhari and Muslim).
Well, that, if anything is even worse. They want to murder all Jews. But that’s genocide! So let’s send humanitarian boats to help them achieve their objectives by breaking the maritime blockade and letting in arms and missiles.
I recently created a blog on the Jewish Chronicle website. It has been enlightening to read the posts and comments of a couple of dedicated anti-Israel bloggers. Some lively exchanges take place.
The anti-Israel faction on the JC blogs have been challenged in their support for an anti-Semitic, misogynistic, fanatical organisation who throw their opponents off 15 storey buildings and believe in an extreme form of Islam. Namely Hamas.
When the Hamas charter is quoted, they dismiss it as ‘a bit of paper’ or, when challenged, just don’t answer at all.
Here’s a flavour of the Charter or Covenant from mideastweb.org; see if you think this is ‘a bit of paper’:
“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).
“The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. “
“There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.”
“After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying.”
“The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.” (related by al-Bukhari and Muslim).
It’s very strange that the extreme left espouses, with such fervour, the murderous Hamas. The Hamas are ‘freedom fighters’ just ‘trying to liberate their country’, they are just ‘defending themselves’. Yet the left insist on demonizing Israel and ignoring the egregious Hamas.
A Lib Dem MP, David Ward, (and we have to add many Lib Dems to the far Left these days) in a Gaza debate in the House of Commons declares:
The firing of rockets from Gaza into the south of Israel presents a menacing and deadly threat. It is completely wrong and it needs to stop because it is taking innocent lives. It is wrong because it provides the justification for Israel’s retaliation, although not for its disproportionate response, which is merciless at times.
Did you see what he did there? The firing of rockets is only wrong because it provides justification for retaliation.
Israel must not be given an excuse to protect itself.
But he then immediately contradicts his first fig-leaf sentence.
So what is he actually saying? Is it wrong or not? See how the left ties itself in knots. Sometimes the double-think gets out through their mouth.
Then he equates Hamas with Israel:
Yes, Hamas is proscribed, but why is the state of Israel not proscribed?
Here is an MP in the UK parliament actually saying, in effect, if you follow what passes for logic, that either Hamas should not be proscribed or that Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, should be ‘proscribed’. He then rants about boycotts and ethnic cleansing. He’s some newbie Con-Dem MP who gets his information from Press TV.
Oh, and by the way, he is MP for Bradford East. Wouldn’t you just have guessed; a constituency with one of the largest Muslim populations in the UK. Playing to the gallery were we, David?
Barry Rubin, on the other hand, sees it a bit differently.
Here’s his quote from Gaza TV (this is what keeps them all glued to the box whilst we, poor infidels, watch Coronation Street or find out how much it costs to move to Shepton Mallett):
Whoever believes that our battle with the Jews and the Crusaders has subsided or is dormant is living in delusions….The Jews…annihilation and the destruction of their state will only be achieved through Islam, by those who bow before Allah….
So you poor gentile ‘anti-Zionists’, you are the said ‘crusaders’ and you ‘anti-Zionist’ Jews, well you are Jews whether you like it or not. And we Zionist Jews and lovers of real freedom, we are also ‘Jews’, of course and all of us together, the Zionists and the anti-Zionists, Jews and Gentiles, those who love Bibi and those who fancy Hanan Ashrawi, we must all become Muslim or perish (according to Hamas).
And did those sceptical lefties who think the Hamas charter is ‘a bit of paper’ rather than a declaration of intent, did you see that bit about annihilating the Jews and destroying Israel?
Or is it just Gaza TV’s version of a Monty Python sketch?
Ambassador Leshno Yaar put Israel’s case and told the true story of the Mavi Marmara at the UN Human Rights Council earlier this week.
He reminded the UNHCR of its obsession with Israel.
He describes the 40 ‘hard core activists’ from the IHH who had planned their attack in advance.
He describes the concern of the captain of the ship who said that the IHH were preparing for violence.
He describes how the IIH goal was to reach Gaza or to die as martyrs.
He describes how the IHH were not interested in humanitarian aid. Three of the ships had no aid watsoever.
He describes how Hamas blocked the aid which Israel wanted to send through.
He describes how there was very little food aid on any ship.
He describes how a Lebanese national aboard the flotilla interviewed on Iranian mouthpiece, Press TV, was asked if he was tortured. He replied, “sadly not”.
He describes the thousands of dollars and euros that the IHH were carrying for the Hamas regime.
He describes how when being hailed by the Israeli Navy over the radio, one of the activists replied “Shut up and go back to Auschwitz” and “Don’t forget 9/11”
He describes the shaheed death videos left behind by some activists.
He describes how the UNHCR voted with haste to form a ‘fact-finding body’ to cynically determine Israel’s guilt without even ‘the minimum respect of consulting with Israel’. The UNHCR would not even contemplate such a process for any other country.
He describes how half of the resolutions of the UNHCR have been against Israel.
He refers to the hate-speech of June 8th by a Syrian diplomat which was permitted without allowing a response or receiving sanction, or comment, words which would be considered ‘a criminal hate crime outside this hall’.
He describes the ‘obsessive one-sided’ nature of the UNHCR vis-a-vis Israel.
Yes, Leshno gave it to them good but it will make no difference.
If you are interested in what the Syrian delegate said on June 8th this link will tell you. And you will see the response of Hillel Neuer of UN Watch. The blood libels continue. The YouTube video is below if you can bear to watch.
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.
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:
Israel scans all the cargo and sifts out the humanitarian aid. The aid is then placed on trucks.
The aid goes through x-ray machines to see that everything is indeed safe.
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.
