I woke up this morning in Amman, Jordan, to the alarming news that things had turned bloody in the Mediterranean. The latest reports are indicating that Israeli forces have killed some 16 humanitarian activists and injured many dozens more on board of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, a humanitarian convoy of ships attempting to deliver aid to the besieged Gaza Strip.
Background:
Gaza has been under a devastating and unlawful blockade since Hamas won parliamentary elections in 2006, and the blockade was further tightened when Hamas took control of the crowded strip after a military confrontation with political rival Fatah. The blockade persisted despite Hamas's strict observance, and repeated Israeli-initiated breaks, of a ceasefire agreement that mandated an easing of the blockade.
The blockade caused "dire shortages of food, water, cooking gas, fuel and access to medical care," leading to a very serious humanitarian crisis, including hundreds of civilian deaths due to lack of access to adequate medical care. Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth said the blockade had led to a "catastrophe" in Gaza, while former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, commenting on the effects of the blockade on Gaza, said "their whole civilization has been destroyed, I'm not exaggerating." A headline in the UK's Times Online indicated that some Gaza families had literally been reduced to eating grass.
It is against this backdrop that the Freedom Flotilla has joined several previous convoys, some successful and others not, which sought to break the siege on Gaza by delivering humanitarian aid.
This Morning's Events:
It's not readily clear what exactly transpired on the ships after Israeli forces (initiating the confrontation) stormed them in international waters, but Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon's preposterous assertion that the humanitarian activists were connected to al-Qaeda has indicated from the beginning that Israel has no intention whatsoever to be serious in explaining its actions. But who can blame them for reaching for the absurd? To appreciate how tough it is to explain their actions, all one has to do is imagine the opposite scenario: What if it were Hamas militants that attacked humanitarian ships in international waters on their way to deliver humanitarian aid to Israel? Is there anything Hamas could possibly say to make its actions seem defensible?
Attempting to tow a slightly less absurd line of argument was Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev, who told the BBC that the aid convoy was to blame for the violence, because "unfortunately this group were [sic] dead-set on confrontation." Except, of course, the aid convoy was not going to Israel, but to Gaza (you know, where we're told Israel's occupation ended years ago). So, unless Regev wants to suggest that Israel was acting to protect Gazans from a confrontation with the aid convoy, he should come to terms with the obvious fact that it is Israel's unlawful siege on someone else's land which is "dead-set on confrontation" with a world that has lost patience for a policy of mass devastation and economic strangulation of an entire people.
Global Outrage & Future Implications:
The costs of Israel's blunder were immediate: Turkey withdrew its Ambassador to Israel, and joined Greece in cancelling joint military exercises with it; while several EU countries summoned their Israeli Ambassadors to protest Israel's conduct. Hezbollah's first reaction, after an emboldened speech by its leader several days ago, was to state that it considers all Lebanese citizens among the abducted activists to be "hostages," seemingly justifying potential retaliatory actions by Hezbollah. A meeting between Obama and Netanyahu has been cancelled, and protests against Israel's atrocity have been organized throughout the United States and across the world. And if this morning's actions lead Turkey to join the Hezbollah-Syria-Iran alliance, the strategic costs to Israel may be flat out disastrous.
To reiterate, Israel is confronting a world that is getting increasingly fed up with its occupation, its siege of Gaza, its illegal settlements and home demolitions; and it faces a choice: it can either begin to behave within minimum standards of decency and legality towards a real end to the occupation and a peace agreement with the region, or it can become even more belligerent and violent, paving its way towards greater global isolation. Its arrogance of power seems to have taken it down the latter path, and it may be in need of friends to save it from its own reckless behavior.
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Brad Hirschfield: Mourning, Not Politicizing, Gaza Flotilla's Dead and Wounded
What matters today, at least in any conversation which claims to be driven by spiritual or religious sensibilities, is the sadness at the loss of life and continued suffering on both sides of this conflict.
Ahmed Rehab: Israel Gaza Attack: Do Actions of the 'Jewish State' Represent Jewish Values?
Israel's failure is not a failure of Jewish values. If anything, it's a failure to apply Jewish values.
"It was an act of naked aggression. It was done on the high seas. It was done in defiance of elementary humanitarian standards. It was known that this flotilla had no weapons. It was not a security issue by the remotest stretch of the imagination. If there was a right of self-defense, it belonged to the people onboard these ships." -- Richard Falk
"No journalists were allowed to leave the ships with any film or any recordings whatsoever... so that the Israeli narrative can get a long head start. This is all about the Israeli propaganda strategy... Even the videos the Israelis [released}, what they do confirm to us is that Israel attacked a civilian ship with attack helicopters, speedboats & Commandos. Now, they show people fending off the soldiers. I mean, in this country, in the United States, people lionize the passengers on Flight 93 who tried to fight off the hijackers to no avail" -- Ali Abunimah
Additionally, if terrorists were supplying other terrorists arms in Mexico, I dare say we'd intercept the Arab Armada in territorial waters or anywhere else. And let's not anyone forget the Egyptians offered to offload and deliver the material on board the Arab Armada. If anyone after examining all the facts can conclude that it was a humanitarian effort are either dumb as a door nob, lying to themselves or just lying to others, which I suspect the author is doing.
In short, there is plenty of evidence suggesting that Israel's narrative is bogus. & even if it weren't, Israel had no right to stop the ship in the first place.
Also why would these humanitarians allow Egypt to deliver the materials after knowing that Egypt along with Israel are both responsible for the blockade on Gaza in the first place? Yeah right Im pretty sure Egypt will see to it that the people of Gaza will get those materials to the people to Gaza.
Your omission that Hamas 's mandate is the destruction of Israel hides the fact that the Palestinians brought this blockade upon themselves . Every time Israel has offered a concession , it has been taken as a sign of weakness in the Arab world and a propaganda victory . Hamas is well known for advocating a culture where children are given toy suicide vests and are taught Jews are pigs, etc. Those people on that boat are stooges for Hamas and the anti-semites . Before Hamas there was Yassar Arafat , mastermind of the Munich Olympic massacre and who walked away from a peace agreement that would have given them 90% of what they asked .
If I was an Israeli I would be sick of trying to deal with Palestine and Arabs . It is obvious the Arab world doesn't want peace .
We are all born and someday we’ll all die. Most likely to some degree alone.
What if our aloneness isn’t a tragedy? What if our aloneness is what allows us to speak the truth without being afraid? What if our aloneness is what allows us to adventure – to experience the world as a dynamic presence – as a changeable, interactive thing?
If I lived in Bosnia or Rwanda or who knows where else, needless death wouldn’t be a distant symbol to me, it wouldn’t be a metaphor, it would be a reality.
And I have no right to this metaphor. But I use it to console myself. To give a fraction of meaning to something enormous and needless.
This realization. This realization that I will live my life in this world where I have privileges.
I can’t cool boiling waters in Russia. I can’t be Picasso. I can’t be Jesus. I can’t save the planet single-handedly.
I can wash dishes.
http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_60110.shtml
Combining that evidence with the fact the Israeli cabinet deliberated for an entire week on how exactly to handle the humanitarian convoy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eB_CKL5h2_8), and ultimately chose a night-time armed commando raid, it is not at all far fetched that Israel came into this with the intention of inflicting casualties.
That is one of your authentic sources??? (according to the link you posted). The Iranian government run Press TV??!! is about as trustworthy as Pravda -(meaning not very trustworthy at all).
Secondly, there was no mention of how the fellow lying down (who was supposedly hit by something in the back of the head) was hit. The whole video has the air of being staged and orchestrated to make the Israelis look like aggressors.
Your article and your demeanor sir are full of hyperbole.
If you agree with the source, it's a valid source. If you disagree, it's propaganda.
I'm an american Jew too but excuse me, watching a film like "Schindler's List" and then getting disgusted with a nation under constant attack and recognized as one because the people who founded it went through what you saw in a movie smacks more of Stockholm Syndrome then any real sense.
As for the orthodox right-wing extremists in Israel who want everyone else to defend Israel but refuse to pick up a weapon to defend her and are intolerant of even those many Jews in Israel who are non-orthodox, I have as much disgust with them as you probably have. They should go far away. No better than Hamas, they refuse to compromise on peace, even peace relations between themselves and other Israelies. Religion. It's the world's curse.
Damage limitation? Pathetic - too little, too late. proves that the blockade was just more spite from israel with no rhyme or reason as to what was allowed in and what wasn't.
Mustn't forget they have found Ehud Barak as the stooge too.
Busy day for the right wing government.
Propaganda or truth?
They've been writing cheques on their benefit-of-the-doubt account for decades, but they are about to discover that they're overdrawn and no one wants their credit any more.