Juraen i sagen er klar. Er angrebet besluttet af regeringen er Israel i krig med Tyrkiet. Ellers er der tale om mord, og de ansvarlige skal udleveres til retsforfølgelse i Tyrkiet.
290510, DPA, INTERVIEW: Gaza Strip facing humanitarian tragedy, warns UN expert. While Israel declares the flotilla an 'absolute provocation' and insists that 'there is no shortage of humanitarian aid to Gaza,' Hasna (spokesman for UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) Adnan Abu Hasna) described a very different scenario. 'There is a severe humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. There are two aspects to it: firstly human development, mainly the sectors of health and education as well as the psychological stress the population is undergoing.
310510, ynetnews, Erdogan: Aid ship raid is Israeli state terrorism. Merkel prøver at mægle mellem Erdogan og Netanyahu.
310510, Presstv, Turkey vows response to Israeli attack. The premier also said that Turkey will call a NATO meeting over the deadly Israeli assault.
310510, Yahoo, Ibon Villelabeitia Q+A: Are odd couple Turkey and Israel breaking up? A raid by Israeli marines on a Gaza-bound aid convoy has plunged already crumbling ties between Israel and its Muslim ally Turkey to an historic low, with the ruling AK party saying relations will never be the same. ... Ankara has canceled joint military exercises, recalled its ambassador to Israel and called for an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council. ... Israel and Turkey have a long and close military alliance and economic relationship. Bilateral trade reached $2.5 billion in 2009, with Turkey buying military hardware from the Jewish State. Analysts say their relationship, though complex, offers too many advantages to both countries to be forsaken easily. ... The two countries share intelligence on common security threats such as al Qaeda. However, since Erdogan's Islamist-leaning AK Party took office in 2002 relations have been strained, notably as Turkey deepened ties with fellow Muslim countries, including Iran and Syria. With Turkey's prospects for joining the European Union growing more elusive, some analysts have wondered whether Turkey was turning East instead of West under Erdogan. ... With an election due by July next year, and opinion polls showing high unemployment has dented support, a strong stand against Israel could go down well with voters. ... Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said Turkey will seek international legal action against Israel as the raid took place in international waters. .... The United States has long sought Turkey's soft power as a secular, democratic Muslim state to counter Islamist militancy in the region. U.S. President Barack Obama, who needs Turkey's support from Iraq to Afghanistan, must balance backing for Israel with understanding for an angry Turkey, a NATO member. ... While welcoming Turkish mediation with Syria, Washington has clashed with Turkey over how to tackle the Islamist Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip. Washington wants to isolate Hamas, while Ankara feels the Islamist group should not be excluded. ... Analysts say ties deteriorated sharply after Israel's Gaza offensive, which Erdogan called a crime against humanity and prompted Turkey to bar Israel from participating in a NATO military exercise.
310510, Evening Echo | Martin: Irish citizens 'kidnapped' in international waters. The Minister for Foreign Affairs has accused Israel of kidnapping Irish Citizens in international waters. Micheál Martin is furious after Israel announced it would deport all foreign nationals seized from a convoy of ships carrying aid to Gaza. ... Seven Irish passport holders have been taken to the Israeli port of Ashdod from where it is planned to deport them. One has already signed papers agreeing to the move. But Minister Martin said he has told the Israeli Ambassador Dr Zion Evrony that the Government wants these Irish Citizens released immediately. "The Israeli government requires people to sign papers so that they can be deported," Minister Martin said. "But of course these people did not enter Israel illegally. "They were essentially kidnapped from International waters, taken into Israel.- And now they are being asked to sign a document almost confirming that they entered illegally. And we think that is unacceptable." .. Dr Evrony said he is neither ashamed nor embarrassed by what happened, but he stated that he would convey the views of the Irish government to his country's government. ... Dr Evrony said he did not belive relations between Ireland and Israel had been damaged.
310510, ICH, Finian Cunningham, Gaza Aid Convoy Attack: Israel 's Murderous Sea Piracy a Horrendous Moment of Truth for US Policy. ... Turkish prime minister Recep Erdogan is reported to have cut short a trip to South America and his country is said to have recalled its ambassador to Israel in protest. ... One Israeli commando was stabbed, Israeli TV reported. Within minutes of the interception, Israeli forces blacked out all communications from the flotilla, which is carrying 700 civilians from 50 countries, including Britain, Ireland, Turkey and the US. The aid convoy - dubbed the Gaza Freedom Flotilla - had a high-profile assembly in Turkey last week before departing from Cyprus for the Palestinian coast on Sunday. Backed by several govemments, including that of Turkey, and counting among its numbers at least four European MPs, a Nobel laureate and journalists from various news media, fhe aid convoy had declared itself to be a civilian, humanitarian relief operation. ... the Palestinian territory remains a disaster zone, with its population living under tents and having to resort to smuggling vital materials via underground tunnels, which the Israeli air force frequently bombard. .... The Israeli govemment had denounced the Freedom Flotilla as "provocative" even before it departed and warned that it would be intercepted - despite the fact that the convoy had declared that it would be entering Palestine from international waters in the Mediterranean, well away rom Israeli territoty. While the Israeii naval interception was clearly well planned, its accompanying blackout of communications was evidently not swift enough, failing to prevent Turkish satellite TV footage broadcasting for several minutes what was taking place. Those images relayed by international media nail the lie in the Israeli version of events. (Whether the US media do so will be telling.) Taken from different angles on various positions of the vessel, the TV images show the following: The convoy was intercepted at around 5am local time, some 150 kilometres (90 miles) off the coast of Gaza in international waters. Israeli commandos are seen hauling themselves on to the aid ship. The commandos were armed with assault rifles and handguns, wearing helmets and tull body armour. It appears that the passengers and crew are unaware of the intrusion. The Israeli personnel were able to assemble without any opposition; they seemed casual in their movements, then raising their guns in assault mode, covering each other with pointed weapons before filing off to their intended target area on the ship. Other images show an Israeli military helicopter hovering over the convoy and high-speed marine dinghies approaching. ... Some of the footage shows a melee of aid workers scuffling with Israeli commandos. None of the civilians are shown to be carrying knives. Of course, there is hardly anything new here - Israeli forces using disproportionate violence, killing civilians with impunity. But on this occasion, the murderous incident is not in some poor ghetto in the Gaza Strip hidden from the full view of the world. Up to now, Israeli disinformation could afford just enough wriggle room to sow doubts over such events. The cynical phrases of 'terror suspects" and "self defence" parroted by the western mainstream media ... Hence, the United Nations' Goldstone report on human rights violations by Israel during the Gaza offensive could be rebuffed by Tel Aviv and Washington because Israel was responding "in self defence to rocket attacks". The crushing to death of American peace activist Rachel Corrie in 2003 by an Israeli military bulldozer was "a tragic accident". The assassination of Mahmoud al Mabhoub by Mossad agents in a Dubai hotel in January of this year could be brazened out because, well, the victim was an official of Hamas - the government of Gaza whom the Israelis and the Americans refuse to legitimise and treat as "terrorists". ... What the world has witnessed is an outrageous act of sea piracy bordering on an act of war that transgresses the diplomatic rights of 50 countries and the premeditated, cold-blooded murder of civilians. At the same time that world powers are demanding a tough response to the alleged attack by North Korea on a South Korean warship in which 46 seamen died, public opinion will likewise see the appropriate demand for the same legal standard applied to Israel.
310510, ICH, Israel Kills 20: Attacks Gaza Aid Fleet Video Reports. ... Israeli police say 16 Gaza-bound activists sent to jail; Israel has said it will deport the roughly 700 activists in the flotilla. But those who refuse to cooperate will be jailed. About 80 activists have been brought to shore so far. Erdogan; Aid ship raid is Israeli state terrorism: Turkish PM says raid on Gaza-bound aid flotilla 'totally contrary to principles of international.' Merkel speaks with Netanyahu, Erdogan in bid to ease tensions. Irish PM: Israel de facto occupying force in Gaza. Turkey vows response to Israeli attack: "It should be known that we will not stay silent and unresponsive in the face of this inhuman state terror," he was quoted as saying by AFP on Monday. - "International law has been trampled underfoot," Erdogan argued. Turkey seeks Security Council meeting, condemns Israel; Turkey canceled joint military exercises with Israel and called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council after pro-Palestinian activists were killed when Israeli marines stormed a Turkish aid ship bound for Gaza.
310510, ICH, Gilad Atzmon, Butchery at Sea. An institutional failure of a morbid society. ... However we already know that at around 4am Gaza time, hundreds of IDF commandos stormed the Free Gaza international humanitarian fleet. We learn from the Arab press that at least 16 peace activists have been murdered and more than 50 vere injured. Once again it is devastatingly obvious that Israel is not trying to hide its true nature; an inhuman murderous collective fuelled by a psychosis and driven by paranoia. ... . Only yesterday evening it occurred to me that this Israeli malicious media spin was there to prepare the Israeli public for a full scale Israeli deadly military operation in international waters. Make no mistake. I knew exactly where Israel was heading and the possible consequences, the Israeli cabinet and military elite were fully aware of it all the way along. ... In international waters Israel raided an innocent international convoy of boats carrying cement, paper and medical aid to the besieged Gazans. The Israelis were using live ammunition murdering and injuring everything around them. ... The massacre that took place yesterday was a premeditated Israeli operation. Israel wanted blood because it believes that its 'power of deterrence' expands with the more dead it leaves behind. The Israeli decision to use hundreds of commando soldiers against civilians was taken by the Israeli cabinet together with the Israeli top military commanders. What we saw yesterday wasn't just a failure on the ground. It was actually an institutional failure of a morbid society that a long time ago lost touch with humanity. ... Onsidering the fact that Israel stormed naval vessels sailing under Irish, Turkish and Greek flags. Both NATO members and EU countries must immediately cease their relationships with Israel and close their airspace to Israeii airplanes.[!!!!] Considering yesterday's news about Israeli nuclear submarines being stationed in the Gulf, the world must react quickly and severely. [!!!] VI KAN IKKE STILTIENDE ACCEPTERE, AT FOLK MED SÅ LIDT MENNESKELIGHED OG EN SÅDAN MANGEL PÅ RESPEKT FOR INTERNATIONALE REGLER SEJLER RUNDT MED KERNEVÅBEN !!!
310510, Palestine Think Tank, Belén Fernández, International Activists Cause Their Own Deaths By Attacking Non-confrontational Israeli Commandos? At a press briefing this morning ... IDF spokeswoman Avital Liebovitch claimed that the passengers had engaged in "severe violence against our soldiers." According to Liebovitch, the violence was premeditated and was administered via live fire, sharp items such as knives, and weapons "grabbed" from the IDF commandos. ... the analysis failed to provide a compelling reason for why - if the alleged attack using grabbed weapons was indeed premeditated - the IDF did not throw a wrench in the works by simply refraining from raiding the ship. .... which she herself admitted occurred "not in Israeli territory" ... the continuing Israel denial that there is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, or with the fact that pencils and laundiy detergent lave not in recent Gazan history been eligible for overland transfer. The naval invitation to Ashdod has meanwhile been called into question by Liebovitch's declaration this morning that the purpose of the confrontation on the Mavi Marmara was simply to prevent the passengers' entrance to Israel.
310510, http://www.ohchr.org/ The UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Paleslinian Territories. Richard Falk, Gaza aid convoy killings: 'Those responsible mudt be held criminally accountable"
310510, LewRrockwell.com. Still Think Israel Doesn't Control the United States? Citerer the website of the U.S. Department of Commerce (Bureau of Industry and Security), hvor det frarådes, i visse tilfælde er direkte forbudt, at boycotte Israel. Of course, the U.S. govemment's 40-year embargo (i.e., boycott) of Cuba is okay—along with the many other embargoes/boycotts it is currently engaged in. (der er en link til disse.)
BBC, Gaza flotilla - Eye witness accounts of Israeli raid (NORMAN PAECH, GERMANY, NILUFER CETIN, TURKEY, DIMITRIS GIELALIS, GREECE)
Selv Anders Fogh var nødt til at komme med en udtalelse. Lidt besynderligt, at der kunne være en "extensive exchange of views". Juridisk er det samme sag, som hvis somaliere overfaldt et skib fra et NATO-land. Han forlangte dog umiddelbar frigivelse af skibe og tilbageholdte civile (også det lidt underligt - der var jo kun civile ombord !)
Ma'an, Report: Delayed aid ship sets sail for Gaza. MV Rachel Corrie, Niamh Moloughney of the Free Gaza Movement: ... said the voyage is a Malaysian and Irish partnership, and hat it has Malaysia's full support.
The Independent - Ireland, Aid flotilla captives to be freed. Six Irish Citizens detained after Israeli troops stormed an aid ship and nine civilians were killed will be released on Wednesday. The Israeli government told Irish officials none of the six will be subject to deportation orders and flights will be arranged. They are expected back in Dublin throughout the day. ... The Department of Foreign Affairs said: "All detainees will be released. An Israeli government spokesman gave assurances they will not be forced to go through the deportation process." ... Israeli authorities backed down from threatened legal action against some of those detained on board. Taoiseach Brian Cowen warned Israel faced serious consequences if any Irish Citizens were injured in the assault. It had been reported one Irish person was hurt. On Tuesday the United Nations Security Council called for the immediate release of all ships and citizens detained by Israeli authorities. Mr Cowen also called for one of the last boats in the Gaza mission, the MV Rachel Corrie, to be given safe passage trough the military blockade of the territory. ... iven safe passage. On board, the MV Rachel Corrie, which is travelling with two other vessels, were former Nobel peace prize winner Mairead Maguire and retired United Nations diplomat Denis Halliday.
The Jerusalem Post. 'Next time we'll use more force': Israel will use more aggressive force in the future to prevent ships from breaking the sea blockade on the Gaza Strip, a top Navy commander told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.
PressTV, Israel jails 480 Gaza aid activists:
No weapons on stormed Turkish ship: Report: "Allegations that there were weapons aboard the Turkish ship are baseless," Fevzi Gulcan, the head of customs at the Mediterranean port city of Antalya, told Anatolia. http;//tinyurl.com/2auhjfr
010610.The Independent - Robert Fisk, Western Leaders are too Cowardly to Help Save Lives. For it is a fact, is it not, that had Europeans (and yes, the Turks are Europeans, are they not?) been gunned down by any other Middle Eastern army (which the Israeli army is, is it not?) there would have been waves of outrage. [!!!!!] ... How did we get to this point? Maybe because we all grew used to seeing the Israelis kill Arabs, maybe the Israelis grew used to killing Arabs. Now they kill Turks. Or Europeans. Something has changed in the Middle East these past 24 hours - and the Israelis (given their extraordinarily stupid political response to the slaughter) don't seem to have grasped what has happened. The world is tired of these outrages. Only the politicians are silent.
010610, ICH, Ray McGovern Obama's Timidity and Deaths at Sea. A chief lesson to learn from President Barack Obama's recent unwillingness to stand up to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud Lobby is that such timidity can get people killed. ... Seldom has an act of aggression been so well advertised in advance. Israel had made clear that it would use force to prevent the ships from reaching Gaza and heard no stern protest from President Obama, who apparently could not overcome his fear of Israel's legendary political clout. ... The commandos "were met with strong resistance from men armed with bladed weapons and the situation degenerated into a massacre when one of them grabbed the weapon of a soldier and opened fire," said the Jerusalem Post, quoting Israeli military sources. ... Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak blamed the organizers of the convoy for the violent outcome, and Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon told a news conference why that was so: "The organizers' intent was violent, their method was violent, and unfortunately, the results were violent." .... In rightist-ruled El Salvador, government security forces stopped four American churchwomen in their mini-van and were ordered to kill them. The soldiers first raped the women and then executed them with high-powered rifles. Reagan 's foreign policy team decided to treat the rape-murder as a public relations problem, best handled by shifting blame onto the victims. And so, the women were deemed not nuns, but "political activists." (Today, "militants"—whatever that means - is often the label of choice.) ...In just a few weeks, the American women had gone from being innocent victims to "political activists" to armed insurgents - although knowledgeable U.S. government officials conceded there was no evidence to support Haig's shoot-out speculation. As an intelligence analyst at the time, I knew of Haig's inclination to make up stuff. ... As a presidential candidate, Obama was careful to say nothing about the brutal Israeli blockade against the 1.5 million people in Gaza, about to enter its fourth year; As president-elect he stayed mum as the Israelis attacked densely populated Gaza, killing some 1,400 Gazans. As President, he has backed down at every significant moment when Netanyahu thumbed his nose at Obama or at Vice President Joe Biden. ... Quite the contrary, Obama's pro-Zionist White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who recently vacationed in Israel and met with Netanyahu last Wednesday, extended an invitation for a working visit at the White House. .... The attack on the "Freedom Flotilla" was reminiscent of the attack on the USS Liberty during Israel's Six-Day War against three of its Arab neighbors. ... However, U.S. intelligence intercepted Israeli conversations at the time showing the attacks were deliberate, and their nature and persistence showed clear intent to sink the Liberty and leave no survivors. Israeli commandos clad in black were about to land from helicopters and finish off what remained of the Liberty crew when Seaman Terry Halbardier (later awarded the Silver Star) slid over the Liberty's napalm-greased deck to jury-rig an antenna and get an SOS off to the Sixth Fleet. ... One of the surviving crew of the USS Liberty, decorated Navy veteran Joe Meadors, was with the "Freedom Flotilla" when it was attacked on Sunday night. Meadors is past president of the USS Liberty Veterans Association. The State Department tells us that Joe Meadors survived his latest Israeli attack. At last word, he sits in an Israeli jail. According to one report, Turkey has served warning that Turkish Navy ships will escort future relief convoys to Gaza. ... Truth be told, Israel cares a lot less about Iran's uranium that it does about forcing "regime change" in Tehran. ... The pro-Israeli hardliners are the ones running U.S. policy on the Middle East, not Obama, who seems only nominally in charge. Unusually clear proof of this came when the Brazilians released a letter revealing that Obama had personally encouraged the Brazilian and Turkish leaders to pursue the kind of deal they were able to work out with the Iranians. ... Blair, testifying to the Iraq war commission in the U.K., offered the following account of his discussions with Bush in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002. .... "I think, in fact, I remember, actually, there may have been conversations that we had even with Israelis, the two of us, whilst we were there. So that was a major part of all this." ... U.S. Defense Science Board issued a formal report concluding; "Muslims do not 'hate our freedom,' but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights." ... "By his own account, KSM's [9/11 "mastermind" Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's] animus toward the United States stemmed not from his experience there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel. "[9/11 Commission Report, July 22,2004, page 147]. And what motivated Dr. Humam Khalil Abu Mulal al-Balawi, the 32-year-old Jordanian physician of Palestinian origin, who on Dec. 30, 2009, detonated a suicide bomb at a CIA site in eastern Afghanistan, killing seven American CIA operatives? According to his brother, al-Balawi "changed" during the three-week-long Israeli offensive in Gaza, which killed some 1,400 Gazans. When al-Balawi volunteered to treat injured Palestinians in Gaza, he was arrested by Jordanian Authorities, his brother said. It was after that arrest that al-Balawi allowed himself to be "recruited" to spy on al-Qaeda for the CIA. ... The fact that world leaders consider Netanyahu a clear and present danger to peace in the region is shown by the way the leaders of Turkey and Brazil moved at an accelerated pace to bend the Iranians to the kind of deal that Obama personally had advocated, before being overruled by Hillary Clinton and others in his misguided Team of Rivals. The urgency of the Turkey-Brazil initiative came through in the words of Brazilian President Lula da Silva, who could hardly have been more explicit; "We can't allow to happen in Iran what happened in Iraq. Before any sanctions, we must undertake all possible efforts to try and build peace in the Middle East"
Green Light?
Netanyahu listens only to Washington, when he listens at all. Following the bloody attack on the Freedom Flotilla, I imagine he will now get at most a mealy-mouthed "please-don't-do-this-again" from the White House, together with acquiescence in an Al-Haig-type made-up excuse about an "exchange" of fire. If that proves to be the case, Netanyahu is altogether likely to consider that Israel has a green light to provoke hostilities with Iran, with the full expectation that the United States will jump right in to help the non-ally ally finish the job.
Non-ally ally? Sorry, despite what you hear from Obama, Congress and the whole Washington Establishment, Israel is not an ally of the United States. Webster's (and international law) define ally as "a state associated with another by treaty." There is no mutual defense treaty between the U.S. and Israel. (Washington has broached the idea to Israel from time to time, but Israel has said no thanks. Treaties, you see, require internationally recognized horders, and - for obvious reasons - Israeli leaders avoid that subject like the plague.)
Craig Murray, a former British ambassador and Foreign Office specialist on maritime law (and VIPS member), has just weighed in with a helpful description of two clear legal possibilities, which take into account both international law and the Law of the Sea:
Possibility one is that the Israeli commandos were acting on behalf of the govemment of Israel in killing the activists in international waters. The applikable law is that of the flag state of the hip on which the incident occurred.
In legal terms, the Turkish ship was Turkish territory. So in this case Israel is in a position of war with Turkey, and the attack by Israeli commandos falls under international jurisdiction as a war crime.
Possibility two is that, if the killings were not military actions authorized by Israel, they were then acts of murder and fall under Turkish jurisdiction. If Israel does not consider itself in a position of war with Turkey, it must hand over the commandos involved for trial in Turkey under Turkish law.
010610, Ma'an - At least 12 nations summon Israeli ambassadors. The countries indude: Austria Belgium Bulgaria Cyprus Denmark Egypt France Greece Ireland Jordan Spain Sweden. China and Russia deeply condemned the move, but have not gone so far as to call in Israel's representatives to the nations. Meanwhile, The British daily The Guardian spoke with Lauren Booth, sister of Cherie Blair, who was on the first Free Gaza mission that left Cyprus in 2008. Booth is calling for the British Foreign Office to expel Israeli diplomats, pending a full inquiry, she told the daily.
010610, Jake Lynch, A massive and cynical misdirectlon is underway. Israel is not the victim here. Those kllled were humanitarians intent on delivering aid to Gaza, not gun-toting commandoes who descended from the night sky. This was an act of piracy, in international waters, on the definition of the International Maritime Bureau: "the act of boarding any vessel vith an intent to commit theft or any other crime, and with an intent or capacity to use force in furtherance of that act". The goods on board belonged to the relief campaign, and were intended for Palestinians: Israel was trying to take possession of them illegally. And it was committed in furtherance of a blockade, which amounts to collective punishment on the definition in Article 33 of the fourth Geneva Convention: "No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited". Associate Professor Jake Lynch, BA, Dip Journalism Studies, PhD www.arts.usyd.edu.au/cpacs
010610, The Guardian, Israelis opened fire before boarding Gaza flotilla, say released activists: First eyewitness accounts of raid contradict version put out by Israeli officials. [Nilufer Cetin, Kutlu Tiryaki, Dimitris Gielalis, Michalis Grigoropoulos. ...once detained, the human rights activists were not allowed to contact a lawyer or the Greek embassy in Tel Aviv. "They didn't let us go to the toilet, eat or drink water and throughout they videoed us. They confiscated everything, mobile phones, laptops, cameras and personal effects. They only allowed us to keep our papers."
010610, ICH, Yvonne Ridley, All At Sea. Refererer til gamle sager, Italian cruise ship the Achille Lauro (oct. 1985, PFLP)
Rome Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation of 1988.
(Israel) I wrote an article last year calling them the Pirates of the Mediterranean after they had illegally boarded other aid ships, kidnapping crew and passengers.
So why is Israel allowed to get away with murder? In a pre-meditated act the Zionist State showed once again its total disregard for human life - and international law. (Netanyahu) asked us to believe that his troops were acting in self-defence. And then, 24 hours later, given time to come up with more lies he told the world that the soldiers were armed with paintballs and had not expected to use their weapons. Not content with insulting our intelligence he said his nice, cuddly IDF folk had only boarded the boats to carry out an inspection and inventory.
010610, Haaretz - Gideon Levy, Operation Mini Cast Lead. If Cast Lead was a turning point in the attitude of the world toward us, this operation is the second horror film of the apparently ongoing series. Israel proved yesterday that it learned othing from the first movie. ... And what have we instead? A country that is quickly becoming completely isolated. This is a place that turns away intellectuals, shoots peace activists, cuts off Gaza and now finds itself in an international blockade.
020610, Press TV, 'UNSC statement, humanity betrayal'. The United Nations Security Council held an emergency meeting in which the 15-nation body called for an "impartial, credible and transparent" probe into the incident and condemned "those acts which resulted in the loss of... civilians and many wounded." "What the Security Council did today, under the shadow of a US veto, pressure and bias, is a betrayal for humanity and not just for the people of Gaza and the supporters," Reuters quoted Head of Hamas Political Bureau Khaled Meshaal as saying on Tuesday. Israel must be punished"... and we call for the trial of (Israeli Defense Minister Ehud) Barak, (Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu and all Zionist leaders as war criminals," he urged. The senior Hamas leader also called on all states to cut "all their relations and contacts in all shapes and levels with the Zionist entity," warning that "contacts and relations with Israel is a reward for their crimes." Meshaal called on US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to "take the bold nitiative of a historic decision to break the blockade on Gaza and force Israel to do that." ... The European Union, the Organization of Islamic Conference and Russia are among those who have demanded an inquiry into the Israeli military attack against the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and an end to the embargo - a demand Israel defiantly rejected on Tuesday.
020610, UN, UN rights body votes to dispatch independent probe into 'attack' on Gaza aid convoy. With 32 votes in favour ... Italy, the Netherlands and the United States voted against. .... the United Nations Human Rights Council ... deeply deplored the loss of life resulting from Israel's "attack" on the convoy, and demanded that Israel release all detained persons and material aboard the ships. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, .... stressed that the Incident highlights a serious underlying problem - that Israel's closure of the Gaza Strip is "counterproductive, unsustainable and wrong" and should be lifted immediately. ... Irina Bokova, Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), today voiced her concern that a number of journalists who were aboard the ships had been detained by Israel.
020610. Paul Craig Roberts, America Complicit in Israel's Crimes. No one in the world will believe that Israel attacked ships in international waters carrying Israeli Citizens, a Nobel Laureate, elected politicians, and noted humanitarians bringing medicines and building materials to Palestinians in Gaza, who have been living in the rubble of their homes without repairs or medicines since January 2009, without first clearing the crime with its American protector. Without America's protection, Israel, a totally artificial tate, could not exist.
No one in the world will believe that America's spy apparatus did not detect the movement of the Israeli attack force toward the aid ships in international waters in an act of piracy, killing 20, wounding 50, and kidnapping the rest. .... The Israeli state has [de facto] declared that anyone with a moral conscience is an enemy of Israel, and every American president except Eisenhower and Carter has agreed. ... The Israeli story, preposterous as always, is that the humanitarians on one of the ships took two pistols from Israeli commandos, highly trained troops armed with automatic weapons, and fired on the attack force. The Israeli government claims that the commandos' response (70 casualties at last reporting) was justified self-defense. Israel was innocent. Israel did not do anything except drop commandos aboard from helicopters in order to intercept an arms shipment to Gazans being brought in by ships manned by terrorists. ... Americans will never hear from the US media that Turkey's prime minister Erdogan declared that the aid ships were carefully inspected before departure from Turkey and that there were no terrorists or arms aboard. ... Turkey is a US ally, a member of NATO. ... . According to a report in antiwar.com, the Turkish govemment declared that "future aid ships will be dispatched with a military escort so as to prevent future Israeli attacks." Will the CIA assassinate Erdogan or pay the Turkish military to overthrow him? .... :"Any allegation that the members of this ship is attached to al-Qaeda is a big lie because there are Israeli civilians, Israeli authorities, Israeli parliamentarians on board the ship."The criminal Israeli state does not deny its act of piracy. Israeli military spokeswoman, Avital Leibovich, confirmed that the attack took place in international waters: "This happened in waters outside of Israeli territory, but we have the right to defend ourselves."
020610,
Craig Murray, Israeli Murders, NATO and Afghanistan. Gennemgår NATOs problemer i
sagen, idet Tyrkiet er NATOmedlem, har alliancen en automatisk pligt til at
gribe ind på Tyrkiets side !!! Murray til at forhandle de internationale
maritime aftaler, i.h.t. hvilke Israels overfald på Mavi Marmara
falder ind under definitionen på pirateri. Tyrkiet indkaldte derfor også straks
til et hastemøde i NATO. Manglen på støtte til Tyrkiet stilles overfor de
europæiske medlemmers store bidrag til USAs krig i Afghanistan. Murray beskriver
summen af utilfredshed i hovedkvarteret specielt med USAs arrogance.
020610, Haaretz, Barak Ravid, Israel's Moral Superiority ? Netanyahu: World 'Hypocritical' for Condemning Gaza Flotilla Raid. Netanyahu: ... to lift the embargo would tum [Gaza] into a base for Iranian missiles that would threaten both Israel and Europe.
020610, firedoglake, IDF Released Several Faked Photos - How Can They Be Trusted in ANY Investigation? Proof has surfaced today that many of the so-called "evidence" photographs being distributed by the Israeli govemment as examples of terror weapons on board the Gaza aid flotilla date back years: Der henvises også til sagen om drabet på Rachel Corrie
030710, Haaretz.Com, 'Obama warns Erdogan international Gaza flotilla probe bad for Turkey' [Han er da for pinlig !!!] According to the report, Obama warned Erdogan that the International probe which Turkey has demanded could turn into a "double edged sword," as it could lead to accusations against the passengers on board the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara ship, some of whom were members of the pro-Palestinian IHH organization. ... "A commission which will conduct an Inquiry into an attack staged in international waters should be international. We demand that an International commission should be formed under the supervision of the UN with participation of Turkey and Israel. We will insist on :his matter," Davutoglu said. "We believe that Israel, as a country which attacked on a civil convoy in international waters, will not conduct an impartial inquiry," he added.
030710, Netanyahu: No apology, no compensation to Turkey over Gaza flotilla: http://tinyurl.com/26gjgpo
020610, Haaretz - Barak Ravid, Israel's Moral Superiority? Netanyahu: World 'Hypocritical' for Condemning Gaza Flotilla Raid [I børnehaverne synger børnene "Hvad man siger er man selv" - det er en altfor almindelig menneskelig tendens at tyven beskylder en anden for at stjæle. Israels hasbara har kraftige elementer heraf - og af mange andre former for hykleri, OJ]. In first address to nation, Netanyahu says had Turkish-flagged ship breached blockade, so could hundreds of vessels carrying weapons. ... "The goal of the flotilla was to breach [the closure] and not to bring goods, as we would have allowed them to do," [det er jo ellers netop det kniber !! OJ] said Netanyahu, "If the blockade had been broken, dozens and hundreds more ships carrying weapons could have come." ... The raid of the Turkish-flagged ship awakened a storm of criticism among Israel's friends and foes alike, leading many members of the United Nations Security Council - including Britain - to call on Israel to lift its years-long siege of the Hamas-ruled coastal territory.
020610, 'United Nations Human Rights Council" — By Prof. Richard Falk, Israeli Violates International Humanitarian Law.
020610, AFP, Israel rejects call for independent probe. Gaza is an Iranian-sponsored terrorist state [!!??] referes Netanyahu at have sagt. ... The UN Security Council called for the ships and the civilians who had been on board to be released and to transport the aid to Gaza. The White House declined to specificaly condemn Israel, but US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said the situation in Gaza was 'unsuatainable and unacceptable'. ... tuesday ... Nicaragua suspended diplomatic relations with Israel.
030610, MSN, UN Orders Israel to lift Gaza Blockade. The Israeli army said the commandos resorted to force after they were attacked with sticks and stabbed as soon as they landed on the deck. ...He [Ban] also noted that the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council earlier Wednesday set up an independent international investigation into the Israeli raid. ... "All concerned should act with a sense of care and responsibility, and in accordance with iternational law." ... Israel rushed to deport the activists after Turkey piled up pressure via the United States and varned of fresh measures against the Jewish state, threatening to further deepen the crisis tween the once-close allies. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meanwhile insisted the Israeli blockade was key in preventing weapons from reaching Gaza. "Hamas continues to arm itself and Iran continues to transfer weapons to Hamas," the premier said.
030610, Reuters. By Marie-Louise Gumuchian, Aid ship sailing towards Gaza, prefers U.N. escort ... Graham said, however, he would be open to an escort from the United Nations. "We're willing to let the U.N. come and inspect the cargo. We will accept an escort from the U.N.,".
030610, ABC News - American, 19, Among Gaza Flotilla Dead. Furkan Dogan Was Shot Five Times, Including Four Times in Head. They [Israeli commandos] were trying to land on the boat. So obviously there was this hand-to-hand combat and during that process the people on the boat were basically able to disarm some of the soldiers because they did have guns with them," Burney [A Canadian on board, Farooq Burney] told Reuters. "So they basically took the guns away from them and took the cartridges out and threw them away." ... "Turkey will never forget such an attack on its ships and its people in international waters, Turkey's ties with Israel will never be the same again," Turkish President Abdullah Gul told a news conference. ... Meanwhile, Israel is preparing for a new ship to run the blockade, the Irish ship MV Rachel Corrie, due to arrive in the area Friday. ... Former U.N. assistant secretary general Denis Halliday, who is on board the Rachel Corrie, told ABC News that they do not intend to stop their mission or head to the Israeli port of Ashdod istead. 'It's a totally unacceptable embargo. There's no justification for it, there's no legality for it, it's not endorsed by the U.N., it's not endorsed by anybody else. It's an Israeli military zone which s without legal status," he said in a phone interview from the ship today. ... When they tell they are about to board we will cooperate because it's too dangerous not to do so, particularly as you say it may be at night which is the usual tactic. We're not fools, we're not bout to throw away our lives." "We're very upbeat and having seen the appalling consequences of Monday we're more determined than ever to try and make this work," Halliday said.
030610, Max Blumenthal, The Flotilla Raid Was Not "Bungled." The IDF Petailed Its Violent Strategy In Advance. Henviser til en artikel (280510) i Maariv, der gengives som billede (hebræisk skrift). Heri beskrives aktivisterne som farlige terrorister. Why didn't Israel's leaders choose to deal with the flotilla in a more judicious fashion? Were they that stupid, or just crazy? From the details of the plan it appears that Netanyahu and his cohorts had envisioned Entebbe Part Deux, a daring anti-terror raid that would lift the sinking morale of the Israeli public while intimidating Iran and the Arab world. ... The day after the massacre, spontaneous celebrations broke out in Ashdod, Tel Aviv, and throughout the country. ... Zoabi, a Palestinian-israeli member of the Knesset who was on the Mavi Marmara, was physically accosted in the Knesset by fellow legislators for attempting to relate her experience aboard the flotilla. MK Miri Regev of Likud called her a "traitor,".
040610, Gulf News - Israelis Subdued Captain by Pointing Gun at a Child. Ofre beskriver angrebet. "He added that he and Al Beltagui had been robbed of all their belongings and around $3,500 in cash. Both MPs belong to the banned Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's strongest opposition force.... "Al Beltagui and I left the detention centre only in the underwear, which were stained with blood of the martyrs, and without shoes until the Egyptian Consul in Israel came to accompany us to the [Egyptian] border town of Taba," said Farouq.
040610, aljazeera.net. Turkey will 'never forgive' Israel. The Turkish president [Abdullah Gul] has said that Israel's military raid on civilian aid ships bound for the Gaza Strip has caused "irreparable" damage to his country's relations with Israel, and will "never" be forgiven.... The demonstration came as Turkish forensic experts confirmed that the nine activists had been shot dead. ... he [Al Jazeeras korrespondent på skibet] said that he witnessed some of the killings, and confirmed that at least "one person was shot through the top of the head from [the helicopter] above.' ... He confirmed that some passengers took apart some of he ship's railings to defend themselves as they saw the Israeli soldlers approaching. 'After the shooting and the first deaths, people put up White flags and signs in English and Hebrew," he said. "An Israeli [on the ship] asked the soldiers to take away the injured, but they did not and the injured died on the ship." ...Almost all of the detained passengers on board the flotilla have now been released. ... Three others - an Irishman and two women from Australia and Italy - remained in Israel "for technical reasons", the ministry said. . But Ayman Mohyeldin, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Jerusalem, said that four Palestinian-Israelis also remaln in prison. ... Israel has remained defiant over the raid, rejecting calls for an international investigation into the incident, and warning it is ready to intercept another aid ship, the Rachel Corrie, that is due to head for Gaza next week. ... However, Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, said the flotilla tragedy only highlights the serious underlying problem - namely, the siege imposed on the Gaza. He said that the siege was "counter-productive, unsustainable and wrong". "It punishes innocent civilians," he said, calling for the siege to be lifted immediately.
050610, The Independent, Robert Fisk, The Truth Behind the Israeli Propaganda. I have, of course, been outraged at armed men boarding ships in international waters, killing passengers on board who attempt to resist and then forcing their ship to the hijackers' home port, I am, of course, talking about the Somali pirates who are preying on Western ships in the Indian Ocean. How dare those terrorists dare to touch our unarmed vessels on the high seas? And how right we are to have our warships there to prevent such terrorist acts. ... Yet by week's end, the protesters had become "armed peace activists", vicious anti-Semites "professing pacifism, seething with hate, pounding away at another human being with a metal pole". I liked the last bit. The fact that the person being beaten was apparently shooting another human being with a rifle didn't quite get into this weird version of reality. ... No ene has told us - .... - how their terrible plots to help the "terrorists" of Gaza were not uncovered in the long voyage from Turkey, even when it called at other ports. ... I wasn't personally at all surprised at the killings on the Turkish ship. In Lebanon, I've seen this indisciplined rabble of an army - as "elite" as the average rabble of Arab armies - shooting at civilians.... The amazing thing in all this is that so many Western journalists - and I'm including the BBC's pusillanimous coverage of the Gaza aid ships - are writing like Israeli journalists, while many Israeli journalists are writing about the killings with the courage that Western journalists should demonstrate.
060610, Haaretz.Com , Turkish paper releases 'censored' photos of beaten Israeli commandos
Turkey's highest circulating paper, Hurriyet, reports that photos were deleted by srael, but restored by Turkish activists. The photos published by Hurriyet on Sunday, under the headline "tears of a commando", Israeli soldiers are seen beaten and bleeding, being carried below deck by Turkish activists. In the accompanying article, the paper reported that the photos had been censored and deleted by Israeli fighters aiming to prevent embarrassment for Israel and the IDF, but the activists were able to restore them. The paper further reported that in some of the photos, activists belonging to the IHH organization are seen caring for the wounded soldiers. ... The IDF Spokesperson's Unit issued a response to the Turkish photos, saying that the "published pictures serve as clear and unequivocal proof of Israel's repeated arguments that aboard [the Mavi Marmara] were mercenaries who intended to kill Israeli soldiers." ... "It was only out of empowerment and a deep understanding of the event that the navy commandos were able to tell the difference between peace activists and terrorists."
060610, Haaretz.Com, Israel Navy reserves officers: Allow external Gaza flotilla probe, Officers denounce operation as 'military and diplomatic failure', slam government for placing blame on the activists. ... A group of top Israel Navy reserves officers on Sunday publicly called on Israel to allow an external probe into its commando raid of a Gaza-bound humanitarian aid flotilla last week, which left nine people dead and several more wounded. ... "First and foremost, we protest the fact that responsibility for the tragic results was immidiately thrust onto the organizers of the flotilla," wrote the officers. "This demonstrates contempt for the esponsibility that belongs principally to the hierarchy of commanders and those who approved he mission. This shows contempt for the values of professionalism, the purity of weapons and for human lives."
060610, Haaretz.Com, Israel rejects UN proposal for joint Gaza flotilla probe With U.S. and Turkey.
Israel rejected on Sunday a proposal by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for an international investigation into its deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship and said it had the right to launch its own inquiry. "We are rejecting an international commission. We are discussing with the Obama administration a way in which our inquiry will take place," Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to Washington, said. .. The prime minister said he told Ban that some of the passengers aboard the stormed the Mavi Marmara were members of an extremist terror-backing Turkish organization. He stressed that any investigation into the event should determine who organized these extremists, who funded them and supplied them with equipment, and how they ended up on the ship. Netanyahu also discussed the Israeli blockade on Gaza, saying that discussions surrounding the easing of the blockade had begun before the flotilla ever set sail. [!!!] "Our desire is to facilitate the transfer of civilian and humanitarian goods to the civilian population, while preventing the transfer of weapons and warfare materials." He added that "the provocative flotilla will not stop us from discussing this, and we are considering proposals on the topic made by friendly nations." The prime minister further told the cabinet that he spoke with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden over the weekend as well as the prime ministers of Greece and Bulgaria. ... Israeli leaders have spoken publicly about setting up an internal investigation with foreign observers. ... Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, speaking on CNN, said Ankara would insist on an independent commission and suggested that Israel's rejection of an international inquiry showed it wanted to cover up the facts of the raid. ... Israel's navy boarded another ship carrying aid and pro-Palestinian activists to Gaza on Saturday. Its interception of the Irish-owned MV Rachel Corrie ended without violence followingjng diplomatic efforts to avoid bloodshed. "I want to pay tribute to the crew of the Rachel Corrie for demonstrating in no uncertain terms their peaceful intentions," Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin told Irish public radio RTE. "We of course communicated that relentlessly to the Israeli authorlties." ... Israel has said seven of its troops were wounded.
060610, The Independent - Catrina Stewart, The Hijacking of the Truth: Film Evidence 'Destroyed'. Protesters say Israel had an assassination list. Israel says soldiers fired only in self-defence. So hat really happened on 31 May? ... From the ship's position deep in international waters, satellite images of Israeli speedboats and helicopters approaching the vessel were beamed across the globe before communications were abruptly cut off, leaving the events on the Marmara to unfold away from the eyes of the world. ... From the beginning, it was clear that Israeli forces were concentrating in their largest numbers on the Marmara, a ship carrying some 550 peace activists. The remaining five boats were much smaller and easily commandeered. Afler the Marmara was subdued, the passengers silenced, and their recording equipment confiscated, Israel disseminated a carefully choreographed account of the events that night that would dominate the airwaves for the first 48 hours. ... the edited YouTube footage posted by the Israeli navy since Wednesday. In the dramatic clip, commandos rappel down on to the deck from a helicopter, where they are met by angry activists armed with iron bars and sticks. This is a critical point, for Israel has rallied domestic opinion on the crucial claim that its soldiers dropped into a meticulously planned riot for which they were completely unprepared. ... The only account offered by the Israelis of what happened next is left to Staff Sergeant S, a commando who claims he shot six of the protesters. ... Mr Elshayyal, a reporter for the Arab channel al-Jazeera, was standing to one side of the ship and had a view of the front and back of the vessel when the fighting started. By his account soldiers fired down on the protesters from the helicopters before an Israeli soldier had even set foot on the ship. A man next to him was shot through the top of his head, dying instantly. ...At least two other eyewitnesses saw soldiers firing from above the ships before they landed on the Marmara's deck. It is possible that this is what prompted the fierce resistance to the soldiers when they dropped down. Several passengers recount how organisers urged their peers to stop hitting the soldiers, aware of how it would harm their claim to be peaceful protesters. ... Israel has insisted that the protesters took two of the soldiers' pistols and used them, but others claim the pistols were taken away to prove that Israel planned to use live rounds. Below, the protesters rummaged through captured soldiers' belongings and claimed to unearth a document that they allege is a list of people Israel intended to assassinate. The booklet, written in Hebrew and in English, contained some photographs of passengers on the Marmara, including the leader of IHH, the Turkish charity that provided two of the ships, an 88-year-old priest and Ra'ad Salah, head of the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, Mr Elshayyal said. A military spokesman, Lt Col Avital Leibowitz, insisted soldiers acted in self-defence and that she "was not aware" of any list. But one thing is fast becoming clear - many of the dead werw shot multiple times at point-blank range. One was a journalist taking photographs. "A man was shot... between the eyebrows, which indicates that it was not an attack that took place from self-defence," Hassan Ghani, a passenger, said in an account posted on YouTube. "The soldier had time to set up the shot." Mattias Gardell, a Swedish activist, told the TT news bureau; "The Israelis committed premeditated murder... Two people were killed by shots in the forehead, one was shot in the back of the head and one in the chest.' When Israeli troops had subdued the ship, they rounded up the passengers, bound their wrists, in some cases forcing activists into stress positions, and prevented them from using toilets. Mr Elshayyal said he was given just three sips of water before he was taken off the ship more than 24 hours later. ... Meanwhile, much of the video footage confiscated from Marmara passengers remains undisclosed, and Israel has sought to undermine some eyewitness accounts by alleging some of the passengers were terrorist sympathisers bent on martyrdom.
060610, Über Meldungen aus dem Exil - Elise Hendrick, The Tacitus Principle: How Israel and its.Apologists Defend the Indefensible. If there is one piece of ancient wisdom that has never lost even a bit of its validity over the centuries, it is Cornelius Tacitus' axiom that, "Crime, once exposed, has no refuge but in audacity." Indeed, this appears to be the inderlying principle of the US-Israeli PR campaign that has been launched in the wake of the almost universally condemned Israeli commando raid ... On 31 May, in international waters, Israeli warships and helicopters surrounded the flotilla, and executed a late-night commando raid on the Turkish ship, Mavi Marmara, killing at least 16 people (a figure that has been revised in subsequent reports without explanation or comment to 9 dead) and wounding at least 30, according to Israeli news reports that were broadcast before Israeli military censors issued a gag order preventing further reporting. .... Everything aboard the ship, including footage of the Israeli attack shot by journalists travelling with the flotilla, has been confiscated. Only a few of the passengers abducted by the Israeli Navy were initially released; the majority were held incommunicado until 2 June, and denied access to lawyers and the media. ... The first of these press releases - New Ship Headed for Gaza despite Israeli Prohibitions (2 June 2010 - ''New Ship...") - is decorated with a photo of "Anti-Israel activist Rachel Corrie" buming what is supposed to be an American flag. While one might rightly ask why it matters that a young woman who was killed by an Israeli bulldozer during a non-violent attempt to prevent a house demolition seven years ago apparently burned a US flag sometime prior to that, this question is never squarely addressed. .... Having thus set the stage, New Ship... informs us that the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara was, suspiciously enough, "filled with hundreds of Turks". These flag burner-loving Turks, with their "global jihadi ties", we learn, carried out a "pre-meditated [sic] attack" on Israeli joldiers who boarded their ship. ... Israel has not yet released the names and nationalities of those killed in the clash. The Turkish ship was backed by the Insani Yardim Vakfi - "humanitarian relief fund"), or IHH. ... afler Israeli Navy personnel attempted to stop the ship from illegally entering Gaza and were attacked by the self-described human rights activists with knives, clubs and other weapons. About 400 of the 700 people participating in the six-vessel flotilla were Turks. .... (presumably out of fear that the Turks might do to Gaza what they did to Germany - i,e.. rebuild it.) ... The evidence for the claim that the IHH was "involved in planning an Al-Qaeda attack againstLos Angeles [sic] International Airport in 1999" is that a French magistrate by the name of Bruguiére "testified that IHH had played '[a]n important role"' in the plot. ...
Hun giver en del flere eksempler på israelske propagandametoder. Herunder et meget kreativt sprogbrug. Men hun nævner også, at Israel transporterede 8 lastbillæs fra Ashdod til Kerem Shalom crossing, hvor Hamas nægtede at modtage dem før alle de kidnappede var frigivet. Minister of Social Welfare Ahmed Al-Kurd, forlangte også, at hele hjælpen blev bragt frem. Som eksempel på problemer beretter ministeren, at vist blev der leveret kørestole - men batterierne var ikke med ! Hendrick ser også på de "våben" det israelske militær fandt ombord.
.... More importantly, both the Fourth Geneva Convention (art. 64) and the Fourth Hague konvention (art. 43) prohibit an occupying power imposing its laws on the occupied territory, and no state may apply its domestic laws to a foreign ship in international waters. .... A blockade is, uncontroversially, an act of war. As such, it falls within the general )prohibition on the use or threat of military force set forth in Art. 2(3) and (4) of the UN Charter: ... Thus, the first question is: Is Israel under armed attack? The only thing that could potentially be considered an armed attack within the meaning of Art. 51 are the attacks with crude, homemade rockets emanating from Gaza, which have, between 2001 and 2008, altogether claimed fewer lives within Israel (16) than an average month's traffic fatalities (37 based on 2008 figures). Thus, for our purposes, Israel can be considered to be under armed attack, ineffectual as it is. The next question is: Are peaceful means available? This, too, must be answered in the affirmative. One obvious option would be to end the occupation altogether, in compliance vith UN Security Council Resolution 242 and decades of General Assembly resolutions. .. Again, the answer is: Yes. ... , this act patently constitutes an armed attack - on a civilian vessel, no less - within the meaning of Art. 51 of the UN Charter. Because of the immediacy of the threat, Turkey (and, indeed, any NATO State under the "collective self-defence" variant in conjunction with Art. 5 of the North Atlantic Charter) would have been entitled to use proportionate force - e.g., by dispatching a warship - to defend the vessel. Barring that, those on board would have been entitled to respond to the Israeli attack using the same weapons that the Israeli troops carried.
060610, Ma'an News Agency, Israel under fire for doctoring flotilla recordings... Under mounting pressure, the army ultimately released yet another version of the recording late Saturday, bringing to three the total number of different takes on what the millitary insists is the same event.... The Israeli army seized all recording devices from all activists and journalists on the flotilla. It has released only its own edited footage of parts of the raid. Der er link til en video.
060610, Guardian, Rachel Shabi, Israel forced to apologise for YouTube spoof of Gaza flotilla. The YouTube clip, ... features Israelis dressed as Arabs and activists, waving weapons while singing "We con the world, we con the people. Well make them all believe the IDF (Israel Defence Force) is Jack the Ripper." ... A similar press office email was sent to foreign journalists two weeks ago, recommending a gourmet restaurant and Olympic-sized swimming pool in Gaza to highlight Israel's claim there is no humanilanan crisis there. ... Dockworker unions in Sweden and South Africa have refused to handle Israeli ships, while the UICs Unite union just passed a motion to boycott Israeli companies. (KOM SÅ IGANG DANSKE ARBEJDERE - HVOR ER PREBENS ARVTAGERE).
060610, AliAbunimah ( http://aliabunimah.posterous.com ) Israel hasbara fails again: Photos show Mavi Marmara passengers protecting, aiding Israeli soldiers. Captured, disarmed hijackers did not face "lynching" as Israel claimed.
070610, Morning Star. The Northern Ireland Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions welcomed the safe return on Sunday.
070610, Turkish Press. Erdogan: Time for action against Israel. The Turkish prime minister says it is not enough to merely condemn Israel's attack on a Gaza-bound aid convoy, calling for a firm response to Tel Aviv. "We believe that those responsible should not be left without paying the price," Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday, urging the United Nations to investigate "the unlawful incident in a very transparent and firm manner." He made the remarks during a joint press conference with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Istanbul.
070610, IPS Inter Press Service, Mel Frykberg, Beatings, Abuse, Doctored Evidence Emerge. ... Furthermore, allegations of a possible shoot-to-kill policy, amidst autopsies revealing repeated gun shots to the heads of the victims, are also part of an emerging pattern. One of the first targets of Israeli commandos raiding the FG flotilla was the international media. Photographers were attacked, and journalists had leir video, audio and other communications equipment confiscated. The equipment has still not been retumed. ... Approximately 60 journalists from around the globe were on board the FG flotilla. They were amongst the last to be released by the Israelis. ... Meanwhile, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has denounced Israel's editing and distribution of footage it confiscated from foreign journalists aboard the FG flotilla. ... Post-morterns camed out by the Turks reveal that a number of the dead had numerous shots to the head in addition to other parts of the body. Thirty shots were used to kill nine people. ... Critics have questioned how individuals, who allegedly constituted threats to the life of the commandos, and would therefore be fighting and moving around, remained still long enough to receive so many shots to the head at dose range. ... A number of activists have claimed they were beaten up in jail and at Ben Gurion when they were being deported.
070610, iafrica.com, Farhad Pouladi, More ships head to Gaza. The Iranian Red Crescent said on Monday that it will send three aid ships to Gaza in the latest bid to break the blockade imposed on the Palestinian territory by Iran's archfoe Israel. It will also send a plane carrying 30 tonnes of medical equipment to Egypt for onward delivery to Gaza. ... The decision to send new aid to Gaza comes hot on the heels of a report that Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards had expressed readiness to escort aid flotillas to Gaza. ... Blaming the United States, Britain and France for the deadly raid, Khamenei called for the prosecution of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak. In a message issued on Tuesday, Iran's supreme leader called on the international community to end the Israeli blocade.
080610. Presstv. Another aid ship to set sail for Gaza. In addition to aid, the ship will carry 50 Arab and foreign journalists and 25 European activists, including some MPs, AFP reported on Saturday.
080610, ICH, Ken O'Keefe, I Helped to Physically Separate One Israeli Commando From his Assault Rifle, Please explain how we, the defenders of the Mavi Marmara, are not the modern example of Gandhi's essence? In 2002 I initiated the TJP Human_Shield Action to Iraq because I knew that the invasion of Iraq had been planned well in advance, that it was part of a 'Global Spectrum Dominance' agenda as laid out by the Project For A New American Century. ... With that understanding I argued that the only viable way to stop the invasion was to conduct a mass migration to Iraq. A migration in which people from around the world, especially western citizens, would position themselves at sites in Iraq that are supposed to be protected by international law, but which are routinely bombed when it is only Iraqi, Palestinian, generally non-white, western lives who will be killed. ... When our two double-decker buses travelled from London to Baghdad through Turkey, it was ever clear that the people of Turkey also could sense the power of this act, and they were the biggest participants in it. ... In 2007 I joined the Free Gaza Movement with its plan to challenge the blockade of Gaza by travelling to Gaza by sea. ... I remember being asked during the TJP Human Shield Action to Iraq if I was a pacifist, I responded with a quote from Gandhi by saying I am not a passive anything. To the contrary I believe in action, and I also believe in self-defence, 100%, without reservation. (senere i teksten: But first read the words of Gandhi himself: "I do believe that, where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence.... I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honour than that she should, in a cowardly nanner, become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonour."
080610, Haaretz, Turkey president: Israel will suffer consequences for Gaza flotilla 'mistake' Abdullah Gul: 21 of 22 nations at regional summit condemn Israel over deaths of Turkish activist aboard Gaza aid ship last week.
080610, Voice of Russia, Russia to denounce Israel for Gaza-bound convoy at Security Council.
080610,
BBC, Adam Curtis. A Strange Echo From History. Omtaler sagen fra 1947 med skibet
Exodus. At man ikke tager hensyn til Israels egne erfaringer viser, at Israels
Hasbara folk ikke er helt så dygtige, som vi troede. Lad os håbe, at Mavi
Marmara får samme indflydelse og status, som Exodus.
(se også ovenfor)
0100610, Evening Echo, Govt warns Israel to 'exercise restraint' on Irish aid ship. On board are: Denis Halliday, Electrician Derek Graham, Mairead Maguire.
020610.AlterNet, Ira Chernus, Activists on the Ship 'Rachel Corrie' challenge Israel's Unjust Gaza Blockade and Zionist Myths. rhe root of the dilemma is ... ultimately a conflict between two visions of Zionism that go back to the origins of Zionism itself.One side in the debate sees Israel rapidly losing its respect around the world, which was once quite considerable. ... The other side in the Israeli debate within the government takes a very different approach, Why bother even thinking about the world's response, they ask. The world hates us anyway. ... There is a third vision of Zionism, which is also rooted in the earliest days of the movement and can open the way to a future of genuine peace and security. It's a vision of a Jewish state that embodies the highest moral values enshrined in the Hebrew Bible: the peace that comes only from justice. ... Anything less than fair, equitable, and peaceable relations with the Arabs would nean a failure of Zionism. (for example, ... the famous Israeli writer David Grossman, or Carlo Strenger, a columnist for .... Ha'aretz, )
030610, Huffington Post bringer fhv. FN vicegeneralsekretær Denis Halliday's opfordring til irsk-amerikanere om lobby-virksomhed og Francis Boyle's beskrivelse af retsgrundlaget for en anklage ved ICC.
080610, In These Times - Noam Chomsky. The Real Threat Aboard the Freedom Flotilla. Hijacking boats in international waters and killing passengers is, of course, a serious crime. But the crime is nothing new. For decades, Israel has been hijacking boats between Cyprus and Lebanon and killing or kidnapping passengers, sometimes holding them hostage in Israeli prisons. ... As the editors of The Guardian rightly observed on June 1, "If an armed group of Somali pirates had yesterday boarded six vessels on the high seas, killing at least 10 passengers and injuring many more, a NATO task force would today be heading for the Somali coast." ... The background is important. Hamas was designated a major terrorist threat when it won a free election in January 2006. ... What is commonly described as a Hamas military coup was in fact incited by the U.S. and Israel, in a crude attempt to overturn the elections that had brought Hamas to power. That has been public knowledge at least since April 2008, when David Rose reported in Vanity ty Fair that George W. Bush, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and her deputy, Elliott Abrams, "backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever." ... In June 2008, Israel and Hamas reached a cease-fire agreement. The Israeli government formally acknowledges that until Israel broke the agreement on Nov. 4 of that year, invading Gaza and killing half a dozen Hamas activists, Hamas did not fire a single rocket. ... Like other states, Israel has the right of self-defense. But did Israel have the right to use force in Gaza in the name of self-defense? International law, including the U.N. Charter, is unambiguous: A nation has such a right only if it has exhausted peaceful means. In this case such means were not even tried, although - or perhaps because - there was every reason to suppose that they would succeed. ... The siege is savage, designed to keep the caged animals barely alive so as to fend off international protest, but hardly more than that. It is the latest stage of longstanding Israeli plans, backed by the U.S., to separate Gaza from the West Bank. ... Hass concludes: "The total separation of the Gaza Strip from the West Bank is one of the greatest achievements of Israeli politics, whose overarching objective is to prevent a solution based on international decisions and understandings and instead dictate an arrangement based on Israel's military superiority." ... But the U.S. and Israel have led the rejection of such a settlement for three decades, with one crucial and highly informative exception. In President Bill Clinton's last month in office, January 2001, he initiated Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in Taba, Egypt, that almost reached an agreement, participants announced, before Israel terminated the negotiations.
090610, Ynet, Report: Israel to ease Gaza blockade in exchange for watered-down probe. Telegraph quotes Israeli officials as saying country would agree to allow more goods into Strip, but deny willingness to cooperate linked to growing Western support for international probe into deadly flotilla raid. Western sources: Quid pro quo deal in the offing. ... The British daily quoted Western officials as saying that last week the UK circulated a confidential document proposing ways of easing the blockade. ... The proposals include calls for Israel to abandon its official list of 35 items whose entry into the Hamas-ruled territory is allowed in favor of a list of specifically outlawed items. According to the report, Israel has also been asked to ease access into Gaza at its land crossings, where there are frequent bottlenecks, and to allow the UN to transport construction materials and equipment needed to rebuild 60,000 homes destroyed or damaged during Israel's military offensive in the winter of 2008-2009 ... United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the German and Italian govemment on Tuesday cailed for an international investigation into Israel's deadly raid on the Gaza-bound flotilla, which left nine pro-Palestinian activists dead. The United States also backed calls for an international participation in Israel's probe, saying it was "essential" to ensure credibility.
100610, Haaretz, Natasha Mozgovaya, U.S. Sources: Turkey Vote Against Iran Sanctions - A Slap in the Face. Turkey and Brazil were the only votes against the sanctions, while Lebanon abstained.
100610, McClatchy, Sheera Frenkel, Israeli Document: Gaza Blockade Isn't About Security. As Israel ordered a slight easing of its blockade of the Gaza Strip Wednesday, McClatchy obtained an Israeli government document that describes the blockade not as a security measure but as "economic warfare" against the Islamist group Hamas, which rules the Palestinian territoiy. ... in response to a lawsuit by Gisha, an Israeli human rights group, the Israeli government explained the blockade as an exercise of the right of economic warfare. ... A government spokesman, who couldn't be named as a matter of policy, told McClatchy that authorities will continue to ease the blockade but "could not lift the embargo altogether as long as Hamas remains in control" of Gaza. President Barack Obama, atter receiving Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority, said the situation in Gaza is "unsustainable." He pledged an additional $400 million in aid for housing, school construction and roads to improve daily life for Palestinians - of which at least $30 million is earmarked for Gaza. [som trænger mest !!??] Israel's blockade of Gaza includes a complex and ever-changing list of goods that are allowed in. ... In the years prior to the closure, Israel allowed an average of 10,400 trucks to enter Gaza with goods each month. Israel now allows approximately 2,500 trucks a month. The figures show that Israel also has limited the goods allowed to enter Gaza to 40 types of items, while before June 2007 approximately 4,000 types of goods were listed as entering Gaza. ... While there have been mounting calls for an investigation into the manner in which Israel intercepted the flotilla, world leaders have also called for Israel to lift its blockade on Gaza. ... Egypt, which controls much of Gaza's southern border, reopened the Rafah crossing this week in response to international pressure to lift the blockade. Egypt has long been considered Israel's partner in enforcing the blockade, but Egyptian Foreign Minister Hossam Zaki said the Rafah crossing will remain open indefinitely for Gazans with special permits.[!!!!] In the past, the border has been opened sporadically. ... Palestinian Economy Minister Hassan Abu Libdeh said in Ramallah, specifying that construction materials were the item that Gazans need most.
180610, PressTV, Lebanon, Egypt condemn Israeli threat. The Lebanese and Egyptian premiers have xndemned a new Israeli threat against Beimt, saying it "might have dire consequences" for Tel Aviv. .ebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri and his Egyptian counterpart Ahmed Nazif took the stance after Israeli Oefense Minister Ehud Barak wamed the Beirut ivemment against allowing an aid ship to depart ebanon for the besieged Gaza Strip.
180610, Trend News: Egypt allows Iranian humanitarian ships to sail to Gaza. Egypt has permitted Iranian humanitarian ships to enter the Gaza Strip through the Suez Canal, the Turkish Haberturk website reported. Cairo granted permission to let ships in the Suez Canal be towed into Gaza waters. The Iranian Red Crescent Society sent three ships with humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, which is blockaded by Israel. Two ships with food, medicine and household utilities will bypass Israeli territory and deliver the aid to Gaza.
180610, PanARMENIAN.Net, Israel refuses to withdraw Ambassader to Turkey. Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayaton said that Israel will not respond to Turkeys demand that it recall its ambassador to Ankara. Interviewed by Kol Yisrael government radio, the former ambassador to the United States said "the intentions of someone making such demands are not good."
230610, Haaretz, 33 Greeks to sue Israeli officials over Gaza flotilla raid. Group of Greek Citizens who took part in Gaza-bound flotilla that was taken over by the IDF last month to sue senior Israeli officials - including Defense Min. Barak, and army chief Ashkenazi. ... The Greek activists also plan to sue soldiers and police officers who participated in the IDF's interception ... According to flotilla participants, Israel violated Greek criminal law as well as international treaties.
230610, Haaretz, Balkan summit condemns Israeli raid on Gaza flotilla. 13 southeastern European countries, including Turkey, call for independent and internationally credible investigation on Gaza flotilla deaths.... They also stressed the urgent need to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza. ... Israel says its soldiers began shooting only after a mob of sctivists attacked them. The statement came at the end of a meeting of the 13-member Southeast European Cooperation Process (SEECP). Meanwhile, Haaretz learned late Tuesday that Arab and Muslim members of the United Nations, led by Malaysia, are working toward assembling an emergency UN session to discuss Israel's last month raid of a Gaza-bound flotilla. The resolutions reached at an emergency UN session do not bear immediate practical consequences, and are considered recommendations. However, the representatives of dozens of member states could be allowed to speak at such a session, a fact that could turn the debate into a massive diplomatic assault against Israel, which, in turn, could add to international pressure on Israel to lift the blockade on Gaza. [Der er tale om et ekstraordinært møde i FNs Generalforsamling i.h.t. den såkaldte Uniting for Peace resolution. Generalforsamlings beslutninger er generelt anbefalinger].
230610, presstv, Swedish dock blocks Israeli cargo Hamnarbetarförbundet har en ugelang blokade. DER SKAL FLERE OG MERE TIL.