Gaza Flotilla Shakedown

Claudia Rosett
The Rosett Report
13 December '10

In the “Believe It Or Not” mega-farce of Middle East politics, the latest candidate for world-turned-upside-down is the story of Israel offering $100,000 apiece in compensation to the families of nine Turkish “activists” killed in May aboard the flagship of the flotilla that set out to break the Israeli blockade on terrorist-controlled Gaza. This offer is part of the haggling that has reportedly been going on between Israeli and Turkish officials, in what the New York Times describes an an effort “To Repair Ties.” The Turkish government is demanding an apology, as well. Israel is reportedly willing to express “regrets” for the loss of life, and, the Times reports, would like “whatever deal emerges to end the United Nations Inquiry and other international legal actions.”

In some quarters this may pass for diplomacy. But the deal shaping up here sure looks, walks and quacks like a shakedown. It’s Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan who ought to be apologizing to Israel. The Gaza flotilla was a calculated provocation — a violent propaganda stunt to damage Israel. With a big boost from the UN, it’s still right on track to do exactly that.

Recall that in hope of peace, Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Instead of getting peace, Israel got yet more Palestinian terrorism, including bombardment by thousands of rockets. By 2007 Gaza was controlled by the terrorist group Hamas — backed and armed by Iran, and dedicated to the destruction of Israel. That’s the reason for the Israeli blockade, which the Gaza flotilla proposed to break.

(Read full "Gaza Flotilla Shakedown")

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Turkish Flotilla "Peace" Group Visits Terrorists and Plays At War

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
30 October '10

The New York Times--you know, it's sort of like National Public Radio but with printed letters on murdered trees--keeps saying it can't find any connections between IHH, the Turkish Islamist group that organized the Gaza flotilla, and terrorism. From time to time, I've published helpful hints to assist them in making these linkages. But, alas, they don't quite seem to get the picture.

Picture! Hey, that's an idea!

Ok so here's a picture (click the link for about 20 more) of peace-loving IHH activists visiting their good friends, the radical--even by comparison with Hamas!--terrorist group Islamic Jihad and trying out some of its humanitarian equipment.

The goal might be to give the IHH a better feel for what it needs to include in future "humanitarian" deliveries to the Gaza Strip. Indeed, if the IHH and its many allies succeed in getting rid of the sanctions on Gaza altogether, they could bring these things in directly on "peace activist" ships.

(Read full post)

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Will Obama Use His UN Veto?

Steven J. Rosen
MEF
Commentary
September '10

Just before dawn on May 31, 2010, a team of Israeli commandos boarded a Turkish ship to enforce a blockade against the terrorist organization Hamas in Gaza. As they came aboard, the Israelis were assaulted by a violent faction of Islamic militants. A melee followed in which several of the commandos were seriously injured and nine of the Turkish militants were killed. The clash was over before the sun came up.

It was still daylight when, 5,600 miles away, the Israeli delegation to the United Nations was summoned to appear before an emergency session of the Security Council to be chastised for the actions of the commandos. Convened just hours after the violence, the council spent the night of May 31, into the wee hours of the morning, absorbed in "a highly emotional emergency session...[to express] international anger over the Israeli attack," as the Washington Post described it.

The scene was a familiar one. In 1983, Ronald Reagan's ambassador to the UN, Jeane Kirkpatrick, described it thus: "What takes place in the Security Council more closely resembles a mugging than either a political debate or an effort at problem-solving....Israel is cast as villain...in [a] melodrama...that features...many attackers and a great deal of verbal violence....The goal is isolation and humiliation of the victim....The attackers, encountering no obstacles, grow bolder, while other nations become progressively more reluctant to associate themselves with the accused, out of fear that they themselves will become a target of bloc hostility."

The reenactment of this familiar drama on May 31 opened with a presentation by Oscar Fernandez-Taranco, the assistant secretary-general of the United Nations for political affairs. His job was to speak for the institution as a whole and to frame the issue objectively for the debate, on behalf of his boss, Ban Ki-moon. Fernandez-Taranco explained that the bloodshed had occurred because Israel had refused to end "its counterproductive and unacceptable blockade of Gaza," which was exacerbating "the unmet needs of Gaza's civilian population." For balance, Fernandez-Taranco took note of Israel's claim that the demonstrators on board the Mari Marmara had used knives and clubs against Israeli naval personnel.

(Read full article)

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BBC Balance = Israeli Propaganda?!

Proud Zionist
20 August '10

On Monday night the BBC Panorama aired a half hour in-depth documentary investigating the events of the flotilla incident at the end of May.

The programme was ridiculously – for the BBC – fair and balanced, airing previously unseen footage of the incident - from the IDF, from the Mavi Marmara's security cameras, and taken by the activists themselves and uploaded onto a website called Cultures Of Resistance. They interviewed the head of Israel's investigation into the incident and IDF officers including those who were attacked when they landed on the ship. They also interviewed the head of Turkey's Islamist IHH "charity", the head of Free Gaza who organised the flotilla, and several activists who were on board the MM.

The programme was in no way pro-Israel, it was just balanced. And yet people are calling it lies and propaganda. If it was pro-Israel propaganda then wouldn't they say that all of the activists were armed terrorists? And that Israel didn't kill anyone and was completely in the right? The truth was that Israel made some mistakes in planning the operation, and on the other hand that from the BBC's footage there was at least one activist on board who probably saved the life of at least one Israeli soldier. But all the evidence, footage and testimonies – fromboth sides – prove that Israel was acting in self defence from a barbaric pre-planned lynching. And there was simply no way for the BBC to suggest anything else. That must be why people are so incensed.

In one piece of footage, the IHH leader on board the MM declared to the activists "We're going to defeat the Israeli commandos... If you bring your soldiers here, we will throw you off the ship". Later he told Panorama presenter Jane Corbin, "If we organised another boat, and Israel attempted to illegally invade it, we'd use our right to passive resistance. We'd throw them into the sea."

Before and after the incident, and in the documentary, numerous activists themselves openly stated that the aim was not to bring aid to Gaza but to break the naval security blockade. The Free Gaza coordinator on board, Lubna Masarwa, also confirmed this, in her interview with Panorama.

(Read full post)

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'Death in the Med': A detailed analysis

Just Journalism
17 August '10

On 16 August 2010 BBC Panorama broadcast ‘Death in the Med’, a carefully detailed investigation into Israel’s raid of the Mavi Marmara, the only ship of the Free Gaza flotilla that became the site of a deadly confrontation between passengers and naval commandos. Presented by Jane Corbin, the half-hour programme included a raft of new video and radio footage of the event, taken from both the Israeli Navy and from confiscated passenger tapes, most of which were recorded by members of a website called CulturesOfResistance.org. This new footage enabled Corbin to piece together the most comprehensive sequence of events of the night of May 31. (See below for both a full transcript of the programme and the broadcast itself.)

During the programme, Corbin expanded on three key points:

1. That the IDF had faced a violent assault from activists;
2. That the attack had been pre-meditated by a ‘hardcore’ group of activists;

3. That this core was organised by the Turkish Islamist charity, the Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (IHH).

Just Journalism Executive Director Michael Weiss issued a statement this morning:

‘I can scarcely think of a better piece of journalism on the flotilla raid than Jane Corbin’s in-depth investigation, which drew from eyewitness testimony from both passengers and commandos aboard the Mavi Marmara. Notable in this report was an unwillingness to gloss over crucial video footage showing the upper deck of the ship laying siege to abseiling Israeli forces, or to take the word of IHH officials at face value. The only thing missing, really, was IHH’s well-publicised role as both a fundraiser and ideological helpmeet of Hamas.’

(Read full report)

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Panorama - What happened on the Flotilla to Gaza

BritishNeoCon
16 August '10

Who is really to blame for the embargo? Israel that left Gaza peacefully, and was thanked with over 6000 rockets into Israel before finally giving in and responding, or Hamas that kills its co-religionists, places its civilians at military targets, and provokes Israel into finally stopping the barrage of missiles on civilian targets.

Who should we condemn though? Hamas that deliberately targets Israeli children and civilians, or Israel that enforced its own law of an embargo that was itself placed as a result of 6000 rockets, after the so-called peace activists broke Israeli law and attacked those soldiers attempting to enforce the law.

Special thanks to BritishNeoCon for making this available on Youtube.



Was it pre-meditated? Was the result deliberate? Irrelevant, they were breaking Israeli law, and Israel enforced such. It's especially laughable that so many liberals are so quick to condemn George Bush for overthrowing the tyrant Saddam Hussein, because he threatened multilateralism and international law, and these same people will support these so called peace activists who express an even clearer disregard for the law.



It's so obvious that even the BBC recognised that these aims were completely disingenuous and embarrassingly and predictably large portions of the west fell for it nonetheless.

From just Journalism: 'Death in the Med': The transcript

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What does it take to prove you're an enemy?

Lurker
The Muqata
12 August '10

Yesterday, IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi testified before the Turkel commission investigating the Gaza flotilla incident. Judge Turkel asked him why the IDF was so completely unprepared for the murderous attacks against our soldiers by members of the IHH, the Turkish radical Islamist group that organized the flotilla. (The soldiers, who were "armed" with paintball guns, were obviously not told to expect any serious opposition.) Here is Ashkenazi's answer:

"The level of knowledge we had on the [IHH] was not like the level of information we have on Hamas. We did not investigate the organization. It was not on our list of our priorities, because it was not listed as a terrorist organization and was located in Turkey, which is not an enemy state -- and I hope it never will be."
[Sources: JPost, Haaretz]

Incredibly, even after hearing all the rabid, extremist diatribes against Israel spewed forth on an almost daily basis by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and even after watching Turkey openly forge alliances with Iran, Syria, and Hizbullah, Ashkenazi -- and the Israeli government -- still have not grasped the simple and obvious fact that Turkey has become our enemy.



As for the IHH, if the folks at IDF Intelligence had bothered to do even a couple minutes of googling, whey would have quicky discovered ample material clearly showing the organization's fanatical jihadist nature, such as this 2009 speech in Gaza by the head of the IHH, in which he called for martyrdom through attacks on Israel:

(Read full post)

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The Turkel Committee: Who was responsible for the violence?

Just Journalism
10 August '10

Following the incident on the Mavi Marmara, where nine Turkish activists were killed during violence clashes with the Israel Defence Force, Israel commissioned several inquiries to investigate what had happened. Following an internal military inquiry, which found that the IDF soldiers acted in a professional manner but were remiss in not anticipating a confrontation, the Turkel Committee is now investigating whether both the military operation to prevent the Mavi Marmara and five other ships from breaking the Gaza blockade, and the Gaza blockade itself, are legal under international law.

Headed by a retired judge from the Israeli Supreme Court, Jacob Turkel, and monitored by two international delegates, the Committee yesterday took evidence from Benyamin Netanyahu. The Israeli Prime Minister’s appearance was covered in all five of the broadsheets, with notable differences in emphasis in all the outlets. In particular, there were varying accounts given of the violence that occurred on the ship, and who was responsible for instigating it.



How was the violence described?

Israel has always maintained that its soldiers only resorted to lethal fire after being assaulted by armed activists who had planned a violent confrontation. Video footage was released that supports its claim that its soldiers were attacked as soon as they descended onto the Mavi Marmara, and shows passengers stating that they wished to become ‘martyrs.’

(Read full report)

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Prime Minister Cameron’s Slander Against Israel

Peter Wehner
Contentions/Commentary
27 July '10

In a speech in Ankara, Turkey, British Prime Minister David Cameron said this:

I know that Gaza has led to real strains in Turkey ’s relationship with Israel. But Turkey is a friend of Israel. And I urge Turkey, and Israel, not to give up on that friendship. Let me be clear. The Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla was completely unacceptable. And I have told PM Netanyahu, we will expect the Israeli inquiry to be swift, transparent and rigorous. Let me also be clear that the situation in Gaza has to change. Humanitarian goods and people must flow in both directions. Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp. But as, hopefully, we move in the coming weeks to direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians so it’s Turkey that can make the case for peace and Turkey that can help to press the parties to come together, and point the way to a just and viable solution.

Prime Minister Cameron’s claim that the “Israeli attack” on the Gaza flotilla was “completely unacceptable” is utter nonsense. As I argued at the time:

The blockade was justified by international law. (Egypt , by the way, had also imposed a blockade on Gaza because of the threat from the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, which illegally seized control of Gaza in 2007.) The Israeli navy first tried to warn the ships off verbally. The “peace activist” on board assaulted Israeli commandos (who were armed with paintball guns) with clubs, knives, metal pipes, stun grenades, and handguns; it turns out that many of them were recruited specifically to attack Israeli soldiers. The “humanitarian relief” the flotilla was supposedly bringing to Palestinians in Gaza was in fact no such thing (food, medicine, relief supplies, and electricity continue to pour into Gaza on a daily basis). And the “charity” that helped organize the flotilla was in fact the radical Turkish group IHH (Insani Yardim Vakfi), which has longstanding ties to Hamas and the global jihadist movement. Yet somehow, some way, it is Israel that is condemned when it acts in its own self-defense.

All of these facts are highly relevant, yet Cameron mentions none of them. I wonder why.

(Read full post)

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Ankara's Proxy

Michael Weiss
www.standpointmag.co.uk
July/August '10

At the heart of Israel's deadly raid of the Mavi Marmara on May 31 is the Turkish charity Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (I.H.H.), the "Free Gaza" flotilla's lead organiser. But the extent to which I.H.H. has been enabled and underwritten by the Turkish government has been increasingly scrutinized by international observers over the past several months and for good reason. In the aftermath of the violent showdown on the high seas, which left nine Turkish passengers dead and a number of Israeli commandos critically injured, Turkey's parliament passed a resolution to "reconsider economic and military relations" with the Jewish state, a decades-long ally. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, returning to Istanbul after an emergency meeting with Hillary Clinton, blamed Israel alone for the confrontation and accused it of committing a "crime against humanity." But the most incendiery rhetoric came from Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan himself.

Recent months have seen a weakening of the once assured Israeli-Turkish relationship almost to the point of dissolution and in the aftermath of the Mavi Marmara clash, Erdogan has not only depicted Israel as an anathema, worse than "bullies and pirates," but also full-throatedly endorsed its main clerical enemy in the Levant. "Hamas are resistance fighters who are struggling to defend their land," he told an ecstatic anti-Israel rally a few weeks ago in the Turkish city of Konya. "They have won an election. I have told this to US officials... I do not accept Hamas as a terrorist organization. I think the same today. They are defending their land."



Most of Turkey's independent political class see domestic and international calculation behind this bluster, a way for Erdogan to shore up Islamist credibility in advance of an upcoming election and reposition Ankara as a renascent power broker in the Middle East - Iran's chief competiton for that role. One writer for the Turkish daily newspaper Hurriyet observed that, it's "almost as if [Erodgan] was waiting for a new crisis with Israel to be able to work the streets in order to regain some of the political ground his ruling Justice and Development Party has been loosing over bread and butter issues at home."

But this raises the fundamental question of why a country that is both an ally of the United States and Nato as well as an aspiring member of the European Union would brazenly declare its solidarity with a terrorist group outlawed by both. The answer lies in the increasingly Islamist nature of Erodgan's regime as well as the complicated relationship his party AKP has enjoyed with I.H.H., a suddenly infamous non-governmental organisation that acts more like a governmental one. Its evolution has been from a rogue and highly suspect charity into the advance guard of a new Turkish foreign policy.

(Read full article)

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No, It’s Not Because He’s a Muslim

Evelyn Gordon
Contentions/Commentary
26 July '10

You could waste a lifetime doing nothing but debunking Roger Cohen’s inanities, so I don’t usually bother. But this time, the star New York Times columnist ostensibly poses a reasonable question: why aren’t the official America and the media raising an outcry over the death of an American citizen in Israel’s May raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla?

Cohen’s answer is that Americans don’t care because Furkan Dogan was a Muslim. And to prove it, Cohen does his best to paint the 19-year-old as a secular saint whom Americans ought to care deeply about: Dogan “was proud of his American passport and dreamt of coming back [to America] after completing medical school. … [He] had just completed high school with excellent grades. … [He was] little interested in politics, but with an aspiring doctor’s concern for Palestinian suffering.”

Yet anyone who knows anything about the flotilla knows that Dogan was almost certainly nothing of the sort. The video footage of Turkish “humanitarians” aboard the Mavi Marmara – who carefully prepared their weapons and then brutally beat the commandos who rappelled from a chopper from the moment they landed — makes it clear that: a) the Turks attacked first with malice aforethought; and b) pretty much everyone on deck participated in the attack. Indeed, passengers and crew members later testified that the thugs had ordered all noncombatants below deck before the Israeli forces approached.

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Humanitarian Show

Ben-Dror Yemini
Maariv
mideasttruth.com
02 July '10

Additional humanitarian aid flotillas from Lebanon, Iran and the West are en route to the Gaza Strip. But the plight of the Turks, Iranians and the Palestinians in Lebanon is worse. Even in Stockholm and Glasgow amidst the festivities. Here are the facts.

Turkey was the most prominent country in the recent flotilla. From there came the Mavi Marmara with members from an organization (IHH) affiliated with Global Jihad. Lebanon is dispatching a ship that is due to arrive, perhaps in the coming days. Even Iran, that bastion of humanitarian justice on Earth, is joining the party. Thus, it would be worthwhile to check what is happening in these compassionate and strong countries, which are showing such noteworthy generosity in dispatching humanitarian aid to a weaker and depressed population. A representative has even arrived from Sweden, Gil Feiler, a former Israeli. Thus, we will also deal with Sweden.

Dead in Turkey; alive in Gaza

Infant mortality is one of the most important indicators in checking the humanitarian situation. It is clear that the situation in Turkey is worse than it is in the Gaza Strip. Infant mortality in Gaza is 17.71 per thousand; in Turkey it is 24.84. The Gaza Strip is in a much better situation than the global average, which is 44 infants per 1,000 births. It is also better than most of the Arab countries and several South American countries, and is certainly better than Africa.

Life expectancy is another important indicator. And here, life expectancy in Turkey is 72.23, whereas in the Gaza Strip it is 73.68, much higher than the global average of 66.12. In comparison, life expectancy is 63.36 in Yemen, 52.52 in Sudan and 50 in Somalia. These countries are crying out for international attention, for aid, for any rescue ship. But none come.

Regarding population growth, the Gaza Strip is ranked 6th, with a growth rate of 3.29% per annum. This may not be an indicator for quality of life but it seems that the high rate of growth, along with the high life expectancy, and the low infant mortality rate, attests to one thing. There is no hunger, no humanitarian crisis and tales of 1,001 nights from 1,001 human rights organizations. Most of the world's inhabitants are – according to objective data – in a worse situation than the residents of the Gaza Strip. This includes those who live in Turkey under Erdogan's rule.

(Read full article)

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Turkey And Islamism

Proud Zionist
02 July '10

In an interview with the Times today, Turkey's President Abdullah Gul says:

"I consider it very wrong to interpret Turkey's interests with other geographic regions as it breaking from the West, turning it's back on the West or seeking alternatives to the West. Turkey is part of Europe."

However, the Times points out that Turkey's "interests with other geographic regions" includes welcoming Iran's President Ahmadinejad, who both denies the Holocaust and wants to create a Holocaust, by "wiping Israel off the map"; congratulating him on his fraudulent election victory; voting against UN sanctions to try and halt the Iranian nuclear programme; supporting the terrorist organisation Hamas - as "respecting the choice of the Palestinian people in Gaza", and preparing to host Sudan's war criminal President al-Bashir at an Islamic conference until the EU objected.

On the flotilla incident, for which Turkey is demanding an apology, compensation, and for Israel to agree to an international inquiry into the incident, Gul asks:

"If an army of a state kills your people in international waters, how would you react?"

The Times though refers to those killed as 'civilians' (at least not 'peace activists') and fails to mention the Turkish government's support for the flotilla and for the IHH, the radical Islamic "charity" that sent the largest ship, the Mavi Marmara - on which there was no humanitarian aid, and many of the activists, with links to terrorism, brutally attacked the IDF soldiers before they even landed on the ship.

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Legal Scholars Weigh in on Gaza Blockade, Flotilla Deaths

Erik Schecter
Carneige Council
28 June '10

Nearly a month after its deadly naval raid on an aid flotilla, Israel refuses to lift its blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Still, the government of Benjamin Netanyahu has loosened restrictions on the types of goods that may enter the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave. Likewise, it has set up a commission to examine the events of May 30-31. None of this, however, has squelched criticism of the Gaza blockade and the flotilla incident.

To recap, in late May, the Free Gaza Movement, a pro-Palestinian solidarity group, arranged for six ships loaded with humanitarian aid to breach the Israeli naval blockade. Anticipating arrival of this flotilla, the Israeli navy sailed out to the boats and warned them away from Gaza coastline, offering instead to have the cargo delivered to the territory via Israeli land terminals. However, the flotilla activists rejected the offer.

When the Free Gaza crew made it clear that they intended to run the blockade, Israeli navy commandos boarded the boats at night, in international waters, and subdued the passengers. This occurred, for the most part, without incident. However, on one ship, the MV Mavi Marmara, a large contingent of baton-wielding Turkish Islamist activists clashed with commandos, resulting in the deaths of nine passengers.

This bloody episode provoked a wave of outrage—and not just in the Muslim world. In the United States, conservative pundit Pat Buchanan denounced the Israeli naval action as "piracy," while progressive columnist Glenn Greenwald decried it as a "massacre." Meanwhile, a number of human rights groups reiterated their position that the blockade was a form of "collective punishment" and illegal.

Putting aside overheated rhetoric and pseudo-legal analyses, I asked a group of international law experts about the blockade of the Gaza Strip and the methods employed by Israel to enforce it. These are their answers:

(Read full article)

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President Obama Rewards The Hamas Lobby

Why is the terrorist group more interested in attacking Israel than improving the lives of its people?


Steve Emerson
Forbes.com
22 June '10

A ship packed with violent, radical activists tries to run a blockade aimed at preventing terrorists from receiving illicit material. Video shows them beating commandos with clubs as they land on the ship, pelting them with slingshots and carrying knives.

What is America's response? To demand that the nation whose soldiers were attacked conduct an investigation to "find out the facts."

It is clear Israel sought to peacefully secure the Mavi Marmara on May 31 as it approached Gaza. But the hardened activists, who openly discussed their desire for martyrdom, weren't going to let that happen. Fighting for their lives, the Israeli soldiers opened fire with their sidearms, killing nine people on the ship.

But that does not make the Obama administration's demand for an investigation from an ally any more sensible. It was the first such demand made by the U.S. of another country, let alone an ally, in recent memory. There was no call for a probe on Russia's treatment of Chechnyans, for Egypt's persecution of the Christian Copts or for the murderous rampages against the Ahmadiyan Muslim sect in Pakistan.

Just Israel made the history books. Israel, however, has proof of what really happened. It released at least five videos on YouTube showing Israeli soldiers being attacked as they landed.

(Read full article)

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Bald-faced lies by IHH

Elder of Ziyon
29 June '10

The IHH, the terrorist-supporting group that was primarily behind the violence on the Mavi Marmara, has released a glossy PDF file filled with lies about what happened on the flotilla. It doesn't stand up to the slightest scrutiny but the Free Gaza movement is publishing and disseminating it happily, because truth is apparently not a virtue to these virtuous "humanitarians."

I can't do a word-for-word fisking because the IHH did not save the file in such a way that the text can be copied, and optical character recognition is pretty much useless. But here are some lowlights:

"The sole aim of these ships was to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza and break the siege"

Well, that's two aims! And as we know from Free Gaza, humanitarian aid is used a cover for the political goal of delegitimizing Israel. In fact, the Mavi Marmara contained no humanitarian aid whatsoever.

The IHH claims that Israel blocked their communication to the Turksat satellite at 22:30 at the same time that the Israeli boats began to follow them. However, live broadcasts continued up until IDF soldiers boarded the ship, as the initial video of beating and stabbing Israeli soldiers was broadcast in real time.

IHH claims that two Israeli submarines were involved in the operation. This is the first I have heard that claim, and so far no evidence has been found to that effect. I am not sure what a submarine would accomplish, unless IHH is implying that Israel was ready to torpedo the boats.

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Caliphate Power

I know the illustration (above) looks like the UN's "impartial international investigation"

of Israel warming up but it's really just members of the last

caliphate (Ottoman Turk) declaring holy war (jihad)

Diana West
dianawest.net
18 June '10

This week's syndicated column:

"How Is Israel the Guilty Party?"

We may not live in an Islamic world -- yet -- but we do live with an Islamic worldview. Witness the uniformly Islamicized consensus that met Israel's successful if costly defense of its Gaza blockade.

The blockade, by the way, is a defensive measure that Israel devised after Hamas terrorists were elected to govern Israel-ceded Gaza in 2005 and -- no surprise to any student of jihad -- decided to continue their charter-commanded war on Israel, raining down nearly 10,000 rockets onto Israeli civilians.

The rocketing, of course, was OK with the Islamicized consensus. What wasn't OK happened on the night of May 31 when Israeli commandos, lightly armed with paintball guns and emergency sidearms, unexpectedly battled aboard the Mavi Marmara against trained fighters with ties to the Turkish government, specifically to the ruling AKP party of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, to maintain Israel's lawful blockade.

These hostile forces were organized by the Turkish terror-linked organization known as IHH (which purchased the boat from an AKP entity). They were armed with knives, axes, clubs, Molotov cocktails and more, and they formed a militant cadre barely camouflaged by the "humanitarian cargo" (including night vision goggles, bulletproof vests and nearly a million euros) and other "peace activists," among whom were Muslim Brothers, Hamas partisans (at least one Hamas operative was later arrested), and members of the Turkish supremacist group BBP. At least five "passengers" publicly expressed their wish to become "shahids," or Islamic martyrs. Three got their wish in the fighting that ensued after the ship refused to yield to the Israeli Navy. Some of the Israeli blockade-defenders were wounded, a few seriously; nine jihadist blockade-runners were killed.

An Islamicized world wrath came down on Israel. And with such force as to obliterate what remnants of the Western system -- logic, morality, history - somehow still existed. Simultaneous to the instant apotheosis of blockade-running jihadis into ocean-going pacifists came an avalanche of rage so violent as to reverse the gravitational pull of global politics entirely. Or so it seems.

(Read full article)

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Israel's Crisis At Sea - Another Storm Coming

C. Hart
American Thinker
19 June '10


Israel is expecting the arrival soon of another flotilla of ships, this time Iranian sponsored. This follows on the heels of the Turkish IHH and Free Gaza sponsored flotilla that was stopped by Israeli naval commanders on May 31, 2010, when attempting to break Israel's blockade of Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government is not only concerned about the Iranian flotilla, but Israel's military is on high alert for the possible intrusion of a Lebanese fast boat. The fast boat may attempt to hinder Israel's naval operations at sea, at the same time that the Iranian ship is being intercepted. The fast boat, linked to Hizbullah, is expected to include female Islamic militants on-board.

The Israeli government has stepped up its efforts to warn international activists not to board ships sailing from Iran or Lebanon, claiming it will endanger their lives, as Israel's navy forces plan to stop the ships in international waters before they reach Gaza.

Meanwhile, family members of the nine Turks killed by Israeli naval commandos on the Mavi Mamara ship, say they will join the next IHH sponsored flotilla that sails from Turkey to Gaza. Israel is concerned that Turkey may include a naval escort to accompany future aid ships on their voyage to Gaza.

This guerilla war at sea is a ploy to use "humanitarian" terrorism as a way of changing the political climate in the Middle East, influencing public opinion by trapping Israel in a diplomatic quagmire. It distracts from major issues such as stopping Iran's nuclear capabilities and trying to weaken Iran's goal of regional hegemony.

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Turkish journalists critical of their government are being called “sub-contractors of the Israeli-controlled international media.”

Judeosphere
16 June '10

The Turkish newspaper Hürriyet published photos that support Israel’s account of events after commandos boarded the Turkish flotilla ship Mavi Marmara.

Der Spiegel reports:

Hürriyet belongs to the media group of entrepreneur Aydin Dogan which has been critical of the government in the past. Initially, Dogan’s newspapers had criticized the Israeli raid just like Turkey’s pro-government papers. But since then they have been warning against excessive Israel bashing and against the prime minister’s increasingly authoritarian style of government.

“I am afraid,” wrote columnist Nuray Mert, “not just because emotions have supplanted reason in foreign policy but because one is immediately accused of Zionism and silenced whenever one criticizes government policy.”

Erugrul Özkök, the former editor-in-chief of Hürriyet, regards the photos as a “journalistic success” that could not be censored. “Israel damaged itself with this mission but it is also wrong of [Prime Minister] Erdogan not to classify Hamas as a terrorist organization,” he said.

Pro-government newspapers are accusing the Dogan group of playing into Israel’s hands by publishing the photos. Fehmi Koru, one of the best-known columnists close to the ruling AKP party, has a simple explanation for the approach being taken by Dogan’s paper: the media mogul is a business partner of Germany’s Axel Springer publishing group, says Koru, and Springer pursues a strategy of unquestioning solidarity with the Jewish state. Springer rejects this as absurd.

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Why the blockade must be maintained

Fresnozionism.org
16 June '10

As a result of the attack on Israeli naval commandos by Turkish mercenaries, there is increased pressure on Israel from the US and other international actors to loosen restrictions on movement of people and materials into and out of Gaza.

Yes, I know it’s illogical:

Israelis are viciously attacked by Hamas supporters while enforcing a legal blockade of the hostile Hamas regime

Therefore, the blockade should be ended in accordance with Hamas’ demands. But never mind.

That’s logic in the age of delegitimization: Israel is forbidden to defend herself, no matter what.

Israel has a good reason to keep access to Gaza tightly controlled. Here’s what Yuval Diskin, the head of Israel’s Internal Security Service told the Knesset Foreign Affairs Committee this week:

“Lifting the naval blockade on Gaza would constitute a very dangerous development for Israel…”

Diskin said terror organizations in the Gaza Strip “continue to arm themselves, both through production and smuggling.”

He noted that Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Strip have some 5,000 rockets with a range of up to 40 km. Most of the rockets were produced in the Strip, but dozens of projectiles were smuggled into Gaza as well, said Diskin, adding that the terror groups also have a few rockets which are “capable of reaching Gush Dan [the Tel Aviv area].”

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