Israeli forces have attacked a flotilla of aid-carrying ships aiming to break the country's siege on Gaza. At least 19 people were killed and dozens injured when troops intercepted the convoy of ships dubbed the Freedom Flotilla early on Monday, Israeli radio reported. The flotilla was attacked in international waters, 65km off the Gaza coast. Avital Leibovich, an Israeli military spokeswoman, confirmed that the attack took place in international waters, saying: "This happened in waters outside of Israeli territory, but we have the right to defend ourselves." Footage from the flotilla's lead vessel, the Mavi Marmara, showed armed Israeli soldiers boarding the ship and helicopters flying overhead. Al Jazeera's Jamal Elshayyal, on board the Mavi Marmara, said Israeli troops had used live ammunition during the operation.
Aftermath of Israel's attack on Gaza flotilla The Israeli military said four soldiers had been wounded and claimed troops opened fire after "demonstrators onboard attacked the IDF Naval personnel with live fire and light weaponry including knives and clubs". Free Gaza Movement, the organisers of the flotilla, however, said the troops opened fire as soon as they stormed the convoy. Our correspondent said that a white surrender flag was raised from the ship and there was no live fire coming from the passengers. Before losing communication with our correspondent, a voice in Hebrew was clearly heard saying: "Everyone shut up".
Israeli intervention Earlier, the Israeli navy had contacted the captain of the Mavi Marmara, asking him to identify himself and say where the ship was headed. Shortly after, two Israeli naval vessels had flanked the flotilla on either side, but at a distance. Organisers of the flotilla carrying 10,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid then diverted their ships and slowed down to avoid a confrontation during the night. They also issued all passengers life jackets and asked them to remain below deck. Al Jazeera’s Ayman Mohyeldin, reporting from Jerusalem, said the Israeli action was surprising. "All the images being shown from the activists on board those ships show clearly that they were civilians and peaceful in nature, with medical supplies on board. So it will surprise many in the international community to learn what could have possibly led to this type of confrontation," he said. Meanwhile, Israeli police have been put on a heightened state of alert across the country to prevent any civil disturbances. Sheikh Raed Salah,a leading member of the Islamic Movement who was on board the ship, was reported to have been seriously injured. He was being treated in Israel's Tal Hasharon hospital. In Um Al Faham, the stronghold of the Islamic movement in Israel and the birth place of Salah, preparations for mass demonstrations were under way.
Protests Condemnation has been quick to pour in after the Israeli action. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, officially declared a three-day state of mourning over Monday's deaths. Turkey, Spain, Greece, Denmark and Sweden have all summoned the Israeli ambassador's in their respective countries to protest against the deadly assault. Worldwide outrage has followed the deadly Israeli attack of Gaza aid convoy. Thousands of Turkish protesters tried to storm the Israeli consulate in Istanbul soon after the news of the operation broke. The protesters shouted "Damn Israel" as police blocked them. "(The interception on the convoy) is unacceptable ... Israel will have to endure the consequences of this behaviour," the Turkish foreign ministry said in a statement. Ismail Haniya, the Hamas leader in Gaza, has also dubbed the Israeli action as "barbaric". Hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists, including a Nobel laureate and several European legislators, were with the flotilla, aiming to reach Gaza in defiance of an Israeli embargo. The convoy came from the UK, Ireland, Algeria, Kuwait, Greece and Turkey, and was comprised of about 700 people from 50 nationalities. But Israel had said it would not allow the flotilla to reach the Gaza Strip and vowed to stop the six ships from reaching the coastal Palestinian territory. The flotilla had set sail from a port in Cyprus on Sunday and aimed to reach Gaza by Monday morning. Israel said the boats were embarking on "an act of provocation" against the Israeli military, rather than providing aid, and that it had issued warrants to prohibit their entrance to Gaza.It asserted that the flotilla would be breaking international law by landing in Gaza, a claim the organisers rejected. Source: Al Jazeera and agencies
I heard an Israel government spokesman tonight describe the convoy as "useful idiots" for terrorists. Commandos dropped from helicopters armed to the teeth at 4am. The Israel Government described this as an attack by terrorist supporters on the Israeli troops. Israel says the humanitarian situation in Gaza is okay despite their siege. A contrasting view comes from the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
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Re: Israel attack on Gaza ships
I think the core issue here is that Israel has colonized a population that clearly does not want to be colonized. In 1948, when Israel claimed its independence, this sort of thing was still at least marginally ok; that is, grabbing chunks of the third world for one’s own use. But attitudes were changing, even then, and today these things are looked on with disfavor.
Israelis like to make the claim of exceptionalism. Jews have been ill treated over the centuries, the Holocaust being the most prominent and recent example, and so need a homeland for security, it is stated. There is also the emotional claim that Jews have never really accepted the idea of being separated from the Holy Land, despite being dispersed around the globe for many generations. A return was always desired, and now that they are there, they are not going to move again.
The first argument has some merit. Jews are up near the top of the list of ethnic groups that have been scapegoated, marginalized, and brutalized. But their situation today is pretty good in most places, certainly in the US, where they seem to have not only the ear of government, but much of it’s right arm as well. And certainly others have also felt the sharp end of the stick in that regard; Cambodia, Tibet, the Congo, Burma, I’m sure the list could get quite lengthy. One can only dine out on the past for so long.
The second argument really doesn’t hold water. How many people today come from somewhere else, and have some fond personal, family, or ethnic ties to past homelands? I can get a little misty-eyed about certain villages in England where my DNA spent considerable time, but I have to admit that going over there with a machine gun and ordering people out of their houses, because I would like to come back, is more than a little over the top. If everyone decided to return to their emotional center, billions would be on the march.
The irony today is that Israel is doing some of the very same things to the Palestinians that the Germans did to them in WW2. The attack on the flotilla is just the latest example of claim of dire necessity on the part of Israel, because they are under eternal threat. But they always will be, until they agree to a fair settlement.
Many other countries have had to fess up to past errors and come to some sort of deal with their neighbors. Eventually, Israel will have to do this as well, but the longer it waits, the more traumatic it will likely be.
_________________ "I suspect that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose" — JBS Haldane
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Re: Israel attack on Gaza ships
What a great post. I saw Israel's response to their action on the news and they brought up religion, basically citing the need to preserve a Jewish state. That's all well and good but a state is a state - an abstraction or generalization and nothing more. What we have is one group of human beings brutalizing another group of human beings who in turn do their best to inflict harm as well.
In my very humble opinion we need to release Israel into the wild so to speak. They have our nuclear weapons at their disposal, a very strong army, and probably one of the best intelligence gathering agencies in the world. So it's safe for us to back out - which is probably what we should be doing considering our desire to be as secular as possible. We don't need to get tangled up in Jewish, Protestant, Muslim, or any other religious fanaticism which create a desire in people to kill ideas when they are really killing people.
This is the real danger of religion.... This whole f*cked up ordeal. Cut them lose and watch the show.
I understand Israel's need for strong action to show an entire region who hate them that they won't be bullied but I don't see how that is any of my concern when they have the means to defend themselves and cause serious harm to villagers and tribal members that hold different religious views.
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Re: Israel attack on Gaza ships
The US now gives Israel something like five billion dollars a year in development aid and military help, to make Israel an 'unsinkable aircraft carrier' for Western Imperialism in the Middle East. Any US politician who questions this is systematically targeted for electoral defeat by the America Israel Political Action Committee, one of the most feared organisations on Capitol Hill.
Israel should see that this 'sucker punch' thrown by the peace convoy means it needs to be a lot more astute in its strategic vision. Sure Hamas deserves criticism, but besieging Gaza with the apparent aim of making everyone destitute?
Israel needs to close down its illegal West Bank settlements and treat Palestinians with respect and human dignity by negotiating a two state solution. Otherwise it will gradually find itself as encircled and isolated as the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem one thousand years ago, which the Arabs and Turks tossed into the sea.
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Re: Israel attack on Gaza ships
I suppose it is understandable in a way that Israel takes the extreme measures that it does. When one’s perceived survival is at stake, ethics are often trumped by defensive inclinations.
What is much harder to understand is the policy of the US. From a hardheaded practical viewpoint, America’s best interests lay with the Arab world. That’s were the oil is, the substance that is at the root of the currently favored lifestyle. The smartest thing for the US to do, in light of this, would be to drop Israel as a client state. One of the major motivating factors of the conflict between certain Muslim radicals and the US today, including 9/11, is the Israel/Palestine situation. So why is this so?
The argument is made that Israel is a democracy, the only one in the Middle East, and therefore, on ethical merits alone, should be supported. Yet democracy has never been a prime consideration for being supported by the US, or for that matter, by many other countries when they have had their turn at bat as major word players. Egypt today is one of the largest recipients of foreign aid by the US, although “democracy” in that country is about as thin as the paint on my garage, which needed another coat about twelve years ago. Another major client of the US is Saudi Arabia, a country that is about as far away from democracy as the earth is from the Andromeda Galaxy. This theory doesn’t hold up.
This week we have the spectacle of Vice-President Joe Biden going down on his knees and saying, looking up in a respectful manner, what’s the problem, Israel is doing the right thing, after the raid and deaths of activists on the Gaza flotilla. Even the New York Times, a supposedly left-leaning publication, printed this guest commentary, which is packed with half-truths and distortions:
This unequivequal support doesn’t have a long history. When Israel colluded with Britain and France in the Suez Crisis in 1956, and invaded the Sinai, President Eisenhower told them to essentially, get the f--- back to your own border, and do it tonight, not tomorrow. (They did).
Things changed with the Nixon administration. The cold war was on, and Israel was an outpost of the west, and also, as the story goes, a suppler of intelligence that couldn’t be got elsewhere. Maybe some truth in this, but now the cold war is over, and to be accurate, intelligence is more a matter of professional competence that ethnicity.
Today it is hard to see why the US bucks the rest of the world. The more cynical may claim that there is a strong lobby of Jewish interests in Washington that have the financial resources to get what they want. But even this seems unsatisfactory. There are many competing interests in Washington, many that have moneyed supporters behind them. Why this one big exception?
_________________ "I suspect that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose" — JBS Haldane
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Re: Israel attack on Gaza ships
This is a great thread.
So what is the solution? It seems nothing short of Israel ceasing to exist will satisfy the Palestinians. Is this what you all think should happen? Here we are in 2010. It's easy to look back and say what should or should not have happened back when Israel was being created as a state. To me that's more of a philosophical discussion than a practical one. If we call agree that Israel never should have been formed, and I'm not suggesting that any of us are taking that position, what do we do now in 2010?
What is the real problem with a two state solution? Who stands in the way of this? Each side seems to blame the other side as being against a peaceful solution and I quite frankly don't know enough to form an opinion.
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Re: Israel attack on Gaza ships
At the risk of oversimplification let me comment that the vast majority of Jews today do not consider their Jewishness a religion. The rabbi teaching the Hebrew class I am taking refers to the Jewish tradition rather than religion, and while the Torah forms a significant reference work for them it is not the be-all-end-all.
The facts are that the Jewish presence in Palestine did not precipitate the misery being experienced there. This is not my opinion. Read: Our Jerusalem by Bertha Spafford Vester. It is a true account of an American colony established in Jerusalem in the late 1800's. They were appalled by the living conditions of the Palestinians and and started a hospital, school, soup kitchen, etc. Why were the Palestinians so poor then?
What about the $Billions of dollars America and other countries have sent to the Palestinians over the decades?
Within the next decade or so, I expect that a seven year plan will be proposed to bring peace to the area.
_________________ “I think one of [James Hoffmeier’s] most important points is that we have unrealistic expectations for what archaeology can offer us as far as ‘proving’ Exodus: ‘After all, what evidence, short of an inscription in a Proto-Canaanite script stating “bricks made by Hebrew slaves” would be considered proof that the Israelites were in Egypt. Archaeology’s ability … is quite limited.’” Jeff Lambert, Editorial Associate, Biblical Archaeological Review. via email January 26, 2010 8:20:58 AM. [email receipiant redacted for privacy reasons. See Thread-The Bible's Buried Secrets for full text.]
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Re: Israel attack on Gaza ships
Despite the hyperbole that often comes from Arab states, a closer look shows that most are not all that radical, and in fact are open to dealing with the Israel/Palestine issue. Saudi Arabia, of all places, presented a plan a few years ago that would recognize Israel, normalize diplomatic and trade relations, and establish a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders. This is quite a reasonable settlement for Israel, as it only gives the Palestinians about 20% of what was theirs originally. This has received strong support across the Arab world, and was recently presented again. Egypt and Jordan recognize Israel, as does the Palestinian Authority. Today only the most radical individuals speak about throwing Israel into the sea, something of course they will never be able to do.
Israel has rejected this peace plan, and has rejected or backtracked on others. When opportunity has presented itself, they have grabbed more land by various means, from purchase, to illegal seizure, to military invasion. This still goes on in the occupied areas; and authorities there couldn’t even find the grace to stop for the couple of days the US Vice-President was visiting a while ago.
Eventually Israel will have to make a settlement. Nothing stays the same forever, and the big lead they have militarily and economically will not last forever. Arabs will eventually rise above the repressive governments they now have, and that will release a large amount of human resources in those countries. Even Israel’s monopoly on the bomb won’t last, as Iran will have one in a few more years.
Ironically for Israel, they may find that before much longer the Palestinians will themselves reject a two-state solution. They will soon outnumber the Jews in Palestine, and at that point, why settle for 20% of the land, when they have most of the people? And a single state, a democratic one at least, would be the end of Israel as a Jewish state.
One of the best things that could happen to improve the situation would be for the US to take a truly even handed approach to the Middle East, and ignore what has been referred to as the “Israel Lobby”. This group of organizations has been voracious, and extremely successful, in bending US foreign policy to suit the needs of Israel to an incredible extent.
One small example will give an idea. The former president Jimmy Carter wrote a book called Palestine: Peace not Apartheid, in which he gave his (quite well informed) assessment of the problems, and suggestions for a settlement. In reaction, full-page advertisements appeared in the New York Times denouncing the book. Carter was himself denounced as an anti-Semite, a racist, and even a Nazi. I’ve read Carter’s book, and to my mind, it would be harder to find a more balanced, honest, and lucid treatment of this issue. As for the personal attacks on Carter, I think that no matter what one may think of his religious or political ideas, his morality and sense of ethics could not be more impeccable.
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Re: Israel attack on Gaza ships
I endured the Carter administration. If possible he is even a worse ex-president than he was a president. He should stick with building houses and stay out of politics.
_________________ “I think one of [James Hoffmeier’s] most important points is that we have unrealistic expectations for what archaeology can offer us as far as ‘proving’ Exodus: ‘After all, what evidence, short of an inscription in a Proto-Canaanite script stating “bricks made by Hebrew slaves” would be considered proof that the Israelites were in Egypt. Archaeology’s ability … is quite limited.’” Jeff Lambert, Editorial Associate, Biblical Archaeological Review. via email January 26, 2010 8:20:58 AM. [email receipiant redacted for privacy reasons. See Thread-The Bible's Buried Secrets for full text.]
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