Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Newest videos shed more light on Mavi Marmara raid (part 1)

One of the activists aboard the Mavi Marmara managed to get a 15-minute video out showing the passengers before and during the IDF raid.

It can be seen at the "Cultures of Resistance" site.

Some interesting parts:

Starting at around the 3:00 mark, we see an IDF helicopter hovering, and then at least 7 soldiers are seen rappelling down to the deck, much more quickly than those that came from the first helicopter. It appears that the IDF figured out very quickly what was going on and ensured that the mistakes from the first drop, where the soldiers were beaten, would not be repeated.

That section of the video was taken from the deck below the main deck. Even though it appears from other evidence that the IHH had a core of some 40 members who were planning to do the heavy fighting and who effectively took over the top deck (see next posting and video), there were people on the second deck who were also supplied with slingshots (3:40)

They mention having two soldiers "bleeding and wounded" but I'm not sure I see them (6:00) They might have been edited out.

Some of the IHH fighters are seen, wounded and dying.

Most interesting to me was the sequence at about 12:30, where an Israeli boat is speeding alongside the ship. Even though it is now morning, and clearly at least an hour since the first soldiers dropped onto the ship, the activists are still throwing debris towards the Israeli navy - which runs very much counter to the flotilla members' accounts of a white flag being immediately raised and a PA announcement of immediate surrender and stopping resistance. In this video we hear the captain telling people to go to their rooms and remain calm after daybreak, but we never hear the audio saying that the ship has surrendered.

More in the next post.

Toameh: what about Hamas' Siege of Gaza?

Arab-Israeli journalist Khaled Abu Toameh asks What about Hamas' Siege of Gaza?

As Israeli naval commandos raided the flotilla ship convoy that was on its way to the Gaza Strip, Hamas security officers stormed the offices of five non-governmental organizations, confiscated equipment and documents, and ordered them closed indefinitely.

...

The raid on the NGOs in the Gaza Strip, which received little coverage in the media, is seen by many Palestinians as part of Hamas's ongoing crackdown on political opponents and human rights organizations.

Further, Hamas's recent decision to ban municipal elections in the Gaza Strip is yet another violation of one of the basic rights of its constituents.

Hundreds of Palestinians have been arrested by Hamas's security forces for daring to speak out against the state of tyranny and intimidation in the Gaza Strip. Over the past three years, dozens of Fatah officials and members have either been thrown into prison or killed.

Under Hamas, the Gaza Strip is being transformed into a fundamentalist Islamic entity resembling the regimes of the Ayatollahs in Iran and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

...

Instead of searching for ways to improve the living conditions of the 1.5 million Palestinians of the Gaza Strip, Hamas is busy enforcing strict Islamic rules on the population, such as Hamas policemen, for example, often stopping men and women who are seen together in public to inquire about the nature of their relationship.

...

Hamas, however, is more interested in clinging to power than in serving its people; and in light of increased calls for lifting the blockade following the flotilla incident at sea, the movement's leaders in Syria and the Gaza Strip are now convinced that they are marching in the right direction.

It is one thing to help the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, but it is another thing to help Hamas. Those who wish to deliver aid to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip can always find better and safer ways to do so - either through Israel or Egypt. But those who only seek confrontation with Israel in the sea are only emboldening Hamas and helping it tighten its grip on the people of Gaza Strip.

The Forgotten Rachels

Rachel Corrie's death was a tragic accident, but the death of these Rachels could have been avoided. In light of the Rachel Corrie recently embarking for Gaza, the Jewish Virtual Library created this video as a tribute to "The Forgotten Rachels" who all died as a result of Palestinian terrorism:

(h/t sshender)

Hamas strengthens siege on Gaza

You remember, so many days ago, that humanitarians were up in arms because Gazans were not able to get coriander from Israel?

Israel has been derided for its seemingly arbitrary policies that seemed to allow certain items into Gaza while disallowing others.

Well, Israel just tried to ship a bunch of new items into Gaza, like snacks, spices (maybe even the dreaded coriander!) and sodas.

And Hamas rejected them.

As Al Arabiya reports:

Hamas said they will not let newly approved food items into the Gaza Strip as long as Israel maintains its blockade of the territory, as Arab League Chief Amr Moussa plans to visit the Strip on Sunday.

Israel slightly eased the much-criticized blockade on Wednesday by permitting snacks, spices and some other previously banned food items into Gaza.

Hamas' economy minister, Ziad al-Zaza, said on Thursday that Gaza doesn't need soda and soft drinks.

So are we going to be hearing about Hamas' siege on Gaza in the media?

Well, they didn't notice last year, so I don't think they'll notice it now.

By the way: there is no Israeli blacklist of items allowed in Gaza that includes coriander or jams. Gisha made up a list that they "deduced" from speaking to Gazans; that list was publicized by reporters and activists who thought it was too good to check. In fact, the IDF works on a day-to-day basis with various NGOs and others in Gaza to see what can make it in the upcoming shipments. Israel does have a list of allowed items that will always be allowed in; everything else is done on a case by case basis. If UNRWA made a special request for coriander or chocolate, there is no doubt that it would be allowed in. Right now, the problem is bureaucratic and practical, not policy.

U.S. Army Col. (Ret.) Ann Wright, on a speaking tour of the United States on behalf of radical pacifist women's group Code Pink, bills herself as an eyewitness to the IDF raid on the Mavi Marmara and the "murder" of "nine innocent civilians." However, in an interview with Aaron Lerner of IMRA, she admits she did not actually see the clash between the IDF soldiers and the armed passengers on board the Mavi Marmara.
In a promotional e-mail on behalf of "Code Pink: Women for Peace," Wright says: "I just returned from the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and started my speaking tour last night in NYC to share what I witnessed aboard the flotilla, and what people can do to end the siege."
"I witnessed the Israeli attack that killed 9 persons and wounded 50 on the Gaza Flotilla... the murder of nine persons... Tragically, it took another example of disproportionate use of force by the Israeli military that resulted in the deaths of nine innocent civilians to force many governments of the world to call for the Israelis to end the siege of Gaza."
In the interview with Lerner she admitted that she was not aboard the Mavi Marmara but on a different ship, the Challenger, which was about 150 yards distant from the Marmara.
The confrontation took place between 4:30 and 5:00 a.m., in the dark of night (IDF footage of the raid was carried out with night vision equipment).

She admits:

My witness will be specifically what happened on our ship, the
Challenger. And then I can comment on what happened in the very first three
or four minutes as the Israeli commandos were trying to board the ship. We
saw that from the stern of the ship. But after that that's when my
witnessing from my own eyes of what happened on that ship would end.

Read the whole article...

Video: IHH member admits hostage-taking (updated)

Middle East News Watch brings us a video of a reporter who found this guy, Murat Akinan:

The reporter first notes that while the soldier is bloody, Akina doesn't have a scratch on him. Akina simply answers that the soldiers were firing and he was merely defending himself.

He answers the question of whether he intended to kidnap the soldier with a strange denial:

"No, [he] was given to me to protect, save him and trade him."

Seizing a person with the intent to bargain him to compel a state or group of people to do an act is the definition of hostage taking. And it is illegal under international conventions.

Yet I have yet to hear a "humanitarian" denounce this violation of humanitarian law. In fact, I have yet to hear a member of Free Gaza disassociating themselves from the actions of the IHH assaulters and kidnappers.

Makes you think that maybe they have a non-humanitarian agenda, doesn't it?

UPDATE: It is possible that the woman said "treat," not "trade." Which would make this post moot.

Now Gazans are whining about Egypt opening Rafah!

Palestine Today has an article about how Egypt's decision to open the Rafah crossings indefinitely has caused many Gazans, involved in the tunnel smuggling trade, to lose their jobs.

If whining were an Olympic event, there would be gold medals all over Gaza.

Radical Arabs really hate moderate Arabs

We have discussed radical, pro-Hamas pseudo-journalist Khaled Amayreh before. We have seen this ESP expert him try to start a new intifada, go beyond the "anti-zionist" meme to coin the word "Judo-Nazis, " and hurl bile at Elie Wiesel.

Today, he sets his sights upon relatively moderate Arab journalist Abdul Rahman al Rashed, who writes for Asharq Al-Awsat among other places. You can almost feel the spittle that must have been spraying all over his keyboard as he wrote this:

Just as Israel’s barbarianism was being exposed to hundreds of millions of viewers around the world, following the criminal state’s bloody raid on the Gaza Freedom flotilla on 31 May, Abdul Rahman al Rashed was barking from London, blaming Hamas for the persistence of the Israeli or more correctly Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the coastal territory.

Thus, in just one sound-bite he exonerated the world’s premier terrorists from any wrong doing, effectively granting a certificate of innocence to murderous Ashkenazi vandals who stole Palestine from its rightful owners and also to Nazi-like America which had just occupied and destroyed two sovereign Muslim nations based on lies and baseless allegations.

Abdul Rahman al Rashed is literally translated into “the Servant of the Compassionate (Allah), the rightly-guided.” However, a more fitting name for this intellectual midget should connote or denote the fact that he is a willing slave for Zionist propaganda and decadent Arab tyrannies.

His unscrupulous espousal and advocacy of Zionist narratives are beyond disgraceful. He should be called Abdul al Shaytan, [servant of Satan] rather than Abdul Rahman, and al Dhal ["The lost one" - h/t Ali] instead of al Rashed.

Yasser Arafat gave the Israelis everything they asked for, in the hope that they would relent and come to terms with Palestinian rights and dignity. He even went as far as tormenting and torturing his own people in order to obtain a certificate of good conduct from Isaac Rabin, the pseudo-peace dove who had ordered his troops to break the bones of Palestinian children. And what was the result of all this blindness of the mind? They killed him in his own headquarters in Ramallah.

And now the Commander of the Faithful in Ramallah, Abu Mazen, al-Rashed’s apparent darling, is even outmatching Arafat by indulging in all these stupid sycophantic theatrics that only serve to further degrade and dishonor the Palestinian people, while emboldening the Zio-Nazi leadership in Tel Aviv including the wild Jewish animals, known as the settlers in the West Bank.

The London-based quisling journalist is strikingly naïve. He is audacious enough to think that all the suffering in Gaza would come to an abrupt end if only Hamas and other Palestinian factions ignored the fate of thousands of Palestinian political prisoners and freedom fighters languishing in Zionist concentration camps by unconditionally releasing an Israeli prisoner of war and succumbing to “Chosen People” or “Master Race.”

Amayreh is still quoted all over the place as if he is a legitimate journalist rather than a hatemonger and bigot. He seems to spend his entire life in a permanent state of anger and denial - and blame.

Does Daniel Kurtzer think that Israel could do anything to reduce his psychotic hate, and that a serious percentage of Arabs do not share his insane venom?

Which Gazans get first choice on aid? One guess.

The JC publishes an article by a Gazan journalist about what life is like for him in Gaza, with sporadic electricity and unsafe tap water, among other problems.

Of course, no one is arguing that Gaza is a paradise, just that the inability for journalists to to surf the web more than eight hours a day is hardly a humanitarian crisis.

Most interesting was this one section:

I drive to work in my used car. I have a Fiat from 1984, which cost me $5,000, and not a day goes by without a visit to the mechanic. But although my car is so old, every day people stop me to ask whether I am selling. For the past three years, importing cars has been forbidden. The only exception is the cars brought into Gaza by George Galloway, which are used by members of the Hamas government.

Did Galloway's Viva Palestina organization tell their volunteers that the hundreds of vehicles they were bringing to Gaza were going straight to Hamas?

Of course not:

What are we taking with us into Gaza?

VEHICLES:
Vehicles are in great demand in Gaza after the devastating attack that destroyed machinery, ambulances, fire engines and other such civil service vehicles. The crippling siege does not allow for the entry of materials and equipment that could potentially repair these vehicles. In addition, the staggering number of casualties created an overwhelming need for vehicles to transport injured and maimed civilians to and from medical treatment.

So while Viva Palestina said that these vehicles would be used for medical and other critical needs, it appears from the JC article that Hamas members are enjoying the privileges of these cars for their own personal use.

IDF briefing before the raid (video)

Somehow, I had missed this pretty important video, made and uploaded to YouTube on May 27th - days before the raid on the flotilla.

It shows clearly that the IDF had no intent whatsoever to hurt any of the activists, and that they only expected the usual kind of non-violent resistance - spitting, cursing, throwing cigarettes at the soldiers. The soldiers are exhorted to act professionally and humanely.

The difference between what happened on the Mavi Marmara and the other ships shows this was indeed the case.

Israel provides World Cup broadcasts in Arabic. Arabs complain.

Daniel Kurtzer, former US ambassador to Israel and Egypt, wrote in a recent op-ed:

In the aftermath of the flotilla fiasco, it is not just Israel’s military tactics and its blockade of Gaza that need a thorough reexamination. Its narrative does, too. A dose of empathy might be a place to start. Israel will not break by military force and tough rhetoric alone the political and moral double standards by which the world judges its actions. But it can make its case better by tempering force with diplomacy, by caring as much about the humanitarian distress among Palestinians as it does about humanitarian causes elsewhere in the world, and by developing a storyline infused with the moral and ethical standards by which Israelis judge their own behavior.

Kurtzer thinks that if Israel would just act nicer towards Arabs, they will naturally reciprocate that goodwill and this could be a first step towards peace, love and cute little puppies.

An article in Palestine Today indicates that this is not necessarily the case.

Gazans are scrambling to find ways that they can watch the World Cup. Al Jazeera is scrambling its World Cup signal and requires that viewers pay for the right to watch it. It is unclear from the article whether Gazans are unable or unwilling to pay, so they are trying alternative means to receive the games.

Some are building TV antennas to pick up signals from pirate TV stations in the West Bank who are trying to get around AL Jazeera's monopoly. Others are trying to descramble the Al Jazeera signal to watch for free. (Al Jazeera announced that some of the games would be broadcast for free.)

The article then mentions that "the occupying power" is providing World Cup coverage in Arabic for free, alongside its Hebrew coverage. It is hiring senior Arab sports analysts for these broadcasts.

But rather than showing appreciation for this move, the article says that this is being done to steal Arab viewers away from the Al Jazeera coverage!

Kurtzer is way too optimistic. Arabs might privately appreciate and respect what Israel does, but the culture is set up so that it is inconceivable that this private appreciation will ever translate into the public sphere.

Perhaps the reason that Kurtzer is not writing op-eds about that aspect of the problem is because he knows, deep down, how useless it is.

Did Reuters do it again?

Here's another photo of a "peace activist" aboard the Mavi Marmara and its Reuters caption:

A pro-Palestinian activist holds a bottle on board the Gaza-bound Turkish ship Mavi Marmara in the international waters of the Mediterranean Sea early May 31, 2010. Israeli marines stormed the Turkish aid ship bound for Gaza on Monday and nine pro-Palestinian activists were killed, triggering a diplomatic crisis and an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council. Picture taken May 31, 2010. REUTERS/Adem Ozkose/Gercek Hayat Magazine via IHH/Handout

He's just holding a bottle? What could the possible purpose of the bottle be? When you are drinking your soda, do you hold a bottle upside down? And doesn't it look suspiciously empty?

Now, we know from the very first day that the "peace activists" attacked the IDF soldiers with, among other things, broken bottles.

Here is a screengrab from a Mavi Marmara video as the so-called humanitarians were preparing their weapons, showing a broken green bottle being held at a very similar angle - as a weapon:

I cannot find the original IHH handout picture from which Reuters took this, but isn't it interesting that this photo's edge just happens to be at the exact spot necessary to turn a picture of a man holding a weapon into a mere picture of a man holding a bottle?

At the very least, Reuters' caption is highly misleading - and, it appears, knowingly so.

(pointed out via email tip)

UPDATE: LGF noticed it a couple of days ago.

Camera: Gun-running Bishop in Flotilla

Retired Archbishop Hilarion Capucci joined the Free Gaza Movement's aid Flotilla to the Gaza Strip on the Mavi Marmara.

To Reuters he said:

"Our trip to Gaza was a trip of love and God was with us. Israel by its actions had rightly drawn world outrage over its brutality against unarmed people carrying a message of love to an innocent occupied people under siege."

However, Reuters does not fail to mention in this article that this "peace-loving" Bischop was imprisoned by Israel in 1974 and later deported.

Camera has more and dug into his past:

Capucci was arrested by Israeli police on Aug. 18, 1974 and charged with smuggling weapons into the West Bank. The following day the New York Times reported that Capucci, who was born and raised in Syria, was accused of “acting as undercover liaison man between Al Fatah guerrilla group [in Lebanon] and Palestinian guerilla cells” in the West Bank [see also the article below as published in Star-News - Aug 19, 1974 , Suz.] . According to a Times summary, police reported that

large quantities of weapons and explosives were found hidden in his Mercedes sedan in Aug after he returned from visit to Lebanon. Source says Capucci was associated with abortive incident in May during Sec Kissinger's visit in which 3 Katyusha rockets were aimed at the center of Jerusalem. Rockets were discovered before they went off.

Later that month (Aug. 24), the Times reported that Capucci had allegedly told Israelis that he was “forced into guerrilla service by threats of blackmail.” Capucci told the Israelis that he was threatened with physical violence and “the disclosure of actions that might jeopardize his position” within the church. The Times also reported that Capucci faced charges of being accessory to murder because three men who were accused of murdering a Jerusalem taxi driver obtained their weapons from one of Capucci's drop points.

During the trial, Capucci refused to give a statement or sworn evidence because he said Jerusalem was Arab territory and that “Israeli law does not apply in the city” (New York Times, Oct. 30, 1974).

Eventually, Capucci was convicted and sentenced to 12 years in prison. He spent two years in prison before the Israeli government released him after a special request from the Vatican. On Nov. 4, 1977 the Washington Post reported from Jerusalem about Capucci's impending release:

Demands for Capucci's release have turned up regularly in the lists submitted by airplane hijackers, including the Entebbe hijackers, but where the threats have failed, a personal letter from Pope Paul has apparently succeeded. …. The price Israel extracted from the Vatican for Capucci's release was a personal letter from the Pope which, according to officials here, contains some admission of Capucci's guilt and the acknowledgement that he received a fair trial. At the very least, sources said, the letter cannot be construed as a denial of his guilt. The appeal is being made on humanitarian grounds.

The understanding with the Vatican, according to Israeli sources, is that Capucci will not be allowed to make propaganda for the Arabs against Israel and that he is to be posted to a place outside the Middle East.
….

There seems to be very little question that Capucci was in fact smuggling arms for the Palestinian Liberation Organization and at least one Israeli is thought to have died as a result. The PLO denies his guilt and has declared him a martyr, but privately many PLO members do not bother to deny his guilt and deplore his carelessness in getting caught.
.…

Capucci has been held in the maximum security prison in Ramleh since his conviction, according to diplomatic sources who have visited him, and has been accorded better treatment than the average prisoner.

Israel's demand that Capucci would not propagandize was likely a response to a letter he wrote from prison which was published in a number of venues including the Journal of Palestine Studies. In the letter, Capucci portrays Israel as violating and desecrating the Holy Land, undermining the Al Aska Mosque and violating the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. “Our most precious land has been desecrated and we have shuddered with repulsion to see it happen.”

Upon his release from Israeli prison on November 4, 1977, Capucci was assigned to serve Melkite communities in Latin America (Washington Post, Dec. 23, 1977). “His assignment to a post outside the Middle East was thought to be a condition of his release,” the Post reiterated.

On May 8, 1979, the Washington Post reported that Capucci “surprised the Vatican and irked Israel by attending a Palestine Liberation Organization Meeting in Damascus. The Vatican reportedly has told Israel it will try to keep him out of the Middle East.”

During the Iran hostage crisis, Capucci was sent to Iran to ascertain the condition of the Americans held in Tehran. His presence was not welcome by the American hostages. On Jan. 29, 1981 the New York Times reported the following about Capucci's visit to the hostages in Iran:

From his home in Olyphant, Pa., Michael J. Metrinko, political officer, criticized Archbishop Hilarion Capucci of the Melkite Church of the Eastern Rite. He said the Archbishop, who made one trip with Father Rupiper [another priest who had visited the hostages], had seen a few well-treated prisoners ''and spent the rest of the time enjoying himself with the guards.''

''I tried to tell Capucci what things were like, and he just went into a diatribe about how bad things were in Israeli prisons,'' Mr. Metrinko said.

Hilarion Capucci, man of peace.

Such a peaceful man, indeed! At least he admits he did not serve the years he should have served in jail. To the Brisbane Times he said:

''They warned if I tried to return again they would lock me up for the eight years of the jail sentence which I did not serve,'' he told the Herald.

''I would prefer to be in a small jail in Palestine than in the bigger prison of exile.''

Israel let him go, though.

Google translates its caption as:

"The pilothouse of the rope to where the ships are waiting to here with the three Israeli commandos in the brawl took place between a group of volunteers. In the melee one soldier was trying to cast into the sea, but some groups opposed to it. Neutralizing the soldiers return, then downloaded to the hall on the second floor."

How believable is that version of the story after seeing this?

Look carefully at 0:28. I'm starting to believe that the picture they took was of the soldier right of the soldier who was thrown overboard. What do you think?

"Enjoy the 'Bridge'" - Turkish op-ed slams Erdogan's love of Hamas

From Burak Bekdil at Turkey's Hurriyet newspaper (English edition):

From the first day under the rule of an Islamist elite, Turkey was bound to be a “Muslim bridge between the East and East.” It is becoming one, if it was not already. Those Western diplomats who wholeheartedly believed in the bridge between the West and East tale… those who wholeheartedly believed in the “Turkey-is-an-honest-broker-between-Israel-and Hamas/Syria” tale deserve the finest of all decorations and promotions for their incredible prophesy and reason, including early retirement and postings to challenging capitals such as Bujumbura, Belmopan, Malabo, Suva, Melekeok, Sao Tome and Nuku’alofa (though they are lucky I am not anyone’s minister).

Forget the silly “bridge talk.” The inescapable truth is that Turkey as an honest broker between Israel and Hamas or between Israel and Syria is tantamount to Israel as an honest broker between Turkey and Israel.

A few days ago, the Washington Post reminded its readers that Hamas had killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide bombings and other attacks, and that most Western countries considered it a terrorist organization. But what does the chief engineer of the bridge between the West and East think of Hamas?

At a public rally where anti-Israeli emotions were running high, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan shouted loud and clear that Hamas is not a terrorist organization. Its members are, Mr. Erdoğan argued at the weekend, resistance fighters. The prime minister’s justification is that Hamas cannot be a terrorist organization because it was democratically-elected.

That could be a dangerous precedent. I think the immediate and wisest thing for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, to do is to run for the next Turkish elections under the name PKK. Murat Karayılan and his comrades in arms will be recognized as democratically-elected politicians and not terrorists by Mr. Erdoğan when they comfortably win seats in Southeast Turkey.

What, then, makes the Israeli government a “terrorist state” in the eyes of Mr. Erdoğan? Did the Israeli government seize power by force? Was it not “democratically elected?”

In the meantime, what did the head of the “humanitarian aid organization” that spearheaded the Gaza flotilla tell a crowd that looked more like an army of jihadists than volunteers? Listen to Bülent Yıldırım, “the ace” humanitarian activist:

“Last night [the night of the Israeli raid on the flotilla] everything in the world changed, and everything is progressing toward Islam. Anyone who does not stand alongside Palestine – his throne will be toppled!”

See, typical humanitarian aid activist language. I am sure the believers of the bridge tale will also believe Mr. Yıldırım is the Muslim reincarnation of Mother Teresa.