Gaza Flotilla Stormed by Israel, Part II

I haven't seen any video or maps yet of the attack.  I do think that in the long run, it will be a public relations disaster for the Israelis and a victory for the Palestinians, particularly the Gazans.  Here's why:  It forces the European countries to choose between Turkey (a NATO country) and the US (Israel's largest ally.  Yes, Canada is the best ally, but not the largest in terms of $$$).  It also splits the Americans and Turks.  If the US won't help the Turks deal with the Israelis. why should the Turks help the Americians with Iraq through the American use of Turkish militrary bases and airspace?  Israel is losing an important Muslim ally in the Middle East by upsetting Turkey.

She is 21 and lost an eye to the brave, brave IDF. No unarmed person too non-threatening to be attacked.

The Bloc is often better than the other 3 - on some foreign policy matters - put together. Funny how that works when you're representing - or trying to represent - a national minority.

The Palestinians need the kind of solidarity in this country that South Africans had with the anti-apartheid movement. Thing is, that took decades to build. With the horrific Israeli violence and ethnic cleansing, the Palestinians may not have that sort of time.

N.Beltov wrote:

The Bloc is often better than the other 3 - on some foreign policy matters - put together. Funny how that works when you're representing - or trying to represent - a national minority.

Agreed. And with one exception being the CIA's abduction of Haiti's first and last democratically elected leader. A certain Bloc MP insisted that the NDP cease referring to Aristide as removed in favour of the word departed. And I'm sure the Bloc member's double speak wording for it in Canada's Parliament was departed and not deported.

Slumberjack wrote:

This hallowed ground policy, whereby partisan supporters who take it upon themselves to act as spokespersons for their respective political interests, and insist that their statements and motives be exempt from criticism, and moderators subsequently shut down any such criticism, thereby protecting such statements and blatant motives...a steaming crock if there ever was one.  Just sayin.

"Just sayin" Sj?

If only you could make your mindless points in something other than tendentious,  60-word sentences. And find a target to the right of social democracy!  As FM said in frustration at the complete absence of solidarity here...grow the fuck up you silly, egotistical ass. 

Oh, and Just Sayin.

Sorry, Stargazer, that's a little clumsy to me.

babblers are not the only ones "clever" enough to figure out that the atrocities of Israel are fair game and are no more a reflection on Jews than the demagogic statement of President M Ahmademinijad are a reflection on Muslims (or Iranians). 

We're bound to get anti-semites tagging along current denunciations of Israel, but they shouldn't get any more attention that the anti-semite in "Battleship Potemkin" who got his ass kicked for trying to blame "the Jooz" for social problems. ETA: We've got bigger fish to fry.

re; 10#

and the anti-Israeli Apartheid formations, here in Toronto anyway, have so many good, hardworking Jewish anti-Zionists, that nobody would stand for any of that stupid shit, were it to manifest. It was good to see the traditionalist Rabbis from Jews United Against Zionism at the Netanyahu event standing with one of the imams at the front facing off against the JDL browshirt boys over on the dark side.

This confrontational style of yours George...must say that it's quite an improvement over the utterly useless category that I had previously assigned your offerings here.  Keep it up, its a refreshing and promising change for the better in my estimation.

You should start a support group with George.

George Victor wrote:

 

"As a test subject for ...I'm sure ..."

 

LOL - George snagged a dangling descriptor! I think we need a little humour to cool down the standoff, and I see George's gambit as a peace offering. C'mon, you two, I like you both, so quit tangling. As someone here said, I'm pretty damn sure we're on the same side when it comes to the atrocities committed by this rogue state.

Quote:

During my imprisonment in Israel for attempting to take crayons to the children of Gaza, I called Israel a failed state. If Israel is threatened by unarmed, humanitarian activists to the point of massacring them, then Israel is a failed state. Israel is a failed nuclear state.

from Cynthia Ann McKinney, former United States Representative and the 2008 Green Party nominee for President of the United States. McKinney served as a Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1993 to 2003 and 2005 to 2007, first representing Georgia's 11th Congressional District and then Georgia's 4th Congressional District. She is the first African-American woman to have represented Georgia in the House.

rabble blog

Just finished off a dry reisling instead...well it had been opened yesterday, mustn't let it lose that Lake Erie bouquet.  And it's done the trick. Nighty nite.    And yes, we really really are onside...and we really must keep reminding ourselves of that.   Yep, the enemy's  out there...    

A Turkish Navy escort. That should be interesting. If Israel attacks the military vessels of a NATO member state, does that mean Canada is automatically at war with Israel? Or will it be that recent "two tiered" NATO membership ... one for the rich countries, and one for the "other" members ...

The sheer brutal amateurism of the Israeli action is stunning. Apparently they had no plan B if any resistance was offered. They resorted to indiscriminate shooting. Even friends of Israel must be appalled by this slow descent into mindless violence. Once the state of Israel showed at least a limited openness to possible futures. That openness seems to have narrowed and hardened. Ever since 1973 the resort to force has paid decreasing dividends, but the government and the military seem to have exhausted their imaginations. This is a graphic illustration of how the resort to force ultimately coarsens and impoverishes the spirit of those who use it. Now there seems to be no answer but blood, no plan but spilling more blood. Poor embattled Israel reminds me of nothing so much as Macbeth at bay: "I have supp'd full with horrors; Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts Cannot once start me." And so he straps on his harness and goes off to kill yet again in a lost cause. I can only hope that Israel will somehow recover its imagination. Condemnation from the outside world seems to have little effect on a country that has in the past found itself encircled by enemies. Israelis must heed the voices within that warn them off the path they have chosen.

UN Tells Israel To End Siege of Gaza

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=128565&sectionid=351020202

"UN Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs Oscar Fernandez-Taranco has called on Israel to end its 'unacceptable' blockade of the Gaza Strip...The UN official also called for a thorough investigation.."

Israel Has Lost All Legitimacy

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=128571&sectionid=351020204

"Ahmet Davutoglu said that Israel has 'lost all legitimacy' because of the onslaught that left at least 20 peace activists dead and many others wounded. MOst of those killed in the assault were from Turkey...

'A nation-state that follows this path has lost its legitimacy as a respectful member of the international community,' he said. The Turkish foreign minister said that Israeli leaders must be brought to justice over the crime because 'Israel's action is a grave breach of international law.'

'This is tantamout to banditry and piracy,' he said, adding, 'It is murder conducted by a state. Israel has committed a serious crime, in total disregard of all the values that we have vowed to uphold..'"

Some apologists have tried to depict this atrocity as "an accident" or a "tragic mistake" or some such fiction. We have, however:

Norman Finklestein wrote:

What happened with the Gaza flotilla was not an accident. You have to remember that the Israeli cabinet met for fully a week. All the cabinet ministers discussed and deliberated how they would handle the flotilla. There were numerous reports in the Israeli press, numerous suggestions, numerous recommendations about what to do. At the end of the day, they decided on a nighttime armed commando raid on a humanitarian convoy. Israel is now a lunatic state.

Not only that.

Quote:

It's a lunatic state with between two and three hundred nuclear devices.... We have to ask ourselves a simple, basic, fundamental question: can a lunatic state like Israel be trusted with two to three hundred nuclear devices when it is now threatening its neighbors Iran and Lebanon with an attack?

Finklestein tears 'em a new one.

What's the response of the Israeli press? Besides comparing Monday's atrocities to a baseball game, and looking to end Israel's "losing streak", the following Jerusalem Post author treats the humanitarian activists as suicide protestors ... who can (obviously!) simply by physically exterminated.

After all, says the Post author, didn't they name the lead vessel the "Rachel Corrie" ?

Quote:

AS TO the flotilla, the challenge it presented was nothing new. Israel has been confronted by suicide protesters for a decade now. The fact that these pro-Hamas activists intended to commit suicide to discredit Israel on camera was made clear by the fact that the Turkish organizers named the lead ship Rachel Corrie.

Most of the article is devoted to the NPT and nuclear arms "controls". The slaughter in the Meditteranean is only a small distraction.

Well, there were 6 Israeli soldiers wounded. Gosh. Terrible! A real tragedy.

The Fethullah Gülen movement probably funded this flotilla of aid ships. The Gülenists are slowly, but surely taking over Turkey, dumping Kemalism and turning it into an Islamist beachhead in NATO. And I'd suspect this very public 'aid convoy' was one steaming pile of public provocation laid out for the Israelis...and they stepped right into it like paranoid, hot-headed fools (i.e., just like the Georgians with South Ossetia). The Gülenists wanted an excuse for Turkey to sever ties with Israel (and discredit the Kemalist military) and they got it.

Amid Censorship, Israel's Media Does Its Part

http://news.antiwar.com/2010/05/31/amid-censorship-israels-media-does-th...

"In the end, Israel's makeshift prison camp at Ashdod got its money's worth. Faced with an official story from the military that flies in the face of all reason and a domestic population so jingoistic that there are now calls for boycotts of Turkey for complaining about the massacre.."

Erik Redburn,

You say the media is trying to spin this in support of Israel and then you have 100 or so MSM links of media discussion on the issue. That's very confusing. If the media were being orchestrated to induce apologist sentiment, would it not simply ignore the issue?

As I understand it Israel's rationale for boarding the boats is that they suspected many of the passengers were intent on violence and/or armed, and/or transporting arms to the military wing of Hamas in Gaza, and indeed they have produced evidence of small arms thich they claim to have seized.  It was therefore puzzling to read reports from IDF spokespersons in this morning's papers that IDF soldiers were armed only with paintball guns when they board the floatilla.  Huh??  Any officer who sent his troops into a potential ambush armed only with a paintball gun would be considered incompetent and negligent, at a minimum.

500_Apples wrote:

You say the media is trying to spin this in support of Israel and then you have 100 or so MSM links of media discussion on the issue. That's very confusing. If the media were being orchestrated to induce apologist sentiment, would it not simply ignore the issue?

Look, we both know you are smarter than this comment of yours suggests.

Experienvce here alone would tell you that all power  is sustained through  managing of the messaging. Not even going to bother with   noting it should be less than confusing given, the historical outcomes of those who have managed the message, and its impact upon Jewish peoples. Oh gee, I just noted it anyway I guess.

Then we have the factor of in the abscence of rebuttal, stated positions stand. ignored issues  do not go away, especially now in this day and age of computers.

Following that is the use of "megaphone" to surf the net looking for negative talk about Israel, so it can be challenged.

They were boarded by pirates.  It's called self-defence.

Funny how those "suicide" protesters resist dying.