Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: flotilla

Showing posts with label flotilla. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 09, 2010

Two of the dead "humanitarians" were in the Khaybar rally

Suzanne noticed, and I agree, that two of the people who were killed on the Mavi Marmara have a strong resemblance to the two people to Osama Qashoo's left on the video of the pre-flotilla, anti-Jewish "Khaybar" rally. One is Ali Haydar Bengi and the other is Cengiz Songur.

They were sitting in a semi-circle, with Qashoo in the middle:

At the 0:30 point, we see two people who strongly resemble two of the dead:

But I'm sure that they were very "humanitarian" as they called for the massacre of Jews.

The failure of the media to get the flotilla background right (Landes)

Richard Landes writes a devastating piece for Pajamas Media showing how media sloppiness ends up helping those who support terror.

It centers on a CNN interview with one of the "activists," Osama Qashoo:

As a flotilla of boats heads towards Gaza to break the blockade, CNN has anchor Rosemary Church perform an interview with a participant from one of the boats, “Free Gaza” activist Osama Qashoo. The report has so many flaws, it’s hard to list and analyze them all. (For the entire interview, click here.)

Let’s focus on the main flaws.

The Nature of the Flotilla

Eight hundred “peace activists” and 10,000 tons of supplies. We’ll return to the “peaceful” nature of the activists, but even on the matter of the supplies, she merely parrots the statistics proffered by the organizers. A little research suggests that they’ve been exaggerated by at least a factor of two, and now that the Israelis have unloaded it, I’m guessing closer to a factor of five or ten. As for the organizations involved, the monikers — humanitarian, human rights — are clearly what the groups themselves have to say about themselves, not what CNN, after researching and passing judgment, discovered.

Take, for example, the IHH. This is a group that even the Islamist government of Turkey found too radical for its taste, with ties to al-Qaeda and other organizations that target civilians (of all faiths) as a major tactic in their jihad. Second, it’s an unindicted co-conspirator to groups found guilty of helping plan terror attacks in the U.S. It’s fairly easy to find information on the web that makes it clear how inappropriate “humanitarian group” is for this organization.

Mind you, it’s not out of character for CNN anchors to characterize various organizations negatively for their audience if they don’t like them. Jim Clancy repeatedly refers to AIPAC as the “right-wing, pro-Israel lobby.”

Having misstated the context dramatically, Church then interviews Qashoo. This occupies over six minutes of an eight-minute piece. Not only does Church let Osama carry on at length, she only challenges him with canned Israeli responses.

Apparently the claim that Israelis are acting like Nazis and Gaza is a concentration camp is not a problem for Rosemary.

So rather than challenge his comparison of Israel to the Nazis and Gaza to a concentration camp, Rosemary reads him Mark Regev’s comment that Gaza is not in a state of humanitarian crisis and asks for his response — which essentially is a repeat of his previous remarks, with emphasis on “love for the whole world.”

By this point in time, the footage of the fellows on Qashoo’s boat singing a jihadi song — promising the Jews that Muhammad’s army was coming back to do to them what he did to the Jews of Khaybar (i.e., massacre the men and sell the women and children into slavery) — was released.

And if she, or anyone else at CNN, had done their homework and looked carefully, they would have seen Osama himself waving his fist with the rest of the peace-loving group.

In other words, Qashoo is a particularly unambiguous case of a demopath: someone who presents himself and his companions as pacifists and lovers of humanity even as he chants jihadi songs about wiping out whole populations. Even to Church he shows his hand, by claiming that nothing will stop them, and that they will treat the Israelis as pirates if they try. Demopathy is perhaps jihad’s greatest weapon, precisely because we are so receptive to claims of good will and peaceful intent. Identifying demopaths is one of the most pressing needs of the 21st century, and one of the reasons for that importance is that behind the demopathic façade that invokes human rights and respect for the Muslim minority lies another reality.

Read the whole thing.

Details of Israel's interrogation of Marmara passengers leak out

Israel's Intelligence and Terror Information Center, which has close ties to the IDF, has released a report that discusses in some detail the real story behind the Mavi Marmara, based on unreported IDF investigations in the days following its capture.

(Past experience has shown that the ITIC has been highly accurate. It is a far cry from Debka, for example, which has a more checkered track record.)

The upshot is that there was a core of about 40 IHH members who, with Turkish government support, unofficially took over the Mavi Marmara and planned the clashes with the IDF.

Their summary:

1. An initial analysis of statements taken from passengers aboard the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara after it was towed to the port of Ashdod show that operatives belonging to the radical Islamic Turkish IHH1 led the violent confrontation with the IDF.

2. The statements confirmed that the violence met by the IDF soldiers was not spontaneous but rather an organized, premeditated action carried out by a hard core of 40 IHH operatives (among the 500 passengers). The operatives, who acted according to a clearly-defined internal hierarchy, boarded the ship in the port of Istanbul without undergoing a security inspection (as opposed to the other passengers, who boarded in Antalya after a full inspection).

3. The IHH operatives’ preparations included handing out walkie-talkies as they boarded the ship, taking over the upper deck, setting up a situation room for communications, and a briefing given to the operatives two hours before the confrontation by IHH head Bülent Yildirim, who was on board the ship and commanded his men. IHH operatives wore ceramic vests and gas masks, and were armed with large quantities of cold weapons which they had prepared from equipment found on board (knives, axes, metal cables, metal pipes used as clubs, wrenches, etc.). They were also equipped with box cutters which had been prepared on the upper deck in advance.

4. The passengers, including the IHH operatives, stated that there were close relations between the organization and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and that the Turkish government was involved in preparations for the flotilla. The statements reinforce the original assassment that the objective of the flotilla was not merely to bring humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, but focused on provocation and a violent confrontation with Israel.

Interesting details:

* The Turkish prime minister Erdogan would not have been elected without the help of the IHH.

* " During the voyage a group of IHH operatives supervised the ship. IHH guards were posted in the passageways and did not permit passengers to reach the upper deck. They also limited the movements of the crew, who needed permission from the IHH men to go from one place to another."

* Eight of the nine killed were IHH operatives and volunteers (including an IHH journalist.)

There has been criticism in Turkey as well concerning the ties between Erdogan and the IHH.

As far as the accuracy of the passenger "eyewitness testimony," YNet reports on the firestorm in Egypt over an Egyptian passenger that detailed how the IHH took IDF soldiers captive:

A storm has been kicked up in Egyptian media after experiences on the flotilla are recounted. The version of events on the Gaza-bound flotilla as heard by an Egyptian member of parliament have evoked the ire of a number of state-run media outlets in the country because, they claim, the stories help Israeli PR efforts.

An Egyptian member of parliament from the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Beltagy, took part in the flotilla to the Gaza Strip that was commandeered by the Israeli Navy. After participating in the clashes on the deck of the Mavi Marmara, he was arrested by Israel and later released to Egypt.

On Tuesday of last week, he was interviewed on the "10 at Night" program on the Egyptian channel Dream. During the interview, he said that the flotilla participants overtook three Israeli commandos and snatched their weapons from them. This admission of employing force against IDF soldiers has evoked a media storm among Egyptian columnists, who claim this was a "public relations gift to Israel."

In other words, there is a usually unspoken rule in the Arab world not to say anything that could help Israel, especially if it is true. Pseudo-"peace activists" adopt the same rule as their hatred of Israel is what colors all of their actions, not their desire for helping Gazans.

The main factor that has helped Israel confirm its narrative has indeed been Muslims whose cultural desire to show their manliness in resisting the IDF outweighed their realization that this very testimony of supposed IDF weakness is really a clear demonstration of initial IDF restraint. The Free Gaza folks wouldn't fall into that trap because their own fake public narrative is that they are against all forms of violence - but Arabs and Turks have cultures that celebrate militancy and abhor any appearance of weakness, ironically making their testimonies more accurate.

(Update: deleted a sentence - I misunderstood a part of the report.)

Kuwaiti Journalist: The Flotilla Was Violent; Israel Has a Right to Defend Itself

Kuwaiti journalist 'Abdallah Al-Hadlaq supported Israel's decision to stop the Gaza flotilla in the daily Al-Watan, saying that the outcome of the Israeli navy's operation was "in direct proportion to the violence" of the flotilla activists, and that the flotilla organizers are known to have ties with global and regional terror organizations.

The following are excerpts:[1]
"The Weapons had Clearly been Prepared in Advance... and the Soldiers had No Choice but to Respond"
"The Israeli navy gave repeated warnings to the ships [of the flotilla], which tried to break the blockade on the terroristic Hamas movement in Gaza, and also invited them to enter the Ashdod port and unload their cargo of 'aid' supplies, so it could be thoroughly examined by the security [forces] before being delivered by land to the Gaza Strip. When the flotilla failed to heed these warnings and requests, the Israeli navy had no choice but to take over the ships. [In doing so], the IDF troops encountered violent [opposition] that had been planned in advance: the flotilla participants assaulted them with firearms, metal pipes, knives and clubs, and grabbed the rifle of one of the soldiers. The weapons had clearly been prepared in advance... and the soldiers had no choice but to respond, including with live fire.
"The Israeli navy operation was conducted according to orders and instructions of the highest political echelons, [and aimed at] stopping the ships and keeping them from breaching the naval blockade and reaching Gaza. The warning message sent by the Israeli navy [to the Mavi Marmara] was as follows: 'To the captain of the [Mavi] Marmara: You are approaching an area of hostilities, which is under a naval blockade. The Gaza coastal area and Gaza Harbor are closed to maritime traffic. We invite you to enter the Ashdod port, from whence the aid supplies will be delivered through the formal land crossing [to Gaza], after which you can return to your home ports."[2] It should be noted that, according to the 1993 Oslo Accords, Israel retains control of a 40-kilometer strip of water off the Gaza coast."

"The [Flotilla] Organizers are Supporters of Movements and Organizations such as [Global] Jihad, Hamas, Hizbullah and Al-Qaeda"
"The flotilla, which was supported by the terroristic Hamas movement and tried to breach the blockade on this movement in Gaza, was a preplanned provocation against Israel. The grave outcome [of the takeover] was in direct proportion to the violence [employed by the flotilla activists] as they tried [to breach the blockade]. The [flotilla] organizers are supporters of movements and organizations such as [global] Jihad, Hamas, Hizbullah and Al-Qaeda, and have a black record in terms of smuggling arms and [perpetrating] terror operations. And indeed, the Israeli forces discovered on the ships weapons and ammunition that had been prepared in advance.
"The naval blockade on the Hamas movement in Gaza is legal in light of this movement's actions in the Strip. Had Israel allowed the flotilla – which was not legal – to reach the Hamas movement, it would have opened a route for smuggling weapons and terrorists into the Gaza Strip. No sovereign country would allow its citizens or its sovereignty to be harmed. Moreover, the attempt to force a path to Gaza by sea does not [really] benefit the people of Gaza, since the land crossings are sufficient for [the purpose of] supplying their needs. International aid organizations provide Gaza with all the necessary food, clothing and medical [supplies]. Over 15,000 tons of basic aid supplies enter the Strip every week. Construction materials enter it under the supervision of international organizations, in order to prevent the terroristic Hamas movement from commandeering them and using them for building military fortifications. The land crossings are the most efficient way to deliver supplies to Gaza, and the flotilla organizers know this perfectly well. They also know that since December 2008, their ships are not allowed to approach [the Gaza coast].
"The protests and demonstrations that broke out in various capitals are without meaning or value, as are the emergency summits [convened by] the Arab League, the E.U. and the U.N. The wave of protests will not change a thing, but a full and immediate investigation of the events will reveal all the details of what really happened... and [then] everyone will know the truth about the Hamas movement..."

Endnotes:
[1] Al-Watan (Kuwait), June 3, 2010. It should be noted that, at a June 4, 2010 rally, Hizbullah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah said that some papers in the Gulf had published papers supporting the IDF raid on the flotilla, but their authors were a minority that would be taken care of by people of honor. Al-Safir (Lebanon), June 5, 2010.

[2] The full message of the Israeli navy was as follows: "You are approaching an area of hostilities, which is under a naval blockade. Gaza coastal area and Gaza Harbor are closed to maritime traffic. The Israeli government supports delivery of humanitarian supplies to the civilian population in Gaza Strip and invites you to enter Ashdod port. Delivery of supplies will be in accordance with the authorities' regulations and through the formal land crossing to Gaza and under your observation, after which you can return to your home ports." The reply was: "Negative, negative. Our destination is Gaza."

Proof that Gaza is too crowded

From PCHR:

According to investigations conducted by PCHR, at approximately 6:00, on Sunday 6 June 2010, an unknown object exploded in a land that had been used for training by resistance groups in al-Mawasi area in the west of Rafah. As a result, Mohammed Fayez Dehleez, 15, was seriously wounded, due to which his legs and right hand were cut (amputated.)

The Palestinian police sources stated that they opened an investigation into the reasons of the explosion occurred in the training area, at a time when there was no training at all for any resistance group. The police added that the said site had no clear boundaries and many groups were using it.

You see, because Gaza is so small, we have a tragic situation where the large open areas used for terrorism training must be shared among multiple terror groups. Because of the Israeli siege, proper fencing cannot be built around these vast areas - each of which could comfortably house tens of thousands of people.

So until Israel cedes more of its occupied land in the Negev to Hamas, poor Gaza children will continue to be exposed to the danger of left-over munitions from militant training.The human rights of the terror groups to each have their own, separate, well -protected training areas is being seriously violated.

It is just this sort of human rights abuse that makes Westerners so upset that they must organize flotillas to aid those children in danger of being blown up. All because of Israeli intransigence.

Free Gaza rejected offer of delivering cement to Gaza via NGO

If anyone still thought that the Free Gaza movement had any interest in helping out the people of Gaza, this audio recording of a conversation between the Israeli and Free Gaza ships yesterday should dispel that:

The flotilla team repeatedly had said that the reason the refuse to go to Ashdod is because Israel would not allow some of their cargo to go to Gaza. Here. we hear that Israel not only offered to transfer the cement that would have been brought on the ship to Gaza, but also that it would allow a third party NGO to bring it into Gaza.

Although their final response is not on this audio recording, Free Gaza evidently refused, although they were quite polite about it. They even helped the IDF soldiers get onto the ship. Maybe they have been reading the articles about international law and the breaking of blockades.

(I suppose it is possible that there was an unofficial deal, where FG was allowed to publicly say they refused to go to Ashdod but privately accepted the conditions.)

Must-read op-ed in Arabic blasts flotilla, Hamas

A Palestinian Arab newspaper asks about the motives of the Free Gaza flotilla.

The op-ed, by Fouad Sobhi, says

The Arab and Muslim world is very angry after the fall of some of victims when the Turks tried to sail some small boats carrying aid to break the siege imposed on Gaza and access to the Gaza Strip by sea. Demonstrations went out as usual to the streets of some Arab and Islamic slogans condemning what happened and demand an international trial of Israel and its leaders and the expulsion of ambassadors in Cairo and Jordan ... At the same time called the Muslim Brotherhood called upon the Egyptian government to open the crossings between Egypt and Gaza Strip - not to send food or fuel for the necessary needs of the Palestinians, but to send fighters to Israel to punish them for their response to vessels seeking to break the embargo on Hamas.

Many of the angry protesters don't know that it had been possible to avoid the victims and wounded at sea if the organizers of these vessels accepted the offer of Egypt and Israel to give such assistance to the Egyptian authorities to convey the aid to residents of the Gaza Strip via the Rafah crossing. This offer was rejected completely, because the scenario that was written and planned carefully by Hamas and the Turks was to create a clash with the Israeli navy and to provoke the soldiers of the Israeli army and engage with them to the degree that they will not escape, only shoot to defend themselves and then [Hamas can] exploit the incident, a major world media event to show Israel as a monster predator perpetrating aggressions against the innocent unarmed civilians who were seeking to achieve a noble humanitarian goal is to help the Palestinians.

My question here is why did the the organizers of the vessels refuse to accept the Egyptian offer to transfer their aid through the Egyptian border?? Why did they insist on moving towards Gaza despite the dozens of warnings issued to them by the Israeli and Egyptian authorities?? Is there a relationship between what has happened in the Mediterranean Sea and conflicts and internal disputes in Turkey between Prime Minister on the one hand, the army and the opposition on the other?? Did the system in Turkey want to dismiss what is happening inside with their internal conflicts and divisions by playing the religious feelings of Muslims and Arabs and criticism of Israel with guns and try to become the Savior of the Palestinian cause??

There is no doubt that I sympathize with all my senses and my heart with the good Palestinian people in Gaza and I hope to lift their siege the day before tomorrow, and I hope with all my heart for an immediate end to their suffering and the inhumane conditions, but at the same time, we must say that I find an excuse and justification for Israel and Egypt to continue this ban in the presence of the current leaders of the extremist Hamas who impose - Hamas themselves - the maximum blockade and more cruelty and viciousness, hundreds of times worse than the Egyptian and Israeli blockade.

I think it is appropriate to condemn the world's first siege of the extremist Hamas leadership of the Palestinian people in Gaza, religiously, socially, intellectually, politically, morally and economically .. But must also be strong demand to dismiss the Hamas leadership, extreme power and the rule of the sector and bring it back to the rule of the legitimate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abu Abbas to unify the Palestinians again.

"Flotilla Facts" website

A very good resource called Flotilla Facts has become a one-stop shop for the latest on the events. It is also a good reference site, something that blogs cannot do as well as more generalized websites.

English: "IDF ruthless!" Turkish/Arabic: "IDF crybabies!"

There are three narratives of the first minutes of the raid on the Mavi Marmara: one by Israel, one by the leaders of the flotilla when speaking in English, and a third one - by the people who support the flotilla when speaking in non-Western languages.

The Turkish newspaper that published the pictures of the IDF soldiers today does not use the meme of ruthless IDF soldiers shooting from the helicopter and murdering civilians within seconds of landing on deck - nor do the pictures support that narrative in the least. Rather, they prove Israel's version of events completely. Yet the Turkish press, as we had seen Friday from some of the Arabic press, instead say how weak and ineffectual the IDF soldiers were, all but mocking them for not using lethal force initially.

The newspaper notes, with glee, the fear in the soldiers' faces captured in the photos. It discusses how the brave "humanitarians" fought the mighty IDF with sacks of onions. The article calls the soldiers "amateurish" and "incompetent."

To the supporters of the IHH and its partners, the IDF's reticence in using lethal force is a clear sign of weakness, not a sign of caring about human life.

This also indicates that the version of events that much of the world believes, in which the Free Gaza folks make outlandish claims like

Under darkness of night, Israeli commandoes dropped from a helicopter onto the Turkish passenger ship, Mavi Marmara, and began to shoot the moment their feet hit the deck. They fired directly into the crowd of civilians asleep.

are complete fabrications.

Interestingly, the Turkish article claims that the IDF erased these photos from the camera memory cards before returning them to their owners, and that the Turks recovered them with simple unerase software, in an attempt to hide the facts of the IDF failure. It seems equally possible that the photographers quickly deleted the photos before the IDF confiscated the cameras. In fact, as YNet notes, the IDF "expressed its satisfaction with the Turkish newspapers' decision to publish the photos. 'This is clear proof of Israel's repeated claims, that the boat was carrying mercenaries, whose sole purpose was to kill the soldiers.'" Their only problem was with showing the soldiers' faces.

IDFs clarifies earlier radio transmission between navy and Flotilla

Recently the IDF distributed a video in which "Peace activists" tell Jews to go back to Auschwitz. Many (including myself) were questioning the authenticity of this video and believed the IDF fabricated this video because of other possible known facts:

On hearing the recording Adam Shapiro, co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement, identified the woman's voice as that of his wife Huwaida Arraf, chair of the Free Gaza Movement. However, Arraf was not aboard the Mavi Marmara. She was aboard one of the small passenger vessels in the six-boat flotilla, called Challenger 1.

The IDF spokesperson clarifies now:

"the audio was edited down to cut out periods of silence over the radio as well as incomprehensible comments so as to make it easier for people to listen to the exchange. We have now uploaded the entire segment of 5 minutes and 58 seconds in which the exchange took place and the comments were made.

This transmission had originally cited the Mavi Marmara ship as being the source of these remarks, however, due to an open channel, the specific ship or ships in the “Freedom Flotilla” responding to the Israeli Navy could not be identified. During radio transmissions between Israeli Navy and the ships of the “Free Gaza” Flotilla on 31 May 2010, the Israeli Navy ship attempts to make contact with the ‘Defne Y’ on channel 1-6. Other ships from the flotilla respond on the channel, without identifying themselves. At some point during the radio exchange the Israeli Navy is told by one of the ships to “shut up, go back to Auschwitz” (2:05) and “don’t forget 9-11″ (5:42)."

Here it is, the unedited version:

UPDATE: Defne Y is a cargo ship and it was one of the ships of Flotilla which came from Turkey.

"Peace activist" brags: "We had captured another Shalit"

Waleed al-Tabtabai, a member of Kuwai's national assembly and a Muslim Brotherhood member, was on the flotilla. In the Kuwaiti Al Rai newspaper, quoted by Palestine Today, he said that his group ad captured an Israeli soldier.

"We had a new Shalit; we captured him and he urinated on himself on the Marmala.

"I was on a humanitarian mission risking my self and spirit, and Israel has provided us witha great propaganda service with their barbaric brutality attacking vessels of freedom.

He refused to answer questions from the Zionist interrogator. "I told him you are pirates ..and the killers of prophets."

When humanitarian aid becomes a political game

Hezbollah's television station Al-Manar mentions that Fatah official al-Ahmad said that the Gaza Strip does not need humanitarian food or supplies as the Palestinian Authority secures the needs of the Gaza Strip on a daily basis.

Al-Ahmad:

“I confidently say that Gaza does not need humanitarian or food supplies because the PA is securing all of this. The PA sends 200 trucks into Gaza, not through Rafah but through other crossings,” he told the German News Agency. “These trucks are always full of food supplies, medicaments, and fuel,” he added.

In case of a so-called humanitarian crisis, you would expect that all aid is welcome. But it's not in the Gaza Strip where aid is not always greeted with enthusiasm as the German weekly Der Spiegel points out:

"People who are not in with Hamas don't see any of the relief goods or the gifts of money," Khadar says. On the sand dune where his house once perched, there is now an emergency shelter. The shelter is made of concrete blocks that Khadar dug from the rubble, and the roof is the canvas of a tent that provided the family with shelter for the first summer after the war. "Hamas supporters get prefabricated housing, furnishings and paid work. We get nothing," Khadar complains. (...)

The reason his family receives nothing: Like many of his neighbors, Khadar is a die-hard supporter of the Fatah party, the sworn political enemy of the more radical Islamists in Hamas. That's why Khadar has little hope of seeing any of the 10,000 tons of aid that the activist flotilla heading for the Gaza Strip tried to bring to Gaza's harbor at the start of this week. (...)

The bulk of the goods, which were temporarily confiscated, have since been released by Israel and brought to the Gaza border. But now there's another problem: Hamas is playing politics. The autocratic rulers of the Gaza Strip have placed conditions on aid delivery. The goods are not to be brought into the territory piece by piece, but all at once. All or nothing. By making these demands Hamas wants to ensure the building materials are all handed over. (...)

And he appeals to aid organizations to do everything they can to try and deliver their goods directly to the citizens of Gaza. Hamas should not be allowed to get hold of it. Khadar becomes particularly enraged when he talks about his neighbors behind the dune. The Hamas prime minister of Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, recently gave them a brand new house, complete and ready for them to move in.

And indeed, Khadar's neighbor, Aderauf al-Batsch's front door boasts a commemorative plaque celebrating that memorable event. The 35-year-old homeowner does not dispute his relationship to Hamas, but he does dispute any accusations of preference. "The construction ministry held a lottery to win a new home. And I just happened to be the winner," Batsch explains. Does he think it's a strange coincidence that he, the neighborhood's only Hamas supporter, should have won the contest? No. "Sometimes in life you get lucky," he says.

And guess what? If it is not part of a political game, it's bad for business:

There are people in Gaza though who will never be happy about the arrival of the aid. "Everything that arrives here, and is distributed free of charge, is bad for business," says one Palestinian pharmacist, who studied in Germany but preferred not to give his name for fear of reprisals. Every medicine and every toy that well-meaning Westerners donate endanger the few jobs that still remain in Gaza, he explains. A colleague at another pharmacy agrees. "We are being bred into dependency," he says, repeating the universal adage that guides international aid: "If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. But if you give him a fishing rod, you feed him for a lifetime."

But even though the internal ideological problems and the oppressive behavior of radical organizations such as Hamas are exposed, they still believe that in order to let the PalArabs to stand on their own feet the Israeli blockade must first end. It is a shame that Der Spiegel did not ask when they think Israel would end its blockade. Because that answer seems obvious: when the hatred and the attacks from Gaza will stop.

A bunch of flotilla-related links and other stuff (updated)

Too many things to blog!

Barry Rubin notes that the leader of the humanitarian flotilla really seems to like jihad and death.

He has another good piece as well.

Krauthammer nails it.

The Jerusalem Post reveals more details of the operation.

Eric Posner, expert on international law, says that Israel could have sunk the ships legally!

Yid With Lid on Helen Thomas' polite suggestion that Jews get the hell out of "Palestine" and go to where they came from. On video!

MEMRI has a compilation of relevant Arab videos:

From Firas Press.- the Muslim Brotherhood supports Mohamed ElBaradei in his possible run for president of Egypt. Fun.

I need to relax this Shabbat. Badly.

Who cares about Gazans? Not the flotilla!

Today, Jordan sent 52 trucks of aid to Gaza.

More will arrive tomorrow, including medical supplies.

The goods are being sent by the Jordan Hashemite Charity Organization.

Two weeks ago, another aid convoy from Jordan arrived in Gaza - including aid from Saudi Arabia.

Also this week, Egypt's Red Crescent sent aid to Gaza, including blankets and tents, via the Rafah crossing.

Quietly, Arab countries and Israel cooperate in ensuring that Gaza's needs are fully met. Even Syria has sent trucks filled with aid to Gaza.

What do the "humanitarians" from the West think Arab nations, quietly cooperating with the Zionist enemy, helping Gazans? According to them, isn't this a model for peace and goodwill?

Not at all.

An internal Free Gaza email from last November complained about how too many of their potential donors preferred to send aid to Gaza rather than support their blockade-busting boats. And they said explicitly that "We firmly believe that activists and people who care about Palestine should not be raising money for humanitarian aid."

In other words, the flotilla supporters don't care at all about getting aid to Gazans. They don't want Jordan or Egypt or Saudi Arabia or the UAE or any of the other Arab states to send supplies. They refuse to deal with Israel - as opposed to Israel's implacable enemies.

They hate Israel more than the Arabs do!

This is the fundamental truth about Free Gaza, Viva Palestina, IHH and the other groups that mount very public shows of sending aid to Gaza. The supposed victims are just pawns - they are targeting the supposed oppressors.

The ones who cooperate with their enemies to get aid to Gazans.

The hate is palpable. Almost all of the interviews with these supposed humanitarians show them suffused with intense anger towards Israel, and very little love towards Gazans. The only Gazans they show real solidarity with are their Hamas dictators, as the "humanitarians" love to remind the world that Hamas was democratically elected - as if that somehow makes the terrorists less reprehensible.

No, there is only one thing that binds these "activists" together, and that is a desire to see Israel disappear. Free Gaza's Greta Berlin said as much to the New York Times:

[S]he says that her detractors in Israel are right, that she does not accept Israel as a Jewish state, though she contends that is part of a larger philosophy which opposes all national borders.

It just so happens that the only national borders she spends time opposing are Israel's.

In the final analysis, based on how they behave and their words, the so-called "humanitarians" are the exact opposite of human rights workers. They explicitly excuse every Hamas or Islamic Jihad atrocity and they oppose everything Israel does for the defense of its citizens.They don't even take advantage of Egypt's opening of the Rafah border to send aid to Gazans. They are hypocrites of the highest order.

Most of all, the flotilla supporters care less about the quality of life of Gazans than Israel does.

Arab League meets over flotilla; can't agree on what to do.

An emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo over a response to the flotilla incident resulted in much disagreement over what actions to take, and the wording of the final statement.

The Egyptians were strongly opposed to the wording "break the siege" because it could expose their own citizens to infiltration from Gaza. Qatar threatened Egypt back, and Egypt noted its objections but kept the language.

In the end, the watered down statement did not call on Arab governments to do anything about the blockade - but rather to ask the UN Security Council to pressure Israel.

This was regarded as a major embarrassment in the Arab world.

Apparently, the group also drafted a letter to President Obama but decided unanimously not to publish it.

What happened on the ship: Extracting truth from half-truths

It takes a lot of time to extract the truth of exactly what happened aboard the Mavi Marmara, but when you get lots of testimonies that contradict each other from both sides, seeing what is in common can shed light.

For example, in the article I quoted previously from the Australian journalist Paul McGeough:

There were conflicting accounts of the first commando landing – some activists said he was injured and was being carried inside the ship for treatment by the flotilla doctors.

From Al Jazeera:
The organisers [of the flotilla] swapped the four Israelis kidnapped, or caught, by the people on the ship, and because they were beaten up, because it's kind of resistance from our side, we swapped the Israeli soldiers to [get] to treat our injured.

From Ha'aretz: :

During Israel's takeover of a Turkish ship in the Gaza-bound aid flotilla this week, some passengers tried to take captive three commandos who lost consciousness as a result of the activists' blows, according to early findings of a navy investigation. The three were dragged into one of the passenger halls below deck and were held there for several minutes.

After dozens of other commandos began searching the ship, the Mavi Marmara, the three soldiers regained consciousness and managed to join their comrades.

So, beyond merciless beatings, the Turks tried to kidnap the soldiers - and later claimed that they were simply treating their injuries!

From McGeough:

Matthias Gardel, a leader of the Swedish Palestinian support group, confirmed the soldiers had been beaten, but insisted those involved were unarmed and in keeping with the ship's non-violent charter, the soldiers' weapons were thrown overboard.

From Ha'aretz:

The soldiers reported that the activists had fired on them during the confrontation and that at least two commandos suffered gunshot wounds. After the incident, 9mm bullet casings were found - a kind not used by the naval commandos.

The Israel Defense Forces says that during the operation a number of pistols and an M-4 rifle were taken from soldiers, but they believe that the Turkish activists had other weapons. The captain of the ship told the naval commando chief that the guns were thrown overboard before the ship was completely taken over.

Which explains the lack of weapons found, even though there were live video and audio reports from the soldiers as they heard and saw the gunshots.

Free Gaza claims that the ship raised a white flag almost immediately.

From Al Jazeera:

It was 14 ships which approached us, nearly at 4.30 in the morning. Fourteen ships that I could count and one helicopter....It ended at six, when a voice from the microphone said the ship was controlled by the Israelis, 'please enter the rooms'.

So it took some ninety minutes of fighting before the Marmara surrendered.

(h/t Alexander)

They prayed before they lynched

The Sydney Morning Herald has a reporter's account of the commando operation that is so unbelievably biased as to be laughable. Written by Paul McGeough, it is titled "Prayers, tear gas and terror."

The Israeli attack was timed for dawn prayers – when a good number of the men aboard the Mavi Marmara were praying on the aft deck of the big Turkish passenger ferry, as it motored steadily through international waters in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.

The call to prayer could be heard across the water – haunting chords made tinny by the ship's PA system, yet haunting enough amid tension sparked several hours earlier when the six ships' captains in the Free Gaza Flotilla rejected a demand radioed by the Israeli navy – change course away from the Gaza Strip or be confronted with lethal force.

Don't you love the imagery of innocent Muslims at prayer being surprised by stealthy evil Zionist killers? The fact that we have video of them waiting for the Israelis, with clubs and knives and slingshots and broken bottles in hand, is not mentioned. No, all night they were praying. (By the way, the Muslim times for prayer are almost literally all day and night - Isha'a is dusk until dawn, Fajr from dawn to sunrise.)

We have heard the warnings given by the Israelis and they never warned that they would use "lethal force." This is simply a lie.

They hunted like hyenas – moving up and ahead on the flanks; pushing in, then peeling away; and finally, lagging before lunging. But as they came alongside the Mavi Marmara, the dozen or so helmeted commandos in each assault craft copped the full force of the ferry's fire hoses and a shower of whatever its passengers found on deck or could break from the ship's fittings.

Suddenly sound bombs and tear gas were exploding on the main aft deck, where prayers were held five times a day.

See - it was a holy spot! Just like the Jews took away the Al Aqsa Mosque, now they took away the holy Mavi Marmara!

[A]ctivists on the upper decks rushed to the top level of the ship – grabbing the commandos even before they landed, disarming them; beating them until, according to some who were present, leaders demanded the Israelis not be harmed; but in one case, one of the Israelis was hurled from one deck of the ship to the next.

Wait - it gets better:

There were conflicting accounts of the first commando landing – some activists said he was injured and was being carried inside the ship for treatment by the flotilla doctors. However, a Serbian cameraman, Srojan Stojiljkovic, said some of the activists had armed themselves with lengths of chain and metal posts that had served as cordons around the ship's lifeboats.

"Some of the people caught the first commando before he touched the deck – a few started to hit him, but a lot of people moved in to shelter him with their bodies," the cameraman said. "Another soldier with a bleeding nose was brought in ... a few people threw punches, but not as many as I would have expected."

The brutal and merciless beatings caught from at least three different camera angles, including the cameras on the Mavi Marava itself, are ignored by this intrepid reporter who so loves Muslim prayer as to invoke it multiple times in the story. Instead, he takes utterly inconsistent and conflicting reports - which any decent reporter would question based on the video evidence - and takes them at face value.

It is not believable that McGeough had not seen the videos by now that show nothing at all corroborating his fanciful tale of caring Turkish aid workers nursing injured Israeli soldiers to health.

Another of the dead was said to be an Indonesian cameraman, Sura Fachrizaz, shot in the chest. Also among the dead was a Malaysian doctor who, activists said, was shot while treating the wounded.

Funny - the news today said that all of the dead were from Turkey (the one American citizen was from Turkey as well.) The reporter is again reporting rumors without checking the facts - just as he repeats the discredited flotilla lie that

Four of the ships carried 10,000 tonnes of emergency supplies for Gaza

...not quite true, closer to 1000 tons of useless supplies that Hamas has spurned.

But his characterization of the violent Hamas coup that killed hundreds of Gazans deserves perhaps the most derision of all:

Hamas retained control of Gaza in the face of an Israeli- and US-backed bid to oust the Islamist movement from power.

McGeough is not a reporter, he is an advocate. And - no surprise - his girlfriend is Palestinian Arab.

(h/t jk)

Yemen does a blockade. People die. World yawns.

When Arabs blockade, they really do it right. No food, water, medicine, or press - so no criticism, either. And it only takes them three weeks to start starving people!

From The Examiner, May 30:

As Yemen’s blockade on southern Yemen enters its third week, stocks of food, medicine and oil have dwindled to dangerous levels. Prices have skyrocketed and already malnourished children bear the brunt of the military action.

The blockade began 17 days ago when the Western Armored Division established new checkpoints on roads and at city entrances preventing the flow of persons and commerce including food, medicine, oil and water. The blockade has cut off Radfan, Yafea, al Dhala, al Melah, al Habeelan, al Shaib, Gahaf, Lazarik, and parts of Shabwah.

The main road between Aden and al Dahlie is closed. Al Habaleen, Lahj was indiscriminately shelled three days ago after two soldiers were killed in an ambush. Another ambush in al Melah killed one soldier, and authorities have accused renegade elements of the southern independence movement with the attacks.

Nearly one thousand have fled Radfan, al Habaleen and al Bilah seeking safety. Like the 250,000 internally displaced by the Sa’ada War, these are mostly women and children. On May 24, a pregnant woman en route to a hospital in Aden was stopped at a military checkpoint and later died in childbirth.

Reports indicate a heavy military mobilization including tanks and armored personnel carriers. As during the Saada war, a total media blackout is in place, often accomplished by the arrest of southern journalists. An American journalist was expelled from Yemen last week after visiting Yafee, a center of southern resistance.

Yemen’s conduct of the Saada war generated 250,000 internal refugees with arbitrary aerial bombing of civilian areas and a strict blockade of food, medicine and international aid.

Assuming this is true, then the world is ignoring a real, illegal blockade (actually, two of them - one was last year) - blockades that do not let anything through and are designed to literally starve out the population.

But Arabs killed and starved by other Arabs is no big deal. No protests or flotillas against Yemen - because the protesters know that they would be killed on the spot, without any media attention.

If the world doesn't know about it, then how bad could it be?

Of course, the Yemenis vociferously protested Israel's blockade. While people in southern Yemen would gladly trade places with any Gazan.

Bibi's speech (updated with video)

As Barry Rubin writes, "It is so full of common sense and clear statements that the entire text should be read."

Once again, Israel faces hypocrisy and a biased rush to judgment. I’m afraid this isn’t the first time.

Last year, Israel acted to stop Hamas from firing thousands of rockets into Israel’s towns and cities. Hamas was firing on our civilians while hiding behind civilians. And Israel went to unprecedented lengths to avoid Palestinian civilian casualties. Yet it was Israel, and not Hamas, that was accused by the UN of war crimes.

Now regrettably, the same thing appears to be happening now.

But here are the facts. Hamas is smuggling thousands of Iranian rockets, missiles and other weaponry – smuggling it into Gaza in order to fire on Israel’s cities. These missiles can reach Ashdod and Beer Sheva – these are major Israeli cities. And I regret to say that some of them can reach now Tel Aviv, and very soon, the outskirts of Jerusalem. From the information we have, the planned shipments include weapons that can reach farther, even farther and deeper into Israel.

Under international law, and under common sense and common decency, Israel has every right to interdict this weaponry and to inspect the ships that might be transporting them.

This is not a theoretical challenge or a theoretical threat. We have already interdicted vessels bound for Hezbollah, and for Hamas from Iran, containing hundreds of tons of weapons. In one ship, the Francop, we found hundreds of tons of war materiel and weapons destined for Hezbollah. In another celebrated case, the Karine A, dozens of tons of weapons were destined for Hamas by Iran via a shipment to Gaza. Israel simply cannot permit the free flow of weapons and war materials to Hamas from the sea.

I will go further than that. Israel cannot permit Iran to establish a Mediterranean port a few dozen kilometers from Tel Aviv and from Jerusalem. And I would go beyond that too. I say to the responsible leaders of all the nations: The international community cannot afford an Iranian port in the Mediterranean. Fifteen years ago I cautioned about an Iranian development that has come to pass – people now recognize that danger. Today I warn of this impending willingness to enable Iran to establish a naval port right next to Israel, right next to Europe. The same countries that are criticizing us today should know that they will be targeted tomorrow.

For this and for many other reasons, we have a right to inspect cargo heading into Gaza.

And here’s our policy. It's very simple: Humanitarian and other goods can go in and weapons and war materiel cannot.

And we do let civilian goods into Gaza. There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Each week, an average of ten thousand tons of goods enter Gaza. There's no shortage of food. There's no shortage of medicine. There's no shortage of other goods.On this occasion too, we made several offers – offers to deliver the goods on board the flotilla to Gaza after a security inspection. Egypt made similar offers. And these offers were rejected time and again.

So our naval personnel had no choice but to board these vessels. Now, on five of the vessels, our seamen were not met by any serious violence and as a result, there were no serious injuries aboard those ships. But on the largest ship, something very different happened.

Our naval personnel, just as they landed on the ship – you can see this in the videos – the first soldier – they were met with a vicious mob. They were stabbed, they were clubbed, they were fired upon. I talked to some of these soldiers. One was shot in the stomach, one was shot in the knee. They were going to be killed and they had to act in self-defense.

It is very clear to us that the attackers had prepared their violent action in advance. They were members of an extremist group that has supported international terrorist organizations and today support the terrorist organization called Hamas. They brought with them in advance knives, steel rods, other weapons. They chanted battle cries against the Jews. You can hear this on the tapes that have been released.

This was not a love boat. This was a hate boat. These weren't pacifists. These weren't peace activists. These were violent supporters of terrorism.

I think that the evidence that the lives of the Israeli seamen were in danger is crystal clear. If you're a fair-minded observer and you look at those videos, you know this simple truth. But I regret to say that for many in the international community, no evidence is needed. Israel is guilty until proven guilty.

Once again, Israel is told that it has a right to defend itself but is condemned every time it exercises that right. Now you know that a right that you cannot exercise is meaningless. And you know that the way we exercise it – under these conditions of duress, under the rocketing of our cities, under the impending killing of our soldiers – you know that we exercise it in a way that is commensurate with any international standard. I have spoken to leading leaders of the world, and I say the same thing today to the international community: What would you do? How would you stop thousands of rockets that are destined to attack your cities, your civilians, your children? How would your soldiers behave under similar circumstances? I think in your hearts, you all know the truth.

Israel regrets the loss of life. But we will never apologize for defending ourselves. Israel has every right to prevent deadly weapons from entering into hostile territory. And Israeli soldiers have every right to defend their lives and their country.

This may sound like an impossible plea, or an impossible request, or an impossible demand, but I make it anyway: Israel should not be held to a double standard. The Jewish state has a right to defend itself just like any other state.

Looks like a real supporter of the peace activists, no?
And I'm sure that he is referring to the peaceful, introspective form of Jihad.

(But I'm sure he was just mistranslating it from the original Farsi.)

Another pro-peace flotilla protester, so Reuters feels compelled to inform us that it is a toy gun.

Obama gets off easy, comparatively.

The only reason his outreach to the Muslim world isn't working must be because of Israel - here is proof!

Nah, nothing anti-semitic about a sign with an ape wearing a black hat and peyos. All Zionists look that way.

And I'm sure that this sign is just an aberration, just one crazy person who hates Jews - it cannot possibly represent the vast majority of peaceful, moderate Muslims of Indonesia. Right?