This video image released by the Turkish Aid group IHH Monday May 31, 2010 purports to show Israeli soldiers aiming a gun on the deck of a Turkish ship, part of an aid convoy heading to the Gaza Strip, after Israeli soldiers boarded the vessel in international waters off the Gaza coast. Israeli commandos on Monday stormed six ships carrying hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists on an aid mission to the blockaded Gaza Strip, killing at least 10 people and wounding dozens after encountering unexpected resistance as the forces boarded the vessels. AP Photo/IHH via APTN)
By Stephen Lendman
May 31, 2010
Even America’s major media can’t duck a crime this grave – attacking and slaughtering up to 20 Gaza Freedom Flotilla activists and injuring dozens more.
New York Times writer Isabel Kershner headlined “At Least 10 Killed as Israel Intercepts Aid Flotilla, saying:
“The Israeli Navy raided a flotilla carrying thousands of tons of supplies for Gaza in international waters on Monday morning….The incident drew widespread international condemnation, with Israeli envoys summoned to explain their country’s actions in several European countries….The killings also coincided with preparations for a planned visit to Washington on Tuesday (June 1) by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”
Late word is it’s postponed.
The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and Los Angeles Times carried similar reports, trying, but hardly able to downplay a major crime.
The UK-based Stop the War Coalition called it “Yet another act of Israeli barbarism” in announcing an “emergency demonstration” at 2:00PM near the prime minister’s Downing Street residence, saying spread the word and come.
In Gaza, thousands protested, expressing anger, outrage and sympathy, carrying banners condemning willful crimes, and calling for Arab solidarity. Similar demonstrations turned out in Amman, Cairo, Damascus, Tehran, Ankara, Istanbul, Beirut and other regional cities.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak blamed the Flotilla organizers for inciting the attack, while his deputy, Danny Alalon said they were connected to international terrorist organizations and were trying to smuggle in arms. Weapons were found on board, he claimed.
At a hastily called news conference, sparsely attended, he referred to “the armada of hate and violence in support of the Hamas terror organization,” accusing peaceful activists of a “premeditated and outrageous provocation,” saying “The organizers are well known for their ties with global Jihad, Al Qaeda and Hamas. (Their) intent was violent, their method was violent, and the results were unfortunately violent.”
Shameless lies from a criminal caught red-handed, Haaretz’s Gideon Levy saying:
“The Israeli propaganda machine has reached new highs (distributing) false information. It embarrassed itself by entering a futile public relations battle….There is nothing to explain, certainly not to a world that will never buy (its) web of explanations, lies and tactics.”
In Washington, of course, they’re echoed along with toned down pious indignation publicly, but privately, assurances of solid US-Israeli relations are affirmed.
On May 31, White House spokesman William Burton said:
“The United States deeply regrets the loss of life and injuries sustained, and is currently working to understand the circumstances surrounding this tragedy,” stopping short of condemning crimes too grave to ignore and demanding harsh measures in response to premeditated slaughter.
Much the same from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (a reliable Israeli ally) stating:
“It is vital that there is a full investigation to determine exactly how this bloodshed took place. I believe Israel must urgently provide a full explanation,” stopping short of demanding it and full accountability.
Saying he “deplored in the strongest terms the killing of civilians,” Italian Foreign Minister, Franco Frattini, like his EU counterparts, said it was “indispensable that there be an inquest to ascertain the facts, which are still not clear.”
They’re very clear. Israeli forces planned and executed a premeditated attack against peaceful humanitarian activists, trying to deliver essential to life aid to Gazans under siege – to break Israel’s attempt to suffocate and starve them.
The Wall Street Journal online headlined “More than 10 Dead After Israel Intercepts Gaza Aid Convoy,” saying (like most US media reports) that “An Israeli military spokesman said later in the day that some activists ‘appeared’ to be armed with guns, and fired at the Israeli soldiers, though it wasn’t clear who fired first.”
The activists, in fact, were unarmed civilians, delivering vitally needed humanitarian aid to 1.5 million Gazans, trapped under siege for three years this month. Without provocation, they were maliciously and willfully attacked in international waters by armed Israeli commandos with orders to open fire if the convoy failed to abort its mission.
The best Journal writer Joshua Mitnick could say was “whether the military action was warranted or not (it) threatens to further sully Israel’s international reputation, after a series of recent diplomatic setbacks.”
No mention of the Gaza war, daily West Bank and East Jerusalem incursions, the three-year siege, a 43-year occupation, daily killings, targeted assassinations, homes bulldozed, mass arrests, torture, and Palestinian communities throughout the Territories and in Israel threatened by daily terror.
No mention by European nations either, the EU merely calling for a full inquiry, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner (a staunch Israeli supporter) saying he was “deeply shocked by the ‘tragic’ consequences of Israel’s military operation (against) a humanitarian initiative,” but little else. The same hypocrisy echoed from most European capitals, much like already from Washington.
Turkey’s Communist Party’s press statement, in contrast, said:
“The pirate commandos trained by Israel Naval Forces mounted an operation this morning to capture the flotilla carrying aid to Gaza and slaughtered unarmed civilians in the course of this outrageous operation.”
Calling the attack “barbarous,” it “demanded” immediate deportation of Israel’s diplomatic mission, cancellation of Turkish-Israeli military and other agreements, and Israel held fully accountable for its crime against humanity – its specialty against civilians and nonviolent activists.
Al Jazeera reported that “Thousands of Turkish protesters tried to storm the Israeli consulate in Istanbul soon after the news (shouting) ‘Damn Israel’ as police blocked them.”
It also said Israeli radio confirmed at least 19 were killed and dozens injured, quoting IDF spokeswoman, Avital Leibovich, saying, “This happened in waters outside Israeli territory, but we have the right to defend ourselves,” – the usual response from scoundrels caught red-handed.
Video footage on board the Turkish passenger ship Mavi Marmara showed Israeli commandos opened fire during the assault, activists saying it began immediately after storming on board.
Al Zazeera’s Jamal Elshayyal, on the ship, said “a white surrender flag was raised (and) there was no live fire coming from the passengers.”
The Free Gaza Movement reported that “Under darkness of night, Israeli commandos dropped from a helicopter onto the Turkish passenger ship, Mavi Marmara, and began to shoot the moment their feet hit the deck.” No action on board provoked it. It was premeditated, willful slaughter.
The Gisha Legal Center for Freedom of Movement expressed sorrow in denouncing the attack, citing it as further “proof that despite claims to the contrary, Israel never ‘disengaged’ from the Gaza Strip but rather continues to control its borders – land, air and sea….hermetically (cutting off) 1.5 million human beings (from) access to the outside world” and vitally needed humanitarian aid.
Netanyahu’s spokesman, Mark Regev, claimed “They initiated the violence,” and the IDF insisted it responded when its forces “were attacked with knives, clubs, and even live fire.” Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi said soldiers were forced by violent acts to respond with live fire.
They lied.
Viewing the video footage, Al Jazeera’s Ayman Mohyeldin reported that:
“All the images being shown from the activists on board those ships show clearly that they were civilians and peaceful in nature, with medical (and other humanitarian) supplies on board.”
Other footage showed black-clad commandos descending from helicopters, then immediately opening fire on deck against peaceful activists.
Israeli forces seized the ship and a smaller one, took them to Israel’s port of Ashdod, and censored all information on the assault.
The Flotilla, with 700 activists, left Cyprus at 3:00PM (1200 GMT) Sunday, on the last leg of their journey, heading for Gaza, hoping to arrive by daylight. Six hours after departure, three Israeli missile boats left Haifa to interdict it, according to reporters on board before being ordered to turn off their cell phones.
The convoy hoped to break the siege and deliver over 10,000 tons of vitally needed aid, including food, medicines, educational, construction, and other materials. Israel warned it would intercept and abort the mission, giving no details except to say ships would be seized, then taken to Ashdod.
A May 31 Gaza Freedom March.org press release called for a “global response to killings on the Freedom Flotilla,” saying:
“We, Gaza based Palestinian Civil Society Organizations and international activists, call on the international community and civil society to pressure their governments and Israel to cease the abductions and killings….against the Gaza Freedom Flotilla….and begin a global response to hold Israel accountable for the murder of foreign civilians at sea and illegal piracy of civilian vessels carrying humanitarian aid for Gaza.”
“We, from Gaza, call on you to demonstrate and support the courageous men and women on the Flotilla and join the many now murdered on a humanitarian aid mission. We insist on severance of diplomatic ties with Israel, trials for war crimes and the international protection of the civilians of Gaza. We call on you to join the growing international boycott, divestment and sanction campaign of a country proving again” to be an international outlaw. “Join a growing critical mass around the world with a commitment to the day when Palestinian are entitled to the same rights as (all) other people, when the siege is lifted, the occupation over and the 6 million Palestinian refugees are finally granted justice.”
Stand in solidarity for their freedom in peace, and demand nothing less, including full accountability for Israeli officials responsible for high crimes of war and against humanity.
On board the Flottilla are over 700 activists from 40 countries, including 35 politicians and a Nobel Peace laureate, Mairead McGuire, who protesting with Bil’in village activists against Israel’s Separation Wall, in April 2007, was shot and injured with a rubber bullet, then tear-gassed, overcome, and had to be taken by stretcher to an ambulance.
Again, she and 700 others risked their lives to deliver vitally needed aid. In solidarity, people of conscience everywhere must support them and demand full accountability for the latest Israeli crimes too grave to ignore.
Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday through Friday at 10am US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on world and national topics. All programs are archived for easy listening.
The Hunger Site
June 4, 2010 at 3:05 pm
From Harvey Milk Club Co-President Denise D’Anne:
Absurd opinion:
Elliott Abrams, senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, opinion blaming the victim on Israel’s attack on the Flotilla is absurd. Everyone agrees that the Israeli forces attacked the ships in international waters. If there was resistance it is a normal reaction to masked men with weapons landing from a helicopter. The Jews were criticized for not resisting during the horrible Holocaust times, but now resistance is criticized. As far as is known not one Israeli was killed or even wounded in this recent incident.
Sincerely,
Denise D’Anne
June 2, 2010 at 11:22 pm
BTW… Cenk Uygur has an interesting take on this at Daily Kos:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/6/2/872387/-Israel-Must-Release-the-Full-Raid-Tapes
Absolutely. If Israel has nothing to hide, then they should release all the tapes, and return all the property they confiscated from people. Until they do, these selected snippets should just be viewed as propaganda.
Sad thing is, they’re propabably busy erasing everything that implicates them in their criminality as we speak. Still, the truth will come out. The world won’t let them kill the people they’re holding in detention, and they can’t hold them forever. When they get out, they will tell the world what happened.
June 2, 2010 at 9:46 pm
Yeah Rob. Everybody is a sucker. It’s all a huge anti-Israel conspiracy, and the whole world is full of suckers. The only country that has supported the Israeli position is the United States. Now why do you think that is, Rob? I suppose next you’ll be saying that it’s because the whole world is anti-semitic.
In fact, on yesterday’s Democracy Now, Adam Shapiro (whose wife was on the flotilla) covered this issue of the self-defense of the activists:
ADAM SHAPIRO: “The boats were making their way, the six ships, in international waters, far in international waters. They were still at least fifty miles offshore, and so well off the coasts of Israel and Gaza. And as they were making their way, Israeli warships surrounded the flotilla, all the ships, and the first ship to come under attack by helicopter, with commandos coming down from helicopter, as we’ve seen on the media, on the footage, was this big Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmara. And soldiers, as they came down, started opening fire immediately, as was reported by the Al Jazeera correspondence on live stream that we have. And the soldiers injured and eventually killed at least one person, before other passengers decided at that point to try to act in self-defense and to try to stop soldiers, more soldiers, from coming onto the ship.
What needs to be acknowledged here is that Israel acted violently by attacking our ships, to begin with. And under international law, under the law of the seas, our people, as the people on that ship coming under such an attack, an illegal attack on the high seas, do have a right to defend themselves. Now, we don’t necessarily encourage people to take up any kind of weapons against the Israelis, and certainly our activists train in nonviolence, but given the kind of scenario that was unfolding on that boat, I certainly do understand the desire of people to try to protect themselves and try to protect others who were already injured. ”
To recap:
1. The Israelis had no right to attack to begin with, as the ship was in international waters.
2. The Israelis had non-lethal means to disable the boats at their disposal, such as disabling the propellers. Instead, they chose to kill.
3. The Israelis started shooting as soon as they got there.
4. The activists defended themselves against deadly force as best as they could, using pipes and bottles.
5. The Israelis murdered several people, kidnapped the rest on the high seas, and brutalized them in detention (and continue to do so).
Oh yes, and they confiscated all cell phones and cameras, so that their narrative was the only one that would get out.
The truth, however, WILL get out. But thanks for doing your part in the Israeli PR snowjob.
June 2, 2010 at 3:53 pm
Look at these so-called “peace activists” as they prepare to attack the Israel commandos.
http://blog.camera.org/
These guys were too stupid to turn off the security cameras on the boat. They were caught arming themselves with steel bars and slingshots:
http://camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x_issue=52&x_article=1859
You guys are suckers. This is just another anti-Israel set-up.
June 2, 2010 at 9:34 am
It’s 4,000 years old,
The Old Testament talks about a kind of Jewish war called ‘hori’ (?) in which God tells the Israelis through the Prophet to exterminate every man, woman and child in the camps, villages and cities they conquer because God wants the land to go to Israel because they are the Chosen people. Joshua, I believe was the one to refuse on one instance and God rebuked him (through the Prophet). I guess Netanyahu is the new Prophet.
“I got a bad feeling about this one, Vern.”
What goes around comes around,
h.
June 1, 2010 at 2:10 pm
In terms of occupation, the same can be said of Afghanistan and Iraq. An occupier, no matter who is doing the occupying, will be subject to fierce resistance.
You’d think that a people that were once subjected to systematic extermination at the hands of the Nazis would be sensitive to acts of oppression and occupation.
June 1, 2010 at 1:55 pm
I think the unspeakable is going to become mainstream very soon. In the rest of the world, it already is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_reactions_to_the_Gaza_flotilla_raid
Only in America is it unspeakable to call a murder a murder, but that won’t last too long the way Israel is going. We may see a political earthquake right here in California on June 8th. Marcy Winograd isn’t afraid to speak the unspeakable:
http://winogradforcongress.com/peace-candidate-winograd-denounces-murders-of-free-gaza-activists/
And this time she may just win. Couldn’t happen to a better incumbent, either. Jane Harman is a disgusting, war-profiteering blue dog -a woman who illegally lobbied on behalf of israeli spies, and once said she was the “best Republican in the Democratic primary.” But that was a different election. The times they are a-changin’.
What’s going on in israel is something that I’ve predicted for a long time. For a while they tried to keep a human face on the occupation, but in the end that’s not possible due to the nature of occupation itself. People inevitably resist, and the more Israel cracks down, the more they resist and the more outraged the rest of the world becomes. The country is stuck in a downward spiral of increasing barbarity and extremism. The election of the current right-wing government and the elevation of the openly racist and genocidal Avigdor Lieberman to the Israeli foreign ministry is but a manifestation of that downward spiral. In a way, it was almost welcome news, because with Netanyahu and Lieberman at the helm, Israel manifests its true colors much more plainly and quickly.
And in response, you’re going to be seeing a lot more of this from the rest of the world:
http://bdsmovement.net/
Throughout the world, Israel is being increasingly compared to Apartheid South Africa. These sentiments are no longer on the fringe, and neither are the tactics. BDS has now become mainstream throughout the world, and increasingly dominant among the student bodies of even many US college campuses.
The Israeli regime will dig their heels in, of course. And unfortunately there will be a lot more pain before things finally improve. But make no mistake, the escalating violence of the Israeli regime is not a sign of strength. Quite the contrary, it is a sign of a regime that is terrified that it’s losing control.
June 1, 2010 at 5:05 am
Full of dread,
Marc has said the unspeakable which we’ve all been thinking all along.
h.
May 31, 2010 at 5:03 pm
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/middle-east/Israeli-PM-Cancels-White-House-Meeting-95257909.html
“Israel’s staunch ally, the United States, said it was “deeply disturbed” by the violence and regretted the loss of life. But Deputy U.N. Ambassador Alejandro Wolff also appeared to criticize the protesters, saying that there are other mechanisms for delivering aid to Gaza and that direct delivery by sea was neither “appropriate nor responsible” under the circumstances.”
Israel’s framing is legitimated, that the blockade is legitimated, as is the position that Israel alone can exercise sole control over what gets into Gaza and how.
It may take a nuclear strike by Iran on Tel Aviv to end our participation as taxpayers forced to fund US aid to Israel and the US military’s implicit defense of Israel as our part in the decades long international crime spree that is the Zionist state, because the US Government will not change course for less.
-marc
May 31, 2010 at 11:46 am
Reportedly at least nine aboard the flotilla were killed and dozens wounded. Hamas will win the public relations war about this incident for how can Israel explain to the world an attack on a flotilla of three cargo ships and three passenger ships carrying 10,000 tons of aid and 700 activists carrying items that Israel bars from reaching Gaza, like cement and other building materials. Hopefully, the attack will finally prompt the U.S. to rethink its lockstep support of Israel. And the indirect Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations started early this month will probably be suspended or ended altogether.